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Is education no longer the ‘great equalizer’?

nytimes.com

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Re: Is education no longer the ‘great equalizer’?

#51

Post by kingsuper20 »

benrbray wrote: post #21
Bostonian wrote: post #8

Education is a multiplier of IQ, not an equalizer. Many people, although policymakers won't admit it, don't have the IQ to study at the high school level, for example learning algebra. Even more people don't have the IQ to study at the college level, for example studying calculus and writing a coherent, footnoted term paper. And only a small fraction of the population has the IQ to do significant research and earn a…

In my own perhaps limited experience, I've never really encountered anyone who is simply incapable of deep thought / critical thinking. I've met plenty of people who have a learned helplessness when it comes to, say, math. I've studied alongside classmates who could't spend as much time studying as me, simply because they had to support themselves with part-time or full-time work just to keep their head above water.…

> I've met plenty of people who have a learned helplessness when it comes to, say, math.

That strikes me as an insightful point.

I'd say that the main point of math, considering how little the average person actually uses it beyond the elementary school level, is to teach people to learn and to approach problems in a different way. It has the same value as learning Latin or simple computer programming for a non-specialist.

Also, the learned helplessness applies across society. A time and place filled with the self-employed (mostly farmers) has been replaced with worker bees. For various reasons normal skills sets now lack construction, vehicle repair, clothing fabrication, food production but are big on increasingly arcane theories of software development.

It seems to me that learned helplessness is the largest single change of modern times.

Re: Is education no longer the ‘great equalizer’?

#52

Post by _xy8h »

whb07 wrote: post #15

Controlling education is a political life source for the Democratic party in the U.S. One of the largest, if not the largest, unions is the teacher's and they are a major donor to the Democratic party. Thankfully, the one good thing about the shutdowns has been the ability for parents to observe a couple things: * how little the school system cares about the child * the indoctrination and political ideas being passed…

Alright. You rendered your entire point to "hurr, left wing bad" but with just many more words.

For anyone else, take a look at who keeps cutting funding to education and funneling funds to profit oriented companies before you let this guy play this kind of disingenuous game here.

Especially as Reason's positions often carry the Libertarian bent of "fuck you, got mine" as the motivation to further erode the equal playing field that education was supposed to be... often this is in the form of distance gating "good" schools away from the "bad" ones, and by proxy, the "bad" neighborhoods... whatever the cloak term of choice is these days, eg "underperforming", challenged, ghetto, etc...

Re: Is education no longer the ‘great equalizer’?

#53

Post by dwater »

whb07 wrote: post #15

Controlling education is a political life source for the Democratic party in the U.S. One of the largest, if not the largest, unions is the teacher's and they are a major donor to the Democratic party. Thankfully, the one good thing about the shutdowns has been the ability for parents to observe a couple things: * how little the school system cares about the child * the indoctrination and political ideas being passed…

Schools are controlled primarily by state and local governments, which are not universally controlled by Democrats but split along typical red state/blue state lines:

https://www.ncsl.org/research/about-state-legislatures/parti...

Republican legislatures have shown they are quite capable of passing legislation about education that serves little purpose beyond a political agenda, as this year's crop of bills banning critical race theory shows (critical race theory being a graduate level discipline that is not taught in public secondary schools).

https://www.chalkbeat.org/22525983/map-critical-race-theory-...

And bills like the voucher program you describe have been shown to have mixed results at best. If you live at the poverty line that West Virginia bill does not provide you any additional choice in your child's education, unless there are numerous private schools in West Virginia that charge $4600 or less in tuition, which I would not expect. Otherwise it's simply a transfer of funds away from public schools to middle and upper class families who were already leaning away from public education and the private (largely religious) institutions they prefer. If the intent was truly to provide school choice to all, they could end enrollment based on residence and allow low income families to choose to place their children in high performing schools in high income areas, but that kind of choice is not the intent of these programs.

Re: Is education no longer the ‘great equalizer’?

#54

Post by beforeolives »

benrbray wrote: post #21
Bostonian wrote: post #8

Education is a multiplier of IQ, not an equalizer. Many people, although policymakers won't admit it, don't have the IQ to study at the high school level, for example learning algebra. Even more people don't have the IQ to study at the college level, for example studying calculus and writing a coherent, footnoted term paper. And only a small fraction of the population has the IQ to do significant research and earn a…

In my own perhaps limited experience, I've never really encountered anyone who is simply incapable of deep thought / critical thinking. I've met plenty of people who have a learned helplessness when it comes to, say, math. I've studied alongside classmates who could't spend as much time studying as me, simply because they had to support themselves with part-time or full-time work just to keep their head above water.…

> In my own perhaps limited experience, I've never really encountered anyone who is simply incapable of deep thought / critical thinking.

I don't know how we're defining deep thought and critical thinking but it's important to recognise that people have limitations to their intellect and for some people that ceiling is very low. If we assume that you have some kind of software job since you're on HN - there are many people out there whose brains don't have the computational power to do your job. And for a subset of those people keeping any job would be a challenge. That's not something that they control or that anyone can change. If human intelligence is continuous and somewhat symmetrical, for every outlier that you meet on the high end of intelligence there is someone out there who can barely function in modern society (or maybe they can't).

Re: Is education no longer the ‘great equalizer’?

#55

Post by ipaddr »

TrackerFF wrote: post #19

In a lot of European countries, a robust social safety net is the great equalizer. You don't get locked up to work in order to afford healthcare, food, etc. - and are thus more free to take chances. Furthermore, strong labor laws have compressed salaries towards the mean, so people are not locking themselves into poverty by working low-wage / low-skill work, but there's a difference enough that people are incentivize…

You think in Europe people are more free to take chances than the US? There is less of a need to take a chance so people play it safe. Why risk it all or anything when your needs are met and money gets taxed highly at the upperend.

Re: Is education no longer the ‘great equalizer’?

#56

Post by tmotwu »

John23832 wrote: post #42
wayoutthere wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You then get a "working class" with no real skills/education/ambition... they do not "do", which leads back to my first comment This you?

> a "working class" ^ This references a segment or variation of the "working class". In my inference, a portion of the working class that isn't actually working, because they do not "do". > the "working class" ^ This is what you're trying to run with. This references the working class as a whole entity. I did not say this. Again, reading comprehension is key.

Sorry, no. I was with you on your comment on doing. However, "working class" is an actual term [1] that does not fit your intended message.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_class

Re: Is education no longer the ‘great equalizer’?

#57

Post by mbg721 »

ModernMech wrote: post #38
doytch wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not American, but the core flaw that I've never had explained away for me in voucher or "school choice" systems is how "bad" schools get better. E.g., school in my district is bad. They don't have enough resources, or their teachers are bad. People begin taking their kids out of the school which means the school now has less money. Assuming they could fire teachers at will, they can't even now afford the "better"…

You haven't gotten an explanation because people who advocate for "school choice" systems don't want the bad schools to get better. They just don't want their kids to interact with people who go to the bad school.

That describes why people pay for private school more than it describes why people would support vouchers. The theory is that "school choice" would mean everyone would flee the worst schools and they'd be compelled to clean up their act or dissolve.

Re: Is education no longer the ‘great equalizer’?

#59

Post by drewcoo »

John23832 wrote: post #42
wayoutthere wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You then get a "working class" with no real skills/education/ambition... they do not "do", which leads back to my first comment This you?

> a "working class" ^ This references a segment or variation of the "working class". In my inference, a portion of the working class that isn't actually working, because they do not "do". > the "working class" ^ This is what you're trying to run with. This references the working class as a whole entity. I did not say this. Again, reading comprehension is key.

Perhaps the refrain "reading comprehension is key" is a sign that comprehensible writing is in order.

Re: Is education no longer the ‘great equalizer’?

#60

Post by tester34 »

Bostonian wrote: post #8

Education is a multiplier of IQ, not an equalizer. Many people, although policymakers won't admit it, don't have the IQ to study at the high school level, for example learning algebra. Even more people don't have the IQ to study at the college level, for example studying calculus and writing a coherent, footnoted term paper. And only a small fraction of the population has the IQ to do significant research and earn a…

what is "many"?

20 000 people? 30% of country? 70% of country?

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