race & math

[jan carowan]

Les,
I meant that if we are to know why, say, the Taiwanese average is higher 
than the American we should not presume that the same explanation will hold 
for why Asian Americans score higher than other Americans.
I am extremely skeptical that there is a universal caste structure operative 
in some form in every single national society and that this structure 
accounts for a putatively universal standard deviation difference between 
the outcaste and the rest of society in each nation.  I am even doubtful 
that any modern society is structured by caste. But what is caste? At any 
rate, even if it ever existed in the US, caste structure has certainly 
weakened over the last several decades in the US, while the so called racial 
test score gaps have remained disturbingly constant (though of course test 
scores have shown an all around secular increase). But this seems to me to 
indicate that any explanation of variation in the US cannot be accounted for 
by caste, unless we are using that word so loosely that it becomes synomous 
with oppression of which there remains plenty in class and race forms.

As for our main point, is there data on the average SAT math scores of 
teachers in various school districts?
Yours, Jan

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