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The credibility of the article is undermined by hyperbolic statements such as, "For a lot of children, when they’re 8 years old, it’s too late. If your parents

The credibility of the article is undermined by hyperbolic statements such as, "For a lot of children, when they’re 8 years old, it’s too late. If your parents aren’t engaged in the education system, in 10 years you’ll be competing in the labor market against people whose parents sent them to violin lessons and summer programs in the Dominican Republic. There’s inequality of opportunity." It's too late for "a lot of children" by age 8? And you're underprivileged if you didn't attend a summer program in the Caribbean?

hn_throwaway_99 7y ago
I think that's an un-generous interpretation of the quote. Yes, I think there is good evidence that if you are in a poverty-stricken family and you don't get very early intervention, that by mid-elementary school it is too late for your average poor kid. The reason being that the rest of your environment of poverty is going to be pretty much pulling against you the rest of your childhood, so intervention while your hopes and goals are not yet formed is your best bet. And come on, the author wasn't saying if you didn't attend a Caribbean summer program that you're underprivileged. I believe he was just using that to highlight the pretty extreme lengths that middle class and above parents go to provide their children with educational enrichment (including music lessons, sports programs, summer camps, etc.) that put poor kids at a lifelong disadvantage.
- lilsoso 7y ago
  I largely agree with you. But the following line from the article is devastating, "For a lot of children, when they’re 8 years old, it’s too late." And this mawkish line is published under the banner of Stanford, an arbiter of the truth. I expect better. edit: My comments seem to have sparked a nerve. I simply wanted to point out bad rhetoric that undermines the cause and weakens an institution of trust. The situation is bad, so there's no need to exaggerate or lie to deliver the point. And this isn't a partisan issue. A conservative like Thiel would deliver a similar message. There is, however, a pernicious insinuation in that quote. The notion that if you haven't achieved x by y age you're done. That's a debilitating notion. And we have it in the tech community, if you can't code by z age give up. Or if you haven't achieved some startup success or some corporate title at an early age you're a failure.
  - hn_throwaway_99 7y ago
    It is possible for both to be true: For many children, if they have not had early childhood intervention, by 8 years old it is too late, but that for any individual child, they can still improve their lot later in childhood (or even, of course, well into adulthood). As a similar example, it is extremely likely that a child who is overweight or obese by middle school will be overweight or obese their entire life, and many scientists and clinicians believe that it is much easier to prevent childhood obesity than try to correct the weight imbalance later on. That doesn't mean that some people who are overweight kids won't eventually lose the weight and keep it off. Hanging on to the hope that people can change at any point in life does not mean we should ignore the fact that many of our personality and social "guiderails" are laid down pretty early.
acover 7y ago
For a lot of 8 year olds that is accurate. Imagine not being able to read at 8. If your parents don't intervene you will be handicapped for life. On the other hand if your parents tutor you then it becomes a non-event.
- AstralStorm 7y ago
  Parents who were tutoring get paid less, reducing other opportunities perhaps? (Working hypothesis, almost no parents tutor or can do so above primary school level in many field...)
csa 7y ago
The example they gave is pretty terrible, but yes, a lot has already been determined by age 8 based on parental engagement in their child’s education. That said, it’s simpler than the example they gave. Some well-established examples: - Did you read to your child from a young age? Bonus points if you did it in an “interactive” way. - Did you engage with your children in dialogue using more or less proper speech (i.e., not baby talk). Ideally this is in a wide range of topics and with different types of language (e.g., description, narration, etc.). Ideally with some modeling of good language as well. - Did/do you review your child’s homework with them? Ideally, did/do you sit with them quite a bit and review study strategies, time management, etc.? - Do you constantly have new sources of learning available to your kids, and do you encourage them to use them (ideally by engaging with said materials with them)? - Ideal but optional, do you try to give your children a wide range of experiences. Simple examples are field trips, intro to various sports, intro to various arts, etc.? The article characterizes this with very high end examples, but they can be done cheaply. The parents who do these things give their children a huge advantage in life. Some folks on HN may be asking something along the lines of “um, isn’t that what pretty much all parents do?” The answer is largely no. A common (perhaps close to median) example of poor parental engagement in the education environment: - Child is never read to... ever. Parent may not be so good at reading. - Child rarely spoken to, except via commands. Household mentality is that children are meant to be seen and not heard. - Child largely left alone to keep themselves entertained on their own in a resource-poor environment. - Child is never helped with homework. Never encouraged to learn for the sake of learning. School is often disparaged, and doing well in school may entail being abused by family members and/or peers. - Child never leaves their neighborhood, much less their town, state, or country. Much of what is seen on TV that is supposed to be a caricature of modern life is largely or completely unrelatable to the child’s own environment. - Things like going to anything cultural that is oriented towards children is non-existent. No children’s museum, no children’s theater or orchestra. Sports will be whatever (if anything) is played locally. These folks have an uphill battle in terms of fighting inequality. If you want to do something to counter the second example, support Headstart programs financially and politically. These programs have proven results, but somehow find themselves consistently compromised in terms of funding. These programs are low-hanging fruit for easy wins.
avip 7y ago
Depends on the quality of the education system, it well could be that a gap gathered by 8 will have a huge impact. The system can be quite competitive at 8 (and in some countries, as early as 5 or 6)
rjkennedy98 7y ago
My brother is a med student on the south side of Chicago, and he has been tell me about how much of a real shock it is to see how far behind some of the children are even by age 8. This isn't a lack of summer camp. It is illiteracy, completely stunted intellectual development, that is so far behind, it is obvious at the age, the child has 0 chance of competing in the US economy.
xenocyon 7y ago
If anything, age 8 is an overestimate rather than an underestimate. Nowadays, the preschool years are considered crucially important towards determining lifelong outcomes. It's a good idea to not be poor from age 0 to 2.
ACow_Adonis 7y ago
I actually had a very similar conversation with my wife last night about our son's future education (wish me luck) where I effectively said the same thing. To paraphrase my argument: reading, writing and math are too important to be taught at school or rely upon their standardised tests. if I have to wait for a test result from school to tell me my child can't do the thing, I've already failed. And in addition he'll have started on music, some sports, sciences and programming likely before he ever reaches a compulsory classroom. This idea that teachers, in a group environment, with a standardised curricula can compete with that is just downright dishonest. And the idea that this is meritocratic and that children compete on some level playing field is absurd. You can't teach finance and programming and economics well at school because most current teachers do not understand or cannot implement such into their own lives,and philosophy just isn't taught in general. By the time you reach cs 101 at university, how is the average child who learnt to type at school and that computing is an iPad with YouTube attached supposed to be realistically competing with the other students who already have 10 to 15 years of experience? and if you cannot read or do math at 8, on average, what sort of life have you had and how do you compare with children already thriving and building upon what they know? perhaps we also have a disagreement about where lower/middle skill jobs and wages are also going? you might be assuming "well, he won't thrive in comparison, but he can live a nice normal life at a "insert basic job here", under the assumption basic job will exist or have a good living standard. By all means, I want a world where learning is available to all and we tell people that they can improve, but I'm not in denial about the stark probabilistic realities a lot of kids face, and I haven't even touched upon anti-intellectual attitudes and active consumerist/marketing/ ideological strategies that are actively trying to stop people learning to be educated or think critically...
imtringued 7y ago
It's probably too late by the time the child was born. Those stupid violin lessons or summer programs are not really a sign of competence. They are just a status symbol of rich families that can afford to let their children enroll in private school and an expensive ivy league college. If you were to ask me then honestly it's only too late when you're 16 years old. At that point you should already know what type of college degree you want and you should have at least some experience in whatever you're going to spend 4-5 years of your life studying. But this has more to do with "finding yourself" than economic opportunity. If all you want to be is a corporate drone with a paycheck then you just need to look at the average salaries and the dropout rate to make sure you don't fail at something you're not passionate about.
barberousse 7y ago
Hi, black software engineer from Chicago's West side. From 1st through 4th, I attended a community elementary school where my older sister and I were the only students who could effectively read at all. The entire school was participating in a remedial education program where all the textbooks, 1st through 6th or so, broke words in sentences down by syllable. They barely practiced math, they were so focused on just getting the ability to read to be set in. This created immense ostracization for my sister and I. She graduated after two years whereas I stuck around for another two through fourth. To give you an idea what some of the parents were on, once a bunch of classmates, whom I somehow got grouped into, were held for detention after school in class in third grade because they were ruthlessly making fun of a girl. As we all mandatorily stood with our hands on our heads, I watched as her father walked her MUCH OLDER MALE COUSIN into the class, after school hours, and proceeded to order him to beat each of us up one-by-one for making fun of his daughter. I was second to last for a beating when my third-grade teacher finally returned to the class and stopped this assault. Mind you, my mother worked at the school and this older cousin knew this and knew her as well. I've also seen kids smacked around and chastised _in front of the class_, by their parent, for failing to fight back in a fight (which is kinda important to learn, but that ain't the way to do it). After years of this someone finally took notice and transferred me to a school in a historically Jewish neighborhood on the north end of the city where I was finally surrounded by children that were my academic peers, on a hour or so bus ride each day early in the morning. My first day of class in my new school was when I discovered there was this thing called cursive writing. I don't think enough people understand the situation for a growing child in the tougher areas of Chicago, this was just all in the 90s, things are worse now.

hn_throwaway_99 7y ago

I think that's an un-generous interpretation of the quote. Yes, I think there is good evidence that if you are in a poverty-stricken family and you don't get very early intervention, that by mid-elementary school it is too late for your average poor kid. The reason being that the rest of your environment of poverty is going to be pretty much pulling against you the rest of your childhood, so intervention while your hopes and goals are not yet formed is your best bet. And come on, the author wasn't saying if you didn't attend a Caribbean summer program that you're underprivileged. I believe he was just using that to highlight the pretty extreme lengths that middle class and above parents go to provide their children with educational enrichment (including music lessons, sports programs, summer camps, etc.) that put poor kids at a lifelong disadvantage.

lilsoso 7y ago
I largely agree with you. But the following line from the article is devastating, "For a lot of children, when they’re 8 years old, it’s too late." And this mawkish line is published under the banner of Stanford, an arbiter of the truth. I expect better. edit: My comments seem to have sparked a nerve. I simply wanted to point out bad rhetoric that undermines the cause and weakens an institution of trust. The situation is bad, so there's no need to exaggerate or lie to deliver the point. And this isn't a partisan issue. A conservative like Thiel would deliver a similar message. There is, however, a pernicious insinuation in that quote. The notion that if you haven't achieved x by y age you're done. That's a debilitating notion. And we have it in the tech community, if you can't code by z age give up. Or if you haven't achieved some startup success or some corporate title at an early age you're a failure.
- hn_throwaway_99 7y ago
  It is possible for both to be true: For many children, if they have not had early childhood intervention, by 8 years old it is too late, but that for any individual child, they can still improve their lot later in childhood (or even, of course, well into adulthood). As a similar example, it is extremely likely that a child who is overweight or obese by middle school will be overweight or obese their entire life, and many scientists and clinicians believe that it is much easier to prevent childhood obesity than try to correct the weight imbalance later on. That doesn't mean that some people who are overweight kids won't eventually lose the weight and keep it off. Hanging on to the hope that people can change at any point in life does not mean we should ignore the fact that many of our personality and social "guiderails" are laid down pretty early.

acover 7y ago

For a lot of 8 year olds that is accurate. Imagine not being able to read at 8. If your parents don't intervene you will be handicapped for life. On the other hand if your parents tutor you then it becomes a non-event.

AstralStorm 7y ago
Parents who were tutoring get paid less, reducing other opportunities perhaps? (Working hypothesis, almost no parents tutor or can do so above primary school level in many field...)

csa 7y ago

The example they gave is pretty terrible, but yes, a lot has already been determined by age 8 based on parental engagement in their child’s education. That said, it’s simpler than the example they gave. Some well-established examples: - Did you read to your child from a young age? Bonus points if you did it in an “interactive” way. - Did you engage with your children in dialogue using more or less proper speech (i.e., not baby talk). Ideally this is in a wide range of topics and with different types of language (e.g., description, narration, etc.). Ideally with some modeling of good language as well. - Did/do you review your child’s homework with them? Ideally, did/do you sit with them quite a bit and review study strategies, time management, etc.? - Do you constantly have new sources of learning available to your kids, and do you encourage them to use them (ideally by engaging with said materials with them)? - Ideal but optional, do you try to give your children a wide range of experiences. Simple examples are field trips, intro to various sports, intro to various arts, etc.? The article characterizes this with very high end examples, but they can be done cheaply. The parents who do these things give their children a huge advantage in life. Some folks on HN may be asking something along the lines of “um, isn’t that what pretty much all parents do?” The answer is largely no. A common (perhaps close to median) example of poor parental engagement in the education environment: - Child is never read to... ever. Parent may not be so good at reading. - Child rarely spoken to, except via commands. Household mentality is that children are meant to be seen and not heard. - Child largely left alone to keep themselves entertained on their own in a resource-poor environment. - Child is never helped with homework. Never encouraged to learn for the sake of learning. School is often disparaged, and doing well in school may entail being abused by family members and/or peers. - Child never leaves their neighborhood, much less their town, state, or country. Much of what is seen on TV that is supposed to be a caricature of modern life is largely or completely unrelatable to the child’s own environment. - Things like going to anything cultural that is oriented towards children is non-existent. No children’s museum, no children’s theater or orchestra. Sports will be whatever (if anything) is played locally. These folks have an uphill battle in terms of fighting inequality. If you want to do something to counter the second example, support Headstart programs financially and politically. These programs have proven results, but somehow find themselves consistently compromised in terms of funding. These programs are low-hanging fruit for easy wins.

avip 7y ago

Depends on the quality of the education system, it well could be that a gap gathered by 8 will have a huge impact. The system can be quite competitive at 8 (and in some countries, as early as 5 or 6)

rjkennedy98 7y ago

My brother is a med student on the south side of Chicago, and he has been tell me about how much of a real shock it is to see how far behind some of the children are even by age 8. This isn't a lack of summer camp. It is illiteracy, completely stunted intellectual development, that is so far behind, it is obvious at the age, the child has 0 chance of competing in the US economy.

xenocyon 7y ago

If anything, age 8 is an overestimate rather than an underestimate. Nowadays, the preschool years are considered crucially important towards determining lifelong outcomes. It's a good idea to not be poor from age 0 to 2.

ACow_Adonis 7y ago

I actually had a very similar conversation with my wife last night about our son's future education (wish me luck) where I effectively said the same thing. To paraphrase my argument: reading, writing and math are too important to be taught at school or rely upon their standardised tests. if I have to wait for a test result from school to tell me my child can't do the thing, I've already failed. And in addition he'll have started on music, some sports, sciences and programming likely before he ever reaches a compulsory classroom. This idea that teachers, in a group environment, with a standardised curricula can compete with that is just downright dishonest. And the idea that this is meritocratic and that children compete on some level playing field is absurd. You can't teach finance and programming and economics well at school because most current teachers do not understand or cannot implement such into their own lives,and philosophy just isn't taught in general. By the time you reach cs 101 at university, how is the average child who learnt to type at school and that computing is an iPad with YouTube attached supposed to be realistically competing with the other students who already have 10 to 15 years of experience? and if you cannot read or do math at 8, on average, what sort of life have you had and how do you compare with children already thriving and building upon what they know? perhaps we also have a disagreement about where lower/middle skill jobs and wages are also going? you might be assuming "well, he won't thrive in comparison, but he can live a nice normal life at a "insert basic job here", under the assumption basic job will exist or have a good living standard. By all means, I want a world where learning is available to all and we tell people that they can improve, but I'm not in denial about the stark probabilistic realities a lot of kids face, and I haven't even touched upon anti-intellectual attitudes and active consumerist/marketing/ ideological strategies that are actively trying to stop people learning to be educated or think critically...

imtringued 7y ago

It's probably too late by the time the child was born. Those stupid violin lessons or summer programs are not really a sign of competence. They are just a status symbol of rich families that can afford to let their children enroll in private school and an expensive ivy league college. If you were to ask me then honestly it's only too late when you're 16 years old. At that point you should already know what type of college degree you want and you should have at least some experience in whatever you're going to spend 4-5 years of your life studying. But this has more to do with "finding yourself" than economic opportunity. If all you want to be is a corporate drone with a paycheck then you just need to look at the average salaries and the dropout rate to make sure you don't fail at something you're not passionate about.

barberousse 7y ago

Hi, black software engineer from Chicago's West side. From 1st through 4th, I attended a community elementary school where my older sister and I were the only students who could effectively read at all. The entire school was participating in a remedial education program where all the textbooks, 1st through 6th or so, broke words in sentences down by syllable. They barely practiced math, they were so focused on just getting the ability to read to be set in. This created immense ostracization for my sister and I. She graduated after two years whereas I stuck around for another two through fourth. To give you an idea what some of the parents were on, once a bunch of classmates, whom I somehow got grouped into, were held for detention after school in class in third grade because they were ruthlessly making fun of a girl. As we all mandatorily stood with our hands on our heads, I watched as her father walked her MUCH OLDER MALE COUSIN into the class, after school hours, and proceeded to order him to beat each of us up one-by-one for making fun of his daughter. I was second to last for a beating when my third-grade teacher finally returned to the class and stopped this assault. Mind you, my mother worked at the school and this older cousin knew this and knew her as well. I've also seen kids smacked around and chastised _in front of the class_, by their parent, for failing to fight back in a fight (which is kinda important to learn, but that ain't the way to do it). After years of this someone finally took notice and transferred me to a school in a historically Jewish neighborhood on the north end of the city where I was finally surrounded by children that were my academic peers, on a hour or so bus ride each day early in the morning. My first day of class in my new school was when I discovered there was this thing called cursive writing. I don't think enough people understand the situation for a growing child in the tougher areas of Chicago, this was just all in the 90s, things are worse now.