Income mobility has been rising fastest in Britain • Hacker News Board

Re: Income mobility has been rising fastest in Britain

#21

Post by isostatic » Fri, Jul 06, 2018, 4:30 PM UTC

bogle wrote: post #9

arethuza wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One way of avoiding any exams or interviews is to have your child start at a private school at nursery level - it's only if you transfer in later that they do the interviews/exams (NB not all public schools work like that though). Mind you my son transferred between private schools at age 16 and the interview was mainly about rugby... [NB Both my wife and I went to very humble state schools but we could afford privat…

Your own experience may be of better quality teaching in the private schools but that's not borne out by the evidence, what little there is. For reference, there's the recent publication of "Posh Boys: How the English Public Schools Ruin Britain" by Robert Verkaik, which explicitly states there is no demonstrably better teaching. My own personal experience is of State, Grammar (selective) and Private. It's all about…

One thing that stood out to me, I went from a private school with a class of 16 to a state (grammar) school with a class of 28. That does have an affect on teaching.

However also anecdotally a friend taught at a private school for a couple of years. Parents made it quite clear that it was his responsibility to ensure their angels passed the exams, no matter how thick they were. He didn't stay for long due to that attitude.

Re: Income mobility has been rising fastest in Britain

#22

Post by isostatic » Fri, Jul 06, 2018, 4:32 PM UTC

Wildgoose wrote: post #11

bogle wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your own experience may be of better quality teaching in the private schools but that's not borne out by the evidence, what little there is. For reference, there's the recent publication of "Posh Boys: How the English Public Schools Ruin Britain" by Robert Verkaik, which explicitly states there is no demonstrably better teaching. My own personal experience is of State, Grammar (selective) and Private. It's all about…

Intake is key. I positively hated school through to 16 when I then went to a separate Sixth Form College to do my A-Levels - and suddenly all the knobheads were gone and I could actually enjoy myself for the first time.

You always get knobheads, no matter the intake. If 3% of people are knobheads, with a class of 30 there's a 60% chance of having at least one knobhead. With a class of 20 it's 46%, with a class of 15 it's 37%.

Re: Income mobility has been rising fastest in Britain

#23

Post by grasshopperpurp » Fri, Jul 06, 2018, 4:34 PM UTC

Malarkey73 wrote: post #3

It's just really difficult to understand what this means. The first big caveat is that 1990s to 2010s stops at the financial crisis. Due to austerity the UK has since then seen the greatest period of wage stagnation of all the advanced nations except Greece. But employment has remained high. So whilst the report is a picture of time before the crash its not clear to me what has happened since. Second - Yes I think I…

It looks like countries with greater inequality may provide more motivation for people to move up. Of course, there are countless other factors (regulation, societal norms, etc.), but if I'm a generally content person living in Finland or Sweden, and I'm relatively (but not remarkably) poor and still have what I need, I can focus on self-improvements that make me happy/fullfilled. If I'm in the USA, it'd be hard to divorce the idea of self-improvement from how I can monetize it. In countries where the poor feel more threatened (talking degrees, not absolutes), there's real urgency to distance yourself from that class.

I also wonder if the higher mobility among countries like GB, Japan, the US, and Turkey suggest societies that create more zero-sum scenarios. I'd be interested in other explanations.

Re: Income mobility has been rising fastest in Britain

#24

Post by downrightmike » Fri, Jul 06, 2018, 5:15 PM UTC

easytiger wrote: post #15

Malarkey73 wrote: post #3

It's just really difficult to understand what this means. The first big caveat is that 1990s to 2010s stops at the financial crisis. Due to austerity the UK has since then seen the greatest period of wage stagnation of all the advanced nations except Greece. But employment has remained high. So whilst the report is a picture of time before the crash its not clear to me what has happened since. Second - Yes I think I…

> 25-34 year olds its gone from 65% to 27% during the period of this study back then people used to be in full time work from 16-21. Education has assumed the role work once had. Most people I know are in Education untill mid to late 20s. 1/15 into their 30ies on and off. further to that 100 years ago home ownership was in the 15% area. Standards of living where "worse" by modern metrics (of course that's not true pe…

The jobs that are available now for 16-21 are subsistence jobs. It makes more economic sense that they spend the time in school and get out of the sub livable wage jobs.

Re: Income mobility has been rising fastest in Britain

#25

Post by thaumasiotes » Fri, Jul 06, 2018, 5:35 PM UTC

isostatic wrote: post #22

Wildgoose wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intake is key. I positively hated school through to 16 when I then went to a separate Sixth Form College to do my A-Levels - and suddenly all the knobheads were gone and I could actually enjoy myself for the first time.

You always get knobheads, no matter the intake. If 3% of people are knobheads, with a class of 30 there's a 60% chance of having at least one knobhead. With a class of 20 it's 46%, with a class of 15 it's 37%.

You seem to be assuming that admissions is based on a lottery and expulsion cannot occur.

You might note that at what are considered "good schools", not only are neither of those things true, but trying to implement either would cause the school to be quickly abandoned.

Re: Income mobility has been rising fastest in Britain

#26

Post by _0w8t » Fri, Jul 06, 2018, 6:02 PM UTC

zucchini_head wrote: post #4

The article doesn't touch upon education much at all, which I believe is a central part of social (im)mobility. Problems arising in society later on will simply stem from the early life of members of society, not afterwards. It's a common principle that education is the key to societal equality, in some way. All I can offer is my story on this. I've lived in the UK all my life in all sorts of regions from those of lo…

From available data it is not possible to show that education has any positive influence on economical growth. What it seems happens is that economical growth bring prosperty that allows parents to send their children to high schools and universities. The book [1] shows that very convincing.

Moreover, as money spend on high education in many cases is essentially unproductive tax, sending more people to universities may even harm the growth.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tyranny_of_Experts

Re: Income mobility has been rising fastest in Britain

#27

Post by isostatic » Fri, Jul 06, 2018, 8:11 PM UTC

thaumasiotes wrote: post #25

isostatic wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You always get knobheads, no matter the intake. If 3% of people are knobheads, with a class of 30 there's a 60% chance of having at least one knobhead. With a class of 20 it's 46%, with a class of 15 it's 37%.

You seem to be assuming that admissions is based on a lottery and expulsion cannot occur. You might note that at what are considered "good schools", not only are neither of those things true, but trying to implement either would cause the school to be quickly abandoned.

you get knobheads whatever the admission policy. And the number of expulsions from schools is pretty much zero