Here is a nice, brief article by Larry Summers-
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/lawrence-summers-changing-focus-to-inequalities-in-opportunity/2012/07/15/gJQATol4mW_story.html
The nominal purpose of the article is how to maintain equality of opportunity in America. That is something I think everyone supports. I certainly support it strongly. Everyone gets the same opportunity in America. We all too often measure this as equality of outcome, which is completely different, but I have no problem with equality of opportunity, and never have.
Unfortunately, the article rapidly degernates into a screed on tax rates and income inequality, and how a more progressive tax system would increase opportunity for all, as would an increase in inheritance taxes. But opportunity has nothing to do with money in a direct sense. There are many associations with money, and many of them are in turn related not so much to opportunity as to opportunity seized. This is where I feel America is well off track.
Edison said many people miss their opportunites, because most opportunities are disguised as hard work. He is absolutely correct. Those who make millions in a personal business have earned every bit of that by working, thinking and planning better, longer and harder than others. Those who become professionals did not have it handed to them because their parents were wealthy enough to afford tuition. The average doctor graduates with 200,000.00 of debt. These people were not handed anything. They worked in school, did not get drunk or high, did not become pregnant in high schoool, used contraception. In other words, they worked hard and lived responsibly.
Those who do not do this are said to be lacking in opportunity, or disadvantaged. They are not these things. Nothing prevents motivted students in lousy schools from transferring to other schools! My son's school accepts about 150 such transfers yearly from execrable schools in eastern Knoxville. And you know what happens? Only a tiny handful even stay. they find out very quickly they are expected to do homework, to be on time, not fall asleep in class and to dress and behave civilly. And they can not or will not do that.
Are those failures the fault of society, of the school system? No they are not. They are the result of a series of individual choices by these students and their families. There is nothing intrinisc to poverty that makes a person a bad student, or a bad person. Theodore Dalrymple has looked at this issue from his vantage point in the British National Health system. Pakistani immigrants living cheek by jowl with low income Englishmen in the same neighborhood had completely different social outcomes. As they became teens, the English children flaunted sexuality, skipped schoo,l dropped out and became pregnant. The Pakistani children were kept in school, often by both parents working and/or one parent working two jobs in order to pay for books and English language instruction.
It is not poverty, and it isn't race. It is behavior and choices. When a child of three generations of teen single mothers grows up there is no intact home to provide discipline. There is no father to support and reinforce proper behavior, there is insufficient money to buy books and no tradition of reading in the household anyway. There is a television on most of the day. And when this child, ill-disciplined and ill-dressed, comes to school he or she is in class with children of similar social background, not because of racism or busing but because of income clustering. And all these ill-behaved and ill-disciplined children misbehave in school and pay no attention.
And then society is told it is prejudiced! That these children had no opportunity! And that is nonsense. They get the same courses as my children, because they are all in the Knox Public Schools. Everyone gets the same curriculum, like the health and sexuality curriculum. And some listen and don't screw around, and some do not. And that is not the fault of the school or society. And the best teacher graduates are required to work in the worst schools, so it is not the teachers. And for those who desire or qualify for AP courses they can be brought to those schools offering them, at no charge. And there is no shortage of special education or remedial courses in these schools either.
Joe Clark had it right when he 'threw the bastards out' who were disrupting classes. Perhaps when we stop whining and making excuses for those who fail we can acknowledge that all behavior and choices are not created equal, and by expelling those who disrupt let those who would work achieve.
Ted
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/lawrence-summers-changing-focus-to-inequalities-in-opportunity/2012/07/15/gJQATol4mW_story.html
The nominal purpose of the article is how to maintain equality of opportunity in America. That is something I think everyone supports. I certainly support it strongly. Everyone gets the same opportunity in America. We all too often measure this as equality of outcome, which is completely different, but I have no problem with equality of opportunity, and never have.
Unfortunately, the article rapidly degernates into a screed on tax rates and income inequality, and how a more progressive tax system would increase opportunity for all, as would an increase in inheritance taxes. But opportunity has nothing to do with money in a direct sense. There are many associations with money, and many of them are in turn related not so much to opportunity as to opportunity seized. This is where I feel America is well off track.
Edison said many people miss their opportunites, because most opportunities are disguised as hard work. He is absolutely correct. Those who make millions in a personal business have earned every bit of that by working, thinking and planning better, longer and harder than others. Those who become professionals did not have it handed to them because their parents were wealthy enough to afford tuition. The average doctor graduates with 200,000.00 of debt. These people were not handed anything. They worked in school, did not get drunk or high, did not become pregnant in high schoool, used contraception. In other words, they worked hard and lived responsibly.
Those who do not do this are said to be lacking in opportunity, or disadvantaged. They are not these things. Nothing prevents motivted students in lousy schools from transferring to other schools! My son's school accepts about 150 such transfers yearly from execrable schools in eastern Knoxville. And you know what happens? Only a tiny handful even stay. they find out very quickly they are expected to do homework, to be on time, not fall asleep in class and to dress and behave civilly. And they can not or will not do that.
Are those failures the fault of society, of the school system? No they are not. They are the result of a series of individual choices by these students and their families. There is nothing intrinisc to poverty that makes a person a bad student, or a bad person. Theodore Dalrymple has looked at this issue from his vantage point in the British National Health system. Pakistani immigrants living cheek by jowl with low income Englishmen in the same neighborhood had completely different social outcomes. As they became teens, the English children flaunted sexuality, skipped schoo,l dropped out and became pregnant. The Pakistani children were kept in school, often by both parents working and/or one parent working two jobs in order to pay for books and English language instruction.
It is not poverty, and it isn't race. It is behavior and choices. When a child of three generations of teen single mothers grows up there is no intact home to provide discipline. There is no father to support and reinforce proper behavior, there is insufficient money to buy books and no tradition of reading in the household anyway. There is a television on most of the day. And when this child, ill-disciplined and ill-dressed, comes to school he or she is in class with children of similar social background, not because of racism or busing but because of income clustering. And all these ill-behaved and ill-disciplined children misbehave in school and pay no attention.
And then society is told it is prejudiced! That these children had no opportunity! And that is nonsense. They get the same courses as my children, because they are all in the Knox Public Schools. Everyone gets the same curriculum, like the health and sexuality curriculum. And some listen and don't screw around, and some do not. And that is not the fault of the school or society. And the best teacher graduates are required to work in the worst schools, so it is not the teachers. And for those who desire or qualify for AP courses they can be brought to those schools offering them, at no charge. And there is no shortage of special education or remedial courses in these schools either.
Joe Clark had it right when he 'threw the bastards out' who were disrupting classes. Perhaps when we stop whining and making excuses for those who fail we can acknowledge that all behavior and choices are not created equal, and by expelling those who disrupt let those who would work achieve.
Ted
Comments
Post a Comment