One Percent Education

[annasdad]

<p>

After seeing how our ruling elite run up unbelievable deficits (and don’t seem to know how to get out of it), get us into all kinds of silly wars, and almost accidentally or intentionally destroy our banking system, I am embarrassed to see them lecture the Chinese on how they should pick their leaders. I really am.

</p>

<p>Me too…</p>

[frazzled1]

<p>I have faith in human nature. The “ruling elite” will let the Chinese down, too - eventually.</p>

[Kajon]

<p>I realize nothing can take the place of a real live teacher, but why not use Khan Academy or even the free MIT lectures help the poorer schools bridge the gap? </p>

<p>There are many kids attending internet schools where they are exposed to high end on-line lectures and subject matter. Why do we not utilize these tools in our failing schools?</p>

[DocT]

<p>" I am embarrassed to see them lecture the Chinese on how they should pick their leaders. I really am. "</p>

<p>I agree, the Chinese system is definitely better as long as you don’t mind horrendous pollution, atrocious safety records and if you don’t mind being forced to move from 1 side of the river to the other because of a dam.</p>

[alh]

<p>

Sure, there are students who gather up credentials in a sort of scavenger hunt towards college application season, checking off each bit of required achievement. But there are many others who come by their incredible credentials honestly. The gifted writer who devours literature, the activist who creates a nonprofit because they see a need that must be met, the budding engineer whose love of robotics leads to epic wins at FIRST.

</p>

<p>I agree that many come by their credentials honestly. (my own kids, for example :)) But how many with incredible credentials come from very enriched backgrounds? And how many come from

the nearly 27 percent of American households with poverty-level incomes of less than $25,500. ?

</p>

<p>Is it possible for children born today to families with a poverty level income to make it into the top 1% or 5% or even 10%?</p>

<p>And if they can’t make it, is it because they just aren’t as smart? Is that what barrons is arguing post #8?</p>

[barrons]

<p>Some can make it because some are as smart and motivated. Just a lower percentage. I know a few.</p>

[alh]

<p>A larger percentage of the economically top 1% start life in the top 1% of intelligence, than the rest of the population? A greater percentage than in the lowest 50% economically? If we adjust that for numbers of people in the groups, what are we saying?</p>

<p>Could someone please do some math here?</p>

<p>Thank you. :)</p>

[sylvan8798]

<p>

@Canuckguy

What I see is a group of people, using their economic and political clout to get their off-springs into elite colleges, signaling to society that they are the best and the finest. These pretenders then in turn parlay their elite diplomas and their connections into positions of power and responsibility that they are not necessarily suited.

Add to that the fact that individuals attempting to run for political office are faced with a litany of abuse (birther anyone?) that surely discourages the sane from even going there and you are left with a recipe for disaster. </p>

<p>Good post Canuckguy.</p>

[iSpike]

<p>I apologize if someone already mentioned this, but:</p>

<p>

Of the 1.6 million high school seniors who took the SATs last year, roughly 30,000, or just under 2 percent, will end up in the freshmen classes of the country’s 20 highest-rated universities.

</p>

<p>If there are approx. 4,000 universities in the US, then:</p>

<p>20 top colleges
Divided by
4,000 colleges
Equals
2%of colleges</p>

<p>And 2% of students are getting into those colleges. What’s the problem here again?</p>

[bovertine]

<p>Not commenting on the problem. Not that interested.</p>

<p>But isn’t 20 divided by 4000 = 0.5%?</p>

<p>You have to look at enrollment sizes anyway. Many of those top schools are pretty small.</p>

[momsquad]

<p>If academic success was correlated primarily to parental affluence, wouldn’t we expect the children of Hollywood glitterati and sports stars to be attending top 20 colleges? Perhaps some do, but most of the ones I hear about are not headed in that direction. One need only consider the rise of Asian students in the UC system to realize that parental emphasis on education is 90% of the equation. Many of these kids “self study” for AP exams and get 5’s on them. Take a look at the staff profiles for Kaiser Permanente health centers throughout California. The majority of doctors have Asian surnames, and increasingly those kids were California educated.</p>

[emilybee]

<p>Part of the reason many poor large urban school districts spend more per pupil is the needs are much different. The kids come into kindergarten unprepared to learn and remedial education, ESL issues, etc., take a huge chunk of their school budgets, along with offering regular, honors and AP curriculum. </p>

<p>Now, my nice, upper middle class, wealthy suburb has very few of those issues so doesn’t spend hardly any money on programs like that. I believe the cost to educate is $7K-8K per pupil. </p>

<p>Imo, much more money needs to be spent on Pre-K programs to help level the playing field.</p>

[performersmom]

<p>Canuckguy,
I have not read those Chinese threads, but have you read any of the threads here where people like Bovertine try to explain what value the study of HUMANITIES has, to the many STEM worshipers here on CC?</p>

<p>I fear that the emphasis on a purely quantitatively measured output driven discipline, as perhaps now embodied in China, can result in a very one sided view of what is important and good, and result in hubris driven evil.
The numbers are there to be analyzed adn questioned and refined, not just generated and used.
Liberty is to be free to interpret the numbers.</p>

<p>Btw, your beliefs represent a stronger version of social darwinism, but not necessarily a better one, that the one in the NYT article.</p>

<p>Thank goodness, we are all questioning what is happening in the USA and listening to each other, not just looking a one person’s or one group’s break-down and analysis, and going with it. Some are even generating different numbers.</p>

<p>Studying History, Philosophy, Literature, social sciences demand that we review the past, look at ourselves with a critical eye, and question what we and others have done and are doing.
There is a multiplicity of goals, and the opening of eyes to many points of view.</p>

<p>I pray that China is not worshiping at the altar of engineering and numbers to the exclusion of a humanistic freedom to question the values, the system and approaches.</p>

<p>Science and technology are CRUCIAL. No question. And there may indeed be a serious deficit in the USA at the moment. But, how it is used, how it is generated is also very very important.</p>

[Hunt]

<p>I think the author of the article is applying for the job of Handicapper General.</p>

[bovertine]

<p>

recrudesence- this word is used frequently in the HG Wells short novel-The Island of Dr. Moreau,

Hmm. Maybe I have read that word. That story title sure sounds familiar, I think we read it in high school. Obviously all the details didn’t stick with me.</p>

<p>I just Googled the word and it came up with a story - “The Recrudescence of Imray” by Rudyard Kipling. Now that I don’t remember, and I recall liking Rudyard Kipling as a kid. We had a whole little subculture built around Kipling in my Boy Scout troop. But I apparently didn’t read enough of it. ;)</p>

[Hunt]

<p>It’s true. The top US private schools are educating the children of the 1%:
[China’s</a> ‘Princelings’ Pose Issue for Party - WSJ.com](<a href=“China's 'Princelings' Pose Issue for Party - WSJ”>China's 'Princelings' Pose Issue for Party - WSJ)
China’s 1%, that is.</p>

[momsquad]

<p>This is old, but juicy:</p>

<p>[WSJ.com</a> - For Groton Grads, Academics Aren’t Only Keys to Ivy Schools](<a href=“http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/Polk_Groton_Grads.htm]WSJ.com”>WSJ.com - For Groton Grads, Academics Aren't Only Keys to Ivy Schools)</p>

<p>

GROTON, Mass. – Of the 79 members of the class of 1998 at the Groton School, 34 were admitted to Ivy League universities.</p>

<p>Not Henry Park. He was ranked 14th in his class at Groton, one of the nation’s premier boarding schools, and scored a stellar 1560 out of 1600 on his SAT college-admission test. But he was spurned by four Ivies – Harvard, Yale, Brown and Columbia universities – as well as Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.</p>

<p>Most of the students in Mr. Park’s class who were accepted by those universities had less impressive academic credentials than his. What they had instead were certain characteristics such as money, connections, or minority status that helped them vault over him to the universities of their choice.

</p>

<p>And the saddest line in the story:</p>

<p>

“I have thought many, many times why Henry failed,” Mrs. Park says. “It was just devastating.”

</p>

<p>He was accepted at JHU and CM, and his mother thinks he failed…</p>

[parent1986]

<p>I think Park’s was Korean. I remember that story from before the WSJ became a Murdoch publication, when it was readable.</p>

[Hunt]

<p>Maybe it doesn’t pay to go to Groton if you’re not rich and/or a legacy to a top school. I have to laugh at the idea of trying to make any general points from the admissions results of Groton grads.</p>

[JimboSteve]

<p>What a disgusting piece of filth. </p>

<p>Some would tear down Mt. Everest to make day hikers feel accomplished. I wish that it were not so.</p>