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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’?

#81

Post by alexgmcm »

slibhb wrote: post #67
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 don't get locked up to work in order to afford healthcare, food, etc. - and are thus more free to take chances. If Europeans are more free to take chances, why is there substantially less innovation in Europe? I don't think Europe is "worse" than the US. I think Europe is optimized for the poor whereas the US is optimized for the middle class and above. There are good arguments for both of these situations. In…

> why is there substantially less innovation in Europe?

I know people who started start-ups and spun out side projects here in Europe (both the UK and the continent).

One thing I noticed was that when it came time to raise money almost of all of them ended up needing American investment. We don't have anywhere near as much VC capital here in Europe and the banks are incredibly conservative.

Plus depending on the country the taxes/fees for being self-employed or starting your own business can be incredibly punitive.

> One interesting thing is that Europeans benefit from American innovation.

While we do benefit from American innovation I'd also argue it's a sort of 'digital colonialism' for want of a better term - we don't grow our own huge firms like Yandex, Baidu etc. and instead just hand our cash over to American ones (Google, Facebook etc.)

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

#82

Post by gumby »

slibhb wrote: post #67
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 don't get locked up to work in order to afford healthcare, food, etc. - and are thus more free to take chances. If Europeans are more free to take chances, why is there substantially less innovation in Europe? I don't think Europe is "worse" than the US. I think Europe is optimized for the poor whereas the US is optimized for the middle class and above. There are good arguments for both of these situations. In…

> One interesting thing is that Europeans benefit from American innovation. They have iphones, windows pcs, use google, etc like everyone else.

Until the iPhone, Europe dominated the mobile phone business both in handsets and wireless network equipment. And this wasn't just the manufacturers; texting was pretty heavy and ubiquitous in the mid 1990s while it was still a novelty for the US a decade later.

Europe was a significant player in the early PC revolution and other technologies ubiquitous today; consider, for example, that the ARM processor was developed in the UK.

There was an interesting discussion in the Economist that appeared in HN a week or so ago discussing how Europe has fallen behind economically over the last couple of decades. It's rather surprising.

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

#83

Post by alexgmcm »

kstenerud wrote: post #62

Education never was the "Great Equalizer". Its purpose has always been "to educate people in what they need to know." Now, "what they need to know" differs by caste. The high caste learn how they deserve their privileged position, how to perpetuate their position, and who are the key players. The medium caste learn how to set up or run business and merchant operations, how to be an exec, how power works, who are the…

I somewhat agree with the sentiment although I think it's a bit pessimistic and as described holds a stronger resemblance to a YA dystopian novel than reality.

I went to a state school (i.e. public school in American terminology) in a poor area and studied hard and did well, got scholarships, went to Uni etc.

There are some problems with people not being able to afford to dedicate time to study - this can be solved by offering a maintenance allowance to all students, as I believe is done in some Nordic countries.

But the biggest issue I saw in my high school was people either giving up on education altogether, or having unrealistic expectations leading them to choose University degrees with poor job prospects.

Note, I include the trades in education as in fact they better than many University degrees when it comes to helping people improve their lot in life.

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

#84

Post by Mary-Jane »

larrymyers wrote: post #25
zozbot234 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> while also chronically underfunding schools Schools are not underfunded in the U.S., they waste money. Big difference.

For what we expect of schools they are underfunded. Schools provide before and after care outside of normal hours, they provide all 3 meals to many students. Counseling, social services, health care ... it's not just teachers in the classroom. Now, if the US wanted to actually fix poverty and inequality dealing with the symptoms wouldn't roll down to the schools to deal with.

Negatory. Us shovels more funding per student into its public schools than almost any other country. That funding is spend poorly, mostly on administrative functions that no doubt demonstrate in great detail how great each school is.

https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cmd

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

#85

Post by fatsquirrel »

Ensorceled wrote: post #13
temp8964 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds amazing. So the group of kids with 70% fatherless can achieve the same as the group of kids with 30% fatherless! Wow.

What does this even mean? What in-group jargon is this?

30% of white and Asian kids are born of divorced parents while it’s 70% for Black and Latinx kids.

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

#87

Post by kungito »

rayiner wrote: post #45
kungito wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like the US has to split into separate countries and maybe adopt a system like EU. Everything in the us gets so generalized no one has any agency over it except companies with enough money to push a narrative across 300 mil people. Either that or the way you think about US has to change. I find it hard to believe every state does things the same way but still you say "US" has a problem and not Georgia or Calif…

We already are, and Democrats keep trying to nationalize everything.

Like what?

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

#88

Post by username90 »

shawnz wrote: post #79
John23832 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your (and the above's) interpretation of things unsaid are weird. I said "do", as in "to perform an action". Ambition might lead you to do things, but that's not what I address.

Consider this thought experiment. Think of the people working at your place of employment in low-level positions who make less money than you. Do you think they are on average doing less productive work than you, or less likely to be "doers"? I am guessing you feel the answer is yes. Now think of the people in high-level positions who make more than you. Do you think they are on average doing more productive work tha…

It is better to use a peer instead of yourself to reduce bias. Do you think your tech lead does more valuable things than your average peer? Probably yes.

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

#89

Post by username90 »

kingsuper20 wrote: post #76
ipaddr wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A degree holder in any field in 1970 could open many doors. Today a degree by itself could land you at Burger King. You need more education to obtain less now.

I expect that the main value was in proving you could sit at a desk for eight hours a day.

Doesn't even prove that, many college degrees are easier to pass than high school.

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

#90

Post by rayiner »

kungito wrote: post #87
rayiner wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We already are, and Democrats keep trying to nationalize everything.

Like what?

Elections? Healthcare? (Continuing to push Medicaid expansion onto states that don’t want it?) Child care? Education?
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