In the John Snead thread, John Morrow asked why people born into the top quartile in income in places like Canada fall out of the top quartile in their adult life much more often than in the U.S.

Parents in Canada have much less scope to set their kids up with systemic advantages in the form of better schools and universities. There simply isn't an institutionalized path of upper tier schools, neighbourhoods, and colleges the way there is in the U.S.

For example, I live about four blocks from the high school I attended 20 years ago. The school draws on some of the richest neighbourhoods in a rich city. You see lots of BMWs and brand-new Japanese cars in the student parking lot. The school also draws from neighbourhoods (like the one I live in) with smaller houses and apartment buildings.

If you draw a 2-mile radius around the school, you will encompass a wide range of property values and incomes. Because school funding has no connection to property values, you don't have the incentive many Americans have to live in particular counties in order to go to a good school. In fact, I have never seen anyone in Calgary mention schools at all when they talk about where they're buying a house; schools are considered largely interchangable. You just don't see the stark segregation in housing and schools along class and race lines that you see in the U.S.

Same with universities. Most people go to whatever university is in their home city or province. And employers don't really care whether you graduate from the University of Saskatchewan or the University of Waterloo. So it's difficult to secure a better future for your kids by living in a particular school district, or by sending them to an elite university. Your kids will succeed or fail on their own merits, not on the path of privilege that money can buy you in the U.S.

I'm familiar with higher education in three different countries, and that matches my experience to a t. One function the Ivy League still has, at the undergraduate level, is the self-reproduction of a monetary and political elite. Hence the alumni quotas and the insane tuition fees. Canada otoh sounds more like Germany, where an institution's academic excellence isn't tied to traditional prestige, where tuition fees are ridiculously low, and where the playing field is therefore level, if dull. England falls somewhere in between. There are high-powered but nonglamorous institutions besides Oxbridge degress from which will allow you to have a great career.

You're going to make me go check this out, aren't you...

AFAIK, and I will make the attempt to confirm this, you misunderstand how money is spent on schools in the US.

First, it's not monolithic - it's different depending on the state in which you live.

Second, the money distribution may be county based (I think it is here in Illinois), but the quality is not. The high school I went to included everything from upper middle class houses to low income, subsidized housing - much like what you describe in the intro.

So essentially what you end up with is that my property taxes, which are significantly greater than many other houses in the same school district (even in the same school), are subsidizing the education of the children from those lower-property-tax houses.  They are getting the same education as my kids.

All of which I'm fine with.  If you want to get to it, and here is one of the few places I apparently disagree with Mr. Morrow, it's that too much money has been spent on education without an accounting.  Money has been thrown at schools since I was a kid and things have only become worse.  Pouring more in is good money chasing bad.

Which is a bit OT.  The more important question to me is how many people in the bottom two quintiles move up at least one,

As I pointed out in the other thread, a fairly substantial amount of money is already spent on education in many of the worst urban school districts in the United States.  I'd like your comments on the $17,000+ spent, per pupil, in Newark, NJ.  And many of the county districts that you talk about are fairly integrated, both racially and economically (*).  Money, alone, is not the problem.  

(*) In the other thread, I mentioned that the state of New Jersey has 603 local school districts and only 21 counties.  The reason for that is that this is how the state racially segregates its schools and it is the real worst-case scenario of what you are talking about.  What's interesting is that as white people from New Jersey move to other states such as South Carolina, they complain about the county-level school districts because they apparently too racially and socially diverse (even though they rarely clearly say so) so they start to push for independent school districts.  That (and related information) suggests to me that county districts aren't nearly as bad as you seem to think they are, though local districts sure can be.

Quote from: James J SkachAll of which I'm fine with.  If you want to get to it, and here is one of the few places I apparently disagree with Mr. Morrow, it's that too much money has been spent on education without an accounting.  Money has been thrown at schools since I was a kid and things have only become worse.  Pouring more in is good money chasing bad.

Nope, I generally agree with that.  Money, alone, is not the solution.

At least part of the problem is cultural, which is why you not only have Asian immigrants kicking the butts of black and hispanic kids in school but there are white parents leaving heavily Asian school districts in some parts of the United States because their kids can't keep up.  In fact, plenty of Asian immigrants send their kids to poor urban school districts and they do just fine, which is why nobody thinks about or talks about Asian kids when they use the word "minority".

Quote from: James J SkachWhich is a bit OT.  The more important question to me is how many people in the bottom two quintiles move up at least one,

I think the quintile issue is a bit of a red herring.  Roughly half of all people are going to have below average intelligence.  Roughly half of all people are going to have below average income.  No matter what you do.  And there are plenty of people who retire and have their incomes reduced to Social Security, pensions, and their savings that appear to be in poverty on paper but are doing quite well in terms of lifestyle.

I agree about the schools - more $ per student is not the problem

I was a poor white kid.  I grew up mostly in rural areas, so there was only one school in town.  But one year, I did briefly live in a housing project in the city - and was one of the very few white kids there.  The school there (only a block away) was way, way nicer than the small town schools I went to.  They clearly had plenty of money.  And that had nothing to do with the problems of education there.

I will point out that one problem with the money for schools is when the superintendent's administration offices are these nice new buildings in fancy office spaces downtown while the school buildings themselves need maintenance (that isn't an epidemic level problem, but it does happen).

John is right about the cultural problems.  Some minority groups still place very little emphasis on education or even actively attempt to get people not to get much education.

Another part of that is simply that impoverished families usually lead to very poor quality and unstable home lives.  And with an unstable home life, it's very hard for kids to worry much about education.  It's a pure Mazlow's needs kind of deal.

And then there's the political problems with schools.  Some schools are too lenient and have let disruptive students completely take over the schools.  Other schools are so strict that they are tossing out little girls for hugging.  Not to mention all the legal fights over teaching evolution, or banning books, or sex ed, etc.

The whole system is a giant mess that no amount of money in the world is going to fix.  It's going to take a whole new educational strategy, from the ground up, to even come close to fixing.

Here is an article worth reading on poor urban schools.

Quote from: jgantsAnother part of that is simply that impoverished families usually lead to very poor quality and unstable home lives.  And with an unstable home life, it's very hard for kids to worry much about education.  It's a pure Mazlow's needs kind of deal.

I was going to espouse something similar. But I also speculate the reason the entire system is messed up is because now this instability is crossing all sorts of socio-economic groups. For example, all of the (upper) middle-class houses where the parents both work and don't have time; or divorce results in single parent homes.

None of which is an excuse - but it results in systemic problems, not just limited to the poor.

Quote from: jgantsThe whole system is a giant mess that no amount of money in the world is going to fix.  It's going to take a whole new educational strategy, from the ground up, to even come close to fixing.

Which is why I always fall back to giving individual states more say in how things are done (being a proponent of 50 experiments).  The issue is, then, how to ensure the experiments are measured. The fundamental concepts of testing and measuring are not the problem with current education policy, IMHO. It's the implementation that leaves much to be desired.

The education system's original design parameters assumed that the wife would be home during the day, that the husband would be working a full-time job at the same employer from hiring through retirement, and that both of them would be in the same home for no less than 30 years.  So long as those conditions did exist, it worked.

They're aren't.  Go figure that it's increasingly failing.

Thought this was about Social mobility?

If I had more ambition.....

I've shmoozed with a U.S. senator, shook the hand of a former Cincinnati mayor (you all know him for a differentr job), been at a speaking engagement/big crowd setting with a presidential candidate at least 3 times. I know someone who has directly cussed out a man who later became a world leader.

 (Less than the proverbial 6 degrees of seperation)

...also wound up accidentally and unintentionally teching a colleg class from within the classroom. When the other students couldn't follow what the Prof. was going on about - they would ask me to explain him or borrow my notes.

 If I had te money ...I'd go back to college, take enough classes and be a teacher myself.

In this country, anyone wioth enough motivation can pretty far above their so-called level.
 We tend to hold ourselves back, if anything.


- Ed C.

Quote from: Koltar If I had te money ...I'd go back to college, take enough classes and be a teacher myself.

In this country, anyone wioth enough motivation can pretty far above their so-called level.
 We tend to hold ourselves back, if anything.

You STILL don't get it?

Ned

Golly, I hate to be serious.
But anyway, I am the dyslexic child of two alcohol addicted high school dropouts. Instability and hunger were the constant companions of my childhood. I am 41 years old and I graduated with my BA in May of this year. As I have mentioned before, I am on a year's leave before I go off to graduate school.

So there are my bullshit victim/success credentials. Here is my take on this shit. You can move up in US society, but it takes more than hard work. Hard work will get you a job as manager at a supermarket, maybe. It is just as likely to get you nothing. To move up you need to seek out opportunities and overcome obstacles that will send most people home to sit on the couch. You have to sacrifice leisure time- a sacrifice few people regardless of social standing are willing to make- and you have to take risks, lots and lots of risks, which is even more difficult than for many people than the no leisure thing. You have to be prepared to hear people tell you don't qualify and that you're not good enough. You must force open doors that have been slammed in your face and go where you are not wanted. You have to be prepared to do things more than once (perhaps many times) before you succeed. I started back at school by seeking out a shitty job that had a solid tuition reimbursement plan. I put up with an unbelievable amount of shit just to get my tuition paid. I went to school at night after throwing freight all day for year in and year out. My employer fucked me, my university fucked me, and the guys I worked with all hated me because I had aspirations to get off the loading dock. Nothing makes a loser feel worse than another loser who won't accept their station.
In summary- if you are poor other poor people will hate you for trying to get out of poverty and sometimes will actively attempt to hold you back. Employers will pay lip service to helping you out, but if you take that help they will fuck you. The government will, as far as I can tell, give you opportunity to rack up some fairly massive student loan debt-, which is to be avoided at all costs.
Basically you are on your own. Nobody wants you to succeed but you.
Good luck.

Quote from: AosYou can move up in US society, but it takes more than hard work. Hard work will get you a job as manager at a supermarket, maybe. It is just as likely to get you nothing. To move up you need to seek out opportunities and overcome obstacles that will send most people home to sit on the couch. You have to sacrifice leisure time- a sacrifice few people regardless of social standing are willing to make- and you have to take risks, lots and lots of risks, which is even more difficult than for many people than the no leisure thing. You have to be prepared to hear people tell you don't qualify and that you're not good enough. You must force open doors that have been slammed in your face and go where you are not wanted. You have to be prepared to do things more than once (perhaps many times) before you succeed. I started back at school by seeking out a shitty job that had a solid tuition reimbursement plan.


...Nothing makes a loser feel worse than another loser who won't accept their station.
In summary- if you are poor other poor people will hate you for trying to get out of poverty and sometimes will actively attempt to hold you back.

Congrats on getting out of the rut.

America doesn't reward all the ambitious, hard-working entrepreneurs it spawns -- but it does reward some of them, to varying degrees.


This guy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brad_Wardell
was born with a chemical imbalance that helped him concentrate on writing software.  He's a millionaire now ... and he takes medication to correct his brain chemistry.

I think he's funny because he rants that there's no such thing as luck and he got where he is by virtue of his morally superior choices --- and then complains that he has trouble concentrating on writing his code because of his new pills.  Apparently getting a natural bonus to concentration doesn't count as good luck.