For the last several years Richard Lamm has expressed controversial opinions on the causes of high dropout rates among African American and Hispanic American students.
He has suggested in several speeches that statistics showing lower success rates and higher drop-out rates among black and Hispanic people are caused by cultures that “are not success producing.”
In a recent talk at DU, Lamm reiterated these opinions and argued that we as a society need to begin to talk about culture as a contributing factor to this problem.
During the talk he attributed the high drop-out rates of African-American and Hispanic-American students to cultural shortcomings.
In doing so, I think he made two very serious mistakes. He first failed to recognize the structures in society that have repressed people of both of these cultures.
In his arguments he also perpetuates a self fulfilling prophesy.
Lamm assumes that the only factor other than culture that contributes to the lack of success of black and Hispanic students is discrimination.
He fails to consider the socio-economic realities that African American and Hispanic American children face.
For example, if a child’s parents both work minimum wage jobs and speak little or no English, the child is most certainly put at a disadvantage academically.
If a child is raised in a poor or dangerous area and spends his or her nights wondering how the family will make ends meet, is there any doubt that their performance in school will suffer?
These aren’t cultural factors; they are social and economic factors.
Secondly, it would be interesting to see how well students of any other culture, besides the two under consideration, would perform if the world constantly tracked and discussed how many of them dropped out of school, didn’t make enough money or wound up in prison.
It’s a self fulfilling prophesy. If you tell a student that statistically the odds are against their success, what incentive do they have to try?
This discussion about the short comings of two cultures, which Mr. Lamm argues will benefit these children, may only be giving them another reason to expect failure of themselves.
Maybe we should reexamine the complex reality before we begin conversations that may or may not improve our (yes our, America’s) children’s success. It’s too crucial an issue to approach any less carefully.
