You are listening to an audio presentation from Vanderbilt University's Peabody
College. This file is an excerpt of a lecture given by Donna Ford and Gilman
Whiting, titled "Closing The Academic Achievement Gap," on October 2, 2006 on
the Vanderbilt Peabody campus. The total running time for the full lecture is
approximately 1:05:00; this excerpt from Donna Ford runs 2:41.

[begin excerpt]

All right -- this is a study we did at this point with 928... we're going to go
ahead and say "culturally-diverse" students, although the school identifies them
all as African-American. Only 912 identified themselves as African-American. All
were identified as high-potential -- in other words, when we talked to the
school personnel, we said, "We want students who are your top-performing
students to participate in this study." We have enough data... well, not enough,
but we have an overwhelming amount of data on black kids not doing well. We
wanted to know what "acting black" and "acting white" looked like to black kids
who *are* doing well. So, what does it say? 46% of these students were formally
identified by their school district as gifted, and the other ones had GPAs at
least 3.0 and above.

8% were in AP (Advanced Placement) classes; of course, this would be high school
students, and then 23% were in honors classes -- again, high school students.
And they were in five school districts. In terms of... we asked them not just
questions about "acting white/acting black," but we were looking at the work
ethic -- the achievement ethic. You know, that Mickelson piece about the
discrepancy between attitude and behavior. "So, how much time do you study?  How
many books do you have at home?  How much television do you watch?  How many
hours do you spend talking on the telephone?  How many hours do you spend with
your friends?" You know, those kinds of things. And, "What are your hobbies?"
Sadly, only 7% of this highly-capable population said that writing was a hobby.
16% said reading was a hobby. 24% said music, and 57% said sports. All right.
But I'm -- these are the highest-performing. Think about the writing, and the
reading piece, okay?

We asked them about media: Number of books in the home, etc.; average of about
114 books, 90 CDs, 40 DVDs, and I think it says 20 video games. They spent an
average of 11 hours watching television, 10 with friends, 10 listening to music.
But go down to the bottom. Only say 4 hours on personal reading, and 3 hours on
assigned reading. So, they really want to... not much. So, again, that
discrepancy is there. And you have to say, now, if they are not really putting a
lot of time into studying, why are their GPAs so high?  That's a whole 'nother
conversation that gets back to expectations and the quality and rigor of the
curriculum. If they're in a school where there's not much teaching going on, I'm
not surprised that they have A and B averages. You understand what I'm saying?
So, they could be challenged even more.

[end excerpt]

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