'An Appalling Report'

[Florestan]

If we change "are not" to the modal "may not be," is your objection answered, Andrei? 

Yes.

I think the idea is that challenging someone's ideas is not offering injury to his person.

Ah, well, put this way I can't help but agree. But then again, this very reasonable position works both ways.

[karlhenning]

Certo.

[Homo Aestheticus]

But so far as I can tell (again, going back to my own school experience) the school made accomodation for those students whose abilities did not match the (not in the least 'wrong' or 'cruel') demands of the standard curriculum, in Special Ed sections.

Karl,

Just a note:

Special education is for those who are borderline mentally retarded, not for the students who are merely below average... There´s a difference.

And the current system makes life as difficult as possible for them, well at least when I was growing up in the 1980´s. Falling quietly between the cracks while most of the teachers attributed our mediocre grades to a lack of discipline.

[Homo Aestheticus]

Florestan,

An interesting piece explaining how and why educational romanticism took root:

http://www.aei.org/publications/filter.all,pubID.27962/pub_detail.asp

Although I am not sure I agree with this statement:

"Elite white guilt explains much about all kinds of social policy from the last half of the 1960s onward, but especially about education"

[Bulldog]

Karl,

Just a note:

Special education is for those who are borderline mentally retarded, not for the students who are merely below average... There´s a difference.

And the current system makes life as difficult as possible for them, well at least when I was growing up in the 1980´s. Falling quietly between the cracks while most of the teachers attributed our mediocre grades to a lack of discipline.

In a decent school system, those needing special ed. are not falling between the cracks.  Teachers of regular classrooms simply request testing for kids doing poorly.  If the test results indicate a special needs child, that child is placed in the special ed. program.  Having had a special needs child in the 1980's, I know the drill (and the school system was in Albuquerque, not exactly a highly regarded system).

[drogulus]

Although I am not sure I agree with this statement:

"Elite white guilt explains much about all kinds of social policy from the last half of the 1960s onward, but especially about education"

     
     Many parents are persuaded that the intellectual measures that are being used somehow disadvantage their little darlings, so they naturally will support any effort to make the kids above average, even by act of Congress. I think Murray is right that abilities are inborn and not much affected by quality of schooling. And he's also right that teachers waste too much time teaching the marginal to be smarter, which hurts the competent and even more the gifted.

     I'm not sure that guilty elites are the reason for the romanticism. I think it comes in waves, and it looks like the hard-headed/soft-hearted distinction of William James, a struggle between what we know to be true, that children have different abilities, and what we'd like to be true, that our good intentions can establish their own facts, and goodness can defeat excellence.

[Szykneij]

Karl,

Just a note:

Special education is for those who are borderline mentally retarded, not for the students who are merely below average...

Absolutely false, at least in any school system I'm familiar with.

[c#minor]

 Just read the link and I am not going to read the 17 pages worth of discussion but, what the hell are students supposed to do, not go to college and thwart their attempts at getting a high paying non tech career. The system might be flawed (which it is but I do not believe in the way the article said) but that the way it is and people either accept it or fall behind.

[Florestan]

people either accept it or fall behind.

It's rather accept it and fall behind...

[Homo Aestheticus]

Drogulus,

I think Murray is right that abilities are inborn and not much affected by quality of schooling.

And he's also right that teachers waste too much time teaching the marginal to be smarter, which hurts the competent and even more the gifted.

Do you feel that systematic assessment of students´ aptitudes/abilities throughout elementary and middle school would help with this problem ?

[Homo Aestheticus]

C#minor,

What the hell are students supposed to do, not go to college and thwart their attempts at getting a high paying non tech career. The system might be flawed (which it is but I do not believe in the way the article said) but that the way it is and people either accept it or fall behind.

What Murray and others are saying is that educational success needs to be redefined.... In the current system today if you don´t get a BA many people assume it is because you are too dumb or too lazy. And all this because of a degree that seldom has an interpretable substantive meaning.

These two articles provide a clear picture of the current problems:

For Most People, College Is a Waste of Time

1. http://www.aei.org/publications/filter.all,pubID.28460/pub_detail.asp

2. http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.25464,filter.all/pub_detail.asp

You need to read the second one also as it complements the first.

[Florestan]

Finding a good lawyer or physician is easy. Finding a good carpenter, painter, electrician, plumber, glazier, mason--the list goes on and on--is difficult

I don't know about US, but here in Romania this is absolutely true, especially so when one adds car mechanics to the list. 

[karlhenning]

I don't know about US, but here in Romania this is absolutely true, especially so when one adds car mechanics to the list. 

Don't get me started on contractors in Massachusetts 

[c#minor]

C#minor,

What Murray and others are saying is that educational success needs to be redefined.... In the current system today if you don´t get a BA many people assume it is because you are too dumb or too lazy. And all this because of a degree that seldom has an interpretable substantive meaning.

These two articles provide a clear picture of the current problems:

For Most People, College Is a Waste of Time

1. http://www.aei.org/publications/filter.all,pubID.28460/pub_detail.asp

2. http://www.aei.org/publications/pubID.25464,filter.all/pub_detail.asp

You need to read the second one also as it complements the first.

I am sorry but I cannot accept that. I am attending a community college right now and about to move on to get my bachelors. I have learned more in the past two years than I have in my life. I believe the issue is that students don't give a damn. It's not that college is a waste of time, the students make it a waste of their time. AND... If you are going after a set major it's worthwhile. I have a friend who has switched majors four times and yes, it has been a waste of his time. But for me it has been very worthwhile. For another friend of mine who is studying studio recording, it's been worthwhile. It also acts as the junction between dependant youth to independent adult. College degrees (unless in a specialized field) are there for "work competency). If you made it through college you can do work.

[karlhenning]

I am sorry but I cannot accept that. I am attending a community college right now and about to move on to get my bachelors. I have learned more in the past two years than I have in my life. I believe the issue is that students don't give a damn. It's not that college is a waste of time, the students make it a waste of their time. AND... If you are going after a set major it's worthwhile.

Excellent point:  Education is not something that 'happens' to a passive lump;  it is what you make of it.

And if anything, I think that is a positive aspect to 'the system'.

[drogulus]

Drogulus,

Do you feel that systematic assessment of students´ aptitudes/abilities throughout elementary and middle school would help with this problem ?

    Some measurement is necessary, and measuring continues in the face of opposition. It can be useful to know, for example, that the bored student with low grades isn't subnormal, and in fact has above average abilities that are not being served. In other cases students are simply not able to achieve at the level expected of them. The problem with the idea of bringing everyone to the same level is that it inevitably means leveling down, since up isn't possible. The educational system is being run according to irreconcilable principles, to treat everyone according to their abilities and needs, and to treat everyone the same. The problem isn't the tests, it's this inability to respond adequately to what the tests mean.

     It's mostly a good thing that Americans are so egalitarian. It's led to the questioning of the supposed inferiority of groups, and the correction of many wrongs that are now rightly seen as prejudices. It can be taken too far, though, by insisting that people really have equal abilities that are being submerged by the same kind of prejudice, and this is not true. At the individual level, people vary widely in abilities, and you can't make the gaps go away by tinkering with the tests.

      I wouldn't go so far as to say that college is a waste of time for the untalented. It might still serve some good purpose at the level of socialization and maturation. You need to learn to navigate the system in any case, even if it's not an ideal one.

[Florestan]

When you find that mechanic in Romania he won't have the part you need, anyway 

That's also true, in general. Even the car dealers oftenly don't have them.

If your car breaks down near one of the painted churches around Suceava, in won't matter so much, though...

Have you been there?

[Florestan]

Oh, yes. [...]

Nice. 

[Homo Aestheticus]

I am sorry but I cannot accept that. I am attending a community college right now and about to move on to get my bachelors. I have learned more in the past two years than I have in my life. I believe the issue is that students don't give a damn. It's not that college is a waste of time, the students make it a waste of their time. AND... If you are going after a set major it's worthwhile. I have a friend who has switched majors four times and yes, it has been a waste of his time. But for me it has been very worthwhile. For another friend of mine who is studying studio recording, it's been worthwhile. It also acts as the junction between dependant youth to independent adult. College degrees (unless in a specialized field) are there for "work competency). If you made it through college you can do work.

Hi C # minor,

Thanks for sharing that. I attended community college between 1990/1993 and in my case it was most definitely not a matter of 'not giving a damn'. I was placed on academic probation several times despite being motivated, studying my tail off and having the guidance of some excellent private tutors...The college expelled me in April 93.

So when I read an article by a leading social scientist who says:   

While concepts such as "emotional intelligence" and "multiple intelligences" have their uses, a century of psychometric evidence has been augmented over the last decade by a growing body of neuroscientific evidence. Like it or not, g exists, is grounded in the architecture and neural functioning of the brain, and is the raw material for academic performance. If you do not have a lot of g when you enter kindergarten, you are never going to have a lot of it. No change in the educational system will change that hard fact.

That says nothing about the quality of the lives that should be open to everyone across the range of ability. I am among the most emphatic of those who think that the importance of IQ in living a good life is vastly overrated. My point is just this: It is true that many social and economic problems are disproportionately found among people with little education, but the culprit for their educational deficit is often low intelligence. Refusing to come to grips with that reality has produced policies that have been ineffectual at best and damaging at worst.

..... I am able to stop berating myself for being intellectually slow and realize that yes, a few of my educators in high school (during junior/senior year) had no clue about the nature of the problem when they wrote their progress reports saying:

Your son is apathetic towards academics. More discipline is recommended.

The fact that my father is a physician and all of my siblings went to Yale, Stanford, Columbia and Wellesley didn't help my situation.... I was the black sheep of the house (i.e. the only one who had major scholastic problems, the only one who is not adept socially, the only one with strong libertarian views, the only one who is fanatical about opera/classical music)

I enjoy what I do for a living but it's a 'nonprofessional occupation' and it requires practically no intellectual horsepower. 

So yes, I am still very convinced that nurture and environment has little effect on intellect (the ability to grasp concepts and to reason). 

[Florestan]

I was the black sheep of the house (i.e. the only one who had major scholastic problems, the only one who is not adept socially, the only one with strong libertarian views, the only one who is fanatical about opera/classical music)

I enjoy what I do for a living but it's a 'nonprofessional occupation' and it requires practically no intellectual horsepower. 

So what? What difference does it make in respect to your worth as a human being? None.

So yes, I am still very convinced that nurture and environment has little effect on intellect (the ability to grasp concepts and to reason). 

First, in order to be a libertarian one has first to "grasp concepts" (such as life, liberty, property, negative rights etc) and to "reason" (about how society should best be arranged in order to protect them). Second, your "linguistic ability" is certainly not in the bottom percentage.

Don't underestimate yourself.