7 ms·

Under the assumption that you're interested in knowing the cause of the problem, gaining insight into the factors that lead to or indicate the problem can aid i

Under the assumption that you're interested in knowing the cause of the problem, gaining insight into the factors that lead to or indicate the problem can aid in understanding. To speak in specifics rather than generalities: in this case, we see that White and Asian children do not seem to be having problems compared to their peers in other countries. Thus, we can assign a lower probability estimate to the hypothesis that the problem is the American educational system writ large. It seems to be a problem localized in certain parts of the system and population.

mikeash 13y ago
Sure, but does this give any insight? Examining one factor out of the thousands that could potentially affect this does not strike me as in any way useful, especially since it happens to be a factor that's certain to generate lots of emotion and very little rational discussion. For example, it strikes me as unlikely that these factors are actually caused by race directly. I don't buy into the PC idea that everybody is exactly, precisely the same, but the differences simply aren't all that large. What seems much more likely is that it's related to poverty. Poverty and race are highly correlated in the US for various historical reasons, and I'd wager that the charts would show just as much, if not more, link between poverty and scores as between race and scores. But we can't say for certain without a proper analysis of all potential confounding factors. Picking a single one and pretending it's automatically important is the wrong way to do it.
- ars 13y ago
  > it strikes me as unlikely that these factors are actually caused by race directly ... but the differences simply aren't all that large. These are things you want to believe, but they are not true. The reality is that race plays a huge role in intelligence. It's totally unfair, but it is what it is. Ignoring it, and believing otherwise does not make it go away, or make it better. It makes it worse. > Poverty and race are highly correlated in the US for various historical reasons Poverty is also highly correlated with intelligence. More correlated than it is to race. > link between poverty and scores as between race and scores. Of course, because poverty is a proxy to intelligence. > Picking a single one and pretending it's automatically important is the wrong way to do it. Pretending that the main one is automatically not-important because it's unfair, and/or huts your world view, is also the wrong way to do it.
  - mikeash 13y ago
    "The reality is that race plays a huge role in intelligence." I'm going to need some kind of cite for that before we go any further, you know.
    - HelloMcFly 13y ago
      I've never seen this claim convincingly supported in a way that partials out the effect of socioeconomic status, parental involvement, and geography. It's an easy claim to support if you just look at straight averages. I'm sure there is information I'm not familiar with, but I'm unimpressed with the "citations" that have followed this claim in other conversations.
    - thowawayanother 13y ago
      In the United States, low income whites perform better than high income blacks on the SAT - it's not a fact I suggest you go around citing at parties[1] " Blacks from families with incomes of more than $100,000 had a mean SAT score that was 85 points below the mean score for whites from all income levels, 139 points below the mean score of whites from families at the same income level, and 10 points below the average score of white students from families whose income was less than $10,000." [1] http://www.jbhe.com/features/49_college_admissions-test.html http://www.jbhe.com/features/49_college_admissions-test.html
      - wonderzombie 13y ago
        I should feel free to check my privilege, but this actually seems like an even-handed discussion. Scroll down to "Other Explanations for the Racial Scoring Gap on the SAT." """ Clearly, one of the main factors in explaining the SAT racial gap is that black students almost across the board are not being adequately schooled to perform well on the SAT and similar tests. Public schools in many neighborhoods with large black populations are underfunded, inadequately staffed, and ill equipped to provide the same quality of secondary education that is offered in predominantly white suburban school districts. """ """ In many cases black schoolchildren are taught by white teachers who have low opinions of the abilities of black kids from the moment they enter the classroom. These teachers immediately write off black students as academic inferiors and do not challenge them sufficiently to achieve the skills necessary to perform well on standardized tests. """ The thing is, we're nerds. We ought to think more critically than "black people are disproportionately poor and perform less well academically, oh well, that's that." Pre-chewed explanations like that ought to be anathema, especially when they're deployed in the service of a cultural agenda. But there's a disturbing tendency to ignore the US' complex and problematic history with racism. It's lazy. It's a cop-out.
- adventured 13y ago
  Yes, it provides tremendous insight. Namely that we need a lot more effort put toward educational success for black children. The unemployment rate among young black males is particularly astronomical, and it correlates directly to failures in education and a skyrocketing in poverty rates. There has been a total failure across all aspects for the black community: education, employment, crime, family formation, etc. You've got a huge swath of political parasites that abuse the black community, counting on their votes, while having done absolutely nothing to help improve the worsening rate of black poverty. You've got shyster scumbags like Jessie Jackson and Al Sharpton, that also act as parasites on the backs of black people. Always ready to prey on cheap opportunism, while under their supposed community leadership results have gotten dramatically worse. It all has to change. Separating out the data, reveals where the real problems are, and having a dialogue about it is the first step. So far, very few want to talk about it. Another glaring problem, is that America has lost its blue collar jobs. That was a core channel for upward mobility from poor > middle class, and a required staple to hold onto a large middle class. The vast erosion of quality manufacturing jobs over the last 40 years has particularly slammed people that were mostly poor to begin with - their ability to move up has been stopped (and all that destroys with it).
ryandrake 13y ago
You could just as easily plot USA-RICH and USA-POOR and conclude that wealth/income "lead to or indicate the problem". Or USA-NORTH, USA-SOUTH, USA-EAST and USA-WEST and conclude that geography "lead to or indicate the problem". I'm not sure how you can draw a causal relationship here.
- jamesaguilar 13y ago
  I would be happy to see that done. I'm not making a claim about the cause of the problem except to observe that it doesn't seem to be affecting everyone. What I'd really love to see is an application that allows you to tweak the various group-bys (I'd like to try grouping by cost-of-living-adjusted log income brackets, personally, because my current estimate of that being the most related metric is highest. Or I'd like to see what happens if you take groups of kids with the same ratial and income backgrounds from various countries. Hold some variables constant, basically.). I am only saying exactly what I said: it doesn't seem that the US educational system, in its entirety, is significantly defective relative to other countries. Some combination of the attributes of certain American populations and/or the system's effect on them is causing those populations to perform much worse than kids in European and Asian countries. This in no way spells doom for our entire country as the article argues.
PeterisP 13y ago
Let's be honest, race isn't an independent factor - at least in USA, it's highly correlated with family income and education level. If you're comparing white kids in USA with all kids in Germany, then you're comparing apples with oranges - if you're putting a filter that excludes a large portion of poor families in USA, then you should exclude the same portion of poor families from the German results. And if some other system is handling all social groups decently well, but USA fails with "certain parts of the system and population" as you say; then it's definitely a problem with "American educational system writ large".

mikeash 13y ago

Sure, but does this give any insight? Examining one factor out of the thousands that could potentially affect this does not strike me as in any way useful, especially since it happens to be a factor that's certain to generate lots of emotion and very little rational discussion. For example, it strikes me as unlikely that these factors are actually caused by race directly. I don't buy into the PC idea that everybody is exactly, precisely the same, but the differences simply aren't all that large. What seems much more likely is that it's related to poverty. Poverty and race are highly correlated in the US for various historical reasons, and I'd wager that the charts would show just as much, if not more, link between poverty and scores as between race and scores. But we can't say for certain without a proper analysis of all potential confounding factors. Picking a single one and pretending it's automatically important is the wrong way to do it.

ars 13y ago
> it strikes me as unlikely that these factors are actually caused by race directly ... but the differences simply aren't all that large. These are things you want to believe, but they are not true. The reality is that race plays a huge role in intelligence. It's totally unfair, but it is what it is. Ignoring it, and believing otherwise does not make it go away, or make it better. It makes it worse. > Poverty and race are highly correlated in the US for various historical reasons Poverty is also highly correlated with intelligence. More correlated than it is to race. > link between poverty and scores as between race and scores. Of course, because poverty is a proxy to intelligence. > Picking a single one and pretending it's automatically important is the wrong way to do it. Pretending that the main one is automatically not-important because it's unfair, and/or huts your world view, is also the wrong way to do it.
- mikeash 13y ago
  "The reality is that race plays a huge role in intelligence." I'm going to need some kind of cite for that before we go any further, you know.
  - HelloMcFly 13y ago
    I've never seen this claim convincingly supported in a way that partials out the effect of socioeconomic status, parental involvement, and geography. It's an easy claim to support if you just look at straight averages. I'm sure there is information I'm not familiar with, but I'm unimpressed with the "citations" that have followed this claim in other conversations.
  - thowawayanother 13y ago
    In the United States, low income whites perform better than high income blacks on the SAT - it's not a fact I suggest you go around citing at parties[1] " Blacks from families with incomes of more than $100,000 had a mean SAT score that was 85 points below the mean score for whites from all income levels, 139 points below the mean score of whites from families at the same income level, and 10 points below the average score of white students from families whose income was less than $10,000." [1] http://www.jbhe.com/features/49_college_admissions-test.html http://www.jbhe.com/features/49_college_admissions-test.html
    - wonderzombie 13y ago
      I should feel free to check my privilege, but this actually seems like an even-handed discussion. Scroll down to "Other Explanations for the Racial Scoring Gap on the SAT." """ Clearly, one of the main factors in explaining the SAT racial gap is that black students almost across the board are not being adequately schooled to perform well on the SAT and similar tests. Public schools in many neighborhoods with large black populations are underfunded, inadequately staffed, and ill equipped to provide the same quality of secondary education that is offered in predominantly white suburban school districts. """ """ In many cases black schoolchildren are taught by white teachers who have low opinions of the abilities of black kids from the moment they enter the classroom. These teachers immediately write off black students as academic inferiors and do not challenge them sufficiently to achieve the skills necessary to perform well on standardized tests. """ The thing is, we're nerds. We ought to think more critically than "black people are disproportionately poor and perform less well academically, oh well, that's that." Pre-chewed explanations like that ought to be anathema, especially when they're deployed in the service of a cultural agenda. But there's a disturbing tendency to ignore the US' complex and problematic history with racism. It's lazy. It's a cop-out.
adventured 13y ago
Yes, it provides tremendous insight. Namely that we need a lot more effort put toward educational success for black children. The unemployment rate among young black males is particularly astronomical, and it correlates directly to failures in education and a skyrocketing in poverty rates. There has been a total failure across all aspects for the black community: education, employment, crime, family formation, etc. You've got a huge swath of political parasites that abuse the black community, counting on their votes, while having done absolutely nothing to help improve the worsening rate of black poverty. You've got shyster scumbags like Jessie Jackson and Al Sharpton, that also act as parasites on the backs of black people. Always ready to prey on cheap opportunism, while under their supposed community leadership results have gotten dramatically worse. It all has to change. Separating out the data, reveals where the real problems are, and having a dialogue about it is the first step. So far, very few want to talk about it. Another glaring problem, is that America has lost its blue collar jobs. That was a core channel for upward mobility from poor > middle class, and a required staple to hold onto a large middle class. The vast erosion of quality manufacturing jobs over the last 40 years has particularly slammed people that were mostly poor to begin with - their ability to move up has been stopped (and all that destroys with it).

ryandrake 13y ago

You could just as easily plot USA-RICH and USA-POOR and conclude that wealth/income "lead to or indicate the problem". Or USA-NORTH, USA-SOUTH, USA-EAST and USA-WEST and conclude that geography "lead to or indicate the problem". I'm not sure how you can draw a causal relationship here.

jamesaguilar 13y ago
I would be happy to see that done. I'm not making a claim about the cause of the problem except to observe that it doesn't seem to be affecting everyone. What I'd really love to see is an application that allows you to tweak the various group-bys (I'd like to try grouping by cost-of-living-adjusted log income brackets, personally, because my current estimate of that being the most related metric is highest. Or I'd like to see what happens if you take groups of kids with the same ratial and income backgrounds from various countries. Hold some variables constant, basically.). I am only saying exactly what I said: it doesn't seem that the US educational system, in its entirety, is significantly defective relative to other countries. Some combination of the attributes of certain American populations and/or the system's effect on them is causing those populations to perform much worse than kids in European and Asian countries. This in no way spells doom for our entire country as the article argues.

PeterisP 13y ago

Let's be honest, race isn't an independent factor - at least in USA, it's highly correlated with family income and education level. If you're comparing white kids in USA with all kids in Germany, then you're comparing apples with oranges - if you're putting a filter that excludes a large portion of poor families in USA, then you should exclude the same portion of poor families from the German results. And if some other system is handling all social groups decently well, but USA fails with "certain parts of the system and population" as you say; then it's definitely a problem with "American educational system writ large".