Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is akin to expecting improvement of a building constructed on shaky foundation after increasing funding when the construction reached the 8th floor.
And then when they got to the 9th & 10th floors there was a pandemic.
Is education no longer the ‘great equalizer’?
411–420 of 548 posts
Re: Is education no longer the ‘great equalizer’?
#412Earlier 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
This is different state-by-state. For example, where I live, and in the South, in general from what I have seen, local taxes only makes up a small portion of school funds. The rest is Federal and State money. The bulk of it is state money, and that is apportioned by need. So in most cases, for public schools, the poorest areas have the most funds!
Re: Is education no longer the ‘great equalizer’?
#413Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hold on… your claim is that students are not having their special needs met, and your solution is to put them in a school that’s even less equipped to handle their special needs? Schools absolutely should be segregated, as much as possible, by things like academic ability. That’s the only way schools can effectively meet students where they’re at. It takes a totally different strategy to help a low-performing student…
My claim is that more of the students that attend schools in impoverished areas need significant support beyond being presented instructional content than students in affluent areas, and that when students with those high needs are concentrated they are less likely to have them met. My experience as a secondary school teacher in multiple Title 1 schools was that when you are responsible for a classroom of 30 students…
This is totally opposite to my experience in public school through age 11. I never got the advanced instruction I needed, trying to mix like 4-6 stddev of ability in a single classroom never worked, and no one on the low end really benefitted from it.
Re: Is education no longer the ‘great equalizer’?
#414Earlier quoted context omitted.
>What is something the rich have done with the intent to destroy the middle class? Vigorously target labor unions. Lobby for substantial decreases in state and Federal taxation, reductions that have in turn necessitated major reductions in education spending and substantial tuition increases that hit middle class families [1]. Attempt (so far unsuccessfully) to privatize social security. Strongly oppose healthcare re…
Those examples aren't really "the rich". Business tax cuts benefit shareholders, and globally there has been a race to the bottom to pit locations against each other to try to drive profit margins. These things have largely affected manufacturing - manufacturing itself being marginalized in the greater business landscape as other more profitable industries have gained favor. Note that "the rich" are not all that inte…
The rich are the shareholders of companies. According to the Department of Labor's survey of consumer finances, the wealthiest 1% own 38% of stock. The wealthiest 5% own 71% of stock. The bottom half of the country owns 1% of the stock.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/26/upshot/stocks-pandemic-in...
> It doesn't benefit "the rich" to have a poor population, if anything it makes the rich more vulnerable.
That means after a company does its capital investments, the rich would prefer money going to wages over profits. The opposite has been the case for past centuries (not that they never lose the battle).
It may be dialectically self-destructive, but so is the arms race with Russia (and China), so is increasing carbon production. Russia's czar in the early 20th century had self-destructive properties as well.
Re: Is education no longer the ‘great equalizer’?
#415Earlier quoted context omitted.
Actually, Mark Zuckerburg went to Phillips Exeter Academy. "At Ardsley High School, Zuckerberg excelled in classes. After two years, he transferred to the private school Phillips Exeter Academy, where he won prizes in mathematics, astronomy, physics, and classical studies." [no coding classes, hmm?] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillips_Exeter_Academy The facebook idea came from the booklet tey give each class with…
"At the same time, I believe if you want to participate in the American oligarchy or compete with them, you need to become familiar with where they get their training." Well observed! This has also been my conclusion, but I have to admit a curious line of thinking it spurred. With modern technology, it should be possible to spread this training to the public. If that happened though, what would be the impact? An over…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harkness_table
The purpose of the small class size discussions and methods similar to Harkness is to teach children how to behave and interact in group discussion. You are taught mental poker with an authority figure and your cohort. I can see the value of this especially for children that will need to supervise their wealth once they become adults. It's a great way to prepare someone to supervise a family office.
I believe learning the short duration decision games and long duration meta game with professor and class inculcates people predisposed to lead and inspire/manipulate.
You need a physical setting to learn this on a daily basis over several years. Even if you are not good at it; if you recognize what is going on you won't waste time in dead end careers or partnerships with elites. That is very valuable...
It's kind of funny. When people ask me which college they should send their kid to, I always reply better to spend their money on one of these types of private high schools or boarding schools. One of these kids and a community college degree will still be better off than most... (most likely they will find a way to continue the credential game, so...)
Will the American oligarchy provide these opportunities to the general public? Never... it's costly and time consuming. They need people that submit to quarterly reviews, 0-5% raises, and tenuous year end bonuses.
Maybe we should have a FAFSA for high school...
Re: Is education no longer the ‘great equalizer’?
#416Earlier quoted context omitted.
One could argue that this historic wealth creation also coincided with a high degree of Judeo-Christian religiosity. We're yet to see if the same success can be replicated under an equally individualistic culture, but one without a unified moral fabric via religion. And I say this as an Asian who was raised a Hindu and is now an atheist.
>We're yet to see if the same success can be replicated under an equally individualistic culture, but one without a unified moral fabric via religion. Isn't China an example of that?
Re: Is education no longer the ‘great equalizer’?
#417Kid one goes to college, graduates with a degree in musical theater, has a $120k debt and gets a $50k first job in marketing. Kid two does two years an a plumbing apprentice. She's been making $45k per year, has no debt and just got her license... And is now making $90k.
Re: Is education no longer the ‘great equalizer’?
#418Earlier quoted context omitted.
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’?
#419The oligarchs have been working to detroy the middle class for a long time now (see the Norman Dodd interview or The Leipzig Connection), and education is a key piece of that work, because it truly can be a great equalizer. You will notice not just different curriculum, but entirely different methods being used at a posh place for the elite like Eton, vs a (US) public school or even most upper middle class private sc…
You’re making the same exact mistake that education activists have made for the last 60 years. Education does not significantly improve outcomes. Period. What people observe is that people who went to top-tier schools end up being very successful, and make the (totally false) inference that top-tier schools make you successful. In reality, the people who were almost certainly going to be successful anyway get into th…
Define "significant".
People who don't graduate high school do much worse than people who graduate from college on average.
Even if you only graduate high school, you'll (on average) make half as much over your lifetime as someone who graduated with a Master's Degree [1].
Right now (on average) - people who dropped out of college make nearly 1/3rd as much as people who graduated with a Master's Degree [2].
You're also 36x more likely to be in prison [3]. Only ~10% of the >25 population has not graduated high school. Despite that, 80% of prisoners have not graduated from high school. ~18% of high school drop outs are in prison. Less than 0.5% of the rest of the population is in prison.
You're also almost 50% more likely to be obese (mostly because you're more likely to be poor and live somewhere un-walkable) [4].
You also have a ~13% shorter lifespan (9 less years) [5].
Sure - an education isn't a license to be in the top 1% or have a perfect life - but it certainly helps...
[1] https://www.aplu.org/projects-and-initiatives/college-costs-...
[2] https://study.com/articles/How_Much_More_Do_College_Graduate...
[3] https://slspotlight.com/opinion/2018/03/19/high-school-dropo...
[4] http://educationbythenumbers.org/content/education-might-be-...
[5] https://www.tc.columbia.edu/articles/2005/october/high-schoo...
Re: Is education no longer the ‘great equalizer’?
#420A lot of people here need to talk to some entrepreneurs. It doesn't matter how good, or how well funded, the school system is: if the family is poor, you're not going to be able to float rent on the storefront you need, or purchase initial inventory of whatever you're making, much less soak up a few false starts, much less take out a bank loan to do any of these things. Period. This does not in ANY WAY mean there sho…
Agreed. Bill Gates was smart, but: 1) He had access to a computer via his prep school in 1968 . This is way ahead of the vast majority of people in the world. Money bought him 5-10 years of advance knowledge. 2) Gates' mother had direct access to the IBM CEO 3) Gates' father could cut a sudden check to the tune of $50,000 to back his son's business venture Kildall was just as smart as Gates, but didn't have the advan…