Uptown Notes

Okay, there is this really . Here goes an interesting piece in this month’s Atlantic Monthly. The piece discusses Roy Freedle’s article in the Harvard Educational Review that suggests that African-American students outscore White students on harder questions on the SAT. The article is an interesting twist into the consideration of standardized tests as biased indicators. The piece is rather long (about 9 pages) but definitely worth reading! If you want more detailed information on theories of standardized test bias check out Fair Test.

Also, Al Sharpton is still campaigning strong and has made public two key alliances: P Diddy (we all know him as Puffy) and Jay-Z ( aka Jigga, aka Sean Carter, aka Hova). If you want the young vote, you gotta go to where the young people are!

Lastly, well at least till I fill like posting something else, the NY Times magazine ran an article on health disparities.

Here’s an excerpt:

There are many different types of disadvantaged neighborhoods in America, but poor urban minority neighborhoods seem to be especially unhealthy. Some of these neighborhoods have the highest mortality rates in the country, but this is not, as many believe, mainly because of drug overdoses and gunshot wounds. It is because of chronic diseases — mainly diseases of adulthood that are probably not caused by viruses, bacteria or other infections and that include stroke, diabetes, kidney disease, high blood pressure and certain types of cancer.

Don’t think that the environmental issues and things of that matter are all about saving the whales. There are many young brothas and sistahs in our inner cities who live with real problems due to enviromental inequities.