31–40 of 63 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you suggesting that children in poorer families are born less smart than children from wealthier families?
Absolutely. Because smart people are better at making money and intelligence is a heritable trait.
> one of the consequences is precisely the reverse of its aims So... was the aim to reduce cheating, or was it just to disadvantage the richer kids? Because if the aim was really to reduce cheating, then I can't see how any of the consequences were precisely the reverse of the aims.
The aim was to show that in the absence of academic cheating, a meritocracy would emerge. What the researcher realized was that the deck was stacked against poorer students and in favor of richer students...in essence, the cheating/rigging was happening before the kids walked into school...and the academic cheating was a response to level the playing field.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Absolutely. Because smart people are better at making money and intelligence is a heritable trait.
Only if you simplistically ignore that social status and wealth are also heritable and make it much easier to make money regardless of intelligence.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Absolutely. Because smart people are better at making money and intelligence is a heritable trait.
Only if you simplistically ignore that social status and wealth are also heritable and make it much easier to make money regardless of intelligence.
Unless, of course, intelligence is "bad" for the wealthy and "good" for the poor, but I doubt that's the case...
> one of the consequences is precisely the reverse of its aims So... was the aim to reduce cheating, or was it just to disadvantage the richer kids? Because if the aim was really to reduce cheating, then I can't see how any of the consequences were precisely the reverse of the aims.
The aim was to show that in the absence of academic cheating, a meritocracy would emerge. What the researcher realized was that the deck was stacked against poorer students and in favor of richer students...in essence, the cheating/rigging was happening before the kids walked into school...and the academic cheating was a response to level the playing field.
What I find most interesting about the article is the complete lack of concern if the anti-corruption efforts have had an effect on absolute performance. It is though what is important is the pass rate on the exams, not the learning the material tested.
> one of the consequences is precisely the reverse of its aims So... was the aim to reduce cheating, or was it just to disadvantage the richer kids? Because if the aim was really to reduce cheating, then I can't see how any of the consequences were precisely the reverse of the aims.
I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader to imagine what such an expectation might betray.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Social status doesn't make you get bad grades on exams. Being stupid does. You can expect kids with poorer parents to do worse on exams in any place where smart people are better at making money.
There are no places where social status does not make it easier to make money.
Who lost the most marks when cheating was stopped? Those of lower socio-economic status. Because those of such status generally engage in higher rates of criminal behavior [1], why is this presumed to be surprising? It seems to me that the basis of the author's misunderstanding that leads to their surprise is the narrative of wealthy people being more likely to be corrupt on a per capita basis, which clearly runs cou…
Did you read the article? Here's the relevant parts: The most likely culprit, it emerged, was that the "collective" and "petty" forms of corruption, as witnessed by Dr Borcan herself, had a curious effect: they might be paid for chiefly by well-off students bribing invigilators, but everyone benefited. It gave the poorer students "a free ride" to higher marks. It also meant that when cheating was removed, the academi…
The point is rather that such a result only comes as a surprise if one has a strong a priori expectation that rich people cheat more than poor people. Otherwise one would predict exactly this effect.