Race and education.

Budget cuts carry a disproportionate burden for African American students. Many state universities are reporting the smallest class of African American freshmen in 15 years (Boston Globe, November 28, 2004).

The theory that studious African American students are "acting white" is debunked in a New Fork Times article of December 12, 2004. In an 18-month ethnographic study at 11 schools in North Carolina, a sociologist/economist research team found that "black students basically have the same attitudes about achievement as their white counterparts do: they want to succeed, understanding that doing well in school has important consequences in later life and feel better about themselves the better they do." The researchers give two explanations of the source of the "acting white" theory. First, "when white burnouts give wedgies to white A students ... it is seen as inevitable, but when the same dynamic is observed among black students, it is pathologized as a racial neurosis." Second, and more to the point, "the idea that failing black kids pull down successful black kids can be used as an excuse by administrators to conceal or justify discrimination in the public-education system."