The Economist has an editorial and an article about how educational achievement has become more strongly tied to parental wealth than before.
http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21640331-importance-intellectual-capital-grows-privilege-has-become-increasingly
http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21640316-children-rich-and-powerful-are-increasingly-well-suited-earning-wealth-and-power
One thing they can about it is get rid of the ridiculous ‘legacy’ preference. It’s heart-warming when your kid goes to your alma mater, but it’s not going to make me open my wallet any wider than it already is open - not enough to matter anyway. Those that are the development cases are an exception (I’m all for schools admitting a couple of very rich kids in exchange for a new dorm or library or scholarships for poor but deserving kids).
Is Caltech really THE model? Aren’t its students culled almost exclusively from the group that was taught to excel? What kind of testocracy does Caltech ignore? Academic awards of dubious creation?
Michael Young was right to warn us, but his truer warnings came many years later as he realized how poorly understood his coined term was.
The Economist hits many correct notes but is tainted by a screeching falsetto. As usual, articles on education are a mixed bag.
Thanks for the article, I needed a good laugh.
No school, no pre-school can replace the positive effects of involved parents. Pre-schools can attempt to fill the gap of parents who neglect the normal everyday interactions of involved parents, but it is still a poor substitute for parents who engage with their children from the moment of birth. Some things simply cannot be “fixed” by outside sources but need to be nurtured from inside personal lives.
This research connects parental involvement with ACT scores. http://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED533457 (Edited to correct link.)
No school, no pre-school can replace the positive effects of involved parents<<<
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Let me correct that for you.
No school, no pre-school IN THE UNITED STATES can replace the positive effects of involved parents and especially when the families that need it the most are deprived from real choices.
The failure of the system is exactly what it is: a failed monopolistic system. The only solutions are a school choice system or a public system that works. Unfortunately, the latter remains a huge failure and a spiral to utter mediocrity.
Not sure that school choice would work. We have seen successful public systems (in Finland, for instance), but you’d have to name a school choice system that actually exists in the world and is successful for me to buy it (this is the same challenge I level at many libertarian fantasies, BTW).
“The solution is not to discourage rich people from investing in their children, but to do a lot more to help clever kids who failed to pick posh parents.” - The Economist
Where are they going with that? Most of the issues with education and success begin at home. This sounds a bit like the city-state of Sparta where the kids are taken away from the parents and raised by the community. Is that what they want? Early childcare is good and we need more of it, but it’s very difficult to overcome the effects of home.
And the notion that colleges need to admit students solely on academic merit (like Caltech?) is just plain weird. If we did that, we’d be throwing away a lot of the good things that actually promote diversity and opportunity.
And, don’t bright kids who succeed in grasping the ring of opportunity just become posh parents themselves?
seen successful public systems (in Finland, for instance), but you'd have to name a school choice system that actually exists in the world and is successful for me to buy it (this is the same challenge I level at many libertarian fantasies, BTW).<<<
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If you think that Finland works, then take a look at Belgium where the school choice is protected by the Constitution. The country with a divided regional system actually offers a series of amazing insights in how schools function where all schools are part of the public and free system, including the MUCH better religious schools.
Liberal fantasies are what make people believe school choice does not work. Well, that and the usual weapons of choice, namely corruption, a overly politicized system, the abject delegation to unions, and the apathy of the so-called customers at the voting booths.
The first step, however, entails admitting how poor our k-12 really is on a ROI basis.
I think school choice or vouchers are fine as long as they are only used for secular education, and not for religious education.
I am still skeptical, but it would be great to try it in a couple of states and see if they can get results.
Then why is it ok to use pell grants at Notre Dame?
There is a supply and demand problem.
Most colleges in the USNWR/Forbes top ~50 were founded before 1900. Some of them didn’t even admit women before the 1970s. Since 1900, our population has nearly quadrupled. The number of places at “elite” colleges hasn’t kept up.
Standardized testing has to be the single most progressive innovation in the history of college admissions. If anything the standardized test is an indicator, not the cause, of insufficient and unequal opportunity.
I do not believe any school any where can make up for the deficits in a home. Cognitive development is so much more than education…add in nutrition and healthy attitudes during pregnancy, tv babysitting, lack of valuing education, fear from hunger, crime, familial instability, etc.
Conversely, involved parents can make up for other deficits. While research is not extensive, the research out there on homeschool students and academic success shows that it crosses SES and parental education level.
Wow. I hope you didn’t hurt yourself with that leap.
Leap?
Leap of…?
There was a seemingly unpopular poster on this site who is now gone, who claimed that society is/eventually will become “stratified.” The idea being, I guess, that the top performers will beget and nurture top performers, and vice versa, until society is stratified in that manner. The article reminded me of that poster’s idea.
Presumably the leap to government children grabs.
The leap from “helping clever kids who don’t have posh parents” to “kids are taken away from the parents.”
And why should such a distinction be applied? In particular, what has been the benefit of depriving Catholic schools from public funding for decades? Does the many billions saved (read the statistics) really help the society overall when there are fewer choices? Has the abject bandaid aka charter schools deliver better results, in the sole name of keeping “religious” schools out of the loop of public dollars?
The reality is that the views expressed by Friedman decades ago remain correct. All schools are public; some are just in the hands of the government. All should be funded and all should respond to a national curriculum for basic education with slight differences for religious or secular choices.
In the end, it is interesting to see how people tend to like to “small” catholic school for Pre-K to middle school when basic education is important but also seem to mind a system of equitable funding.
Does this mean that, in the end, parents (with or without training or education) can adequately REPLACE the education provided by public schools for “free” but that reverse is not true?
There are other elements. Our schools function adequately from PreK to middle school, start to show their limitations in middle school, and have their wheels fall off in high school. Correlation? Yep, the schools can only teach the students who are able to learn and have received the benefit of parental support at the early ages. The rest? Forget it … it is the fault of the parents for failing to provide the same help throughout the full K-12.
THAT is the US version of education and its system of relying on the least competitive graduates to become teachers! But THAT is not exactly how it works everywhere. The example of Finland is well covered --but perhaps not well understood. There you have a system of education that does NOT rely on extensive parental involvement. There are few demands on homework and extensive testing which have to be … prepared at home. If you look for a difference, start looking at the education of the … teachers: specialists in early development are different from subject specialists. Only in the US do we believe that pedagogy classes are adequate to later teach English or Calculus!
A solid family environment is indeed beneficial to an intellectual development. But does that mean that our extremely expensive school system should get a pass on educating ALL children? After all, is that not what the educators bargained for … Give us the exclusive right to educate and we will educate ALL?