If I was the Education Czar

[sphipps]

My take on how to improve our test scores. Read it here.
If I Was the Education Czar

 

[Admiral Rockwell Tory]

Interesting. It will never fly with those who think that every little seed can and must grow into a mighty redwood if it is given enough time, love and nourishment.

 

[Jackson]

Schools have to provide different paths for the student's future. College bound, business and secretarial, mechanics, carpentry, etc.

 

[Elvis Obama]

My take on how to improve our test scores. Read it here.
If I Was the Education Czar

Very nice read. Thank you. My mother made trips to the library into an adventure. She conveyed her love of reading, and that's all that it took for me to get hooked.

Here's a few random thoughts about the subject:
1- The word gap is the measure of the chasm we must bridge. It is the measure of the difference between the world a child of poverty is exposed to and the one a child of better means is exposed to.
2- That gap is not going to be bridged by books alone. Parenting is not an instinctive skill. Role models are important. Cultural enrichment is important.
3- Academic failure is incredibly destructive. By the time kids who have been struggling to keep up with an academic program leave grade school, they are ruined. They no longer believe in anything, not themselves, their schools, their teachers or their fellow students.
4- In failed schools, kids aren't even allowed to take their textbooks home. The schools know that if they let the kids take the books home, they'll never get them back. Once a school reaches this point, it is a fraudulent institution. It exists to warehouse kids, not teach them.
5- If you conflate the statistics of these fraudulent schools with the statistics of properly administered schools you create a very distorted picture of education in America.

If I were the education czar I would probably do a perpetual imitation of Edvard Munch's "The Scream". Early childhood education is the answer, imo, but language development starts in the womb. It's hard to get a tutor in there. My fantasy solution involves combining AI and the "one laptop" project. Put a talking teddy bear in the crib of every child.

 

[Tommy Tainant]

In the Uk kids can get through 11 years of formal education and still struggle to form sentences. If you check out facebook/twitter it is clear that these arent isolated individuals.
I think they try and get youngsters to take on too much too young.

 

[DGS49]

If I were the Education Czar, I would be familiar with the subjunctive mood, and wouldn't make conspicuous grammatical errors like, "If I was the Education Czar." [Past tense].

 

[DGS49]

There is an Elephant in the Room. The average IQ of African Americans is roughly 85. For people of Central American stock, it's about 90 (Asians 106, whites 103, Ashkenazi Jews 111). As time goes by, based on reproductive rates and immigration trends, the population of below-average-intelligence students will be gradually increasing for the next few decades, and nothing anyone does will change the fact that our "average" test scores will be either steady or declining, regardless of how strenuously we try to get them to love reading.

And of course with better and better entertainment available for kids that does not require any intelligence or thought, it will be more and more difficult to get the kids to pick up an actual book.

And since intelligent and accomplished people tend, more and more, to intermarry and produce even more intelligent children, America will always have elite students who are comparable to any other similar group anywhere in the world. Sociologists have noted that this phenomenon is becoming more pronounced as highly-educated people tend to marry and have children later in life. A generation ago, it was common for college-educated people to "marry their high school sweetheart," who might or might not be highly intelligent. Now, since they hook up and marry later in life, high achievers are much more likely to marry other high achievers, and produce super-kids, who will not only have great genes, but parents who can afford to send them to the top schools, etc.

This is why The Rich, as a demographic group, are getting richer, and will continue to do so.

But countering that phenomenon is our socialist Education Bureaucracy, which in the guise of "promoting Social Justice," will waste more and more money on "inner city" schools, in the vain attempt to educate the largely uneducable populations that live there. Hopefully, this financial drain will not significantly harm the education that is provided to those who might actually benefit from it.

I'm not optimistic.

 

[sphipps]

If I were the Education Czar, I would be familiar with the subjunctive mood, and wouldn't make conspicuous grammatical errors like, "If I was the Education Czar." [Past tense].

You don't make friends easily, do you?

 

[sphipps]

There is an Elephant in the Room. The average IQ of African Americans is roughly 85. For people of Central American stock, it's about 90 (Asians 106, whites 103, Ashkenazi Jews 111). As time goes by, based on reproductive rates and immigration trends, the population of below-average-intelligence students will be gradually increasing for the next few decades, and nothing anyone does will change the fact that our "average" test scores will be either steady or declining, regardless of how strenuously we try to get them to love reading.

And of course with better and better entertainment available for kids that does not require any intelligence or thought, it will be more and more difficult to get the kids to pick up an actual book.

And since intelligent and accomplished people tend, more and more, to intermarry and produce even more intelligent children, America will always have elite students who are comparable to any other similar group anywhere in the world. Sociologists have noted that this phenomenon is becoming more pronounced as highly-educated people tend to marry and have children later in life. A generation ago, it was common for college-educated people to "marry their high school sweetheart," who might or might not be highly intelligent. Now, since they hook up and marry later in life, high achievers are much more likely to marry other high achievers, and produce super-kids, who will not only have great genes, but parents who can afford to send them to the top schools, etc.

This is why The Rich, as a demographic group, are getting richer, and will continue to do so.

But countering that phenomenon is our socialist Education Bureaucracy, which in the guise of "promoting Social Justice," will waste more and more money on "inner city" schools, in the vain attempt to educate the largely uneducable populations that live there. Hopefully, this financial drain will not significantly harm the education that is provided to those who might actually benefit from it.

I'm not optimistic.

Please cite your source for your avg. IQ data. Also, which IQ test was used? Did they use the traditional, culturally biased tests or a culturally neutral one? On that note, were all these different groups tested using the same test or different ones? I apologize in advance if I've made a grammatical error in any of my inquiries. The editors at the Indiana Historical Society Press, publishers of my book, presumably aided me with such crucial grammar issues as subjunctive mood.

 

[Elvis Obama]

There is an Elephant in the Room. The average IQ of African Americans is roughly 85. For people of Central American stock, it's about 90 (Asians 106, whites 103, Ashkenazi Jews 111). As time goes by, based on reproductive rates and immigration trends, the population of below-average-intelligence students will be gradually increasing for the next few decades, and nothing anyone does will change the fact that our "average" test scores will be either steady or declining, regardless of how strenuously we try to get them to love reading.

And of course with better and better entertainment available for kids that does not require any intelligence or thought, it will be more and more difficult to get the kids to pick up an actual book.

And since intelligent and accomplished people tend, more and more, to intermarry and produce even more intelligent children, America will always have elite students who are comparable to any other similar group anywhere in the world. Sociologists have noted that this phenomenon is becoming more pronounced as highly-educated people tend to marry and have children later in life. A generation ago, it was common for college-educated people to "marry their high school sweetheart," who might or might not be highly intelligent. Now, since they hook up and marry later in life, high achievers are much more likely to marry other high achievers, and produce super-kids, who will not only have great genes, but parents who can afford to send them to the top schools, etc.

This is why The Rich, as a demographic group, are getting richer, and will continue to do so.

But countering that phenomenon is our socialist Education Bureaucracy, which in the guise of "promoting Social Justice," will waste more and more money on "inner city" schools, in the vain attempt to educate the largely uneducable populations that live there. Hopefully, this financial drain will not significantly harm the education that is provided to those who might actually benefit from it.

I'm not optimistic.

"This is why The Rich, as a demographic group, are getting richer, and will continue to do so."

The rich are getting richer because the government is for sale. If rich people were more intelligent, as you suggest, they would understand that income inequality is dangerous, to them as well as the rest of the world. They would support rational economic policy, instead of making the sole function of government the removal of any restrictions to their obsessive acquisitiveness.

A vain attempt to educate the uneducable, huh? That's what many people said about every black person in America, 150 years ago. Black poverty stood at 100% then, now it's about 25%. Still bad, but clearly those who proclaimed educating black people was a waste 150 years ago were at least 75% wrong. Now you're convinced the remaining 25% are uneducable. Why?

The 25% are the hardcore poor. The hardest to redeem. These people are very, very expensive. The idea that ignoring them saves money is not sensible.

 

[sphipps]

The IQ data provided by DGS49 was, no doubt, financially backed by the Pioneer Fund. When I read the "Elephant in the Room" post, above, I was struck by how much it sounded like the rhetoric of Adolph Hitler (save the bone DGS49 threw to the Jews, something Hitler likely would not have done). After reading up on the Pioneer Fund, I now know why it sounded so much like Nazi propaganda. Take a look at this.
THE PIONEER FUND: THE NAZI CONNECTION

The Pioneer Fund as promulgators of fascism

http://www.iupui.edu/~histwhs/h699.dir/KennyPioneer.pdf

Moral of the story:
If you have an agenda to marginalize a racial group, find an racist think tank that funds studies in Eugenics and make those statistics dance for you like Mr. Bojangles!

 

[DGS49]

Those people who understand what the intelligence quotient is, and are interested in the truth can confirm in any number of places the relatively low IQ'S that characterize the so-called African-American community. Further, given the fact that the Inner Cities are populated by the lowest segment of that community (the more capable ones having fled that community long ago), the prospects for significant academic improvement in those communities is analogous to the likelihood of the next Triple Crown winner being a Clydesdale.

It is also noteworthy that Prog's who continue to preach the long - disproven myth of "cultural bias" are figuratively scraping the barrel for arguments to "prove" that which is manifestly false. To buy this nonsensical argument requires that you (a) believe that the writers of the tests are closet racists, and (b) that they are so chronically stupid that they have been unable to correct a CATASTROPHIC FLAW in their tests some 40 years after the flaw was postulated.

Good luck with that one.

As always with Libs, the response to the presentation of uncomfortable facts is to slander the presenter.

Yawn.

 

[Elvis Obama]

Those people who understand what the intelligence quotient is, and are interested in the truth can confirm in any number of places the relatively low IQ'S that characterize the so-called African-American community. Further, given the fact that the Inner Cities are populated by the lowest segment of that community (the more capable ones having fled that community long ago), the prospects for significant academic improvement in those communities is analogous to the likelihood of the next Triple Crown winner being a Clydesdale.

It is also noteworthy that Prog's who continue to preach the long - disproven myth of "cultural bias" are figuratively scraping the barrel for arguments to "prove" that which is manifestly false. To buy this nonsensical argument requires that you (a) believe that the writers of the tests are closet racists, and (b) that they are so chronically stupid that they have been unable to correct a CATASTROPHIC FLAW in their tests some 40 years after the flaw was postulated.

Good luck with that one.

As always with Libs, the response to the presentation of uncomfortable facts is to slander the presenter.

Yawn.

"As always with Libs, the response to the presentation of uncomfortable facts is to slander the presenter."

Aren't the Ashkenazi Jews you believe are smarter than everyone else mostly liberals?

IQ is worthless, as a tool for determining education policy. Some people claim it is proof of the genetic inferiority of certain groups of people. Others say environmental factors are to blame for IQ disparities. Nature vs. nurture. It seems pretty clear to me that if these gaps were entirely genetic, we would not see such clear disparities amongst all races related to poverty. Does genetics play a role? Possibly, but clearly so do environmental conditions, poverty and culture.

 

[sphipps]

Pioneer Fund...follow the money.

These studies were designed to find justification for the disparity of income/achievement gaps. They were funded by proponents of Eugenics out of fear their way of life would be damaged if that gap were ever closed.

Also, if what you are proposing is true, please defend the NCLB policies that hold teachers and schools in inner cities accountable to the same levels of achievement as those in affluent white schools. You can't have it both ways, yet, you do.

By the way, I already know why such schools and teachers are ranked against each other, I am just curious to see your response.

Such a tragic joke!

 

[DGS49]

Ahem.

Most people who have exceeded a GED in educational accomplishment understand the basic concept of the Bell Curve. To say that the average IQ of African Americans is, say, 85, says NOTHING about the intelligence (or non-academic but valuable talents) of any individual person. Further, history is replete with examples of high-achievers who had unremarkable IQ's, and total failures who were deemed "genius" based on the results of IQ tests. In my own family, among five siblings there is a range of 40 IQ points (more than two Standard Deviations). Go figure.

There is a HUGE tendency in parts of the academic community to discount the validity and value of IQ scores. I blush to admit that I believe this prejudice is largely due to the fact that among the various "professions," educators have about the lowest IQ's, based on average IQ's of Doctorates (roughly 115 vs 140 for other fields).

IQ correlates with almost everything. The best engineers, mathematicians, teachers, bricklayers, baristas, ditch diggers, musicians, salesmen, attorneys, and everything else are GENERALLY those with the highest IQ's. In my own industrial experience, some of the best Project Managers are people who have average IQ's, coupled with great tenacity.

IQ is NOT worthless for making Educational policy. Pretending that IQ doesn't count (or that it is not a valid measure of educational potential) is a great disservice to those with higher IQ's (i.e., the national talent pool), as they may be forced to sit in classes that are necessarily geared to "the lowest common denominator." They grow bored, act out, and can only reach their potential by going outside The System. Same with people at the bottom; they are frustrated and have the same reactions. It is always best to teach people in groups with similar IQ's. Which is why the socialization of education (and "mainstreaming") are stupid, on steroids.

No credible research concludes that IQ is mainly determined by environment. It is 80% genetic, and intelligence POTENTIAL is 100% genetic.

 

[sphipps]

Ahem.

Most people who have exceeded a GED in educational accomplishment understand the basic concept of the Bell Curve. To say that the average IQ of African Americans is, say, 85, says NOTHING about the intelligence (or non-academic but valuable talents) of any individual person. Further, history is replete with examples of high-achievers who had unremarkable IQ's, and total failures who were deemed "genius" based on the results of IQ tests. In my own family, among five siblings there is a range of 40 IQ points (more than two Standard Deviations). Go figure.

There is a HUGE tendency in parts of the academic community to discount the validity and value of IQ scores. I blush to admit that I believe this prejudice is largely due to the fact that among the various "professions," educators have about the lowest IQ's, based on average IQ's of Doctorates (roughly 115 vs 140 for other fields).

IQ correlates with almost everything. The best engineers, mathematicians, teachers, bricklayers, baristas, ditch diggers, musicians, salesmen, attorneys, and everything else are GENERALLY those with the highest IQ's. In my own industrial experience, some of the best Project Managers are people who have average IQ's, coupled with great tenacity.

IQ is NOT worthless for making Educational policy. Pretending that IQ doesn't count (or that it is not a valid measure of educational potential) is a great disservice to those with higher IQ's (i.e., the national talent pool), as they may be forced to sit in classes that are necessarily geared to "the lowest common denominator." They grow bored, act out, and can only reach their potential by going outside The System. Same with people at the bottom; they are frustrated and have the same reactions. It is always best to teach people in groups with similar IQ's. Which is why the socialization of education (and "mainstreaming") are stupid, on steroids.

No credible research concludes that IQ is mainly determined by environment. It is 80% genetic, and intelligence POTENTIAL is 100% genetic.

There is no research that proves intelligence is even measurable by such tests. There has been a huge and ongoing debate within the fields of psychology, anthropology, sociology, genetics, etc., that has raged on for nearly 100 years now. There is nothing close to a consensus about the validity of such data.

Again, most of the work done in the field of IQ as it relates to race is rooted in a core of Eugenics supporters and funded by groups that have a huge stake in "proving" that certain segments of society are doomed to a lower station because of the color of their skin. This horse crap has been going on since Reconstruction. The elite white societal infrastructure is now, and has always been, terrified of losing their status by allowing the lower "inferior" groups to raise theirs. That real tragedy is that there is no friend in power available to these downtrodden classes since even their percieved party (Dems) stands much to gain from keeping them in their underprivileged condition (read: built in voting block). It's lose/lose. What a racket!

 

[Elvis Obama]

Ahem.

Most people who have exceeded a GED in educational accomplishment understand the basic concept of the Bell Curve. To say that the average IQ of African Americans is, say, 85, says NOTHING about the intelligence (or non-academic but valuable talents) of any individual person. Further, history is replete with examples of high-achievers who had unremarkable IQ's, and total failures who were deemed "genius" based on the results of IQ tests. In my own family, among five siblings there is a range of 40 IQ points (more than two Standard Deviations). Go figure.

There is a HUGE tendency in parts of the academic community to discount the validity and value of IQ scores. I blush to admit that I believe this prejudice is largely due to the fact that among the various "professions," educators have about the lowest IQ's, based on average IQ's of Doctorates (roughly 115 vs 140 for other fields).

IQ correlates with almost everything. The best engineers, mathematicians, teachers, bricklayers, baristas, ditch diggers, musicians, salesmen, attorneys, and everything else are GENERALLY those with the highest IQ's. In my own industrial experience, some of the best Project Managers are people who have average IQ's, coupled with great tenacity.

IQ is NOT worthless for making Educational policy. Pretending that IQ doesn't count (or that it is not a valid measure of educational potential) is a great disservice to those with higher IQ's (i.e., the national talent pool), as they may be forced to sit in classes that are necessarily geared to "the lowest common denominator." They grow bored, act out, and can only reach their potential by going outside The System. Same with people at the bottom; they are frustrated and have the same reactions. It is always best to teach people in groups with similar IQ's. Which is why the socialization of education (and "mainstreaming") are stupid, on steroids.

No credible research concludes that IQ is mainly determined by environment. It is 80% genetic, and intelligence POTENTIAL is 100% genetic.

The only thing I agree with is that children should be ranked according to their academic potential. The theory that lower performing students benefit from having higher achievers in the same classroom is, imo, absurd. Whatever small benefit may accrue to the lower performers is nothing compared to the damage done to bright kids who are forced to sit in dysfunctional classrooms, bored out of their minds.

That academic potential is not 100% genetic. Cognition is largely a matter of language development. Children in poverty live circumscribed lives, where they seldom interact with anyone capable of stringing together an intelligent sentence. I don't suggest there is no genetic component to intelligence, just as there is a pre-determined growth potential in plants. If you stunt a plant at the beginning of its life, it will never reach that potential. The notion that environmental conditions and genetic potential can be assigned precise percentages in the developmental process is arrogant and absurd. It's nothing more than the self-serving assumption of bigots.

 

[sphipps]

Ahem.

Most people who have exceeded a GED in educational accomplishment understand the basic concept of the Bell Curve. To say that the average IQ of African Americans is, say, 85, says NOTHING about the intelligence (or non-academic but valuable talents) of any individual person. Further, history is replete with examples of high-achievers who had unremarkable IQ's, and total failures who were deemed "genius" based on the results of IQ tests. In my own family, among five siblings there is a range of 40 IQ points (more than two Standard Deviations). Go figure.

There is a HUGE tendency in parts of the academic community to discount the validity and value of IQ scores. I blush to admit that I believe this prejudice is largely due to the fact that among the various "professions," educators have about the lowest IQ's, based on average IQ's of Doctorates (roughly 115 vs 140 for other fields).

IQ correlates with almost everything. The best engineers, mathematicians, teachers, bricklayers, baristas, ditch diggers, musicians, salesmen, attorneys, and everything else are GENERALLY those with the highest IQ's. In my own industrial experience, some of the best Project Managers are people who have average IQ's, coupled with great tenacity.

IQ is NOT worthless for making Educational policy. Pretending that IQ doesn't count (or that it is not a valid measure of educational potential) is a great disservice to those with higher IQ's (i.e., the national talent pool), as they may be forced to sit in classes that are necessarily geared to "the lowest common denominator." They grow bored, act out, and can only reach their potential by going outside The System. Same with people at the bottom; they are frustrated and have the same reactions. It is always best to teach people in groups with similar IQ's. Which is why the socialization of education (and "mainstreaming") are stupid, on steroids.

No credible research concludes that IQ is mainly determined by environment. It is 80% genetic, and intelligence POTENTIAL is 100% genetic.

The only thing I agree with is that children should be ranked according to their academic potential. The theory that lower performing students benefit from having higher achievers in the same classroom is, imo, absurd. Whatever small benefit may accrue to the lower performers is nothing compared to the damage done to bright kids who are forced to sit in dysfunctional classrooms, bored out of their minds.

That academic potential is not 100% genetic. Cognition is largely a matter of language development. Children in poverty live circumscribed lives, where they seldom interact with anyone capable of stringing together an intelligent sentence. I don't suggest there is no genetic component to intelligence, just as there is a pre-determined growth potential in plants. If you stunt a plant at the beginning of its life, it will never reach that potential. The notion that environmental conditions and genetic potential can be assigned precise percentages in the developmental process is arrogant and absurd. It's nothing more than the self-serving assumption of bigots.

Elvis, I agree with your comments but would add, while I do agree that there is very likely a genetic component to intelligence, I do not believe it has anything at all to do with race.

A white child, raised in the squalor of the inner city or the ramshackle poverty found in much of Appalachia is in exactly the same educational predicament as the disadvantaged black student. By the same token, the affluent suburban black will excel along side his wealthy white counterparts. Why? Because they were raised in a home that placed a high value on education. They were raised in homes that valued the written word.

This was my point in my article of trying to attack the achievement gap by changing the literacy dynamic in the home from infancy, regardless of where those homes may be. We need to create generations that value the written word.

 

[sphipps]

Ahem.

Most people who have exceeded a GED in educational accomplishment understand the basic concept of the Bell Curve. To say that the average IQ of African Americans is, say, 85, says NOTHING about the intelligence (or non-academic but valuable talents) of any individual person. Further, history is replete with examples of high-achievers who had unremarkable IQ's, and total failures who were deemed "genius" based on the results of IQ tests. In my own family, among five siblings there is a range of 40 IQ points (more than two Standard Deviations). Go figure.

There is a HUGE tendency in parts of the academic community to discount the validity and value of IQ scores. I blush to admit that I believe this prejudice is largely due to the fact that among the various "professions," educators have about the lowest IQ's, based on average IQ's of Doctorates (roughly 115 vs 140 for other fields).

IQ correlates with almost everything. The best engineers, mathematicians, teachers, bricklayers, baristas, ditch diggers, musicians, salesmen, attorneys, and everything else are GENERALLY those with the highest IQ's. In my own industrial experience, some of the best Project Managers are people who have average IQ's, coupled with great tenacity.

IQ is NOT worthless for making Educational policy. Pretending that IQ doesn't count (or that it is not a valid measure of educational potential) is a great disservice to those with higher IQ's (i.e., the national talent pool), as they may be forced to sit in classes that are necessarily geared to "the lowest common denominator." They grow bored, act out, and can only reach their potential by going outside The System. Same with people at the bottom; they are frustrated and have the same reactions. It is always best to teach people in groups with similar IQ's. Which is why the socialization of education (and "mainstreaming") are stupid, on steroids.

No credible research concludes that IQ is mainly determined by environment. It is 80% genetic, and intelligence POTENTIAL is 100% genetic.

Every school I am aware of has high ability or gifted and talented programs that group the students with the most ability into special classes where they receive accelerated, more challenging instruction.