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The 35 percent of African-American youth living in poverty are the most visible victims of what is often called the achievement gap. But black children of all socioeconomic levels perform worse on national tests and graduate in fewer numbers than their white middle-class peers. A 2009 study by the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics found that African-American students scored, on average, 26 points lower than white students on their reading and math tests.
Some say, as Harvard psychologist Richard J. Herrnstein and American Enterprise Institute political scientist Charles Murray did in their 1994 book, The Bell Curve, that the cause is genetic. And though The Bell Curve has been discredited in scientific circles, the idea that IQ is somehow linked to race has been slow to retreat.
Others, like Cornell University researchers Gary Evans and Michelle Schamberg, believe that “physiological stress is a plausible model for how poverty could get into the brain and eventually interfere with achievement,” as they wrote in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Our best efforts at narrowing the gap nationally — think No Child Left Behind — haven’t worked.
But locally, there are now signs of hope. At the Harlem Children’s Zone’s Promise Academy charter schools, at least 97 percent of third graders scored at or above grade level on a statewide math test in 2008, outperforming the average scores of both black and white children in New York City and New York State.
What the HCZ does is first recognize that the amelioration (改善) of poverty does not begin and end with an excellent education, but also requires a full belly, parental education, safety, advocacy, and the expectation that every student will succeed. “We help parents and kids through the system,” HCZ founder Geoffrey Canada says. “We get them past every hindrance put in their way, whether it be at home or with social services. We can advocate on a child’s behalf, whether it be at home or in the classroom or with the juvenile justice system.”
Indeed, the HCZ starts early: it provides new parents with a Baby College to teach parenting skills during the crucial first three years of a child’s life and a preschool Gems program, where kids learn not only French and Spanish but healthy eating habits to combat childhood obesity.
The Zone also offers the HCZ Asthma Initiative to provide medical care and education to families, thus drastically cutting down on the number of school days missed by students suffering from asthma (哮´ ). And it has a network of afterschool programs that teach media literacy, karate (空手道), and computer skills. It’s called the pipeline — once families enter, it’s hoped that they’ll stay until their child graduates from college. The idea is to create a safety net woven so tightly that kids can’t slip through.
52. What does the author say about African-American youth as a whole?
A) They have more graduates from community colleges.
B) They score far below the average education level.
C) They obviously are victims of the American education system.
D) Their academic performances are worse than their white peers.
53. According to the passage, the book The Bell Curve ________.
A) has sparked a heated debate in the scientific field
B) leads to the study on the link between race and IQ
C) states that intelligence has a lot to do with race
D) is against the idea that intelligence is decided by race
54. Experts like Michelle Schamberg think that ________.
A) the achievement gap can be narrowed easily
B) it is unreasonable to relate low achievement to poverty
C) physiological stress works on achievement indirectly
D) it is impossible to achieve the goal of equal performance
55. When it comes to fighting poverty, the Harlem Children’s Zone ________.
A) stresses more on crime prevention
B) emphasizes an all-around system
C) condemns parents as a hindrance
D) sees excellent education as the sole way
56. According to the passage, the purpose of HCZ’s black education is to ________.
A) offer students an integrated system
B) reduce the number of asthmatic children
C) get rid of poverty at the first place
D) set up a network to protect students from hazards
