Does The Welfare State Lower IQs?

Depressing news about black students scoring far below white students on various mental tests has become so familiar that people in different parts of the ideological spectrum have long ago developed their different explanations for why this is so. But both may have to do some rethinking, in light of radically different news from England.

The November 9th-15th issue of the distinguished British magazine “The Economist” reports that, among children who are eligible for free meals in England’s schools, black children of immigrants from Africa meet the standards of school tests nearly 60 percent of the time — as do immigrant children from Bangladesh and Pakistan. Black children of immigrants from the Caribbean meet the standards less than 50 percent of the time.

At the bottom, among those children who are all from families with low enough incomes to receive free meals at school, are white English children, who meet the standards 30 percent of the time.

“The Economist” points out that, in one borough of London, white students scored lower than black students in any London borough.

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