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While you are correct that good schools are caused by good students, it's not strictly accurate to say that "statistically speaking, is largely a function of ra

While you are correct that good schools are caused by good students, it's not strictly accurate to say that "statistically speaking, is largely a function of race and income". Being a good student is largely a function of intelligence and conscientiousness, which is largely a function of parental intelligence and conscientiousness. Income doesn't cause intelligence or conscientiousness, although it may be partially caused by them.

015UUZn8aEvW 4y ago
Agreed, this is a more precise way of stating it, albeit using traits that are more difficult to measure at scale.
nicoburns 4y ago
Income can have a huge effect on observed "conscientiousness". If a student is having to spend effort on looking after their siblings, or their parents, or worrying about how they're going to eat then it's going to be much harder for them to focus on school.
lijogdfljk 4y ago
I've always believed, though i'm unsure of specific studies that back this claim up, that income is dominant in defining these traits not because wealth translates to intelligence but that poverty inhibits it. Stressors make everything difficult, of which poverty is a massive one.
mschuster91 4y ago
> Being a good student is largely a function of intelligence and conscientiousness, which is largely a function of parental intelligence and conscientiousness Only partially - only ~40-50% of a person's IQ are a result of parental genetics [3]. The rest is a result of the environment in which the child is raised - and there are very important factors at play that directly correlate with income of the parents: - Does each child have their own, adequately sized, room with a study desk to work in and concentrate? During the pandemic it turned out to be a real problem that children who had to share rooms had issues following streamed lectures. - Are the living conditions actually healthy? Poor people are often forced by their poverty to live in decrepit conditions: noise from highways or rails, toxic emissions from nearby factories, general issues with toxicity (paint, lead water pipes, mould). All of this has direct outcome on performance of students. - Do the children, particularly those of working age (14 and above, but especially 16 and above) have to work actual jobs to make pocket money or contribute to household income? - Are the parents largely absent from their children's lives because both parents have to work full-time or worse jobs just to make ends meet? - Can the parents invest time and money into furthering their children's education? Can they sit together with them in the afternoon/evening and work through homework problems? Can they afford side education, playing instruments or similar activities that have been shown to have a positive effect on education? - Do the parents have enough money to feed the children? Hundreds of thousands of students alone in New York depend on schools handing out free lunches, which turned out to be a massive problem during the pandemic [1]. - Poverty causes stress - not just from being cooped together in too small living spaces, but also in food insecurity, increased fights between parents over the stress, or in the worst cases from literally being homeless [2]. [1] https://www.foodandwine.com/news/new-york-city-school-children-free-food-coronavirus https://www.foodandwine.com/news/new-york-city-school-childr... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/08/nyregion/nyc-homeless-children-pandemic.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/08/nyregion/nyc-homeless-chi... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ#Molecular_genetic_investigations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ#Molecular_g...
- 015UUZn8aEvW 4y ago
  If these family-level environmental inputs had substantial effects on adult IQ, we'd see it in the behavioral genetics research. But we don't. The adult IQs of adopted children have very little correlation with those of the adoptive parents who raised them or those of their adopted, non-biological siblings.
  - mschuster91 4y ago
    > If these family-level environmental inputs had substantial effects on adult IQ, we'd see it in the behavioral genetics research. But we don't. Actually there is a direct correlation between adult IQ and stress [1], it isn't genetic though. > The adult IQs of adopted children have very little correlation with those of the adoptive parents who raised them or those of their adopted, non-biological siblings. To quote [2]: "Studies of mixed-race children and black children adopted by white parents suggest, however, that racial differences in test performance are largely if not entirely environmental in origin." In any case the question is open if "IQ testing" is actually a decent measure of intelligence, especially with children that suffer from a variety of stuff somewhere on the ADHD/autism spectrum (e.g. selective mutism, anxiety issues), or if it can be used as a metric at all due to disparities in testing incidence between population segments - often enough, it's teachers who recommend IQ and ADHD tests, and there have been a number of suggestions that racial and other discrimination can negatively affect children there. [1] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/making-sense/analysis-how-poverty-can-drive-down-intelligence https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/making-sense/analysis-h... [2] https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-black-white-test-score-gap-why-it-persists-and-what-can-be-done/ https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-black-white-test-scor...
- annyeonghada 4y ago
  >Does each child have their own, adequately sized, room with a study desk to work in and concentrate? During the pandemic it turned out to be a real problem that children who had to share rooms had issues following streamed lectures. I had a small that I shared with two brothers. My desk was minuscule. I had top grades. >Do the children, particularly those of working age (14 and above, but especially 16 and above) have to work actual jobs to make pocket money or contribute to household income? My family was so poor at a time we didn't have the money to pay the mortgage and the bank wanted to take our house. I had top grades. >Are the parents largely absent from their children's lives because both parents have to work full-time or worse jobs just to make ends meet? My parents were and are apathetic to my existence. I had top grades. >Can the parents invest time and money into furthering their children's education? Can they sit together with them in the afternoon/evening and work through homework problems? Can they afford side education, playing instruments or similar activities that have been shown to have a positive effect on education? None of that existed in my house. Nobody helped me doing homework and nobody sit with me exploring my life path. I rented instruments and asked as few money as possible. I had top grades. >Do the parents have enough money to feed the children? Hundreds of thousands of students alone in New York depend on schools handing out free lunches, which turned out to be a massive problem during the pandemic. Admittedly, even in poverty we never were hungry. >Poverty causes stress - not just from being cooped together in too small living spaces, but also in food insecurity, increased fights between parents over the stress, or in the worst cases from literally being homeless. This I wholeheartedly agree, that's why the "money doesn't make you happy" is such a lie. I know my tone was rather flippant but the relationship between money, stress and academics is so important to me. And by the way, even after all these top grades, and a Physics degree and speaking English, French, Italian and German and whatever I haven't escaped poverty. I'm back living to my parents at 27. It seems like the best way to make money in Italy is to inherit it.

015UUZn8aEvW 4y ago

Agreed, this is a more precise way of stating it, albeit using traits that are more difficult to measure at scale.

nicoburns 4y ago

Income can have a huge effect on observed "conscientiousness". If a student is having to spend effort on looking after their siblings, or their parents, or worrying about how they're going to eat then it's going to be much harder for them to focus on school.

lijogdfljk 4y ago

I've always believed, though i'm unsure of specific studies that back this claim up, that income is dominant in defining these traits not because wealth translates to intelligence but that poverty inhibits it. Stressors make everything difficult, of which poverty is a massive one.

mschuster91 4y ago

> Being a good student is largely a function of intelligence and conscientiousness, which is largely a function of parental intelligence and conscientiousness Only partially - only ~40-50% of a person's IQ are a result of parental genetics [3]. The rest is a result of the environment in which the child is raised - and there are very important factors at play that directly correlate with income of the parents: - Does each child have their own, adequately sized, room with a study desk to work in and concentrate? During the pandemic it turned out to be a real problem that children who had to share rooms had issues following streamed lectures. - Are the living conditions actually healthy? Poor people are often forced by their poverty to live in decrepit conditions: noise from highways or rails, toxic emissions from nearby factories, general issues with toxicity (paint, lead water pipes, mould). All of this has direct outcome on performance of students. - Do the children, particularly those of working age (14 and above, but especially 16 and above) have to work actual jobs to make pocket money or contribute to household income? - Are the parents largely absent from their children's lives because both parents have to work full-time or worse jobs just to make ends meet? - Can the parents invest time and money into furthering their children's education? Can they sit together with them in the afternoon/evening and work through homework problems? Can they afford side education, playing instruments or similar activities that have been shown to have a positive effect on education? - Do the parents have enough money to feed the children? Hundreds of thousands of students alone in New York depend on schools handing out free lunches, which turned out to be a massive problem during the pandemic [1]. - Poverty causes stress - not just from being cooped together in too small living spaces, but also in food insecurity, increased fights between parents over the stress, or in the worst cases from literally being homeless [2]. [1] https://www.foodandwine.com/news/new-york-city-school-children-free-food-coronavirus https://www.foodandwine.com/news/new-york-city-school-childr... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/08/nyregion/nyc-homeless-children-pandemic.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/08/nyregion/nyc-homeless-chi... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ#Molecular_genetic_investigations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ#Molecular_g...

015UUZn8aEvW 4y ago
If these family-level environmental inputs had substantial effects on adult IQ, we'd see it in the behavioral genetics research. But we don't. The adult IQs of adopted children have very little correlation with those of the adoptive parents who raised them or those of their adopted, non-biological siblings.
- mschuster91 4y ago
  > If these family-level environmental inputs had substantial effects on adult IQ, we'd see it in the behavioral genetics research. But we don't. Actually there is a direct correlation between adult IQ and stress [1], it isn't genetic though. > The adult IQs of adopted children have very little correlation with those of the adoptive parents who raised them or those of their adopted, non-biological siblings. To quote [2]: "Studies of mixed-race children and black children adopted by white parents suggest, however, that racial differences in test performance are largely if not entirely environmental in origin." In any case the question is open if "IQ testing" is actually a decent measure of intelligence, especially with children that suffer from a variety of stuff somewhere on the ADHD/autism spectrum (e.g. selective mutism, anxiety issues), or if it can be used as a metric at all due to disparities in testing incidence between population segments - often enough, it's teachers who recommend IQ and ADHD tests, and there have been a number of suggestions that racial and other discrimination can negatively affect children there. [1] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/making-sense/analysis-how-poverty-can-drive-down-intelligence https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/making-sense/analysis-h... [2] https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-black-white-test-score-gap-why-it-persists-and-what-can-be-done/ https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-black-white-test-scor...
annyeonghada 4y ago
>Does each child have their own, adequately sized, room with a study desk to work in and concentrate? During the pandemic it turned out to be a real problem that children who had to share rooms had issues following streamed lectures. I had a small that I shared with two brothers. My desk was minuscule. I had top grades. >Do the children, particularly those of working age (14 and above, but especially 16 and above) have to work actual jobs to make pocket money or contribute to household income? My family was so poor at a time we didn't have the money to pay the mortgage and the bank wanted to take our house. I had top grades. >Are the parents largely absent from their children's lives because both parents have to work full-time or worse jobs just to make ends meet? My parents were and are apathetic to my existence. I had top grades. >Can the parents invest time and money into furthering their children's education? Can they sit together with them in the afternoon/evening and work through homework problems? Can they afford side education, playing instruments or similar activities that have been shown to have a positive effect on education? None of that existed in my house. Nobody helped me doing homework and nobody sit with me exploring my life path. I rented instruments and asked as few money as possible. I had top grades. >Do the parents have enough money to feed the children? Hundreds of thousands of students alone in New York depend on schools handing out free lunches, which turned out to be a massive problem during the pandemic. Admittedly, even in poverty we never were hungry. >Poverty causes stress - not just from being cooped together in too small living spaces, but also in food insecurity, increased fights between parents over the stress, or in the worst cases from literally being homeless. This I wholeheartedly agree, that's why the "money doesn't make you happy" is such a lie. I know my tone was rather flippant but the relationship between money, stress and academics is so important to me. And by the way, even after all these top grades, and a Physics degree and speaking English, French, Italian and German and whatever I haven't escaped poverty. I'm back living to my parents at 27. It seems like the best way to make money in Italy is to inherit it.