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Phil:
“If everyone in a poor neighborhood were educated to the standard of the average Harvard graduate all of the other problems would be solved.”
“Someone who is really well educated probably has a good job and makes a lot of money and can afford whatever housing is out there.”

I think you forgot about the capitalist economy system that America have. There’s always someone who has to clean the toilets, collect the garbage, and do other menial jobs.

Question for you:
Even if your utopian dream is ever realized somehow, which very highly unlikely;
would those Harvard graduates willing to
clean the public toilets as their primary
occupation?

Sure, Ken, but we’re talking about education here, specifically not skills-training, or, to a lesser extent, learning to keep your employers or customers happy.

And there’s an old saying about economic class mobility, and the futility of attempting to “climb” socially: shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves… Social class is rather important when it comes to the social issues that Philip is talking about: what’s the crime rate among, say, graduate students, compared to comparably poor members of the general population? Is it a bachelor’s degree that makes someone wear a seatbelt or is it all the pressures and lessons and concerns of their social class?

There is a point to the public school system, but it’s not really to educate people, not in the classically liberal sense. And most people don’t want an education, anyway.

“You seem to have bought into the latter con job: education is not class mobility, and moving between social classes is a difficult, multigenerational project that few families manage anywhere with any real success.”

But moving between economic classes requires the acquisition of skills and a reputation for diligent application of same for customers’/employers’ benefit. Which people manage to do all the time, if they have the intelligence. Social class is much less important.

“I believe parental involvement has more to do with a student’s academic success or failure than the teacher or the state of physical structure where classes meet.”

Well, then, where’s the value-added of the fricking school? Is there a point to our public education system, or is it powerless to rescue a kid from bad parents who don’t give a damn and a hinderance to kids with good parents who do give a damn?

“A typical Harvard kid gets to that level by age 22 fuel by superior IQ but also distracted by video games, TV, hormones, etc.”

A kid who’s overly distracted by video games, TV, hormones, etc. is not going to get into Harvard, no matter what his IQ is. He’s got to do the work as well as posess the aptitude. Some kids have the aptitude, do the work, and enjoy TV, video games, and hormones in moderation. Those kids go to Harvard, MIT, etc. The rest don’t.

“A person with a lower IQ or who’d wasted some years in bad schools or watching even more TV might require 30 or 40 years to reach the same level.”

A person with a significantly lower IQ is never going to reach the same level, no matter how hard he tries or how long he lives. Learning in a small group won’t get them there. Neither will learning from the best available teachers. The best they can do under any circumstances will fall short of a Harvard-level education.

“Imagine if everyone of working age in the US had the equivalent of a BS degree. Where would all these high paying jobs come from?”

Working on complex tasks that aren’t even attempted today because of a shortage of skilled people. We are not at the pinnacle of our technological development – in case you haven’t noticed, the sky is not filled with traffic, there aren’t any shuttles to the moon, and our bodies still fall apart in less than a century. There’s plenty of work to do if we come up with people that can do it.

Some people will never be able to do it. Those people will be poor. Our best bet to help these people is to (a) stop jacking up the cost of housing, medical care, and education with regulations that severely restrict supply, (b) properly protect poor neighborhoods, and (c) allow the continuation of the technological advancement and economic growth that keep redefining “poor” to conditions that count as “middle class” a generation or so previously.

The elephant in the room that nobody probably did talk about was social (not necessarily economic) class.

When politicians talk about education, they mean two things: one, they are promising jobs and power to the unionized bureaucrats that you bemoan here. And two, they are dangling the carrot of class mobility in front of the rest of the electorate.

You seem to have bought into the latter con job: education is not class mobility, and moving between social classes is a difficult, multigenerational project that few families manage anywhere with any real success.

It’s also typical of middle-class snobbery to pretend that education is what makes them different from the people they consider “beneath” them. Prosperous working-class people—who are often at least as well-off as their middle-class counterparts—tend not to want or need much education.

You can’t just turn everyone into an upper-middle-class Harvard kid with social programs or the clever application of technology. There’s more to what those kids are than what they’ve been doing in classrooms for the past 16 years of their lives. And even if you could, access to high-paying jobs, good health care, and housing, would still distribute itself out unevenly.

Gary, that’s exactly my point. Here in Canada, everyone has the opportunity to get a good education, so the confounding factor of lack of opportunity *has* been removed. Yet, kids of wealthier parents are *still* more likely to be and get an education than kids of poorer parents.

The implication is pretty obvious: smart, hard-working people tend to get educated and make money. The reverse isn’t necessarily true. (i.e. giving people free education won’t necessarily make the smart and hard-working.)

You said:
“Currently in america many talented people are not given the opportunity of education.”

That’s a very nice way of putting it. Another way of putting it would be: Curently in America, people are not forced by the government to give up the money they earned so that someone else’s kids can get a free education at their expense.

And what’s wrong with the voucher system? Are you saying people should not be allowed to pay extra for better education without being forced to subsidize public schools?

Bootstrap, hand. Hand, bootstrap.

you can take the kid out of the ghetto very easily..its not so easy to take the ghetto out of the kid. this is most noticeable by looking at some of the pro sports “college educated” athletes.You can try to educate every single “poor kid” in the U.S.,but if you havent affected some kind of change in their outlook towards the rest of the world and the years of being raised in a negative enviornment, you will not make much difference in their lives. I am not a “harvard” educated individual but a local “jr college”.I did grow up within the confines of the “ghetto” and until I changed my perspective on life and my role within the universe..college did nothing for me. More than a “good education” is needed to affect real change within the ghetto communities folks..dont kid yourselves. unless and until that happens, only a few get out of there alive and unscathed.

Konrad, Your statement ” people who are intelligent and motivated are more likely to get an education in the first place” is only valid if other pressures like opportunity (or lack of it) are eliminated.

In the US there has been a very long trend towards drawing money out of the public school system. One example has been the long-term effects of proposition 13 in California:
http://www.pbs.org/merrow/tv/ftw/prop13.html

Other fine examples of ‘opportunity’ in america are the ’school voucher systems’ where parents can remove their money from the public school system and use it to fund private education, or localized funding schemes where tax money from wealthy areas only goes to schools in those areas.

The opportunity of quality education must be made available to all people from an early age. There has been a long, drawn out battle over funding for ‘full day kindergarten’ in my state. Even though this has been shown to have an extremely positive impact on scholastic careers, the republican state representatives are very reluctant to provide funding.

If given the opportunity… talented, educated people can be successful. These people may come from all walks of life and if given the opportunity they may help others in their communities.

Currently in america many talented people are not given the opportunity of education. That is a shame.

Canada (and socialism) is sounding better all the time.