The Achievement Gap

     IQ tests and standardized tests used in schools were designed to identify students that could excel in the hard sciences, the tests used in American schools are not much different than the original Stanford-Binet IQ test that was first used to access school children over 100 years ago. Due to racist politics in America IQ tests get a bad rap, but IQ tests and standardized tests in schools have been and always will be nothing more than a way to assess students so that schools can identify gifted students and either give them accelerated curriculum or track them into advanced placement classes. But instead, IQ tests and standardized school tests are used to identify the children that are performing below average, and there has been an attempt over the last 50 years or more to, “close the achievement gap,” between the students that perform below average and the students with average achievement scores, and traditionally only the top 3% of all students are selected for advanced placement and no other gifted students are helped in any way with accelerated curriculum. This has been a huge mistake. 

     The average IQ for America is set at 100, African Americans, black Americans, or for demographic purposes black non-hispanics have traditionally averaged 85 on IQ tests that were averaged to 100 IQ for white non-hispanics, and Ashkenazi Jews typically average 115 IQ, both groups average about 1 standard deviation of 15 points from 100 IQ. No matter what efforts have been made to close the achievement gap over the last 50 years or more, including head start, pre-school, free school breakfast and lunch, remedial education, and many other programs, the achievement gap cannot be closed, black non-hispanics continue to score lower than the average for white non-hispanics in America by just shy of 1 standard deviation. Until recently, the IQ average for black non-hispanics was 85 IQ based on the white non-hispanic IQ averaged to 100, then IQ charts were adjusted to the average of the U.S. population being 100 IQ, and now black non-hispanics average 89.1 IQ while white non-hispanics average 102.6 IQ, which is a 13.5 point difference.

 Low income white non-hispanics also consistently test lower than higher income white non-hispanics in the middle class, and this is another achievement gap that the government has tried to close. One school tracked the student IQs and the parent IQs and found that low income parents averaged 13 IQ points lower than higher income parents, and that their children also averaged 13 IQ points lower than the children of higher income parents.

     In the Caribbean there is an expression, “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” which means that children take after their parents, so it is normal for the children of smart parents to be smart, it is normal for the children of parents with musical talent to have musical talent, and it is normal for the children of parents that do not score highly on tests to also not score highly on standardized tests, and again, lower IQ only means lacking an aptitude for thinking that is necessary in the hard sciences, IQ has nothing to do with life skills, talents, or anything else, it is only useful if you are going to be a doctor, nurse, or scientist, and not everyone is needed in those professions in society.

      In a review by the federal government in 1999, it was found that nothing has closed the achievement gap, some gains were made in the gap between black non-hispanics and the U.S. average through the 1980s, but then the gains were lost in the 1990s and after 50 to 70 years of intervention nothing has changed. The government review found that remedial education hadn’t closed the achievement gap between blacks and whites, and it hadn’t closed the achievement gap between poor whites and middle class whites. But they found that gifted students thrive if they are just given accelerated classwork, not advanced placement, just accelerated classwork above the standard curriculum.

     It is pointless to try to close the achievement gap because everyone is not the same, everyone in America has equal rights, but not everyone has equal intelligence, or equal musical talent, or artistic talent, these things tend to run in families, and Binet who designed the first IQ tests stated that the tests could not identify things like creative intelligence. Black Americans created Jazz, Blues, Gospel, Soul, R&B, Funk, and many other uniquely American musical art forms beloved the world over, and this kind of creative genius is not measured on IQ tests.

 Ashkenazi Jews average 15 IQ points higher than the 100 IQ average for all Americans, and there are some white non-hispanic families in America that average 115 IQ just like the Ashkenazi, unfortunately, in America only the top 3% of all students are traditionally selected for advanced placement classes, and the remaining gifted students below the 97th percentile are given the same curriculum as the other students.

     Due to remedial education failing to close the achievement gap it has largely been phased out and lower IQ students are, “mainstreamed,” and now all students other than the top 3% are taught the same curriculum, forcing gifted students to wait for the average students and the former remedial students to get the information.

     So instead of trying to close the achievement gap, we should be trying to open up the achievement gap between average students and gifted students. Forcing gifted students to plod along with average and remedial students wastes the gifted children's talents, and limits their education. Remedial education should be brought back, not to close the achievement gap but simply to provide appropriate content for students that test below average, and accelerated education should be introduced for the gifted. Currently just the students that get good grades and test in the top 3% are considered for advanced placement courses, and the remaining gifted students are ignored. All students below 85 IQ should receive remedial education, students between 85 IQ and 115 IQ should receive standard education, students above 115 IQ should receive accelerated education for gifted students, and the top 3% of students should be given a choice, whether to be tracked into advanced placement courses or to participate in the gifted curriculum with the other gifted students in their grade. The advanced placement choice makes them the new kids that are younger and smaller than everyone else in a higher grade, the gifted curriculum choice would mean they could make friends in their own grade with the other gifted students.

     Within each demographic group there is a bell curve extending out on both sides, and 68% of each population group falls within 1 standard deviation or 15 points of the average for their group, and 95% falls within 2 standard deviations or 30 points of the average. Before racist politics took over, IQ tests were just a way to help students, but due to black non-hispanics averaging almost 1 standard deviation below white non-hispanics, more than half a century of effort was put in to try to erase the difference, first the tests were worded so that they were not culturally biased towards black non-hispanics, but that didn’t make a difference, eventually, around 20 years ago, the state of California decided that it would just not use IQ tests for African Americans because they were so racially charged, but would continue to use them for whites, latinos, and asians. To avoid higher numbers of African Americans in remedial classes, no black non-hispanic children are IQ tested in California, which means that gifted black non-hispanic students are also never identified for accelerated curriculum for the gifted, even though with an adjusted IQ average of 89, around 5% of all black non-hispanic students would test at 114 IQ or higher and should be receiving accelerated curriculum for the gifted.

     In any standard bell curve about 2/3 of the population will fall within 1 standard deviation or 15 points from the average, so about 2/3 or 66% of all students will fall between 85 IQ and 115 IQ in America and should receive standard education, about 13% of students should fall between 70 and 85 IQ and should receive remedial education, and another 13% of students should fall between 115 and 130 IQ and should receive accelerated education for the gifted, or if you include the other 3% of students that are currently tracked into advanced placement, 16% of students could be receiving accelerated education for the gifted. Even though after 3 generations we have utterly failed to close the achievement gap, as a nation we continue to be obsessed with it and only focus on the 1/8 of students that fall below 85 IQ, completely ignoring the 1/8 of all students that fall between 115 IQ and 130 IQ.  The whole purpose of standardized testing was originally to identify gifted students and to get them the curriculum they needed, and according to the U.S. Federal Government review of education that was done in 1999, gifted students thrive if they're just given an accelerated curriculum.

     In concrete numbers if an average class in America has 24 students, only 1 student might currently be identified for advanced placement but there will be a total of 4 gifted students, there will also be 4 students that need extra help, and there will be about 16 students that fall within 1 standard deviation of the average. If the class is broken up into 6 tables based on testing with 4 students at each table, one table would need extra repetitions to learn the curriculum, 4 tables should be able to get the information in about 20 repetitions, and 1 table should receive accelerated curriculum for gifted students. The students may have to be shuffled between subjects, because some students are better at math than at language skills, but the students at the gifted table may always stay at the gifted table while other students could join them for particular subjects. Since scores in the gifted range on standardized tests identify thinking that is useful in the hard sciences, all accelerated curriculum for the gifted should include science, physics, chemistry, and biology starting at a very early age, because the gifted students would excel at science. You could also just drop a chess board on the gifted table along with Lasker’s Manuel of Chess, teach them the Ruy Lopez opening, and let them play chess in their spare time, which teaches strategy.

     Dog breeds have been ranked by intelligence, and the way we determine intelligence in dogs is by counting the number of times they require to learn a new trick, and the difference between the dogs at the top of the list is that they only require around 3 repetitions to learn a new trick. When 144 popular U.S. dog breeds are ranked, the average number of repetitions to learn a new trick is 20 repetitions, and the dogs near the bottom of the list can require up to 50 repetitions of a trick to learn it, or are simply untrainable. Statistically, the top 23 or 24 breeds in the list can be considered gifted dog breeds, and the top 10 are some of the most popular breeds in America and they can all learn new tricks in only 3 repetitions or less.

     The average number of repetitions in the standard curriculum in public schools is 20 repetitions, just like the average number of times required to learn a new trick in dog breeds is 20 repetitions, if the average American requires 20 repetitions to learn new information but their dog can learn new information in only 3 repetitions, many people have dogs that are just plain smarter than they are. Like the gifted dogs that can learn a new trick in only 3 repetitions, gifted students can learn the standard school curriculum in about 3 repetitions, and then they are bored for the next 17 repetitions. A gifted dog breed can learn 6 to 7 times as many tricks in one day as a dog breed that requires 20 repetitions to learn a trick, and in the exact same way, on average out of a class of 24 students, 4 students are currently bored but could be learning 6 to 7 times as much information every day if they were just given accelerated curriculum for gifted students.