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

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

#341

Post by randdusing » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 9:18 PM UTC

sc68cal wrote: post #324

mgh2 wrote: post #196

Education is worthless if there are no opportunities. In Argentina, there are PhDs as cab drivers. Opportunities are correlated to how well authorities run the country. There is some data trying to pinpoint relationships with other factors: GDP, corruption, and religion, etc. https://m-g-h.medium.com/in-data-we-trust-2978dacc8c22

Don't forget that Argentina's economy was the brainchild of the right wing in the United States, and specifically the Chicago School of economics. They overthrew a democractically elected government and installed a military dictatorship, in order to push their preferred economy

Did you mean Chile? Chile is doing well compared to other Latin American countries.

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

#342

Post by BobbyJo » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 9:19 PM UTC

8note wrote: post #332

BobbyJo wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear this a lot and I have a hard time believing it. What is something the rich have done with the intent to destroy the middle class? Your example with public vs private schools has less to do with diminishing public schools and everything to do with their maximizing their own children's education. If we end private schools, do we still allow paid tutors? If so, I don't see how that field gets levelled.

Moving to areas with "good schools" is one. Only schools where wealthy people live get good funding, so when they concentrate where they live to one place, everywhere else suffers

Wealthy people choosing to live near each other, and thus their local community having more taxes per child, does not demonstrate to me intent to destroy the middle class.

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

#343

Post by treis » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 9:19 PM UTC

mcguire wrote: post #319

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…

" Poverty is (mostly) concentrated in inner cities... " False. ( https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/interactive/20... ) Atlanta Public Schools, per student: $16,402, $8,923 instructional Fulton County Schools, $11,619, $7,021 instructional Buford City Schools, $11,299, $7,271 instructional Douglas County, $10,271, $6,577 instructional Clayton County, $10,472, $6,379 instructional State Charter Schools- Geo…

>False.(https://www.census.gov/library/visualizations/interactive/20...)

You're looking at county levels. If you look at the parts of cities with poor schools they will have nearly 100% of their students in poverty.

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

#344

Post by wyager » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 9:19 PM UTC

8note wrote: post #332

BobbyJo wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear this a lot and I have a hard time believing it. What is something the rich have done with the intent to destroy the middle class? Your example with public vs private schools has less to do with diminishing public schools and everything to do with their maximizing their own children's education. If we end private schools, do we still allow paid tutors? If so, I don't see how that field gets levelled.

Moving to areas with "good schools" is one. Only schools where wealthy people live get good funding, so when they concentrate where they live to one place, everywhere else suffers

The US has some of the best-funded public schools in the world and some of the worst outcomes in public schools. “Funding” is a red herring at best and an excuse for extractive politics in reality.

It turns out that life outcomes have approximately nothing whatsoever to do with how much money your childhood schools got.

It also strikes me as quite perverse to blame people who are able to move their children out of schools that have become terrible (through no fault of their own).

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

#345

Post by luffapi » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 9:21 PM UTC

BobbyJo wrote: post #338

luffapi wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As per the source I linked: the rich captured all the gains and failed to increase everyone else’s pay to even match inflation.

As per the source, the rich are paid in stock, and they made more because stocks grew in value. You're making it sound like a scheme when it's a paycheck. Everyone in the US is free to convert all of their money into stock whenever they like. The reason the CEOs get paid in stock to to tie their compensation to the value of the company, not to disenfranchise the poor.

Nowhere in that article does it talk about executive compensation coming solely from stock. Mismatched equity grants are one of the levers, but so is regular salary.

Regardless, the fact is executive pay has been rising while worker pay has been stagnant for decades. That’s not even up for debate, it’s a fact.

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

#346

Post by bryondowd » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 9:22 PM UTC

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…

These studies almost always point to a very limited set of the "wealthiest" for their study. And if you think about it, it's obvious that the very top of the pyramid will mostly have people who were able to concentrate wealth somehow, rather than inheritors. Often, inheritance is split between more than one person. That alone would account for a lot of inherited wealth not meeting an arbitrarily "wealthiest" category. So naturally there's going to be a lot of churn at the top.

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

#347

Post by ineedasername » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 9:22 PM UTC

I don't think you can separate the concept of education as an "equalizer" from the realities of the supply & demand for educated workers. As more educated workers entered the workplace, the minimum education requirements increased.

As an example, my father, without an college degree, moved up from an entry level labor worker in the early 70's to the VP of operations for the entire company, something nearly impossible today with low-level management positions gated by a degree requirement. Because when most candidates have a degree, finding someone both qualified & with a degree is less of an obstacle. All else being equal, two identical resumes except for the "Bachelors Degree" on one of them, the later is more likely to get an interview and the job. Absolutely this might not always be ideal, the signal of having degree does not always actually predict capabilities, but that was the case when HS education was the minimum standard as well, and so long as companies need a low-pass filter to narrow the pool of candidates, this isn't likely to change. Whether or not it's fair or accurate is somewhat irrelevant.

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

#348

Post by wyager » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 9:23 PM UTC

lappet wrote: post #238

rayiner wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Part of the conflict over “values and culture,” however, is over things that affect human capital. As a Bangladeshi immigrant who married into a white American family, it’s really hard for me to not notice the devastation mainstream American culture has racked on the ability to develop human capital. My younger siblings in law, who are in their early 20s live in towns (these are mainly white, working to middle class…

I think this is the main con of American individualism. The alternative is the culture in Asian societies and perhaps to some extent in European ones as well - there is always an Uncle or Aunty who is watching out for you. Of course that has cons where you can't do things that are unconventional, but at the very least you have a stop gap to help young people who are lost.

The greatest and most rapid creation of wealth in human history occurred in the US under an even more extreme form of American individualism than exists today. Europe is quite poor relative to America precisely because its anti-individualism prevents the formation of economic-political environments conducive to wealth creation.

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

#349

Post by fungiblecog » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 9:24 PM UTC

BobbyJo wrote: post #338

luffapi wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As per the source I linked: the rich captured all the gains and failed to increase everyone else’s pay to even match inflation.

As per the source, the rich are paid in stock, and they made more because stocks grew in value. You're making it sound like a scheme when it's a paycheck. Everyone in the US is free to convert all of their money into stock whenever they like. The reason the CEOs get paid in stock to to tie their compensation to the value of the company, not to disenfranchise the poor.

Duh, the poor have to spend money to live, they can't just buy stock and wait for it to increase in value. And at the volumes they can afford the transaction fees would kill any profit.

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

#350

Post by anoncake » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 9:25 PM UTC

randdusing wrote: post #341

sc68cal wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget that Argentina's economy was the brainchild of the right wing in the United States, and specifically the Chicago School of economics. They overthrew a democractically elected government and installed a military dictatorship, in order to push their preferred economy

Did you mean Chile? Chile is doing well compared to other Latin American countries.

So well an overwhelming majority voted to replace their pro-capitalist constitution.