The Obama Effect

Will the perennial gap between black and white students' test scores be reduced or eliminated by the mere fact of a black President? The New York Times reports on one small study that suggests a wonderful Change might be coming to classrooms in America, check it out.

Andrew Sullivan has this poignant anecdote:

I know a neighbor in my hood from walking my beagles. She teaches in a local school and is even more aware than the rest of us in this city how challenging it is to teach and rear a self-confident generation of minority kids. She's African-American and has long bemoaned the ubiquitous use of the n-word by young black teens. But she pointed out to me months ago that there was one man they never used the n-word to describe. It was Obama. If he can help lift eyes to a larger horizon for more generations of minority children, then surely liberals and conservatives and everyone in between can be glad.