I knew there was something special about you; I'm BTHS '80. @Mel HopkinsHopkins graduated from Tech too.
I'm surprised as this is where you usually say something like; "These are race soldiers, who chose to stay in the hood willing to sacrifice themselves to help maintain white racism."
Any observed differences in the way students learn can be explained by a numbers of factors, none of which would include what you understand as "race."
I'm sure despite the racism the teachers and schools were superior in Stefan's generation than mine. The single worse teacher I even had was at Brooklyn Tech. This so called teacher (a retired engineer) allowed us to shoot dice and drink beer in the back of the classroom. All the kids were smart, but we just continued to push boundaries until it became clear there were none. Our "teacher" would read the paper while we gambled.
In Stefan's generation, and earlier, teaching was a respected profession today teachers are treated like blue collar workers, as a result teaching is not the first job that comes to mind for our brightest people.