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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’?

#271

Post by moduspol »

mnowicki wrote: post #237
treis wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 This is a common myth but it's not backed up by the numbers. Poverty is (mostly) concentrated in inner cities and those inner cities typically contain large office builds which pay lots of real estate taxes but send no kids to schools. If you look around different states the hi…

that's interesting to hear, and I'll have to take your word on it for now, but I'm curious why(unless things have significantly changed in the past 6-7 years) inner-city schools are still horrendously bad. I've experienced schools in both the worst parts of Philadelphia as well as in middle-class suburbs of Philly, and the contrast is even more exaggerated than they make it seem on TV shows/movies that depict these t…

> I'm curious why [...] inner-city schools are still horrendously bad.

I encourage you to follow this train of thought. It may bring into question some fundamental assumptions in one's world view.

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

#272

Post by WalterBright »

mcguire wrote: post #265
WalterBright wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> chronically underfunding schools In Washington State, for decades there was a big push to "fully fund" the schools. They finally got their way a couple years back, i.e. just about everything they wanted. There has been zero improvement in results. There has been no further mention of "fully funding" the schools in the press since, but the demands for more and more money for the schools have not abated at all. Edit:…

" Edit: the fully funding was in place in 2018 " How fast do you expect results? The Washington Supreme Court decision: http://www.courts.wa.gov/opinions/pdf/843627.opn.pdf " The State has failed to meet its duty under article IX, section 1 by consistently providing school districts with a level of resources that falls short of the actual costs of the basic education program. The legislature recently enacted sweeping…

It was fully implemented in the summer of 2018. See my cite.

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

#273

Post by asoneth »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #250
asoneth wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The quoted statement was referring to absolute socioeconomic status. I agree that relative movement is possible and I also know a lot of extremely hard-working people (both rich and poor) who have been successful and climbed a rung or two in their lives. My point was more that the average wealthy person I know doesn't seem to have a particularly greater or lesser "ability to do things" compared to the poor people I k…

"Equalizer" was probably the wrong word. It's probably more like, you start somewhere, and do-ing is one of the biggest components in the delta between where you start and where you end. That doesn't mean that in one generation you overcome someone else's head start. But it's still a good, beneficial thing to strive after.

I would agree that do-ing is a major component of the delta, along with ability and a fair bit of luck. I guess my mental model would be that someone's socioeconomic status often comes down to:

starting point + (hard work * ability * luck)

(where any one of those may be positive or negative)

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

#274

Post by omginternets »

iammisc wrote: post #100
kungito wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like what?

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...

Wasn't "No Child Left Behind" a Bush thing?

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

#275

Post by hyperpallium2 »

asoneth wrote: post #141
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 o…

OP said it's the great equalizer, which I take to mean tending to make equal, not make equal - any more than education ever did.

Class still exists with its advantages, from BS (e.g. who you know) to real (e.g. security to invest in yourself long-term).

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

#276

Post by afpx »

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 think my kids would look at me strangely if, after asking me what to do in life, I said, “DO THINGS.” I think more specifics are in order. Like, do what? Or, what are the things worth doing? There’s just not enough information available on what things have ROI.

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

#278

Post by megameter »

gumby wrote: post #133
mc32 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has regulation changed appreciably the last two or three decades resulting in less drive for innovation?

I don't think so; in particular I believe the strength of the European economy in the late 90s was merely hysteresis from the growth and investments of the 70s and 80s. There is a certain structural "stiffness" which is a mix of regulation and culture but I don't believe it changed much. There was a big war in the middle of the 20th century that you might have heard of :-) and I feel like it upended things; poor coun…

It makes me think that actually, the war had the same imposition of "stiffness" to all its biggest players. The US, Japan, the nascent EU and even the former Soviet Union all had a defined "place in the world" in the post-war order and followed more-or-less the same trajectory with their domestic economy. Gradually things started slipping, the Soviets being the obvious first to collapse, but everyone started running into some issues later in the 20th century and started kicking the can down the road to address them.

Countries outside of those great-power roles in the conflict didn't end up on the same timeline and so are landing in a different place today. Australia or Taiwan for example; both changed status and became markedly more independent.

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

#279

Post by pydry »

mnouquet wrote: post #206
herbstein wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no such thing as "American innovation", it is all Apple, and to a lesser extent Google.

Are 95% (to be conservative) of the tech unicorns US-based ? At this point, you can start drawing a trend. European successes are more the exception than the rule, which is kinda irrelevant anyway as 95% of European successes will end up being merged into a US behemoth...

Europe doesn't create Ubers because it doesn't have the capital. its not to do with innovation.

VC as a model requires huge markets and huge amounts of financing. It doesn't require home grown innovation.

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

#280

Post by asoneth »

gotoeleven wrote: post #177
asoneth wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 o…

Your anecdotes not withstanding, it is a myth that most rich people inherited their wealth. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/26/majority-of-the-worlds-riche... Maybe you don't trust this source but there are many others like it. This bizarre push to make everyone think that there's no meritocracy, which I guess goes hand in hand with the fashionableness of being a victim, is cynical poison being driven by people with rad…

I have only met one of the "world's richest people" on the list you linked and he is very hard working but I think the conclusions drawn from extreme outliers may not be applicable more broadly.

I think perhaps we're talking about different things? I don't think it's fashionable to be a victim or that people have no control over their fate. Hard work (along with intellect and luck) generally helps people move up in life, and the people I know who have moved up the most in their lives are generally also the smartest and hardest working, so it would make logical sense that most people at the very top have worked hard to get there. After all, not many people out there can fall down a couple rungs and still be at the top of the ladder, right?

But beyond those extreme outliers, most people in the US (which ranks 27th in social mobility according to the world economic forum[1]) seem to end up within a rung or two of where they were born. So I suppose how "meritocratic" the US is probably depends on what you mean by the word.

[1] http://reports.weforum.org/social-mobility-report-2020/socia...

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