KEY POINTS:
Let's have a coffee, a friend emailed, and NOT talk about education. She worries the debate is becoming an us-and-them one.
I think the debate reflects economic reality. Either way, we're getting into uncomfortable territory. And this time the divide is economic.
W.E.B. Du Bois, one of the most influential black intellectuals of his time, wrote in 1903 that "the problem of the 20th century is the problem of the colour line". He suggested the line between the haves and have-nots would emerge as the critical problem of this century.
Edmund Gordon, professor of psychology and education at Columbia University, agrees with Du Bois: "Income and wealth have replaced, or greatly reduced the significance of, the colour line in our society.
Have we been too focused on identity at the expense of economic inequality? Perhaps. Class hasn't had much attention in Maori discourses on education, as Waikato University's Martin Thrupp noted, largely because "Maoridom has needed to contest any perspective which threatens to view Maori as just another disadvantaged group".
It's complex. Why are we failing half of Maori (and, I suspect, Pacific Island) boys? Why do Maori and Pacific Island children do worse, on average, than their Pakeha and Asian counterparts?
How much does ethnicity matter in this equation, and how much do class and gender? What about intelligence? Culture? Parenting? Teaching? Schools? Have we placed too much emphasis on academic studies at the expense of more practical courses?
Some of the questions lead to uncomfortable answers.
The Te Kotahitanga programme aimed at improving Maori educational achievement is a case in point. The fact that it focuses on relationships between teachers and students leads inevitably to the conclusion that it has been the teachers' fault. It's not that simple but it's a good example, says one principal, of where "the little story in the big narrative can become the big story, or the only story in the narrative".
For their part, teachers hesitate to say that family background is a powerful predictor of school success, because it leads to families being blamed for their kids' failures.
Yet it's true. That many Pacific Island parents see education as solely the responsibility of teachers and schools and beyond their influence has an impact.
As a Samoan economist reminds me, "We know the typical Pacific home is not very conducive to learning - over-crowded, no routine, lack of resources, no role model or success at education culture, etc. Those who succeed tend to be highly motivated individuals, so they are an exception."
According to US research, well-off students achieve at higher levels than middle or low-income students, whatever their ethnicity or race.
This doesn't mean that ethnicity and race are no longer relevant. Socio-economic status accounts for "substantial portions of the disparity", but it doesn't account for all of it. And within socio-economic groups there's still a colour gap in achievement.
But the so-called IQ gap has its roots in economics, too. A US study of children, where a similar white-black gap exists, shows virtually no racial or class difference in intelligence in children under one.
By the time they get to kindergarten, though, the gaps are already firmly established. Life experiences account for most of it.
A 1995 study found that professional parents spoke an average of 2000 words an hour to their children, working-class parents about 1300 words and welfare mothers about 600. At 4, children of professionals had vocabularies nearly 50 per cent larger than working-class children, and twice as large as those of welfare children.
Ronald Ferguson, senior research associate at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, says closing the gap requires action on poverty and in smaller, more immediate lifestyle changes, for families and schools. It's not either-or.
"I don't care whose fault it is really," he told the Harvard Education Letter. "If reading scores could rise if more parents pushed their kids to do more leisure reading at home or took the television out of the bedroom, why not do it?"
But Ferguson says schools and teachers can still make the difference. They just have to work harder and better. And so do the students.
Even though Ferguson's research shows underachieving minority students already work as hard as their white counterparts, he'd encourage them to work even harder. That's the reality when you start school behind everyone else.
