Is education no longer the ‘great equalizer’? • Hacker News Board

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

#141

Post by asoneth » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 4:54 PM UTC

John23832 wrote: post #7

Two parts: First, I think the ability to DO THINGS is the great equalizer at this point. Being a do-er lifts you out of poverty (or at least out of poverty's worst resting state). Being a do-er expands your network. Being a do-er prolongs your life (people with jobs/daily activities tend to live longer healthier lives). The best part about this is that technology has made it easier to become a do-er. You don't need a…

I agree with your second point that we have over-fitted education to optimize standardized test scores to the determent of encouraging intelligence.

But at least from my personal network developed from growing up in a working-class town and eventually living in extremely wealthy neighborhoods in extremely wealthy cities I have not noticed a strong relationship between "the ability to DO THINGS" and someone's social or economic status.

I've known working class people who grew up poor and who had amazing hustle and through a combination of intelligence, luck, and hard work they clawed their way into the lower-middle class and set up their kids for even further success. I know even more rich people who inherited companies that they weren't interested or competent enough to run, or who got positions that didn't really require much DO-ing on their part by leveraging family connections. So when I picture someone with no real skills or ambition ambition I usually imagine a neighbor who grew up in the "owner class" and when I picture a "do-er" I always picture someone who grew up "working class".

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

#142

Post by Bostonian » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 4:54 PM UTC

benrbray wrote: post #97

beforeolives wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that my point is getting across because you're focusing on the people that you have most commonly observed in the environment around you. Sure - people can work harder, most of us are average and we don't need to get close to our limits in our jobs. That's not who I'm talking about. I'm talking the extreme outliers on the lower end of the intelligence distribution. Those are the people for whom the inna…

Strictly speaking, yes, you're right that some people are mentally deficient. But no one is disagreeing with the fact that people with mental disabilities exist. So I'm focusing instead on otherwise productive members of society who just don't happen to be scientists or engineers. Those people are definitely in a position to benefit from better educational opportunities. My intent was to argue against what I read bet…

"My intent was to argue against what I read between the lines of the original comment I responded to -- the insidious implication that certain races or certain classes of people have innate mental deficiencies, and that we should use that observation to allocate resources in society."

Of course people should be judged as individuals, not members of their race or class, when applying to college etc. But differentials in IQ tests are mirrored on the SAT and ACT, on AP exams, on NAEP, and on state achievement tests. It has been shown that the SAT does not underpredict the college grades of black and Hispanic students or of lower-income students. If you evaluate all college applicants based on SAT and AP exam scores, you will end up "allocating resources" such as seats at selective colleges unevenly by demographic group, even though the process is race-blind. I think this is just, but advocates of equity do not.

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

#143

Post by iammisc » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 4:55 PM UTC

wittycardio wrote: post #116

iammisc wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Americans glorify hard work while undervaluing efficiency. For example, I often hear fellow Americans brag about how many hours they put in or how intense their work is. This is true all the way from the blue collar trades to the most white collar (management consultants are notorious for this). In reality, it's better to use fewer hours to accomplish the same goal. There is no inherent value in applying more time to…

Uh I don't know what management consultants you've met but as an industry it is the opposite of efficient. It's an industry that's built on stealing value from the productive bits of society by leveraging the social status of it's employees. Some software is certainly very efficient and productive but after many years in software I can tell you that a lot of software work is repeated broken window fixing. It's not ab…

I used to be a management consultant, so I have a lot of experience and a lot of insider knowledge.

Management consultants automate away the explanations a CEO or executive has to give. They can just point to their superiors and inferiors and say 'Bain said to do blah'. No one's going to get fired for buying Microsoft, or listening to McKinley.

Inside the industry itself, the actual consulting is heavily automated. Consultants are mainly glorified data entry technicians, inputting numbers into pre-built models and using pre-made assets to assemble a good-looking presentation. There's some skill to it in terms of speaking, but the process is heavily automated to make it extremely efficient.

It definitely saves the executives time, which is why they'd hire them.

> Some software is certainly very efficient and productive but after many years in software I can tell you that a lot of software work is repeated broken window fixing.

There is a common fallacy I see often when driving on the freeway during rush hour. Some people seem to believe that if they just took the surface streets, they would get to their destination faster. That is because they are spending more of their time moving on the surface streets, but on average they're still going slower than the freeway people. In short, they trade a large variance in a higher average speed on the freeway for a lower variance in a lower average speed on the roads.

This analogy extends to hard work. Americans glorify the worker taking the surface streets -- i.e., the one actively "doing" something even if the amount of work being done per unit time is very small -- rather than the one in the stop-and-go traffic -- the architect who works two hours a day intensely, and then takes time off, or the SW engineer who works for 30 minute stretches and then rests to compile his software. In reality, the latter two get to their destination faster, even if it seems like they're doing nothing most of the time. For some reason, the steady work is valued more than the high acceleration/high deceleration work.

That is to say you identify frustrations with software (repeated broken window fixing) which certainly exist, but they do not detract from the fact that the automaton enabled by software is still incredibly valuable. I don't see how this is even debatable. The increase in productivity directly attributable to software is undeniable.

EDIT; I'll point out that I ran away from management consulting. I hated it, and I have little good to say about the industry. But it's undeniable they automate away the decisions of executives to the point people are willing to pay.

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

#144

Post by bluefirebrand » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 4:55 PM UTC

iammisc wrote: post #105

wayoutthere wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Holy hell dude, are you calling the working class lazy and the professional class hard-working?! This tells me you don’t have a lot of contact with the working class. The working class busts their asses while most software devs I know work about 2 hours a day from their couch in pajamas. Someone who works at a warehouse or fast food joint is a much harder worker than a software architect. Probably also working 60-80…

Americans glorify hard work while undervaluing efficiency. For example, I often hear fellow Americans brag about how many hours they put in or how intense their work is. This is true all the way from the blue collar trades to the most white collar (management consultants are notorious for this). In reality, it's better to use fewer hours to accomplish the same goal. There is no inherent value in applying more time to…

> The truth is the SW architect, the CEO of many corporations, etc are more efficient than the lowest level workers. I know this is not popular, and it makes many uncomfortable, but it is undeniably true. This is because both the SW architect and the CEO and the management consultant and the operations manager, etc, are all into automation, which is an efficiency increasing process.

I don't think this has anything to do automation, it's more likely due to their ability to delegate

And I don't mean their skill with delegating I mean the fact that they are in a position where they can tell other people to do their work for them.

It's easy to appear super productive if you are in a position to claim the productivity of other people as if it were your own.

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

#145

Post by iammisc » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 4:56 PM UTC

rackjack wrote: post #103

iammisc wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Environmental Policy (EPA). Family policy (gay marriage, transgenderism, etc via the Supreme Court). Healthcare (Obamacare). Education (no child left behind, the dept of education). Higher education (federal backed guarantees). We can go on...

Nixon founded the EPA and George W. Bush established no child left behind...

I mean... duh. I'm just pointing out the general trend towards nationalizaton. It's not just a matter of democrats. Republicans do it all the time against their own values.

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

#146

Post by ARandumGuy » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 5:00 PM UTC

zozbot234 wrote: post #10

John23832 wrote: post #7

Two parts: First, I think the ability to DO THINGS is the great equalizer at this point. Being a do-er lifts you out of poverty (or at least out of poverty's worst resting state). Being a do-er expands your network. Being a do-er prolongs your life (people with jobs/daily activities tend to live longer healthier lives). The best part about this is that technology has made it easier to become a do-er. You don't need a…

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

Funding in U.S. schools is super unequal. Most school funding in the U.S. comes from local property tax. But if a district has a lot of poverty, then revenue from property tax is low. That means low funding for the local school, which lowers the quality of education for students, which makes it harder for the students to get out of poverty, which keeps the district's poverty level high. It's a self reinforcing cycle, which need to be fundamentally re-structured.

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

#147

Post by mc32 » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 5:01 PM UTC

rejectedandsad wrote: post #137

mc32 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought one of the main complaints of the system is “too many ivy leaguers” (who share diff values), so why aim for the thing that we talk bad about? What’s bad about not being part of the derided elite class?

Being near the bottom of any hierarchy is bad, and without smashing these hierarchies people like me are just destined to suffer. After all, the elite class is usually not derided anyway - and many of the people deriding them (think JD Vance) are elites already.

I can totally understand wanting to reject and "smashing" the elite Ivy League.

I can't understand wanting to join them if they are so bad. It's akin to slaves wanting the right to own slaves --that's not the solution to the problem of the institution.

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

#148

Post by iammisc » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 5:02 PM UTC

hobs wrote: post #106

iammisc wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Environmental Policy (EPA). Family policy (gay marriage, transgenderism, etc via the Supreme Court). Healthcare (Obamacare). Education (no child left behind, the dept of education). Higher education (federal backed guarantees). We can go on...

This has been one of the least informed comments I have read recently - most of the things you are attributing to democrats are were actually republicans. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Environmental_Pr... President Richard Nixon proposed the establishment of EPA on July 9, 1970 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affordable_Care_Act#Legislativ... The ACA was championed by republicans until it became a politic…

I'm not sure how to respond to this comment. The comment I responded to asked for examples of things the federal government nationalizes, with the support of democrats. You seem to believe that a policy being championed by a republican president means that it is somehow 'not democrat'.

This is similar to how people make out Iraq to be a republican war even though in enjoyed broad bipartisan support.

The facts you mentioned here are obvious. I didn't think they needed much spelling out for moderately educated Americans.

If the question is 'do republicans nationalize things'? The answer is... yes. All national politicians do.

I hate how we literally split everything, including bipartisan things up, into neat little democrat/republican boxes.

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

#149

Post by synergy20 » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 5:02 PM UTC

In public education, it's no longer 'equal opportunity', the no-child-left-behind has evolved into 'equity result', i.e. the ISD and teachers are rated based on how all students' scores are the same.

in high schools I know ,the tests are designed so easy that many can score 90+, so you see the whole class are all squeezed into the 90~100 range, everyone is happy and feeling justice and fairness, except that they will fail in college so we will need increase H1B cap more.

these I feel are not good for the future of the country, good intentions do not necessarily mean good result, quite the opposite.

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

#150

Post by techrat » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 5:02 PM UTC

whb07 wrote: post #74

dwater wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 c…

Well a couple things to note: 1. An entrepreneurial teacher/teachers could provide a service for these suddenly flush parents at $4600 per child. 2. Most politicians, from either side are either corrupt or incompetent, so these labels don’t matter much to me. But if you actually look at the people running most say schools/admins and even large chunks of the government bureaucracy it’s people who believe in large gove…

> So what needs to be done, is to give a voucher to every parent to decide where to go.

So, we just say 'fuck all the kids who were born in the wrong zip code' and can't overcome the distance gate to go to a better school with the voucher?