> Insofar as the US had a “culture averse to education,” surely that affects white americans as much as it affects anyone else.

Its like you've never lived in America.

Obviously white people are extremely privileged and also have a different culture. Keep in mind that schools in predominantly black areas are typically significantly less funded than those in white areas.

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tristor 4 days ago | parent | next [-]

> Obviously white people are extremely privileged and also have a different culture.

Why is this obviously? It's like /you've/ never lived in America, not outside of some coastal city. Go to anywhere in the Midwest or Southeast and tell me that white people are privileged in some unique way. It's a poverty problem and a problem of cultural priorities, not about race.

	▲	const_cast 4 days ago \| parent [-]
		It is a poverty problem, and black people are much more likely to be in poverty. That doesn't mean that white people can't also be in poverty. A lot of people just don't understand what privilege is. Who has more upward mobility - an impoverished black person, or an impoverished white person? Who is more likely to face systemic factors that influence poverty and outcomes - black people or white people? And before I hear "well not everything is about race!!1!" Uh, the US has a long history of systemic racism that does continue to this day. Obviously if you just integrated a few decades ago you're not going to just magically have equal outcomes. People don't move like that, systems are sticky, and the US isn't evenly distributed. And, of course, race is correlated tightly with culture and with average income and levels of poverty. No, you can't just ignore race. Well you can, if that's easier for you, but it's dishonest and incomplete. And, because I know it's coming: yes I'm white, no I don't have white guilt, I just think about the world we live in. Its easy not to think about things. I prefer thinking about things.

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rayiner 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Finnish people in Finland and Japanese people in Japan also have “white privilege” in the way you’re talking about—they don’t suffer from whatever disadvantages are associated with being black in America. White Americans have the ordinary range of privileges and disadvantages of people in any country (some are richer, some are poorer, etc). If you trying to evaluate American educational culture and schools in general, it makes sense to compare white people in the U.S. with Finnish people in Finland or Japanese people in Japan or non-immigrant French people in France. To the extent we have this data, Americans perform very well in such comparisons.

If what you say about racism, etc., is true, that is actually an argument against the cultural explanation. That would mean that educational underperformance compared to other countries is caused by internal racism in the U.S., not some anti-educational trend across American culture as a whole. If you somehow erased racism and brought everyone up to the scores of white Americans, then the U.S. would be right behind Japan in educational outcomes—even though the Americans care more about football than reading.

Also, only about 5 states have significantly more funding for white students once you consider federal funds. About twice as many have significantly more funding for black students: https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/2022-10/Measuring%... (see page 22).

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tick_tock_tick 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> Keep in mind that schools in predominantly black areas are typically significantly less funded than those in white areas.

Spending per student is not partially predictive of education outcomes in the USA.