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Isn't that just a matter of chicken and the egg timing tautology? The parents are well educated presumably because they went to good schools.
by tesin 8y ago
Isn't that just a matter of chicken and the egg timing tautology? The parents are well educated presumably because they went to good schools.
- gaius 8y agoNot necessarily - many parents highly value education and encourage their kids despite and/or because they don’t have much themselves. Recent immigrants are a good example of this phenomenon.
- tesin 8y agoI don't disagree with that statement, but rb808 specifically cited "well educated parents".
- saagarjha 8y agoNo, I think you’re getting the relation backwards. Many parents who were well educated have the opportunities to send their children to good schools, regardless of whether they went to a good school themselves, because they realize that it makes it easier to be well educated there.
- tesin 8y agoHow would someone be well educated at a bad school? I feel like that loses any reasonable definition of good.
- saagarjha 8y agoA school's "rating" is merely an average of the quality of education students there receive. It's entirely possible to "get lucky" and have an exceptional teacher or participate in an optional extracurricular that helps them learn more than their peers. And, of course, there's also the chance that the student did well despite going to a bad school, by self-studying.
- jgamman 8y agothe best teacher(s) in a 'bad' school overlap with the worst teachers in a 'good' school. Keep in mind that there is a relationship between student and teacher and that clicking with one teacher isn't guaranteed or that after a year of growing up, you might click with a teacher you didn't get on well with the year previous.
- closeparen 8y agoAggregate test scores say more about the student/neighborhood population than the instruction. “Bad” schools become “good” as their neighborhoods gentrify, for example.
- TangoTrotFox 8y agoAnd so it's turtles, all the way down? I think a good education is more about the student than the university. The reason for the strong correlation to the contrary is because good universities get to hand pick from those overachievers whom would achieve with or without said university. And that character development happens long before one's applying to universities. That said a top university, its resources, and atmosphere of being surrounded by other top students, certainly helps foster even more success - but I expect if you take the average merit admitted MIT student and transplanted them into Party State U after 4 years you'd still find an extremely 'well educated' individual. By contrast, transplant your average Party State U student into MIT and you'd find a dropout.