I think a lot of racists (or race realists, depending on your perspective) are today a lot more concerned about the influx of southern natives than about the blacks. The black proportion of the population has been steady for a long, long time. The disparities there are a big issue, and people on all sides are concerned about it for different reasons, but I wouldn’t be surprised if GP is actually referencing immigrants in this case.
>I think a lot of racists (or race realists, depending on your perspective) are today a lot more concerned about the influx of southern natives than about the blacks.
Don't forget, American Black people speak American English (albeit frequently with a dialect, but they're capable of code-switching to standard American English). New immigrants from south of the border do not. It would make sense for many people, even if racist, to consider Blacks a part of their "tribe" since they share a language and culture, to an extent, whereas Spanish speakers from the south would be seen as a different tribe.
But I agree, blacks and Pacific Islanders combined don't comprise enough of the population to be causing the drop in numbers. I removed the lowest performers from the data entirely, and could only count one group that actually performed on a level indicating a readiness to process next concepts. And that group, I'm assuming, is comprised of a large number of immigrants.
So, until it can be explained why no one other than asians performed satisfactorily, I'm just not sure the data supports this drop being about immigrants. We obviously have a lot of work to do fixing the education system in this country, and the people out here talking about immigrants or blacks are, for whatever reason, trying to get in the way of doing that work.
The data is clearly stating that there is a problem here. And, in the US anyway, that problem exists in every demographic but one.
ETA: Again, the level for readiness to process next concepts is set at 550 for TIMSS.
