What's to be done about those gaps in parenting skills? The parents aren't crack addicts, so social services will never get involved. This is where the schools have to step in. They have to level out these differences. All day nursery schools. Free books for toddlers.Towns need to offer parenting classes and organize babysitting cooperatives. Churches have to organize parent groups.
The problem is, parents who let their kids cut summer school probably aren't going to force them to go to all day school programs. Or read to them. Or show up for parenting classes. The parents are choosing to let the kids do what they want either because they don't value school, or because they are too stressed or exhausted or possibly too lazy to engage in the confrontation and micromanagement required to force their children onto a different path.
High income parents do these things because a) they view them as their own path to success b) their social circle values these activities, and punishes parents who do not do them and c) people with more satisfying jobs have more emotional energy for the unpleasant work of parenting--they have room left in the mental "chore" basket. I don't know what sort of social program can change any of these factors.
Sometimes I think the Victorians might just have been right too early - if not about the poor in their own age, then certainly about the poor in our own. Read Kipling's comments about "the intense selfishness of the lower classes" and watch poor people with children on the DC Metro, and you'll see what I mean.
Meritocracy doesn't really select just for intellect: it also chooses for a certain tractability and self-discipline, and people who have those traits are more likely to deal well with tired children - it isn't just about reading and paying attention: it's that whole basket of traits and tics that we pass on to them that allows them to function (or not) successfully in society.
This raises a few questions for me:
1) Immigration. If having a higher average educational level is enormously important in maintaining prosperity, how can we justify importanting a million-odd severely under-educated people every year? Isn't that just like saying "We'd rather have the people than the economy"? Seems like a bad road to be on.
2) Extra schooling. Is this really the economic panacea that Brooks thinks it is now? I can see how everyone (and thus the economy generally) benefits from going from no schooling to 9 years, or even from 9-years to 14 (giving most everyone highschool and the high-achievers college and beyond) but if we could force every man and woman in America to sit through the 4 years of college would we get that much more benefit? Enough to justify the costs? It seems to me that college is already somewhat over-attended, in that a lot of people seem to be using it as a 4-year all-you-can-drink cruise.
And beyond that, clearly gains from education face decreasing marginal utility just like everything in the world. Forcing everyone to get a PhD would not do much to increase economic productivity because a) most of those people would be unable to benefit from it (just not enough brainpower to capitalize on the study time) and b) there are limits to how much education the economy can use. It'd be great if everyone were a super-genius, I guess, but the world needs ditch-diggers too. And it doesn't necessarily need those ditch-diggers to be conversant in Kierkegard.
3) By saying that the decline in education is largely the fault of parents, aren't we in effect assuming that everyone should be getting ever-more education? Are we really arguing that everyone is college material? Everyone? So the difference between a retarded adult and a PhD is that the PhD's parents loved him more? Or is this just at the margins: the difference between a janitor and a professor of economics is just that the professor's parents did a better job?
Isn't that kind of a crappy thing to say to parents of kids who aren't scholastic whizzes?
Bob - Immigration may decrease the average level of educational attainment, but it generally increases, or leaves unchanged the educational level of any individual involved in or effected by the process. Adding a less educated immigrant doesn't bring down the educational levels of the people in the country before the immigrant came in, and it may increase the educational level reached by that individual.
As for the "decline in education" I'm not so sure there is such a general decline, at least not a major one. What we have probably got to was a slowdown, perhaps a major slowdown in the level of the the increase in educational attainment.
Bob:
It'd be great if everyone were a super-genis, I guess, but the world needs ditch-diggers too. And it doesn't necessarily need those ditch-diggers to be conversant in Kierkegard.
There's a big range of educational requirements in between ditch-diggers and astrophysicists. If the distribution of jobs with particular requirements has changed, then it makes sense to change the education system to match, yes?
Granted, four years of college as presently constituted probably isn't what's needed for a lot of people. 100 years ago, though, lots of people would have debated with you about whether four years of high school is really necessary, and I don't think you'll find many to make that argument today.
Granted, Tim.
But Brooks in his op-ed is talking about " the average American’s level of education" and spends some time showing how we opened up a commanding lead in this statistic back in the 50's and 60's (periods of low immigration, as it happens) and he is drawing the inference, at the very least, that our great economic performance at the time was related to this.
If the average American's educational attainment level is important, importing people below the average would have to also be important, no?
Later he switches to talking about high-school graduation rates. I'm not sure how this statistic is compiled. My guess is that it's the high-school graduates over those of an age to have graduated high-school, which would also be affected by low-education immigration. And, again, if this statsistic is important for driving economic prosperity, surely harming it must likewise be bad for prosperity, no?
I agree, by the way, that under thses premises (that higher average educational attainment results in higher economic productivity for the country) there is much to be gained for the immigrant in that he may well acquire more education here than he would have. And if immigration is actually some kind of a welfare program for the poor in the rest of the world, fine, but I thought the idea of having immigration regulations was to somehow use it as a tool of national policy. That is to increase your country's prospects and quality of life. If the immigration you have is reducing statistics that you feel are important to the country's economic prospects, surely that is a bad deal, no?
And if immigration is actually welfare (that is we let people in who we know will reduce our economic prospects but that's okay because we are simultaneously increasing theirs, that is, in effect, trading some of our potential prosperity for theirs), then wouldn't it be potentially more efficient to go ahead and just calculate the amount you want to spend on that and spend it directly? Rather than just favoring whichever immigrants were lucky enough to be able to get here?
"It'd be great if everyone were a super-genius, I guess, but the world needs ditch-diggers too."
No one said ditch-diggers had to be human. A super genius could build a machine that has a comparative advantage over intelligent humans with respect to digging ditches.
V. true, Nelson. But unless you are of the opinion that every human is a potential super-genius (as Brooks seems to suggest might be possible with the right parenting), the world will still be populated at least to some degree with people who are suited to ditch-digging.
What shall we do with them?
Also true to you, BP Becky, that changes in job-structure necessitate changes in education. But I wonder, as I did above, what we do with people who are not cut out for high educational achievement in our brave new world of high-education only?
Or are we agreeing with Brooks that everyone can benefit from more schooling if their parents have raised them right? That in the future the people who are currently ditch-diggers will instead get educated into whatever new intellectual jobs there are after the robots dig all the ditches?
Note that I'm not opposed to robotic ditch diggers, I'm just wondering what we do with the left half of the distribution of intelligence once we've made their jobs obsolete. Also note that I'm not saying there is necessarily a solution to this problem.
Dear Nelson,
Thank you for continuing to ignore the people that make things work because you are ever so isolated from the real world. You know the world that builds houses, buildings, and factories for your computers to be produced. The real world that lays down sewer pipes and water pipes so you don't...die. The real world that puts up phone lines so you can type away on your computer and dream about a world where no one has calloused hands.
In the real world, a set of hands, a pair of arms and legs are much more versatile than a robot. Robots build cars. Actually they build individual pieces of cars.
Humans get their hands dirty digging ditches, pooring concrete, building frames, etc. Now human operated machines are nice (Tractors and maybe we'll see a "mech warrior" type suit in 50 years). But good luck betting on robots to do all of the above.
Sam - while I share the sentiment of respect for all behind your comment, I think it's unfair to ascribe the opposite sentiment to Nelson.
Merely suggesting that robotic ditch-diggers might be a good thing is not necessarily to denigrate the profession of ditch-digging. After all, harvesting and threshing by hand were fine and noble professions in their time -- and necessary -- but I don't think anybody would care to trade in our combine harvesters to have them back.
I knew plenty of kids with rich or upper middle class parents who let them do pretty much whatever the heck they wanted, including blowing off school. Other people disapproved, but America isn't a shame-based culture anymore; we don't generally get up in other people's business, especially where their kids are concerned.
I don't think it is about social circles. It is either genetic (flaky people have flaky kids) or the result of upbringing (flaky parents raise flaky kids).
The solution is simple: Abolish Social Security. If parents knew that their own children were going to be the only thing standing between them and starvation in their old age, then they'd be damn careful to raise the kids properly.
Dan - True as far as it goes, but a lot of those kids have another chance at education after their slacker years. I had quite a few middle class friends who futzed around being lifties, tree planters (ie professional dope smokers) and the like for a number of years, then one day went back to college and found a good career, often with the help of their now much-relieved parents. I would think that poor kids would not have as much support for this.
My personal theory is that if you want to increase minority representation in (and graduation from) college, you give all graduating grade 12s a true general aptittude test (like an Armed Forces entry test), then grab the smart kids with bad overall grades(maybe the top quarter?) from each crappy school and send them away to boarding school for a 12 month Grade 13 - no drugs, no booze, school uniforms curfew, the whole bit. It's paid for by the taxpayers, but if you break the rules, you're out on your ass - or can continue at your own expense (maybe with a loan that cannot be wiped out in bankruptcy?). The curiculem would basicall consist of all the things they should have learned in the last couple of years of high school but didn't (with an option to test out of courses that they actually did learn) plus classes in organization, how to study and some basic economics so that they can understand why education can pay.
the world will still be populated at least to some degree with people who are suited to ditch-digging. What shall we do with them?
If current trends continue they should all be starring in reality television shows by 2037.
"Thank you for continuing to ignore the people that make things work because you are ever so isolated from the real world."
To be clear, I'm not saying we should do away with uneducated/unintelligent people, I was merely pointing out that the fact that we want ditches is not a valid argument against education. In other words even if everyone were educated, we'd still be able to make ditches.
Holdfast,
That's a separate issue. Yes, having rich parents means you can get a second, third, fourth, or fifth chance at not being a screwup -- although in my experience the kids usually remained screwups and just went on to screw up some white collar job instead. I went to a private school (on scholarship -- my mother was a teacher there) up through 10th grade, and a fairly shocking number of my classmates ultimately wound up in prison for drugs, robbery, or even rape. I don't know if they were born assholes or if they just had lousy parents, but I know for certain it wasn't the society they lived in!
This also leads me to my next point, educating more of the world will lead to more equality. Right now, on average, educated people earn a lot more than uneducated people. As the supply of educated workers increases and the supply of uneducated labor decreases (preferably by gaining an education, not by starving to death), the wage difference between educated and uneducated labor will decrease (supply and demand), while the overall standard of living will rise.
So, Nelson, based on your latest comment you are of the opinion that there are no innate differences in people? That is, everyone could attain the same education-level and function at the same highly-intellectual jobs requiring high-education if they merely wanted to enough?
In short, you are arguing that there are no unintelligent people, just uneducated people but that we could fix this with more education.
Because, clearly, if you feel that there are, in fact, people who are not as smart as others, merely forcing them to remain in school will not be productive, nor will it increase thier earning potential.
Re: Bob's point on immigration - I actually take the opposite view; one of the reasons I generally favor more immigration is the somewhat quixotic hope that it forces Americans into adopting the immigrant's work ethic.
Can you imagine if the upper-middle class white kids on college campuses approached their schoolwork like a Mexican day laborer? Instead, we seem to have the opposite effect; in most universities, the science classes are dominated by Chinese and Indians. Instead of competing with the foreigners, American students seem more likely to quit the Physics program to study Economics, or quit Economics to study Oppression Studies.
"In short, you are arguing that there are no unintelligent people, just uneducated people but that we could fix this with more education."
No. There are plenty of stupid people in the world. What I am arguing for is the idea that society would be better off if everyone were educated to their level of ability. This is especially applicable to poor kids who may have natural ability but weren't given a chance to reach their potential because of their circumstances, with circumstances being anything from uncaring parents to being born in a country with no or low quality schools.
Bob's got a good point. A long time ago, when I was in school, we had (in addition to four years of Latin and/or French) classes in shop (wood, metal, and print), agriculture, mechanical drawing, and a variety of "business" courses (secretarial, bookkeeping, and the like). In eighth grade, I had to take two shop classes and agriculture. Those of us headed for a four-year college got what we needed, and so did those on their way to the machine shop or the farm. Today, no high school in my county offers anything except straight academic subjects and special ed. Some things are better today, to be sure, such as our having dropped the assumption that girls would become only teachers, nurses, or secretaries. But the school system now seems to force almost everybody into either a real college-prep track or a watered-down version of it that mostly wastes teachers' and students' time.
Among other benefits, a required course in shop can help disabuse those headed for college of the notion that the people who make things are sort of sub-human morons. My law students over the years have mostly tended to look at ordinary working people with contempt. (True, ordinary working people usually look at lawyers with contempt, but that's often justified.) Learning that the yokel kid who talks slowly can make a really fine bookcase or get a balky engine to run smoothly would do some kids a lot of good.
The solution is simple: Abolish Social Security. If parents knew that their own children were going to be the only thing standing between them and starvation in their old age, then they'd be damn careful to raise the kids properly.
If this were true, John W., it doesn't seem like there would have been any need for Social Security in the first place...or did all the parents pre-1935 just not raise their kids right?
How about a policy to encourage high income parents -- who as you note, tend to do a good job raising their kids to be productive citizens -- to have more kids, and to encourage low income parents to have fewer kids? One such policy might be to replace the current child tax credit (currently, $1k per child per year), with a tax credit structured as a percentage of income, say, 2%. Instead of a person who earns $20k getting $1k per year to have a child, she would get $400 per year per child, and instead of the person earning $100k getting $1k per year per child, she would get $2k.
I'm just pulling that 2% number out of my hat, so that may not be the optimal percentage, but you get the idea. A child tax credit structured as a large enough percentage of income could encourage more DINKs (double income, no kids) couples in expensive cities such as NYC or San Francisco to have children, and it could encourage those couples with one child to have a second child.
DaveinHackensack:
Good luck with that. I'm sure the masses will love it.
If this were true, John W., it doesn't seem like there would have been any need for Social Security in the first place...or did all the parents pre-1935 just not raise their kids right?
Are we supposed to take your word that there was "a need for Social Security in the first place"?
Besides, the original Social Security bears no resemblance to what we have today. Most Americans couldn't rely on it as a retirement plan, both because it didn't cover around half the employees in America (including jobs mostly held by women and minorities) and because it didn't start paying out benefits until a few years after the average age of death. Even after Social Security was passed, the two options available to most Americans were still (a) work until you die or (b) have family to support you.
Today, you can look forward to at least a decade of taxpayer-funded retirement. That's a very different situation.
Tim Fowler says:
Adding a less educated immigrant doesn't bring down the educational levels of the people in the country before the immigrant came in
Tim ought to look at the state of urban schools in areas of high illegal immigration.
"Tim ought to look at the state of urban schools in areas of high illegal immigration."
If there is a deficiency in the school then blame the school, not the kids.
Taxpayer funded retirement?
I guess, if you like living on 12000 a year.
Crusader,
To appease "the masses" you could raise the EITC by an amount roughly equal to what they'd lose on the percentage-based child tax credit. They'd end up with about the same overall subsidy from the federal government, but the incentives would be skewed toward work and away from childbearing.
Independent George, American students avoid sciences because they are difficult without being very remunerative. You can make a lot more money with a lot less work in other fields, like business, and the really bright ones usually have lots of options - they might be better suited to being a chemist than being a manager, but a medium-quality manager earns more than a lot of top-flight chemists.
The money is in computing, generally, and that still attracts American students.
The same division is apparent in medicine; a large number of positions in undesirable specialties are filled by immigrants counting on rural service to be their ticket to a green card.
Megan, there are social services that help.
First is child-care assistance for parents who want to go to school. Combine that with tuition assistance, and even living assistance, if necessary. By making continuing education available to parents, they're more likely to value it for their children. And hopefully, the investment in the parent will pay off as a person who contributes to society. (I know this works, first hand. It's my life story. Child of a teenage mom who went to school, lived on welfare, and went on to be a great citizen with a good career for many, many years.)
Second, is relieving some of the stress families function under; and a major factor there is access to health care the family can afford. I live in rural ME, where many families have mother's that work only to provide health insurance.
Third, providing nutritious food at school -- two meals, breakfast and lunch -- not industrial food. To learn, young minds need good nutrition.
Zic,
Higher education isn't a panacea, especially for the left half of the bell curve. Educated lefties think it is because, well, they're all educated, and it's worked out for them. Half of Americans don't have the chops for this sort of thing though. Better to bring back an emphasis on vocational ed k-12, and find a way to encourage low-income/low-IQ folks from not having lots of kids (e.g., offer to reduce jail sentences for convicts who agree to be sterilized, offer $5k in cash to teenage girls willing to be temporarily sterilized for five years, etc.).
Megan, I'd also remind you of the success of micro loans in other parts of the world.
You ask how to help people stuck in generational ignorance and poverty, and we know that education doesn't always work. But as many gangs have demonstrated, the ability to run a business frequently succeeds where education fails. People have a strong desire to build, and sometimes, just a little bit of support and help goes a long way.
Unfortunately, I think that the playing field is totally biased for large businesses. Regulation and policy typically favor them over small competitors; and understanding the impact of this from a policy perspective is important.
So assistance at the beginning and a review of regulation with an eye toward readjusting the bias would be a huge help toward breaking these cycles.
Granted, it does take someone wiling to make a change in their life, and there will be many who opt out of your dreams for them. I think Obama as president might be a very beneficial thing, inspiring some of those who don't aspire. But if you want people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, a little assistance helping them find some serviceable boots would be useful.
Zic,
As Megan has pointed out, one of the reasons micro loans work in the third world is that the lenders basically threaten to cut off credit to a community if an individual in that community defaults. That means the community puts the heat on (or even applies physical intimidation) to any individual who threatens to default. That keeps default rates low, and keeps the business of making micro loans profitable. That dynamic simply doesn't apply here. A borrower can declare bankruptcy and be done with it.
Also, part of the reason micro loans work is that the poor in Bangladesh or wherever face the choice of being entrepreneurial or starving. Poor in America face no such choice. Have a few kids, and you can live off the WIC, subsidized housing, welfare, supplemental Social Security, etc. No need to bust your ass to put food on your plate.
Studies have also shown that all the money and resources the Feds have put into encouraging people to open small businesses has been to little avail: most of these small businesses barely scrape by, if they last at all. Most Americans don't have what it takes to be entrepreneurs, despite entrepreneurs' central role in our iconography. A better approach would be to remove regulatory and tax hurdles from real entrepreneurs, so they can hire more folks.
I think b. At least in suburban NYC, the shame factor for parents of a kid who is not taking AP courses is pretty strong.
But also, government benefit programs loom large for lower-income/education people. SSI / Social Sec eventually/ EIC / Medicaid / Food Stamps / Sec 8. For a poor person, these cover a large % of the basics and there is no shame in taking these.
"High income parents do these things because a) they view them as their own path to success b) their social circle values these activities, and punishes parents who do not do them and c) people with more satisfying jobs have more emotional energy for the unpleasant work of parenting--they have room left in the mental "chore" basket. I don't know what sort of social program can change any of these factors."
I would add that in general people with high earned income are successful because they are highly disciplined, e.g. they defer gratification, plan ahead, set priorities etc. They apply this same discipline to the task of raising children.
Do you suppose there is an effect from high-income parents being more likely to be able to have one parent stay home with children, at least during the critical pre-school years?
bearing: Statistically, I recall, married couples at all income levels are equally likely to have one parent at home.
At the bottom end, you're combining very likely a single parent (so must work or be on welfare) with poverty with likely not being quite ready to take on a kid. There's not one factor to point to.
If this were true, John W., it doesn't seem like there would have been any need for Social Security in the first place...or did all the parents pre-1935 just not raise their kids right?
Ha-ha! Except that Social Security wasn't created to save old people from poverty. It was created to get older Americans to retire so younger people could take their jobs during a time of very high unemployment.
This conversation has gotten me thinking about non-governmental-but-yet-community-based incentives for parents.
What if neighborhood HOAs/condo associations/property managment companies were to keep Top 10 Most (and Least) Wanted lists of the kids in the neighborhood? Use shame and pride for good! If there are bad kids usually everyone in the neighborhood knows who they are, so singling them out with some community-wide publicity, like a mention in the monthly newsletter, or flyers around the neighborhood wouldn't be too difficult. Parents don't like being embarrassed of their kids, and having their kids mentioned by name and possibly with a picture might spur a little more discipline. Especially if they know that it's not a few "mean" neighbors who think that way, but nearly everyone.
Similarly everyone likes to be proud of their kids, so kids who are known to be well-behaved and good influences on other kids could likewise be singled out for praise.
As to kids being left to their own devices during the summer months, I think that's great. Parents should not be activities directors. They should say, "go find something to do, or I'll find something (unpleasant) for you to do."
My dad taught me early on to never utter to words "I'm bored." As he said, only boring people get bored.
What if neighborhood HOAs/condo associations/property managment companies were to keep Top 10 Most (and Least) Wanted lists of the kids in the neighborhood?
Lawsuit city, here we come! Especially if "too many" of the "bad" kids have the proper skin color...
Bob - While I would discount the benefit the immigrant receives from immigrating (if you didn't you would probably have to support unlimited immigration), I don't discount it to zero. Its still worth making part of the equation, even if a greatly reduced part.
Also while having a new immigrant with a lower level of education lowers the new combined average level of education in the US, that doesn't imply, that his presence is a net negative, that his presence decreases the quality of life for people that where in this country before him.
Anthony - If the schools are bad in areas of high immigration, that doesn't necessarily mean that the immigrants are making education worse. They might just be bad schools. Or if the immigrants are poorer students (because say their grasp of English isn't as good), and are large percentage of the school, the school will look bad, and perhaps in many ways be bad, but the majority of actual students in the school may be getting better education from immigration.
Which is no to say there can not be any negative effects, or even that there are no such effects. Obviously a bunch of new students (esp. ones who might have some problems with English) will strain school resources, and that is not the only source of potential problems. But you can't just look at the schools and say "lots of immigrants", "bad school", therefore immigration makes education worse in general for people who where already here.
"Tim ought to look at the state of urban schools in areas of high illegal immigration."
If there is a deficiency in the school then blame the school, not the kids.
The problem is that teachers are held accountable for what all the kids in their class learn. So when you take a bunch of illiterate and uneducated kids and throw them into a classroom with properly educated kids, the properly educated kids' education quality sharply declines -- because the teacher needs to focus her attention on the illiterates.
It is equivalent to forcing a company to hire incompetent employees. The productivity of the good employees goes down too, because management can no longer devote as much time to supporting them.
"c) people with more satisfying jobs have more emotional energy for the unpleasant work of parenting--they have room left in the mental "chore" basket"
You have got to be kidding me. Seriously, you believe this? Most of the high income earners I know with those 'more satisfying jobs' end up carrying the emotional load of those jobs everywhere with them. They never really get away from the stuff that is left undone that *needs* to be done. When I compare the stress and emotional drain of those 'more satisfying jobs' to the stress and emotional drain of punching your time clock, doing your work, and going home and not having to think about work till they clock back in tomorrow... well... you tell me who has more emotional energy left at the end of the day:
1) A physician who is angsting about having to finish their charts on their own time, and worrying about the follow on care for one or more patients
or
2) A factory worker who has clocked out at beer thirty and just has to turn up tomorrow morning at the appointed time.
1) A engineering director who has six projects going in four teams under them and goes home trying to figure out how to accommodate the seventh project next quarter with a flat budget.
or
2) An office temp who has just clocked out and just has to turn up at the assignment tomorrow to keep on filing.
people with more satisfying jobs have more emotional energy for the unpleasant work of parenting--they have room left in the mental "chore" basket.
I also say *are you kidding me* but for a different reason.
That statement reminds me of an article I read about a couple of the 60's who read The Population Bomb (overpopulation would lead to mass famine) and for the good of mankind decided not to have children. Later, in their 60's they realized what a bill of goods they had been sold.
Popular culture in TV, radio, etc. etc says that children are unpleasant work. Don't believe it. They are HARD work, yes. Sometimes unpleasant, yes. But if you buy into the myth that children are unpleasant, then you are buying into a popular myth spread by our mass culture. Talk to women between the ages of 50 and 55 who both had great careers and kids. Those women would be young enough to have benefited from "women's liberation" and old enough to talk from experience about the overall experience of raising kids. I assure you that with few exceptions, those who had kids will ALL tell you that the "unpleasant work of parenting" was the most pleasant part of life. Oh sure, you can find those who are bitter and thought it all sucked. But turning out that way at the end of life is not limited only to those who had kids.
I don't think there is anything wrong with choosing not to have kids. Life can be easier and more self-centered- and I don't mean that in a negative way, but a positive one. I'm just saying that if you buy into the idea that kids are nothing but a pile of dirty diapers and a bad nights sleep, you would be ignoring the wisdom of those who have been there, done it and can tell you from hind-sight which joys they found to be lasting.
Mandatory birth control until there is some means for support.
Although I'm being facetious, the factors associated with poor school performance are poverty, lack of education in parents and single parent households.
By waiting a mere 5 years to have kids, most couples (and especially women) would have more time to increase their own earning potential.
"By 5, it is possible to predict, with depressing accuracy, who will complete high school and college and who won’t."
I would argue that by 5, based primarily on the student's economic status, with depressing determination, the American public school system has already sorted students into winners and losers. That, in fact, its primary job is to sort rather than to educate.
Mr. Brooks suggests that the values of America's working class and poor parents dramatically changed in the mid-60s. That's an assertion that's difficult to prove and hard to support. But one change that took place at that time can be documented -- the increasing adoption by public school systems around the nation of "homogenious grouping" and multiple track education, based on presumed potential rather than actual demonstrated performance, starting from the child's entry into the system.
The simple truth is; with limited exceptions -- that is, without exceptional early performance by the child AND exceptional fortitude to fight the powers that be on the part of the parents -- poor and working class children do not receive, are not given or offered, the same quality education as the children of the middle class and affluent.
It may be true that many children from poor and working class families enter school at a disadvantage compared to those from more affluent families, but it is also true that that the school system operates in a manner designed to perpetuate rather than overcome that disadvantage.
There is no advantage for affluent parents, of course, in changing such a system. And poor parents do not have any leverage or power to do so.
Esmense's claim amount to socioeconomic determinism and ignores the considerable fluctuation in relative prosperity from generation to generation. There's plenty of evidence showing wealthy parents producing middle-class kids, working-class parents producing middle- and upper-middle class kids.
This is from an analysis in the WSJ of a 2007 Treasury Department study:
The Treasury study examined a huge sample of 96,700 income tax returns from 1996 and 2005 for Americans over the age of 25. The study tracks what happened to these tax filers over this 10-year period. One of the notable, and reassuring, findings is that nearly 58% of filers who were in the poorest income group in 1996 had moved into a higher income category by 2005. Nearly 25% jumped into the middle or upper-middle income groups, and 5.3% made it all the way to the highest quintile.
Of those in the second lowest income quintile, nearly 50% moved into the middle quintile or higher, and only 17% moved down.
Parenting is undoubtedly hard work, it is sometimes difficult, and you have to do some unpleasant things at times - but to characterize it as "unpleasant work" overlooks how richly rewarding it is.
Chris, we've done that one to death already. The study doesn't say what you think it does. For example, someone still in law school would be counted in the lowest quintile and then ten years later be counted in the top quintile after entering practice.
I think we can all agree that these sorts shouldn't be counted in any studies of income mobility :-)
No SoV, we can't agree. Someone in law school may be from a middle, or even lower class background. Becoming a lawyer would therefore represent real upward income mobility.
Right, Tim, every single one of them. That's what it would take for this data to be valid. Do you mean to say that you honestly didn't know this? I find that very hard to believe.
SoV - No of course not "every single one of them", but more of them are going up by any measure than down.
RE" That's what it would take for this data to be valid"
No that isn't what it takes not even close.
Even for the people who do come from an upper class background, they are actually making more income than when they where a student. Its valid even for them.
And for the people moving to lower income quintiles you have similar mechanisms. People retire, people take time off of work to have kids, people have businesses that have an off year, and then later go on to make even more.
People move in to different quintiles throughout their life.
And this is where you just jumped the shark, Tim. If you want to have a reasonable discussion, you have to _be_ reasonable. You might want to check out this article:
SoV - "Reasonable" doesn't mean agreeing with you, or even agreeing with your distorted sense of what's reasonable.
As for the article you link to and
[blockquote]"the 1947-73 numbers show what real, broad-based prosperity looks like" [/blockquote]
Most, perhaps all broad sectors of society are wealthier now than they where in the 1947 to 1973 time frame.
[blockquote]The restriction to individuals who paid taxes in all years immediately [/blockquote]
A restriction to people about whom we have specific knowledge of their income.
[blcokquote]the report essentially treated the normal tendency of earnings to rise with age as representing social mobility[/blockquote]
Because it does, and because any drops due to people moving to different stages of their lives would certainly be claimed as evidence of downward mobility.