
Rich, Black, Flunking - thamer
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/ebx/PrintFriendly?oid=285317
======
dpatru
Reminds me of a passage from Philip Greenspun's article, How to Become as Rich
as Bill Gates, <http://philip.greenspun.com/bg/>:

When I arrived at MIT as a first-year graduate student in electrical
engineering and computer science, I asked a professor for help with a research
problem. He said "The reason that you've having trouble is that you don't know
anything and you're not working very hard." A friend of mine was a surgery
resident at Johns Hopkins. He complained to one of his teachers that he was
having trouble concentrating because he'd been up all night for several nights
in a row. The professor replied "Oh... does your pussy hurt?" According to
Business Week, Jack Welch "encouraged near-brutal candor in the meetings he
held [at GE]".

The bottom line: self-esteem is great but beware of creating a cozy home for
unproductive people with bad ideas.

~~~
gruseom
I don't think your two stories are the same thing. The MIT professor was being
blunt, but not rude, and providing helpful advice (if not in a pleasant form).
The medical professor was being rude to the point of abuse, and was not being
helpful so much as an enforcer of the insane culture of medical training that
causes residents to have to stay up for several nights in a row in the first
place. (IIRC, sleep deprivation has been shown to lead to increased medical
errors.)

~~~
llimllib
> (IIRC, sleep deprivation has been shown to lead to increased medical
> errors.)

It has[1]. However, it's not as cut-and-dried as it might seem at first.
Decreased hours for physicians lead to more handoffs between physicians, and
each handoff is a potential source of error[2].

Therefore, a proper balance between hours and handoffs, as well as new
institutional practices, are required to bring patient safety to an optimal
level.

[1]: [http://sumerdoc.blogspot.com/2006/04/sleep-deprivation-
leads...](http://sumerdoc.blogspot.com/2006/04/sleep-deprivation-leads-to-
medical.html)

[2]:
[http://www.boston.com/news/health/blog/2008/09/hazards_of_ha...](http://www.boston.com/news/health/blog/2008/09/hazards_of_hand.html)

------
thinkcomp
I grew up in Shaker Heights (SHHS '01) and happened to visit Shaker Heights
High School for the first time on the afternoon in 1997 that The Shakerite
released its article comparing SAT scores across races. It was pretty nuts.

I tend to agree with the conclusion that it's an attitude issue on the part of
most (but not all) African-American parents more than any kind of funding or
other issue. As I wrote about in my book, the cafeteria self-segregated and so
did the classes for the most part. No one told us to--it just happened that
way.

That being said, the notion that everyone in Shaker Heights is "rich," whether
Black, White, Asian, or otherwise, is extremely misleading. It's a middle-
class suburb. There are lower-income sections and $8 million mansions. Hardly
anyone is rich though, and if they are, their kids are going to private
schools like University School, Hathaway Brown or Hawken.

~~~
llimllib
Have you read about the Schelling model of segregation? It is a model where
non-racists can segregate due only to a slight preference to not be completely
outnumbered.

I speculate that the phenomenon you observed in the lunchroom could have been
caused by a mechanism similar to the one described in Schelling's model.

[http://timharford.com/2009/03/the-logic-of-life-racial-
segre...](http://timharford.com/2009/03/the-logic-of-life-racial-segregation-
and-thomas-schelling/)
<http://web.mit.edu/rajsingh/www/lab/alife/schelling.html>

------
kwamenum86
This is a problem for sure. There is so much in this story I could comment on
but I will just say that children definitely get an idea of what they are
"supposed" to be from several different sources- parents, television,
teachers, peers, etc. When you are young there is a sort of penalty for being
different or unusual and children often end up gravitating toward some role at
least some of the time. I think certain ethnic groups "over-achieve" and
others "under-achieve" because of this pressure- they are just being who they
are "supposed" to be. This is my verbose way of blaming the whole thing on
peer and societal pressures.

People (adults and children alike) are not really equipped to resist societal
pressure. We have a lot of things we are supposed to do- graduate high
school/college, get married (maybe even to someone of our own race), have
children, get a good job, shower everyday, wear "cool clothes", get good/bad
grades, act black, act white and we often suffer societal consequences if we
don't "behave"... I think the HN community, being more counter-
culturalist/entrepreneurial than average can definitely see where I am coming
from on this.

~~~
abhinav
I intuitively like the idea of the "supposed" but atleast in the west there
seems to be a way of counteracting these pressures. It seems to me that
"white" children can choose from a variety of roles: nerdy, athletic, artistic
etc and although there are penalties associated with each role there are
rewards as well and each role is deemed valid by society. However, the article
seems to suggest a homogeneous "black" identity, which leaves no room for
accepted rebellion. Perhaps, some folks living in USA can confirm if my
hypothesis is connected to reality.

~~~
martincmartin
When I moved from Canada to the U.S., I was surprised how segregated the
country still is. It's not legally enforced, of course. It's just that there
are black parts of town and white parts of town.

So although I've lived in both Pittsburgh and Boston for a total of 16 years
now, including grad school where I was very social, I haven't had much of a
chance to have African American friends because I've met almost no African
Americans.

~~~
jdminhbg
I would note that I think Pittsburgh and Boston are both more segregated than
the average American city -- Boston famously so.

~~~
buckler
For some reason, I've heard the exact same thing from residents of Chicago,
Washington D.C., Philadelphia, etc.

So does "average" exclude major (maybe East Coast) U.S. cities? Should I look
at cities of smaller scale... say Oxnard, CA? Which criteria should one
consider when deciding a city is "normally" segregated? Just want to know how
things are different in the average American city with a significant number of
ethnic minorities.

------
cousin_it
The article has enriched me by a new concept: voluntary vs involuntary
minorities. Thanks, upvoted.

A disturbing thought: if black racist sentiment says "Plato and hypotenuses
are for whites", and white racist sentiment says "crime is for blacks", the
performance disparity between the two racist asshole groups isn't all that
surprising!

I'd also be very interested in similar in-depth causal studies on the gap
between white and Jewish academic achievement, because this makes me, and more
importantly my kids in the future, part of the underachieving group.

~~~
ErrantX
This is the inherent problem I see in the modern "casual" approach to racism.
It's "ok" now to be vaguely anti-white/anti-black in an "im not _really_
racist, honest" way. With just the one attitude in the room your probably ok
(just get a bit of awkwardness) but with both the divide is doubled and
problems appear.

I get frustrated with some of the big "anti-racism" campaigners; they strike
me as making the smaller issues big ones and causing divisions all over again.

On the specific issue I think it's not so much because the students are black
they have this attitude - just because they are in a minority and have the
anti-majority sentiment. I saw a similar problem at my school when girls where
let into the all male establishment for the first time. Even though girls tend
to do better academically at that age in our school they did worse and had
higher rates of no homework completion/detention (as I recall). Im guessing
for very similar reasons.

To be honest though I think parents are the main problem; and not just in
minority groups now. Even my Aunt who is in her early 40's has no interest in
her kids schooling - and they suffer for it. The current parental generation
seems full of similar attitudes - my mother is a teacher and she says getting
parents to take an interest, encourage learning out of school and other
activities is the biggest challenge she faces at the moment.

~~~
Retric
My first boss was a black guy who graduated from Yale. It took 7 years before
I was making more money than he did. I tried to get him to move to a new
company, so I could get a signing bonus, and he could get a 30k raise, but had
little interest. My father grew up as a poor white guy and had the same
attitude. "I make a lot of money why strive for more?"

The people I work with have this attitude that 300k/year is expected (aka
middle class) from a two income family. IMO, DNA has little impact on Black
achievement, rather culture is "crushing" black America. When 80% of any
population is not playing the game they hold the average hostage.

My personal theory is you tend to measure yourself in comparison the well to
do people around you. If you fail to reach that level you are more likely to
push your children up a notch. However, everyone needs to balance success vs.
personal sacrifices and needs to decide when enough is enough.

~~~
kingkongrevenge
I've seen the claim that black academic test scores are consistently one
standard deviation below the norm regardless of the test: sat, gre, lsat,
mcat, erb, afqt, whatever. Always one standard deviation. Unfortunately, that
lends weight to the genetic argument.

~~~
Retric
People that are 1/4th black and identify themselves as black, have the same
issue on standardized tests as people that are 3/4+% black. If DNA was the
cause you would expect a non uniform distribution.

~~~
kingkongrevenge
The typical black American is 85%+ genetically "African". A tiny slice of
people misreporting race wouldn't impact things much.

And I don't follow your premise that inherent differences wouldn't be
quantitatively consistent. That's how it is with all the other measurable
differences between races.

~~~
Retric
People that are 3/4 "European" and 1/4 "African" and people that are 1/4
"European" and 3/4 "African" score the same on standardized tests. But, they
don't have the same skin color / shade.

If there was a genetic based IQ difference you would expect the same shift as
you see in skin color. But, that's not what happens, thus it's probably not a
genetic trait.

~~~
kingkongrevenge
> score the same on standardized tests

Statistically that's not true. I don't understand what you're trying to say.

~~~
Retric
Ahh, ok, this is a case of "[Citation Needed]" and I am going to ask you
first.

PS: It's been a few years since I read that finding so it's going to take me a
while to find it again.

Edit: Americans that are 1/4 "African" tend to identify themselves as African.
This seems odd to me but it's actually the case.

~~~
natrius
Race is a social construct. You are what people say you are.

~~~
kingkongrevenge
Races are extended families. People in a race are genetically and
genealogically closer to each other than to people outside of it. This racial
clustering of relatedness is empirically testable. Race is not a social
construct.

~~~
philwelch
You're conflating two distinct concepts. By the genetic definition, a 3/4
European 1/4 African would be white. By the social definition, a 3/4 European
1/4 African would be black.

~~~
lionhearted
According to whom?

My roommate in college was half-Haitian half-Portugese and identified more as
European. My near 100% African-American buddy I played cards with identified
himself as fully black. A half-Carib half-French (black skin tone) girl I knew
identified as French. In London, a good friend who is half-Arabic half-Indian
identifies equally as Arabic and Indian. My three-quarters Chinese one-quarter
Japanese friend raised in Beijing identifies as pure Chinese. I think a 1/4th
African 3/4ths European blood person raised in a predominantly black community
would identify as black, and raised in a non-black community would identify as
European.

All my data is from people who live in international coastal cities though, so
maybe it's different in various provinces and less affluent middle-of-country
areas.

~~~
philwelch
Popular perception of race among Americans. The "one-drop rule" is widely
attested, and for the most part is still true.

This can and does vary from country to country--mixed-race Brazilians are
considered white in Brazil, but black if they immigrate to the United States.

------
joshwa
It seems to me that a much of the criticism could have been defused with some
slightly different methodology. Some statistics that might been good
ammunition (each gathered with rates of several different cohorts: white,
black-non-immigrant, black-immigrant, non-black-immigrant)

    
    
      * # of hours spent on homework
      * # of hours parents spent with children on school-related activities
      * Rate of parental participation in school activities
      * Absenteeism rates
      * rates of student failure to complete homework
      * rates of student participation in school-related activities
      * all of the above plotted across grade levels (do any of these statistics vary over time as children become more susceptible to cultural forces from peers?)

~~~
dasil003
I think a more scientific approach is of little help here. The issue is too
emotionally charged. Most people have pre-conceived notions about where the
problem lies, and they will go to great lengths to cherry pick their evidence.

Ogbu's research is useful today simply because political correctness has
reached a point where we can't even consider the role minorities play in their
own academic achievement. 50 years ago the opposite was true; the political
mainstream was looking for anything they could to justify the status quo.

The bottom line is that if you are trying to explain some phenomenon, you
won't reach very good conclusions by taking certain aspects off the table for
political reasons.

~~~
dschobel
This is what struck me most about the academics (!) who were criticizing his
work in the article.

 _"I find it useless to argue with people like Ogbu," says Urban League
educational fellow Ronald Ross, himself a former school superintendent. "We
know what the major problems in this school system are: racism, lack of
funding, and unqualified teachers."_

This guy's issue isn't with any particular bit of Ogbu's methodology or logic,
just the places it takes him.

How this can fly in any academic field is shocking to me.

~~~
maarek
It sounds like you don't know many academics.

~~~
dschobel
I do but they're all from engineering disciplines. Maybe that's the problem.

------
hughprime
_Soon after he left Ohio and returned to California, a black parent from
Shaker Heights went on TV and called him an "academic Clarence Thomas."_

Perhaps part of these kids' problem is that they have parents who think that
being compared to Clarence Thomas is an insult.

 _Such theorists often cite the 1994 publication of The Bell Curve, which
argued that blacks are intellectually inferior to whites, as evidence that
negative stereotyping of African Americans still exists._

I don't think any of the critics, nor the author of this article, have
actually read The Bell Curve.

~~~
tome
I wondered what that meant when I read it. Having discovered Clarence Thomas
was a Supreme Court judge doesn't help either. What did the man do wrong?

~~~
hughprime
He dared to have political views which differed from those of the black
establishment.

Like Colin Powell and Condi Rice, if he was a Democrat he'd have a road in
every town named after him.

~~~
JabavuAdams
Colin Powell is the guy who stood up at the UN, looked America in the eye, and
sold them the lie.

I can accept differing political views or party affiliations, but that man
sold out his country. For shame!

------
ilamont
Best quote:

 _"'I find it useless to argue with people like Ogbu,' says Urban League
educational fellow Ronald Ross, himself a former school superintendent. 'We
know what the major problems in this school system are: racism, lack of
funding, and unqualified teachers.' Although Shaker Heights is in fact an
integrated, well-funded, and well-staffed school district, Ross is nonetheless
convinced that it suffers from other problems that contribute to the
achievement disparities between the races."_

Reading this, I was reminded of some of the things that were described in
"Common Ground," the book about the Boston school bussing crisis in the 1970s,
as well as "All Souls," a book about the struggles of an Irish-American family
growing up in South Boston in the 1970s and 1980s. For those families -- black
and white -- that had parents who were uninterested or unable to push their
kids in school, the kids' peer circles tended to take over, with predictable
results.

In the 30+ since the bussing crisis, Boston has spent huge amounts of money
and effort to improve the schools and teaching quality, yet some of the high
schools still have huge behavioral and crime problems. And guess what? Many
parents _still_ aren't invested in their kids' education, or even their
extracurricular activities (there was an article in the Globe a few months ago
about how few Boston parents show up for games, even when their kids are on
the teams).

~~~
billswift
Peers are almost always a stronger impact on people than their parents are.
Read Judith Harris's "The Nurture Assumption". The single strongest influence
is genetic, roughly 50%, next is peer group, third is general cultural
environment, further down is parental influence (note that this assumes fairly
normal family life, abuse or serious neglect increases impact of parents). The
best way parents can influence their children for the better is by careful
selection of neighborhood for their children's peers.

------
tokenadult
Somewhat of an old link, as John Ogbu died the same year (2003) the submitted
article was published.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ogbu>

A somewhat more recent source

<http://www.manhattan-institute.org/noexcuses/>

brings the story a little more up to date, by mentioning places where the
achievement gap is not so broad.

------
natmaster
A wise man once said, "...By encouraging Americans to adopt a group mentality,
the advocates of so-called 'diversity' actually perpetuate racism. Their
obsession with racial group identity is inherently racist..."

------
heat_miser
I wish I could say that I didn't fall victim to this sort of thinking all
through school, but I'd be lying if I say that I hadn't. There is indeed a
culture of not pushing to your top potential academically, or at least there
was when I was in school.

I seem to have moved on from that, and now work pretty darn hard at learning
stuff, but only once I was away from my peers culturally as well as
physically. It sucks but it is the truth.

------
tezza
I would like comment on the economic and social aspects[1] of this article.

.. * I) Underacheivement as a group Defense Mechanism ::

Some social-groups actively encourage what I call "Perennial-
Underacheivement". This is in my opinion based on a group defense
mechanism[2].

This defense mechanism is to ensure the weak and sick and those unable to care
for themselves are not left behind. They value support for the less-able and
believe that informal community support is far better than State supplied
support. The reasons are a topic unto themselves but my take is that this
group behiour ensures those with latent talent don't leave the community and
thus those who cannot care for themselves. Some talented people may not reach
their potential, but they may still lead a happy, fruitful life. Some members
may take the lack of excellence to extremes and die in prison as hopeless
drug-dealers.

Basically, in these groups, overacheiving and commercial gain is downplayed.
Here, to be rich is to "Sell Out" and to move out of the neighbourhood it to
betray your "Roots".

.. * II) Acheivement is better for the Acheiver and the Group ::

The opposing view is that each person tries for themselves and their immediate
family and this works because everyone "succeeds". People who cannot care for
themselves are kept at a distance, cared for by the State which is paid for by
tax. Individual families may still take care of their own, but it helps to be
a "successful" family.

.. * Evidence of this divide ::

My data point of a divide link here would be to consider Immigrant versus 3rd
generation Locals. This is touched on in the Article, where a Black Man (but
immigrant) is in conflict with American born African-Americans. I offer an
explanation that some of the American born blacks are using race issues to
form the defense mechanism which conciously or unconcsiously they know
protects their group.

First I will state the obvious. Immigrants by definition cannot belong to the
group-care mindset. Why? Because by definition they have left many, many
compatriots behind to fend for themselves in a different geographical place.
They may not like it, and they may send every penny back to their village. But
in their mind the gain overall to themselves and the group behind is clear:
immigration is better than remaining.

\------------

[1] I am not a black, and I am not American. But I wish to say something on
this topic because I am an immigrant (to Oz, then UK) myself and part of an
oft-picked upon ethnic group (Jew). This issue is complex and there are many
commingled ingredients, economic-social-racial-ethnic-familial-historical

[2] I am not making a comment on the rights , wrongs of this defense mechanism

~~~
mahmud
tezza, a most profound statement this is:

 _Some social-groups actively encourage what I call "Perennial-
Underacheivement". This is in my opinion based on a group defense
mechanism[2]._

But I must really disagree with you wrt to African American youth addressed in
the article and its subject research: they came from well off families that
didn't need to hold their children back.

What you're speaking of is something widely practiced against women, specially
in the Middle East: girls are often talked out of higher education and told
they will need to care for their little siblings, elderly, husband and whoever
is in need.

~~~
tezza
Hi Mahmud,

Here I would say that you are right and that the article focuses on Rich
students. Why do they need to worry about group-care? I cannot offer a
complete response. The reasons are too many and different for each person,
region.

I only sought to comment on one ingredient of the complex reasons. The Defense
Mechanism is a economic-social reason occasionally dressed up in race-division
garments. I wantedto disrobe some of the arguments so that they can be
addressed properly when they are a factor of underacheivement.

Superficially, it would seem like racial tension would be the concern that
needed fixing. But if that tension is just a defense mechanism, then to spur
acheivement the solution is to emphasise that your community will receive
excellent care and no-one will be neglected.

------
JabavuAdams
Culture is the cause, though of course it's correlated with intelligence and
income level, which is what confuses people.

Not all cultures are created equally. What your parents did in the home, and
who your friends were matter much more than anything else.

Does a Jewish kid from a family of scientists and scholars have much in common
with so-called "white trash"? They're both white, right?

Does the child of a black immigrant who comes from a culture of learning and
achievement have much in common with some other random brown-skinned person?
They're both brown, right?

The problem here isn't race. It's a loser culture.

------
Ben65
It would be interesting to know how well the black students did in fields of
study that are typically (on average) normally higher for blacks. Such as
music, dancing, and sports. There is a difference in races, why do we assume
the difference is bad, and that's only on average, there are always
exceptions. So maybe it is the attitudes of the students and the parents, but
what would change those attitudes? That's the next question to pursue, I think
anyway.

------
tokenadult
I see this thread is still quite active. I was just at the behavorial genetics
journal club meeting at the University of Minnesota

[http://www.psych.umn.edu/courses/fall09/mcguem/psy8935/defau...](http://www.psych.umn.edu/courses/fall09/mcguem/psy8935/default.htm)

today, and I had occasion there to hear Tom Bouchard, indisputably one of the
leading experts on human behavioral genetics research, say that the number-one
thing to tell members of the general public who read about this research is
"correlation does not imply causation." The simple blunder of assuming that
phenomena with some kind of positive correlation are in a cause-effect
relationship is one of the most enduring cognitive biases in human thinking,
and the bias doesn't appear to be any less frequent in high-IQ persons, nor
does it appear to go away even after student receive statistical education.

------
hooande
"On average, black students earned a 1.9 GPA while their white counterparts
held down an average of 3.45"

The ratio between black and white GPAs = .55

"Ogbu worked from the 1990 census data, which showed that 32.6 percent of the
black households and 58 percent of the white households in Shaker had incomes
of $50,000 a year or more"

The ratio between number of blacks/white making above $50k/yr = .56

~~~
fburnaby
3+3=6, 30/5=6. Sorry for the snark, but what's your proposed interpretation?
That it's all socioeconomic?

~~~
jongraehl
Yes, the parent post evokes some ridiculous reverence for ".55 is very close
to .56". At least compare ratio of average income per race to ratio of GPA,
not some bizarre ratio of "% > threshold". I could probably find an income
threshold so that the ratios are exactly equal.

~~~
jongraehl
Whoever downvoted this is wrong. There's always a threshold so "fraction less
than threshold" is x for any 0<=x<=1.

------
lionhearted
I made it pretty well despite having a somewhat challenging childhood. So did
many of my friends. Here's two quick stories:

\- My most influential mentor was born in the ghettos of London and dropped
out of middle school. When he was 12, his home was raided by the police and he
had a gun to the back of his head as his brother was arrested for dealing
drugs. He can't read or write very well and he's dyslexic. He became a
construction worker. Now he's running one of the most profitable construction
firms in the Middle East and owns properties in five or six countries. He
makes about $20,000 per month in salary and bonuses, not including his
investments.

\- My best friend had the hell beaten out of him by his father, until he got
big enough to fight back and eventually kicked the hell out of his Dad, which
then ended in an uneasy truce. He dealt drugs in high school, got into
college, and dropped out. He became a self made millionaire at age 24. He's 29
now, lives in Bel Air in a three million dollar home, and in a bad year he
makes $200,000.

Me? I dropped out of two high schools and left home at age 16 or 17, just
scrapping here and there to get by. I then dropped out of another university.
I didn't have what you'd call an easy childhood, but I did okay too.

A lot of my friends and mentors are like this. We're all self-made - we get
along sort of okay with old money people, but fit right in with entrepreneurs
and self made people. Many of them come up from hard times. An acquaintance of
mine is 60ish, Polish, and spent her childhood in a concentration camp. Her
family became wealthy black-marketing goods past the Communist lines for sale,
and eventually a branch of their family came to America. She's a psychologist,
her husband is some sort of businessman.

Everyone successful I know internalizes their problems - that means they blame
themselves and take responsibility. This is key - if other people are doing
things to you, then you can't change that and you're stuck. But if everything
is your fault and responsibility, you can change that and win. So, dyslexic?
Up to me to deal with. Racism? Up to me to deal with. Grew up poor? Up to me
to deal with. Spent childhood doing forced labor in a Nazi factory? Up to me
to deal with. Abused? Up to me to deal with. Speak very lower-class English?
Up to me to deal with. No English? Up to me to deal with.

Now, I remember some sort of study that quoted: "People who internalize
failure and externalize success are less happy but more successful. People who
externalize failure and internalize success are more happy and less
successful."

The "it's my fault, and my problem, and I'll deal with it" attitude makes you
more successful and less happy. As a bonus, everything good that happens is
luck and a blessing and can't be counted on. You'll be less content, much less
content, but go much further.

So me? I always blame myself. "Partner stole a lot of money? That's my fault,
I should've been paying attention to the finances." Success? "Got an important
order? That's good luck, can't count on that in the future."

Most people do the opposite. "Life is hard and unfair, but everything I've
achieved despite that is because I'm awesome." Everyone successful I know -
"I've been dealt a good set of cards, I'm extraordinary lucky, and every
mistake and hardship is on me." Less contentment, less surface happiness, much
more accomplishment and triumph. It's the only way to the highest levels of
accomplishment in any field.

------
thras
Biological explanations, while non-PC, do a rather good job of explaining the
available evidence.

~~~
miloshh
Not really - blacks from Africa and the Carribean do very well academically.
It is only the American blacks that do poorly. They have the same biology
_and_ often a better starting line than the immigrants. Why is that?

~~~
thras
It's a selection effect. Only a select population comes to America for
college. Tellingly, the average population there doesn't do very well at all
at home. And over here, they only do well comparatively. Compare them to say,
Eastern Europeans, and it's a different story. Not many Nobel prizes per
capita, I'm afraid.

~~~
mynameishere
That you are looking at people who "emigrated" to Shaker Heights also suggests
a selection effect. There's really no easy answer in this case.

The problem isn't "why are blacks and whites different" but "why do blacks and
whites who have similar outcomes still produce children who have different
outcomes?" Three possibilities:

1\. The premise is flawed; just being in Shaker Heights doesn't suggest
significant uniformity.

2\. Regression to the mean.

3\. Culture, etc. But that begs the question of difference once again, but re:
culture rather than achievements. Unless it's all hollywood's fault.

