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Rich, Black, Flunking

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Re: Rich, Black, Flunking

#111

Post by dasil003 »

dschobel wrote: post #100
dasil003 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a more scientific approach is of little help here. The issue is too emotionally charged. Most people have pre-conceived notions about where the problem lies, and they will go to great lengths to cherry pick their evidence. Ogbu's research is useful today simply because political correctness has reached a point where we can't even consider the role minorities play in their own academic achievement. 50 years ag…

This is what struck me most about the academics (!) who were criticizing his work in the article. "I find it useless to argue with people like Ogbu," says Urban League educational fellow Ronald Ross, himself a former school superintendent. "We know what the major problems in this school system are: racism, lack of funding, and unqualified teachers." This guy's issue isn't with any particular bit of Ogbu's methodology…

To be fair, an academic administrator is not really an academic.

Re: Rich, Black, Flunking

#112

Post by ori_b »

nestlequ1k wrote: post #83
natrius wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Switching jobs introduces a risk of not liking the new job. If you enjoy your current job and it pays you more than enough to make you happy, switching for $30k sounds like it would be a bad idea to me. Money can't buy happiness.

Having a comfortable job long term with this attitude is career suicide. Not only should you be constantly trying to advance financially, you need to be learning new things with different roles and environments. Else you risk putting all your eggs in one basket, with no where to go if your longtime comfortable position vanishes some day.

Financial gain is independent of learning new roles and environments. I wouldn't be comfortable in a job where I wasn't constantly expanding my knowledge and learning new things. However, once I make enough money to cover good food, nice housing, and a few adult toys, I couldn't care less about how much I earn. Making more money is a very small factor in my career decisions.

Re: Rich, Black, Flunking

#113

Post by llimllib »

gruseom wrote: post #63
dpatru wrote: post #12

Reminds me of a passage from Philip Greenspun's article, How to Become as Rich as Bill Gates, http://philip.greenspun.com/bg/ : When I arrived at MIT as a first-year graduate student in electrical engineering and computer science, I asked a professor for help with a research problem. He said "The reason that you've having trouble is that you don't know anything and you're not working very hard." A friend of mine was…

I don't think your two stories are the same thing. The MIT professor was being blunt, but not rude, and providing helpful advice (if not in a pleasant form). The medical professor was being rude to the point of abuse, and was not being helpful so much as an enforcer of the insane culture of medical training that causes residents to have to stay up for several nights in a row in the first place. (IIRC, sleep deprivati…

> (IIRC, sleep deprivation has been shown to lead to increased medical errors.)

It has[1]. However, it's not as cut-and-dried as it might seem at first. Decreased hours for physicians lead to more handoffs between physicians, and each handoff is a potential source of error[2].

Therefore, a proper balance between hours and handoffs, as well as new institutional practices, are required to bring patient safety to an optimal level.

[1]: http://sumerdoc.blogspot.com/2006/04/sleep-deprivation-leads...

[2]: http://www.boston.com/news/health/blog/2008/09/hazards_of_ha...

Re: Rich, Black, Flunking

#114

Post by llimllib »

thinkcomp wrote: post #43

I grew up in Shaker Heights (SHHS '01) and happened to visit Shaker Heights High School for the first time on the afternoon in 1997 that The Shakerite released its article comparing SAT scores across races. It was pretty nuts. I tend to agree with the conclusion that it's an attitude issue on the part of most (but not all) African-American parents more than any kind of funding or other issue. As I wrote about in my b…

Have you read about the Schelling model of segregation? It is a model where non-racists can segregate due only to a slight preference to not be completely outnumbered.

I speculate that the phenomenon you observed in the lunchroom could have been caused by a mechanism similar to the one described in Schelling's model.

http://timharford.com/2009/03/the-logic-of-life-racial-segre... http://web.mit.edu/rajsingh/www/lab/alife/schelling.html

Re: Rich, Black, Flunking

#115

Post by yters »

ilamont wrote: post #23

Best quote: "'I find it useless to argue with people like Ogbu,' says Urban League educational fellow Ronald Ross, himself a former school superintendent. 'We know what the major problems in this school system are: racism, lack of funding, and unqualified teachers.' Although Shaker Heights is in fact an integrated, well-funded, and well-staffed school district, Ross is nonetheless convinced that it suffers from other…

I think a big impact on a child's ability to move up in the world is whether they have a father. I recall a study out there saying there is a distinct difference in income between a child from single and two parent homes.

Re: Rich, Black, Flunking

#116

Post by dschobel »

maarek wrote: post #101
dschobel wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is what struck me most about the academics (!) who were criticizing his work in the article. "I find it useless to argue with people like Ogbu," says Urban League educational fellow Ronald Ross, himself a former school superintendent. "We know what the major problems in this school system are: racism, lack of funding, and unqualified teachers." This guy's issue isn't with any particular bit of Ogbu's methodology…

It sounds like you don't know many academics.

I do but they're all from engineering disciplines. Maybe that's the problem.

Re: Rich, Black, Flunking

#117

Post by thras »

radu_floricica wrote: post #103
thras wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Impulse control is strongly linked with IQ. Also, which 0.8 correlation were you asking about?

Can you point me in a direction for source? Academic success and income, sorry.

Here's .8 for academic success: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi...

I'm sorry about the number for income -- everyone has it at a correlation of .3 to .6. I believe that I was thinking of Lynn's numbers for national incomes, which is correlated at .7 or so to average IQ.

Re: Rich, Black, Flunking

#118

Post by nvoorhies »

steveklabnik wrote: post #77
hyperbovine wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're making 300k you're in the top one percent, or very near: http://pubdb3.census.gov/macro/032007/hhinc/new06_000.htm There's a lot of room at the bottom.

They were talking about $300k from a two-income household. Not that it makes you middle class, but that $100k-$150k bracket is fairly large.

The data is per-household.

Re: Rich, Black, Flunking

#119

Post by berntb »

ori_b wrote: post #112
nestlequ1k wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having a comfortable job long term with this attitude is career suicide. Not only should you be constantly trying to advance financially, you need to be learning new things with different roles and environments. Else you risk putting all your eggs in one basket, with no where to go if your longtime comfortable position vanishes some day.

Financial gain is independent of learning new roles and environments. I wouldn't be comfortable in a job where I wasn't constantly expanding my knowledge and learning new things. However, once I make enough money to cover good food, nice housing, and a few adult toys, I couldn't care less about how much I earn. Making more money is a very small factor in my career decisions.

I seriously think the three contradicting people commenting on each others are right (P, GP, GGP). :-)

I think people differs a lot in these kind of priorities. (Well, maybe not so much on HN.)

Re: Rich, Black, Flunking

#120

Post by fburnaby »

hooande wrote: post #94

"On average, black students earned a 1.9 GPA while their white counterparts held down an average of 3.45" The ratio between black and white GPAs = .55 "Ogbu worked from the 1990 census data, which showed that 32.6 percent of the black households and 58 percent of the white households in Shaker had incomes of $50,000 a year or more" The ratio between number of blacks/white making above $50k/yr = .56

3+3=6, 30/5=6. Sorry for the snark, but what's your proposed interpretation? That it's all socioeconomic?
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