Desperately Searching for Higher Education among the Ruins of the Great Society, Volume I: America's Two National Elementary and Secondary School Systems: One for the rich and one for the poor

This book investigates the following question: Why do foreign students who major in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields at U.S. colleges and universities get the best education money can buy while the U.S.’s own African-American students get the worst at all levels of the American education pipeline? On the face of it this is not an easy question to answer; but it is certainly a question that deserves an answer, an answer that looks across the landscape of issues confronting African-American families as they aspire and attempt to educate their children but often fail to do so through no fault of their own. Based on the data analyzed in this document, it is clear that America is operating dual national school systems—one for the affluent and well-to-do and one for the working class and the poor. There is a significant difference between the average reading scores achieved by U.S. students at both the 75th and 90th percentiles and the average reading scores at the 25th and 10th percentiles. African American students' average scores on the reading and mathematics scales of the 2019 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), i.e., the Nation's Report Card, fell into the low end of the 25th percentile which means that a significant number of Black children scored in the 10th percentile, the lowest percentile of national scores. The dismal performance of many Black, poor White, and other minority children on the reading and mathematics scales of the 2019 NAEP indicates that the U.S. is, in effect, operating two school systems: one for affluent, upper middle-class suburbanite families and the other for poor urban and rural families; and this split is pulling the entire elementary and secondary education enterprise of the country down.\nAccording to 2019 NAEP results from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) of the U.S. Department of Education, this split academic achievement among U.S. elementary and high school students is also evident from the reading scores of low-income students inasmuch as the scores of poor children have literally gone down over the past 10 years while the reading scores of more affluent children have gone up over time. In October, 2019, both the Secretary of Education and the Director of the National Center for Education Statistics that administers the NAEP decried the average reading scores of U.S. 4th and 8th graders on the 2019 NAEP. The Secretary stated that: “Two out of three of our nation’s children aren’t proficient readers”. The Associate Commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) which administers the NAEP similarly stated in an NCES press release in October of 2019 that: "…. In fact, over the long term in reading, the lowest-performing students—those readers who struggle the most—have made no progress from the first NAEP administration almost 30 years ago".\nWith respect to scores on one international assessment measure--the 2015 TIMSS, Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study--the average mathematics scale score for 4th graders who attended high-poverty schools where 75% or more of the students were eligible for Free or Reduced Price Lunch (FRPL) was 499 points while the average score of 4th grade students who attended schools where 10% or less of the students were eligible for FRPL was 600 points. The poorest students in the U.S. scored 100 points lower than the most affluent students. The same relative difference between 4th grade students was found on the 2019 TIMSS. Moreover, the same relative differences were also found between 8th grade students who attended high-poverty schools and those who attended more affluent schools. The size of African American students' academic deficits do not diminish between the 4th and 8th grades which means that they are cumulative and the deficits show up later in high school and college.