Reprint from Bet.com, 01/29/13

Commentary: Black Kids Like Science, Too

At a Silicon Valley science fair for African-American children, Black kids show their scientific expertise. It’s well known by now that many African-American schoolchildren lag when it comes to science and math education. In an article about the racial achievement gap from late 2010, The New York Times noted, “[O]nly 12 percent of black eighth-grade boys are proficient in math, compared with 44 percent of white boys.”

Some people think poverty is to blame for the achievement gap, though that’s not necessarily the case, as poor white boys generally perform as well as Black boys who aren’t poor. Others — racists — say that Blacks can’t do as well as whites in the fields of science and math because they’re biologically inferior. But a science fair in Silicon Valley is attempting to show that not only can Black children succeed in math and science, but that they’re wildly excited to show their skills to those requesting to see them. Read the entire article here.