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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’?

#171

Post by mathgladiator »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #144
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…

> 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…

its not just delegation, but the importance of strategy. In large orgs, things go fairly slow but wide. It is beyond importance that the direction set is a good direction. This requires talking to people, understanding the market, understanding trends, and the boiling it down into what the org should focus and do versus stop doing.

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

#172

Post by shados »

only_as_i_fall wrote: post #104
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…

>First, I think the ability to DO THINGS is the great equalizer at this point. How do you define that though? Do you consider someone working a minimum wage job full-time to be in this category? Someone making $15-20 an hour but without any real opportunity for advancement? I don't understand the criteria.

It's probably oversimplified but the idea is there. Maybe it would be better put as "the ability to do things the person next to you can't or won't do".

Being a cashier for a fast food joint on night shift is absolute hell on your mental and physical health, it takes a ton of endurance, and is all around not very pleasant. But a lot of people have that endurance and the ability to power through it. Being a cab driver takes a ton of time and hours and puts your safety at risk continually...but a lot of people know how to drive and risks is something anyone can take (even if they, rightly so, would rather not to).

Building a web app in a cushy office (or working from home!) is honestly not that hard and rather enjoyable, but right now not that many people can do it, so it pays well. As tools become friendlier and the knowledge spreads though, it very well might end up paying less for the simpler roles than the cashier or driver is. (like in the dot com crash).

It's always been about being able to do what others can't. Education, connections, capital, they're all means to that particular end. Shuffling assets in a fidelity account to set up a 3 fund portfolio isn't rocket science and will make you a lot of money, but most people can't do it because they lack the capital.

Thus, the ability to "DO THINGS". Some of those abilities can come from hard work, some come from luck, some from who you know, some because you were born to rich ass parents.

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

#173

Post by mnouquet »

gumby wrote: post #82
slibhb wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You don't get locked up to work in order to afford healthcare, food, etc. - and are thus more free to take chances. If Europeans are more free to take chances, why is there substantially less innovation in Europe? I don't think Europe is "worse" than the US. I think Europe is optimized for the poor whereas the US is optimized for the middle class and above. There are good arguments for both of these situations. In…

> One interesting thing is that Europeans benefit from American innovation. They have iphones, windows pcs, use google, etc like everyone else. Until the iPhone, Europe dominated the mobile phone business both in handsets and wireless network equipment. And this wasn't just the manufacturers; texting was pretty heavy and ubiquitous in the mid 1990s while it was still a novelty for the US a decade later. Europe was a…

> Until the iPhone, Europe dominated the mobile phone business

There was no such thing a "European domination", it was all Nokia, and to a much lesser extend Ericsson.

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

#174

Post by ARandumGuy »

xyzzyz wrote: post #153
ARandumGuy wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

This might have been true at some point in the past, but it is very much false now, and has been false for at least a decade or two. If local property tax revenues are low, the shortfall is made up for with state and federal funds. Just look at the data: worst performing urban schools often have more funding than better performing ones in rural areas or in smaller towns. If you don’t believe me, just show me a few ex…

The amount of local funding for public education varies wildly from state to state. In New Mexico in 2018, only 15% of public school revenue came from local sources. However, during the same year in Nebraska, that number is 53%.

So yes, in some states differences in local property tax has a minimal effect on school funding. But in other states, the issue is still a significant issue.

Source: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator/cma?tid=4

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

#175

Post by arvinsim »

zepto wrote: post #151
alexgmcm wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why is there substantially less innovation in Europe? I know people who started start-ups and spun out side projects here in Europe (both the UK and the continent). One thing I noticed was that when it came time to raise money almost of all of them ended up needing American investment. We don't have anywhere near as much VC capital here in Europe and the banks are incredibly conservative. Plus depending on the coun…

> I'd also argue it's a sort of 'digital colonialism' for want of a better term I think that’s a terrible term for it unless you think that America is somehow responsible for preventing Europe from developing its own tech industries.

But US Big Tech does affect at a global scale. What are the chances of a country developing their own search engine?

Their own mobile OS and hardware?

Their own social networking app?

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

#176

Post by minikites »

slibhb wrote: post #67
TrackerFF wrote: post #19

In a lot of European countries, a robust social safety net is the great equalizer. You don't get locked up to work in order to afford healthcare, food, etc. - and are thus more free to take chances. Furthermore, strong labor laws have compressed salaries towards the mean, so people are not locking themselves into poverty by working low-wage / low-skill work, but there's a difference enough that people are incentivize…

> You don't get locked up to work in order to afford healthcare, food, etc. - and are thus more free to take chances. If Europeans are more free to take chances, why is there substantially less innovation in Europe? I don't think Europe is "worse" than the US. I think Europe is optimized for the poor whereas the US is optimized for the middle class and above. There are good arguments for both of these situations. In…

>If Europeans are more free to take chances, why is there substantially less innovation in Europe?

What leads you to believe there is less innovation in Europe? Do you have data to back up that assertion?

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

#177

Post by gotoeleven »

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…

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 radical political agendas.

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

#179

Post by iammisc »

silvestrov wrote: post #132
iammisc wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In a lot of European countries, a robust social safety net is the great equalizer. You don't get locked up to work in order to afford healthcare, food, etc. - and are thus more free to take chances. That is a great explanation in theory, but simply does not work out in practice. In order to support the safety net, the EU has to impose several regulations that remove the ability of people to 'take chances', such as…

> higher taxes on business Denmark + Norway: 22% Sweden: 21.4% Finland: 20% Germany: 15% Nederlands: 25% France: 25% USA: 21% (but 35% until 2017). So the tax argument does not hold, especially for the period before 2017. Birth rates are also the same: https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/field/total-fertility... > the EU is not particularly excellent at any Odd that there are so many EU countries at the list of mo…

> Odd that there are so many EU countries at the list of most happy countries when EU is not good at anything

Putting words in my mouth. I never said the EU is not good at 'anything'. But it's not as good as America in terms of financing, innovation, or education.

One does not need great capital access, top-notch technology, or even the best education to be happy. You sad that european safety nets lead to the ability to 'take chances'. Typically, the result of this would be more innovation, which leads to more capital, which leads to better financing, which incentivizes education so that those with education can convince investors to invest in new innovation. However, the result you claim does not exist in Europe at the same level it exists in America.

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

#180

Post by throwaway0a5e »

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…

>I have not noticed a strong relationship between "the ability to DO THINGS" and someone's social or economic status.

Are we talking status relative to others or relative to the starting position?

There will always be the deadbeat child of someone wealthy who's still wealthier than you but all the "doers" I know have climbed the socioeconomic ladder at least a couple rungs in their adult lives.

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