To me description  or analysis of data is one thing but explanation is quite 
another.I will not argue with the statistical analysis(main,simple,and 
interactional  effects).Seems relable so far but
as to validity of constructs more information is needed.I do not buy
the  witness to violence and connection to test scores.There must be lots of 
violence in those video rentals.However I can support a "boom box" and "cell 
phone" pre-occupations effects.
There are many other ethnically based variables: most  white kids go to school 
in cars,but a significant amoint of  black kids walk or take the school 
bus,black kids are constantly confrontational whereas white kids usually 
recognize boundary lines.There are other memories associated when walking in a 
black neighborhood than how many murders or drive-by shootings happened there.A 
British  study way way back  concluded that kids who were bused to schools 
outside their neichborhoods had a significant amount of anxiety problems.
I was a substitute teacher in some publoc schools and I could categorically 
state that most classroom problems I encountered were with the black 
kids.However I made some interesting observations that even though both black 
and white kids misbehaved,reactions
to being corrected varied.White kids would admit the misbehavior
and stop.On the other hand,some of the black kids were in denial and very 
confrontational.There was a tendency for some of the black kids
to think that I was speaking to "them" when I was really addressing
a specific person.Group thpnk,maybe?The author can also be faulted for assuming 
that just because a neighborhood is labelled as violent then the residents are 
also exposed to violence.How many people actually witness a murder?
  As to the differences between Africn-Americans and Hispanics,I will be 
addressing this issue in a future post.For what it is worth this study is 
ex-post facto.Btw,are not Palestinian children exposed to the same degree of 
violence? Are their test scores affected?

Michael "omnicentric" Sylvester,PhD
Daytona Beach,Florida
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