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Poor kids who do things right don't do better than rich kids who do things wrong

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Re: Poor kids who do things right don't do better than rich kids who do things wrong

#71

Post by abrahamepton »

blfr wrote: post #49

But, of course, it's not just a matter of dollars and cents. It's also a matter of letters and words. Affluent parents talk to their kids three more hours a week on average than poor parents, which is critical during a child's formative early years. That's why, as Stanford professor Sean Reardon explains, "rich students are increasingly entering kindergarten much better prepared to succeed in school than middle-class…

This is one of the most HN comments ever. Without getting into the nature-vs-nurture debate for the trillionth time, "Actually, mostly a matter of genes because this is by far the biggest influence parents have on their kids" is a totally preposterous statement. Genes are certainly AN influence, but I think my parents' encouraging my nerdiness, buying me a graphing calculator in high school and surrounding me with computers my whole life had something to do with how I got interested in computers and subsequently developed a career out of it.

That's just not an option for a lot of kids, and that has zilch to do with genes. But hey, keep thinking Ayn Rand's not full of shit, Hackernews :)

Re: Poor kids who do things right don't do better than rich kids who do things wrong

#72

Post by randomdata »

paulpauper wrote: post #8

https://img.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/files/2014/10/... Hmmm but it doesn't look so bad when you consider that 67% of poor college grads are at least 50-percentile in wealth, vs 49% of rich high school dropouts. I'm sure is even better when you compare poor high school dropouts vs. poor college graduates, which is why a college degree may still be worth the money and the best pathway out of poverty, especiall…

> Hmmm but it doesn't look so bad when you consider that 67% of poor college grads are at least 50-percentile in wealth

Where does it show that? The chart you linked to shows income quintiles, not wealth. I couldn't find it in the article either, but may have overlooked it.

A wealth visualization would be quite appropriate here though, as a high income does not necessarily lead to retaining wealth. Some suggest that those who grow up poor struggle to manage their money, so it would be interesting to see if those who came from poor families with higher earnings became rich themselves, or if they remained poor.

> I'm sure is even better when you compare poor high school dropouts vs. poor college graduates, which is why a college degree may still be worth the money and the best pathway out of poverty

I'm not sure what you are really going to glean from that comparison? People generally don't drop out of high school without a reason. Usually, those reasons are what also lead them to do poorly in the workplace. If you try to compare education and income like that, you end up with a bias towards those whose situation did not provide the problems that resulted in them dropping out of school and doing poorly in the workplace.

What may be revealed here is that rich kids have more opportunity. They have all the reasons to drop out that the poor have, but additional reasons such as having a golden opportunity at the family business or within the family's social network. The latter does not negatively impact their future because they dropped out for positive reasons, not because they had a deeper problem that was holding them back in their schooling and continued to hold them back in the workplace.

Re: Poor kids who do things right don't do better than rich kids who do things wrong

#73

Post by dogma1138 »

tankenmate wrote: post #47
dogma1138 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't be on it, being poor in America still means you have more money than everyone in the world, including more than the middle class in most EU nations. Social mobility in Europe is also really not great especially once you adjust for the immigration, you also need to account for the fact that social mobility studies in Europe are based on the income level of parents and grandparents, both WW2/Eastern Block an…

Actually being poor in America is worse than being poor in most other OECD nations; most first world countries have unemployment benefits that don't have time limits (they may have performance limits, i.e. you need to apply for X amount of jobs per week, etc). A number of them have free health care (and even some 2nd world countries have this). A non trivial number have free university education, or a university educ…

That is not indicative of social mobility, the tax liability on the poor and the middle class in the US is considerably lower than in Europe. Wages are on the other hand considerably higher.

This holds true even for low income jobs, McDonalds pays nearly 10$ an hour in the US vs 4.35 GBP in the UK, or 6.50 EUR in Germany (there are comming minimum wage changes in Germany so it will increase to about 8 EUR in 2017) and US those workers are taxed at considerably lower rates.

Re: Poor kids who do things right don't do better than rich kids who do things wrong

#74

Post by awareBrah »

xapata wrote: post #61
blfr wrote: post #49

But, of course, it's not just a matter of dollars and cents. It's also a matter of letters and words. Affluent parents talk to their kids three more hours a week on average than poor parents, which is critical during a child's formative early years. That's why, as Stanford professor Sean Reardon explains, "rich students are increasingly entering kindergarten much better prepared to succeed in school than middle-class…

Ever seen the movie "Trading Places"? In seriousness, it's frustrating that you're making such a bold assertion about causality. There are more male executives than female. Are you saying that's caused by genetics?

There are more males at a very high IQ than there are females.

There are also many more males at a very low IQ than there are females.

I don't know why people downvote the parent comment, just because it's not exactly fair that people aren't born equal, doesn't mean we have to just sweep it under the rug.

Re: Poor kids who do things right don't do better than rich kids who do things wrong

#75

Post by dogma1138 »

ethanbond wrote: post #46
dogma1138 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't be on it, being poor in America still means you have more money than everyone in the world, including more than the middle class in most EU nations. Social mobility in Europe is also really not great especially once you adjust for the immigration, you also need to account for the fact that social mobility studies in Europe are based on the income level of parents and grandparents, both WW2/Eastern Block an…

> I wouldn't be on it, being poor in America still means you have more money than everyone in the world, including more than the middle class in most EU nations. Source?

OECD median income per country: http://www.oecd.org/social/income-distribution-database.htm

The US poverty line household income is $22,541, this is more than the median income in Poland, and not that far from the median household income in developed countries like Belgium.

Re: Poor kids who do things right don't do better than rich kids who do things wrong

#76

Post by kbenson »

adamnemecek wrote: post #41
kbenson wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think that fundamentally, the school should just teach you to read as soon as possible and from there on it should just give you things to read. I fail to see how this won't devolve into parents that have more time to devote to their children's education through encouragement, steering, tutoring, or paying for the same having a better outcome. And since I think having more money is causal for having more time, I…

You replace teachers with tutors. You encourage study group work. You use better educational tools. In Mindstorms, Papert talks about how the computer is fundamentally the best educational tool. This reflects my experience but for some reason computers are barely used in education and if they are, they are used in all the wrong ways. On some level, I think that if the kids need tutors, the system is broken.

What you describe only solves the problem of wealthy parents providing an advantage when the tutoring and/or computer system is perfect with respect to what is available otherwise. At any point where it could be improved wealthy families will be able to take advantage of that improvement for their children. This is a natural consequence of how we value our young and their future.

What you describe would be good to reduce the advantage of wealth on outcome, but it's also papering over how hard the problem is. The real problem is getting from here to there. It's akin to saying "well, just eliminate racism." Sure, that's a good idea, nobody should object to that. But it's not like we'll wake up a year from now and say "problem solved!". As a simple example of this, we probably can't make good computer tutors for kids without somewhat good AI. That's not exactly an easy problem to solve.

Re: Poor kids who do things right don't do better than rich kids who do things wrong

#77

Post by Florin_Andrei »

dogma1138 wrote: post #30
Florin_Andrei wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anything that increases social mobility would be good. America is doing quite poorly in terms of social mobility, compared to other top-tier countries.

I wouldn't be on it, being poor in America still means you have more money than everyone in the world, including more than the middle class in most EU nations. Social mobility in Europe is also really not great especially once you adjust for the immigration, you also need to account for the fact that social mobility studies in Europe are based on the income level of parents and grandparents, both WW2/Eastern Block an…

Stop reading libertarian / right wing / whatever propaganda, open your eyes to the real world. I've lived on both sides of the Atlantic. Being poor in America is a lot worse than being poor in Europe. Dress up your statistics all you like, the fact is America is a trap for anyone below middle class.

That's not saying there are rivers of milk and honey flowing in the EU either. But over there, at least you still have access to decent health care even if you're at the rock bottom, and at least your kids could get decent education so they achieve escape velocity.

But here? Once you're below a certain level, society just throws you on the dung heap. Leaves you to your own proverbial "bootstraps", however stupid that meme may sound when you see how things could be handled differently in a civilized world.

Re: Poor kids who do things right don't do better than rich kids who do things wrong

#78

Post by michael_h »

blfr wrote: post #49

But, of course, it's not just a matter of dollars and cents. It's also a matter of letters and words. Affluent parents talk to their kids three more hours a week on average than poor parents, which is critical during a child's formative early years. That's why, as Stanford professor Sean Reardon explains, "rich students are increasingly entering kindergarten much better prepared to succeed in school than middle-class…

> Affluent parents pass high IQ and conscientiousness

I'll have to go with 'citation needed'.

Re: Poor kids who do things right don't do better than rich kids who do things wrong

#79

Post by xapata »

awareBrah wrote: post #74
xapata wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ever seen the movie "Trading Places"? In seriousness, it's frustrating that you're making such a bold assertion about causality. There are more male executives than female. Are you saying that's caused by genetics?

There are more males at a very high IQ than there are females. There are also many more males at a very low IQ than there are females. I don't know why people downvote the parent comment, just because it's not exactly fair that people aren't born equal, doesn't mean we have to just sweep it under the rug.

Why are you so confident that the IQ test is measuring "intelligence"?

The causes of wealth, scholastic performance, etc. are quite important for policy. Therefore we should hold a higher burden of proof for causal inference on those topics than, say, the communication mechanisms of ants.

It's not that folks are sweeping differences under the rug. It's that they're saying the differences might not be the things you're saying they are.

Re: Poor kids who do things right don't do better than rich kids who do things wrong

#80

Post by Mz »

chinese_dan wrote: post #42
terrywilcox wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe you've swapped the narrative. A lot of people work their ass off just to pay the rent and feed their kids. Working your ass off does not imply wealth. That's the problem.

"A lot of people work their ass off just to pay the rent and feed their kids." We should also be questioning why someone that can barely pay the rent decides to have another kid (or even a kid at all). Financial management should be a bigger part of our education system. "Working your ass off does not imply wealth. That's the problem." It has never and should never imply wealth. When I was in college, I worked my ass…

We should also be questioning why someone that can barely pay the rent decides to have another kid (or even a kid at all).

This statement is rife with all kinds of shitty assumptions. Until Obamacare came along, it was common for health insurance in the US to not cover birth control -- yet it often covered Viagra. So, a guy who is too old to get it up anymore is entitled to sexual pleasure, but a young woman servicing a man is going to vindictively be made to pay, both literally and figuratively.

Second, a woman can be raped and end up pregnant. Rapists aren't exactly known for using protection and one rape case was determined to be not rape because the victim managed to convince her assailant to use a condom to protect her from disease. The courts determined this somehow proved consent on her part.

Third, it's quite difficult to get an abortion in the US. There are a lot of barriers to getting an abortion. So if you get raped and wind up pregnant, good luck ending it -- even though rape is supposed to be one the exceptions that allows you to get an abortion.

Fourth, there are religious faiths that tell women they are going to hell if a) they don't willingly oblige their husband for sex or b) they use any sort of birth control whatsoever.

I could probably go on, but I am a desperately poor woman who needs to try to get some work done so I can keep eating this month, in spite of having been one of the top three students of my graduating high school class and having had both my kids legitimately within the bonds of matrimony and generally having done every goddamn thing "right" that I can possibly do, but it is still FUCK YOU Michele, because, hey, women don't need no stinkin justice or respect. And before you ask: I have been celibate for more than 11 years at this point.

Wow, do assumptions of the sort you are making piss me off. It is a great way to guarantee that the world will continue to remain in the toilet, no matter how hard people work or how virtuous they are.

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