Raj chetty did a cool experiment called “moving to opportunity” which goes against this hypothesis.
Also, there’s KIPP
Most of these kids aren’t inherently weak, they are in bad environments. A robust school where they spend 6-8+ hrs a day in a rigorous environment makes a huge difference
What kind of choice are we talking about? Do you mean choosing whatever school in a borough or whatever geographic location one resides in?
I went to my high school as it was declining, and it was once a good, moderately-populated school with a good amount of high-achieving students. It now takes kids not zoned for it, not from the town or surrounding ones, and it has violence no one I know can recall occurring before the late 90’s, including alumni I know who are up to sixteen years older than me. It is even better funded than when I attended in the mid to late 90’s.
All links about my former school.
It’s the most cost effective way to get them out the door at 18. Imagine the costs if these kids took six years to graduate, or worse, just aged out without graduating.
Regarding Raj Chetty, I have no doubt moving to a nicer, lower crime area has a positive effect on lives. I should’ve worded more carefully. I don’t believe the nice area should have to absorb the poor area in sacrifice.
Similar to Brickheads example, the area I grew up in was very suburban in Texas. My high school was ranked in the top 50 across the state. As a sophomore, the district adopted inclusion programs that bussed kids in from inner city Houston.
Test score averages dropped, lockers and cars in the parking lot were broken in to which was unheard of prior, fights became semi-regular occurrences and there was a pretty nasty rape culminating in the victims suicide.
I’m sure the ghetto kids did have better lives robbing lockers that actually had valuable items in them but at what cost? This is the side of the coin documentaries often gloss over or downplay.
And for the record, the high school backslid over time. It’s now ranked somewhere in the top 300. I don’t believe in Robinhood principles to achieve equality, regardless of equity in background.
I do buy in to KIPP program, but believe it should operate within attendees own neighborhoods. I would also suggest that school selection should allow private school attendees opting out of public services an excusal from ISD taxes, however.
That’s the myth that school choice is pushing. If someone thinks giving those kids the money to pay for private school will fix anything, he’s crazy. The private schools won’t take them.
Very late into this conversation and have much to read through to catch up. But consider this:
There’s a wonderful theory from Morris Massey that help us understand who we are and who we’ve become. The theory is, “What you are now is where you were when.” And the “when” is around the time we reach those wonderful, early teen years, age 14 or 15. Up until then, the world is all about just ourselves. But something happens when we get to 14 or 15. We see ourselves as part of the world. We socialize. And we often start developing our outlook on life. Call it even the beginning of our philosophy of life. If I were to ask you what was going on in your life, within your immediate environment, or in the world you were experiencing at 14 or 15, there’s a good chance that period will have been significant to you and will have remained a driving force in your life
Experiment? I’ve seen what happens with my own eyes. It doesn’t work. Now, I’m sure you can be really selective about the kids you choose to bring in but on a large scale? No way. You have inner city schools where over half the students are special ed. Schools can’t cure communities and what passes for family.
Well, when I was 14-15 years old…
But I turned out okay. In spite of all that for sure, but I’m better off than most (in part due to luck, mostly due to hard work, tough sacrifices, intense scrutiny, and some good advice).
Thanks for that example. I wasn’t sure what you meant by your preceding post but you clarified it.
I have absolutely no inclination to talk badly about poor people, and I actually don’t like how some have been depicted in entertainment media or how their locations are spoken about as “flyover country”. My maternal grandma and granddad grew up dirt poor in the countries they came from and made something of themselves here.
However, contrary to negative depiction, there is an idea amongst some people that poor people are mostly salt-of-the-earth, put-upon, and unfortunate people. While some are indeed like that, people I have a soft spot for, let’s face it, a chunk of the poor are unintelligent, anti-social, criminal, impulsive, and vice-laden. That’s largely why they are poor. They live messy lives and I don’t think most middle class parents want to take a gamble on their kids’ education by having them rub elbows with one another, absorb such a sacrifice as you stayed. I think forced association of the two is unfair. All education should be merit based though, and high-achieving kids should be rewarded no matter their class.
It wasn’t my intent to tie you in to my opinion of the poor, just to share a similar story around a high school with a shared experience including them.
The selective quote above captures my sentiments and observations. I personally would be open to a selective process and probationary period for inner city kids bussing to better schools, but you can’t fix broken and most of them are in my observation.
As an aside, American poor is different than immigrant poor as well. Generally speaking you can see the divide between immigrants from 3rd world countries aspiring to an American dream contrasted to ghettos with a “gibs me dat” attitude. 180 degrees different. I’d rather see ghetto kids who may be the 1 in 50 slip through the cracks than pollute a batch of 49 in 50 in an attempt to save one. Just my opinion.
First, let me say that I was searching Google for “You are now what you were when you were 10 years old.” In 1980 my work had the supervisors attend a class about this. That title is as best I can recall. What you might not have inferred is that this is also location dependent. Our values vary depending on the culture of the city, town, or rural area you live, not just the accepted “generation” that you are a member. When I attended the class there were only three “generations” that I would be communicating, The Greatest Generation, The Silent Generation, and The Baby Boomers. Generation X was not yet in the work force.
I suppose what seemed most strange to me about this entire thread is that there was not one mention of the person who was a member of The Greatest Generation and planted the seed of “rot” that brought this harvest of permissive parenting. His name: Dr. Spock. The seed was planted at the beginning of The Baby Boomers, facilitating the first fruits of permissive parenting to begin with a small percentage of parents by the mid 1960’s. Over time the crop is in full harvest, which has overtaken the homes of most all children, as you mentioned.
I interpret that more as an exercise of self examination rather than taking societies inventory.
Like, at 14 I was already shut off to the world, had very poor self worth, was habitually using drugs to cope with some budding, some full bloom emotional problems, etc.
Introspection man. Thats where the personal development motherload is.
Can we quantify in bullet points what is “wrong” with the millennial generation?
Objectively as possible, if possible. Not bullshit like “they prefer video games over pick-up sticks and the Dewey decimal system is all but irrelevant now” but “there has been a measurable economic decline due to_________ exclusive beliefs and practices of the millennial generation”.
I’d be interested in reading responses to this. Not complaints that buying avocado toast is crashing the housing market, things like the yellow pages and a 2-month salary engagement ring are now dead, no one wants antiques anymore, etc.
As a millennial I’m too close to the issue, but I am curious.
Same. I sort of bridge GenX and the millenials. I think there’s actually a named “micro-generation” that I fall in to. I grew up before the helicopter parenting out in the wild and wooly world on a bicycle and sometimes with a BB gun, knew the creepy houses to avoid, where the big kids who beat up little kids live and on and on but also saw computers introduced to the classroom and the whole 9 after that. With the caveat that there was a “computer class”. Note taking, homework et cetera was still done on paper and if references were needed they came from books in the Dewey decimal library with an occasional teacher allowing one in five to be from an online, verifiable source.
My wife has a theory that it’s a narrow window when you could experiance growing up pre-internet, and then seeing how much of a difference it made, but still being able to adapt.
Edit: I also had a bb gun, for a day. I was curious to see how it felt and shot myself in the foot. It went exactly as you expected.
I was definitely in this window. Party line phone calls from ground lines, knowing where in the neighborhood kids accumulate without cell phones to just text each other et cetera. I also saw home computers become a thing and have used Microsoft since “Microsoft 1” or whatever it was. I remember when cell phones were invented.
Curious to hear objective criticisms though. I do see both sides in a sense but would like someone from the 70’s or before to make a complaint beyond avocado toast. Which is fucking delicious.
I relate to all of this. I was born in 1986 and always just assumed that this was sort of the millenial experience. Millenials are old enough to remember a time when the internet wasn’t ubiquitous, but still young enough to have adapted to a life with it as the norm.
There is this feeling that older people can’t adapt to new technology, but it isn’t universally the case. Lots of older people did just fine adapting to new technologies. I think a lot of it comes down to the degree to which people understand the deeper level of how things work. People that can’t adapt never understood how things work anyways. They just got used to a certain way of things working when they were young enough not to question it. But now they are too old to get used to a new way without questioning things but not actually competent enough to answer those questions. So they are stuck in limbo.
As kids, we can adapt to things without understanding why. As adults, we can only adapt if we are able to understand why. It’s the same with language. Kids can learn languages without understanding why it works. But if you want to learn language as an adult, you need to study the grammar and structure and approach it with a system.