4 ms·

Yes, but wealth is also correlated with aptitude. I'm not saying our system is perfect. Plenty of rich bozos. On the other hand, in a perfect system, to me,

Yes, but wealth is also correlated with aptitude. I'm not saying our system is perfect. Plenty of rich bozos. On the other hand, in a perfect system, to me, it seems that the highest achievers would tend to both: 1. Succeed in school and 2. Acquire wealth.

tptacek 9y ago
We're referring in this case to the wealth of parents, not of students. Students have very little control over which parents they're assigned.
- dogruck 9y ago
  Most students have the combined genetic material of their parents. Genetics are a key influence on aptitude. To be transparent, I personally benefited from public schools, and my parents were not wealthy (but they were graduates of public colleges). I'm not arguing that only wealthy people should have access to quality education. I'm just saying that it's a weak argument to point out that success in school is linked with wealth.
  - maskedSlacker 9y ago
    >I'm just saying that it's a weak argument to point out that success in school is linked with wealth. Would you like to say that the Earth is flat, disease is caused by an imbalance of humors, and Adam and Eve tamed dinosaurs for use in ancient rodeos while you're at it? Because those would have more chance of being correct than what you're saying. Socioeconomic security correlates more strongly to educational outcomes than ANY other variable, including IQ.
    - dogruck 9y ago
      Ah, the straw man technique. Well played. In a perfect system, what correlation would you expect between wealth and success in school?
      - jessaustin 9y ago
        Forget about "perfect". In a merely better system, "success in school" would be the last thing anyone thought about. The purpose of school is not to determine how well children navigate various arbitrary obstacles to learning. The purpose is to teach them, in whatever individual fashion best helps them to learn. If that doesn't happen it is a failure of the school, not of the child. In a "perfect" system, the idea that anything about school would correlate with wealth would be viewed with deep suspicion. We're very far from that situation.
        dogruck 9y ago
        I interpret your point as "in a perfect system, school will be a playground, with no connection to a career, and everyone will have equal wealth." I do agree that schools are culpable when a child (and parents) fails. I do not agree that we should take away the student's agency.
        jessaustin 9y ago
        Did school teach you to over-interpret? I don't mention playgrounds, nor the "agency" of 6yos. Do you trust your 6yo's agency next to a busy highway? No? Then why is she responsible for dealing with her teacher's poor attitude and teaching habits?
    - losvedir 9y ago
      This seems like kind of a low effort comment. Are you disputing any of these claims: * IQ or other measures of aptitude contribute to success in school * IQ/aptitude are heritable * IQ/aptitude contribute to success in life Because those all seem sort of reasonable to me, and would explain the top comment of "wealth is the largest predictor of educational attainment", without some sort of nefarious inequality good school / bad school thing going on. I think that's what GP was getting at. I think you're arguing about magnitude of effect? That, while that's true, socioeconomic status effects educational attainment far more than natural aptitude? That also seems plausible to me, although not guaranteed to be correct. Do you have any sources on the relative effects of each contribution? I'd be curious to see.
      - tptacek 9y ago
        SES and IQ are not orthogonal. In the limited studies we have, SES interventions generate durable IQ gains, gains substantially larger than the supposed gap between races. The grandparent comment is "not even wrong".
        losvedir 9y ago
        > interventions generate durable IQ gains Oh, really? That's awesome. I was under the impression this wasn't possible. Do you have any resources on what the interventions were? I'm interested from a selfish parental perspective...
        tptacek 9y ago
        Start here and follow links: https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/5/18/15655638/charles-murray-race-iq-sam-harris-science-free-speech https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/5/18/15655638/charles-... (This only looks like a Vox article; it's actually an open letter from authoritative researchers Vox happens to be publishing.)
        dogruck 9y ago
        I read the Vox piece, and I don't find it logical. Do you think a fair summary is "nature has a larger impact on IQ than nurture?" Note the article does concede that genetics impact IQ. Somewhat related: I find it amusing when parents talk at length about how similar their children are to themselves and to past relatives -- and then pivot to essentially argue that every individual has equal capabilities.
  - alexasmyths 9y ago
    "Genetics are a key influence on aptitude." Even though that may be true, I don't think for a moment that it's the driving factor. I think that culture is it. And the key one is the '5 major personality trait' - 'Conscientiousness'. Parents who are thoughtful, considerate, value education (at least in a basic way), take care of their kids well, are stable providers - create children who are much the same in life. I don't mean 'rocket science super parents'. Just good, basic parenting. This is strongly culturally ingrained. It's at the level of family, community and ethnic group. Good behaviours, consistently applied over a lifetime, over many people's lives, produce quality outcomes and a high degree of intelligent social organization among those people. And of course more wealth helps. Note: it seems that 'Private Schools' don't even provide for a better education when normalized for things like wealth [1]. So even that is not a thing. [1] http://nationalpost.com/news/canada/private-school-students-do-fare-better-academically-but-its-mainly-because-of-their-parents-study http://nationalpost.com/news/canada/private-school-students-...
michaelt 9y ago
Well, that Reardon link does state that: Finally, the growing income achievement gap does not appear to be a result of a growing achievement gap between children with highly and less-educated parents. Indeed, the relationship between parental education and children’s achievement has remained relatively stable during the last fifty years, whereas the relationship between income and achievement has grown sharply. By which presumably they mean they performed a multivariate regression, which allowed them to see the impacts of parental education and of parental income in isolation.
humanrebar 9y ago
...and wealth is also correlated with marriage rates. The thread replying to you goes on about socioeconomic indicators, but a lack of parental resources could be influencing both poverty and lack of educational success. To put it another way, if there are more single parent households this year and educational indicators didn't change, that actually sounds like a success to me. That's not to disparage single parents. It shouldn't be controversial to say single parents on average have less time, money, and energy to review homework, go on enriching family trips, go to PTA meetings, or fight the school district when they make bad decisions. Single parents deserve a lot of respect for parenting through difficulty, but the difficulty does exist.

tptacek 9y ago

We're referring in this case to the wealth of parents, not of students. Students have very little control over which parents they're assigned.

dogruck 9y ago
Most students have the combined genetic material of their parents. Genetics are a key influence on aptitude. To be transparent, I personally benefited from public schools, and my parents were not wealthy (but they were graduates of public colleges). I'm not arguing that only wealthy people should have access to quality education. I'm just saying that it's a weak argument to point out that success in school is linked with wealth.
- maskedSlacker 9y ago
  >I'm just saying that it's a weak argument to point out that success in school is linked with wealth. Would you like to say that the Earth is flat, disease is caused by an imbalance of humors, and Adam and Eve tamed dinosaurs for use in ancient rodeos while you're at it? Because those would have more chance of being correct than what you're saying. Socioeconomic security correlates more strongly to educational outcomes than ANY other variable, including IQ.
  - dogruck 9y ago
    Ah, the straw man technique. Well played. In a perfect system, what correlation would you expect between wealth and success in school?
    - jessaustin 9y ago
      Forget about "perfect". In a merely better system, "success in school" would be the last thing anyone thought about. The purpose of school is not to determine how well children navigate various arbitrary obstacles to learning. The purpose is to teach them, in whatever individual fashion best helps them to learn. If that doesn't happen it is a failure of the school, not of the child. In a "perfect" system, the idea that anything about school would correlate with wealth would be viewed with deep suspicion. We're very far from that situation.
      - dogruck 9y ago
        I interpret your point as "in a perfect system, school will be a playground, with no connection to a career, and everyone will have equal wealth." I do agree that schools are culpable when a child (and parents) fails. I do not agree that we should take away the student's agency.
        jessaustin 9y ago
        Did school teach you to over-interpret? I don't mention playgrounds, nor the "agency" of 6yos. Do you trust your 6yo's agency next to a busy highway? No? Then why is she responsible for dealing with her teacher's poor attitude and teaching habits?
  - losvedir 9y ago
    This seems like kind of a low effort comment. Are you disputing any of these claims: * IQ or other measures of aptitude contribute to success in school * IQ/aptitude are heritable * IQ/aptitude contribute to success in life Because those all seem sort of reasonable to me, and would explain the top comment of "wealth is the largest predictor of educational attainment", without some sort of nefarious inequality good school / bad school thing going on. I think that's what GP was getting at. I think you're arguing about magnitude of effect? That, while that's true, socioeconomic status effects educational attainment far more than natural aptitude? That also seems plausible to me, although not guaranteed to be correct. Do you have any sources on the relative effects of each contribution? I'd be curious to see.
    - tptacek 9y ago
      SES and IQ are not orthogonal. In the limited studies we have, SES interventions generate durable IQ gains, gains substantially larger than the supposed gap between races. The grandparent comment is "not even wrong".
      - losvedir 9y ago
        > interventions generate durable IQ gains Oh, really? That's awesome. I was under the impression this wasn't possible. Do you have any resources on what the interventions were? I'm interested from a selfish parental perspective...
        tptacek 9y ago
        Start here and follow links: https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/5/18/15655638/charles-murray-race-iq-sam-harris-science-free-speech https://www.vox.com/the-big-idea/2017/5/18/15655638/charles-... (This only looks like a Vox article; it's actually an open letter from authoritative researchers Vox happens to be publishing.)
        dogruck 9y ago
        I read the Vox piece, and I don't find it logical. Do you think a fair summary is "nature has a larger impact on IQ than nurture?" Note the article does concede that genetics impact IQ. Somewhat related: I find it amusing when parents talk at length about how similar their children are to themselves and to past relatives -- and then pivot to essentially argue that every individual has equal capabilities.
- alexasmyths 9y ago
  "Genetics are a key influence on aptitude." Even though that may be true, I don't think for a moment that it's the driving factor. I think that culture is it. And the key one is the '5 major personality trait' - 'Conscientiousness'. Parents who are thoughtful, considerate, value education (at least in a basic way), take care of their kids well, are stable providers - create children who are much the same in life. I don't mean 'rocket science super parents'. Just good, basic parenting. This is strongly culturally ingrained. It's at the level of family, community and ethnic group. Good behaviours, consistently applied over a lifetime, over many people's lives, produce quality outcomes and a high degree of intelligent social organization among those people. And of course more wealth helps. Note: it seems that 'Private Schools' don't even provide for a better education when normalized for things like wealth [1]. So even that is not a thing. [1] http://nationalpost.com/news/canada/private-school-students-do-fare-better-academically-but-its-mainly-because-of-their-parents-study http://nationalpost.com/news/canada/private-school-students-...

michaelt 9y ago

Well, that Reardon link does state that: Finally, the growing income achievement gap does not appear to be a result of a growing achievement gap between children with highly and less-educated parents. Indeed, the relationship between parental education and children’s achievement has remained relatively stable during the last fifty years, whereas the relationship between income and achievement has grown sharply. By which presumably they mean they performed a multivariate regression, which allowed them to see the impacts of parental education and of parental income in isolation.

humanrebar 9y ago

...and wealth is also correlated with marriage rates. The thread replying to you goes on about socioeconomic indicators, but a lack of parental resources could be influencing both poverty and lack of educational success. To put it another way, if there are more single parent households this year and educational indicators didn't change, that actually sounds like a success to me. That's not to disparage single parents. It shouldn't be controversial to say single parents on average have less time, money, and energy to review homework, go on enriching family trips, go to PTA meetings, or fight the school district when they make bad decisions. Single parents deserve a lot of respect for parenting through difficulty, but the difficulty does exist.