(12-02-2012 09:55 PM)FanViaThresherSports09 Wrote:  

(12-02-2012 08:34 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  I've asked the question about optimal (in)equality many times, and have never gotten a response.

How do we know if the changes the few couple of decades are not in the direction of the optimal level? Will we ever know it whwn we see it?

Well, if you're talking about income inequality, I don't think there is a correct answer. If you're talking about equal opportunity to earn income, then we'll know we've hit the right spot when every person, regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, country of origin, etc. is rewarded solely on their own efforts and talents, and not unduly handicapped by the circumstances of their births.

How much is unduly?

And are we not already at a point at which every person is rewarded solely on their own efforts and talents? Or are some people given advantages based on their gender, race, ethnicity, country of origin, etc.? Who are these people?

And back to income inequality, if there is no correct answer, how do we know it needs correcting?

(12-02-2012 10:25 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(12-02-2012 09:55 PM)FanViaThresherSports09 Wrote:  

(12-02-2012 08:34 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  I've asked the question about optimal (in)equality many times, and have never gotten a response.

How do we know if the changes the few couple of decades are not in the direction of the optimal level? Will we ever know it whwn we see it?

Well, if you're talking about income inequality, I don't think there is a correct answer. If you're talking about equal opportunity to earn income, then we'll know we've hit the right spot when every person, regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, country of origin, etc. is rewarded solely on their own efforts and talents, and not unduly handicapped by the circumstances of their births.

How much is unduly?

And are we not already at a point at which every person is rewarded solely on their own efforts and talents? Or are some people given advantages based on their gender, race, ethnicity, country of origin, etc.? Who are these people?

And back to income inequality, if there is no correct answer, how do we know it needs correcting?

1) Unduly is a squishy term. I only threw it in there because I can't imagine a world where the circumstances of one's upbringing plays NO role in how one's life turns out. I suppose I mean that we should eradicate as many socially- or legally-imposed barriers to success as possible (thinking specifically of the sad state of public school finance).

2) Unfortunately, no, we're not at a point at which each person is rewarded based on his efforts and talents. The aforementioned school finance deficiencies, for instance, produce legions of students who emerge from school (if they graduate at all) with no real prospects, or with whatever latent talent they had snuffed out by several years of inadequate education. Many low-income communities are situated near trash dumps and factories, resulting in health problems for the residents. Here in North Carolina, it's been statistically proven that minorities are disproportionately arrested and more harshly punished. The glass ceiling still exists.

3) I don't think "mere" income inequality requires correcting. Income inequality is fine, because it's emerges naturally when people with differing talents put in different amounts of effort. Unfortunately, I don't think that income inequality today is a reflection of talent and effort as much as it is a reflection of systematic biases and disadvantages faced by a number of underprivileged groups.

(12-02-2012 11:26 PM)FanViaThresherSports09 Wrote:  

(12-02-2012 10:25 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(12-02-2012 09:55 PM)FanViaThresherSports09 Wrote:  

(12-02-2012 08:34 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  I've asked the question about optimal (in)equality many times, and have never gotten a response.

How do we know if the changes the few couple of decades are not in the direction of the optimal level? Will we ever know it whwn we see it?

Well, if you're talking about income inequality, I don't think there is a correct answer. If you're talking about equal opportunity to earn income, then we'll know we've hit the right spot when every person, regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, country of origin, etc. is rewarded solely on their own efforts and talents, and not unduly handicapped by the circumstances of their births.

How much is unduly?

And are we not already at a point at which every person is rewarded solely on their own efforts and talents? Or are some people given advantages based on their gender, race, ethnicity, country of origin, etc.? Who are these people?

And back to income inequality, if there is no correct answer, how do we know it needs correcting?

1) Unduly is a squishy term. I only threw it in there because I can't imagine a world where the circumstances of one's upbringing plays NO role in how one's life turns out. I suppose I mean that we should eradicate as many socially- or legally-imposed barriers to success as possible (thinking specifically of the sad state of public school finance).

2) Unfortunately, no, we're not at a point at which each person is rewarded based on his efforts and talents. The aforementioned school finance deficiencies, for instance, produce legions of students who emerge from school (if they graduate at all) with no real prospects, or with whatever latent talent they had snuffed out by several years of inadequate education. Many low-income communities are situated near trash dumps and factories, resulting in health problems for the residents. Here in North Carolina, it's been statistically proven that minorities are disproportionately arrested and more harshly punished. The glass ceiling still exists.

3) I don't think "mere" income inequality requires correcting. Income inequality is fine, because it's emerges naturally when people with differing talents put in different amounts of effort. Unfortunately, I don't think that income inequality today is a reflection of talent and effort as much as it is a reflection of systematic biases and disadvantages faced by a number of underprivileged groups.

1. Better public education certainly is a good goal, but somebody wil always be attending the worst school in the nation. They are not doomed - they have paths to success, if they will only take them. I know, I had an excellent example of this - my Dad. I doubt you could find many people starting off life more disadvantaged than he was. But he found his way out. PM me if you want details.

2. Once again, people have opportunities if they will take advantage of them. Going back to my Dad, he was raised in one of the lowest income communities in the nation, a minority-majority city, in the depths of the Depression. Not all of us start out in the most hygienic place or the finest school. So what. We all have an equal opportunityto what is needed to get out, to go from rags to riches, or in some cases, from riches to rags. That is what equal opportunity means, not we all have to have the exact same starting point.

3. Income inequality is based on results. Some people end up making more money than others. I see the results coming primarily (not solely) from each individual's choices and efforts. Do accidents of birth help some more than others? Sure. That is why there is a show called Keeping up with the Kardashians and not one called Keeping up with OptimisticOwl. I was not lucky enough to be born female, beautiful, and the child of a famous and wealthy dad. But I dealt with it. We don't all have to end up the same, just as we don't all have to have the same assets or be the same height. I wish I had Cam Newton's athletic talent. I wish I had Taylor Swift's ability to sing and write music. But I don't. How can we equalize that? They both make a lot more than me. Not fair. I had to go to a little country school. Bet it wasn't as good as the one you went to. I was disadvantaged compared to those in the big city schools, and boy did it show when I got to Rice.

(12-02-2012 11:26 PM)FanViaThresherSports09 Wrote:  1) Unduly is a squishy term. I only threw it in there because I can't imagine a world where the circumstances of one's upbringing plays NO role in how one's life turns out. I suppose I mean that we should eradicate as many socially- or legally-imposed barriers to success as possible (thinking specifically of the sad state of public school finance).
2) Unfortunately, no, we're not at a point at which each person is rewarded based on his efforts and talents. The aforementioned school finance deficiencies, for instance, produce legions of students who emerge from school (if they graduate at all) with no real prospects, or with whatever latent talent they had snuffed out by several years of inadequate education. Many low-income communities are situated near trash dumps and factories, resulting in health problems for the residents. Here in North Carolina, it's been statistically proven that minorities are disproportionately arrested and more harshly punished. The glass ceiling still exists.
3) I don't think "mere" income inequality requires correcting. Income inequality is fine, because it's emerges naturally when people with differing talents put in different amounts of effort. Unfortunately, I don't think that income inequality today is a reflection of talent and effort as much as it is a reflection of systematic biases and disadvantages faced by a number of underprivileged groups.

The real problem with school finance is that steadily poured more and more money into education over the last 50 years, with little or no return. Meanwhile, other countries have run past us while spending less than we do. The problem is not school finance, it's school performance. Do you really believe that throwing money at low-performing schools will solve the problems? Seriously? If so, how much money would you throw, and where would you throw it? And what would be the results that you expect? And what would be the unintended consequences? And how and why will that work now when it hasn't for the last 50 years?

I think the system actually does a pretty good job of rewarding people based on efforts and talents. The problem is that there are too many provisions that discourage some from making the effort to use their talents. Take the welfare trap. A family of four with $15,000 earned income can qualify for up to around $30,000 in benefits. A second family with earned income of $55,000 no longer qualifies for those benefits plus it pays state and federal income taxes and social security taxes on the difference in earned income. Bottom line is that both families have about $45,000 in purchasing power. A 100% effective tax rate is a huge disincentive for anyone to engage in economic activity. At least not legal economic activity that must be reported to the government. Both sides are to blame. The right insists on means-testing programs because, of course, we wouldn't want the wrong people getting money. The left is fine with this because focused programs with specific gate-keeping criteria create far more jobs for generally left-leaning sociologists and other social scientists to man those gates. So we end up with programs that get sold to the voting public as helping the poor when in realty up to 70% of the money goes to pay administrators, not to provide benefits to the poor. That is, of course, how we spend so much more for education with no bang for the buck. Count the number of assistant principals and school district administrators today compared with whenever you were in school. I think you'll be astounded to know where your school tax dollars are going.

I think the problem with "mere" inequality is that the left likes to dramatize it. Wherever there is mere inequality, find a reason and then design a new program to attack that reason. Instead of focusing on inequality, shouldn't we instead focus more on how to make the poor better off?

(12-03-2012 12:08 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(12-02-2012 11:26 PM)FanViaThresherSports09 Wrote:  

(12-02-2012 10:25 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(12-02-2012 09:55 PM)FanViaThresherSports09 Wrote:  

(12-02-2012 08:34 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  I've asked the question about optimal (in)equality many times, and have never gotten a response.

How do we know if the changes the few couple of decades are not in the direction of the optimal level? Will we ever know it whwn we see it?

Well, if you're talking about income inequality, I don't think there is a correct answer. If you're talking about equal opportunity to earn income, then we'll know we've hit the right spot when every person, regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, country of origin, etc. is rewarded solely on their own efforts and talents, and not unduly handicapped by the circumstances of their births.

How much is unduly?

And are we not already at a point at which every person is rewarded solely on their own efforts and talents? Or are some people given advantages based on their gender, race, ethnicity, country of origin, etc.? Who are these people?

And back to income inequality, if there is no correct answer, how do we know it needs correcting?

1) Unduly is a squishy term. I only threw it in there because I can't imagine a world where the circumstances of one's upbringing plays NO role in how one's life turns out. I suppose I mean that we should eradicate as many socially- or legally-imposed barriers to success as possible (thinking specifically of the sad state of public school finance).

2) Unfortunately, no, we're not at a point at which each person is rewarded based on his efforts and talents. The aforementioned school finance deficiencies, for instance, produce legions of students who emerge from school (if they graduate at all) with no real prospects, or with whatever latent talent they had snuffed out by several years of inadequate education. Many low-income communities are situated near trash dumps and factories, resulting in health problems for the residents. Here in North Carolina, it's been statistically proven that minorities are disproportionately arrested and more harshly punished. The glass ceiling still exists.

3) I don't think "mere" income inequality requires correcting. Income inequality is fine, because it's emerges naturally when people with differing talents put in different amounts of effort. Unfortunately, I don't think that income inequality today is a reflection of talent and effort as much as it is a reflection of systematic biases and disadvantages faced by a number of underprivileged groups.

1. Better public education certainly is a good goal, but somebody wil always be attending the worst school in the nation. They are not doomed - they have paths to success, if they will only take them. I know, I had an excellent example of this - my Dad. I doubt you could find many people starting off life more disadvantaged than he was. But he found his way out. PM me if you want details.

2. Once again, people have opportunities if they will take advantage of them. Going back to my Dad, he was raised in one of the lowest income communities in the nation, a minority-majority city, in the depths of the Depression. Not all of us start out in the most hygienic place or the finest school. So what. We all have an equal opportunityto what is needed to get out, to go from rags to riches, or in some cases, from riches to rags. That is what equal opportunity means, not we all have to have the exact same starting point.

3. Income inequality is based on results. Some people end up making more money than others. I see the results coming primarily (not solely) from each individual's choices and efforts. Do accidents of birth help some more than others? Sure. That is why there is a show called Keeping up with the Kardashians and not one called Keeping up with OptimisticOwl. I was not lucky enough to be born female, beautiful, and the child of a famous and wealthy dad. But I dealt with it. We don't all have to end up the same, just as we don't all have to have the same assets or be the same height. I wish I had Cam Newton's athletic talent. I wish I had Taylor Swift's ability to sing and write music. But I don't. How can we equalize that? They both make a lot more than me. Not fair. I had to go to a little country school. Bet it wasn't as good as the one you went to. I was disadvantaged compared to those in the big city schools, and boy did it show when I got to Rice.

Interesting that you see opportunities as equal. I'll flip your question a bit -- at what point in the past do you feel the US achieved equality of opportunity? I think we would probably agree that we weren't there prior to Emancipation. So when did we hit it?

(12-04-2012 07:11 AM)JOwl Wrote:  

(12-03-2012 12:08 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  1. Better public education certainly is a good goal, but somebody wil always be attending the worst school in the nation. They are not doomed - they have paths to success, if they will only take them. I know, I had an excellent example of this - my Dad. I doubt you could find many people starting off life more disadvantaged than he was. But he found his way out. PM me if you want details.
2. Once again, people have opportunities if they will take advantage of them. Going back to my Dad, he was raised in one of the lowest income communities in the nation, a minority-majority city, in the depths of the Depression. Not all of us start out in the most hygienic place or the finest school. So what. We all have an equal opportunity to what is needed to get out, to go from rags to riches, or in some cases, from riches to rags. That is what equal opportunity means, not we all have to have the exact same starting point.
3. Income inequality is based on results. Some people end up making more money than others. I see the results coming primarily (not solely) from each individual's choices and efforts. Do accidents of birth help some more than others? Sure. That is why there is a show called Keeping up with the Kardashians and not one called Keeping up with OptimisticOwl. I was not lucky enough to be born female, beautiful, and the child of a famous and wealthy dad. But I dealt with it. We don't all have to end up the same, just as we don't all have to have the same assets or be the same height. I wish I had Cam Newton's athletic talent. I wish I had Taylor Swift's ability to sing and write music. But I don't. How can we equalize that? They both make a lot more than me. Not fair. I had to go to a little country school. Bet it wasn't as good as the one you went to. I was disadvantaged compared to those in the big city schools, and boy did it show when I got to Rice.

Interesting that you see opportunities as equal. I'll flip your question a bit -- at what point in the past do you feel the US achieved equality of opportunity? I think we would probably agree that we weren't there prior to Emancipation. So when did we hit it?

I think your question depends on a different interpretation of equality that what OO intends. Since I objected to what I consider to be his doing that to my post on the Bailiff issue, it is only fair that I object to your doing that to him here.

We don't have to start at the same place to have opportunity, and we certainly don't have to end up at the same place, but those are the standards being applied to judge equality of opportunity.

I would like to take the discussion another direction. There are two ways to achieve greater equality of outcomes--make the poor richer or make the rich poorer. Adding 4.6% to Mitt Romney's tax rate is an clearly attempt to make the rich poorer, albeit one that is easily avoided for the most part by the Mitt Romneys and Warren Buffetts and Nancy Pelosis of the world. But does it actually make the poor richer? If so, how and why? And if not, is it a useful exercise?

I get the argument that making the "rich" pay for federal programs rather than the poor doesn't hurt the poor as much as it hurts the "rich." But do those programs actually help the poor? And if they don't, and all we accomplish is the we hurt the "rich" more than we hurt the poor in order to pay for them, are we really doing anything that should be done?

Take the school funding issue. Clearly some schools get more money than others. But is money the problem? We've poured immensely increased amounts of money into education over the last 50 years or so, with essentially flat results. Meanwhile other countries are spending way less than we are and getting way better results. And in particular we are spending way more on inner-city schools with declining results.

If we want seriously to reduce inequality, we need to focus more on helping the poor than hurting the "rich." And step one in doing that is a recognition that simply pouring more money into the sociologists' flavor of the month program isn't getting the job done.

We need to redesign our welfare program so that you don't lose a dollar of benefits and taxes for every dollar you make on your climb out of poverty. I would argue that the disincentive that creates is as big a barrier as anything else.

We need to recognize that the "rich" are not simply going to sit and pay ever higher taxes when other options are available to them. And we need to recognize that those other options often involve moving economic activity and jobs offshore, hurting the poor and middle class far more than they hurt the rich. If you really wanted to help the middle class, make the US a Mecca for investment, and the resulting jobs created would do more at a lower cost to the government than anything else.

Do a more comprehensive welfare safety net, reformed to reduce or eliminate disincentives to climb out, and pay for it with taxes that are competitive worldwide--meaning lower, flatter, broader.

(12-04-2012 08:46 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  Take the school funding issue. Clearly some schools get more money than others. But is money the problem? We've poured immensely increased amounts of money into education over the last 50 years or so, with essentially flat results. Meanwhile other countries are spending way less than we are and getting way better results. And in particular we are spending way more on inner-city schools with declining results.

I'm not jumping into this hornet's nest again, but I did want to point out that there are entire undergraduate courses devoted to pointing out all of the holes in this particular conclusion re: school finance.

For example:

• We're one of the fewest countries in the world that attempts to education all of our children in the same manner through high school. In certain Asian countries, for instance, if you're not cutting it through elementary school, you don't go to middle school. You can see this by parsing through those international test scores that everyone's always up in arms about - The U.S. is just as competitive as everyone else when it comes to the top 25% of test takers, but we fall off the charts in the bottom 25%. So comparing the U.S. to other countries regarding "results" isn't comparing apples to oranges.
• You're correct that money alone is not sufficient to solve the problem, but it's certainly necessary. How do you fix dilapidated facilities without money? How do you attract the most qualified teachers without money? How do you make sure that every classroom is sufficiently stocked with supplies and textbooks without money? And if money really doesn't make a difference, I suppose our fine friends in River Oaks won't mind sharing some of their superfluous school finance cash with kids down in Pasadena ISD?
  

(12-04-2012 10:39 AM)FanViaThresherSports09 Wrote:  I'm not jumping into this hornet's nest again, but I did want to point out that there are entire undergraduate courses devoted to pointing out all of the holes in this particular conclusion re: school finance.
For example:

• We're one of the fewest countries in the world that attempts to education all of our children in the same manner through high school. In certain Asian countries, for instance, if you're not cutting it through elementary school, you don't go to middle school. You can see this by parsing through those international test scores that everyone's always up in arms about - The U.S. is just as competitive as everyone else when it comes to the top 25% of test takers, but we fall off the charts in the bottom 25%. So comparing the U.S. to other countries regarding "results" isn't comparing apples to oranges.
• You're correct that money alone is not sufficient to solve the problem, but it's certainly necessary. How do you fix dilapidated facilities without money? How do you attract the most qualified teachers without money? How do you make sure that every classroom is sufficiently stocked with supplies and textbooks without money? And if money really doesn't make a difference, I suppose our fine friends in River Oaks won't mind sharing some of their superfluous school finance cash with kids down in Pasadena ISD?
  

We should not attempt to educate all our children in the same way. We should have multiple tracks for different aptitudes and interests. And while the anecdote you cite may be true for "certain Asian countries," it is not true for all of the countries ahead of us, or even all the Asian countries ahead of us, or even most. We have a real problem.

We're spending more and more money now and facilities remain dilapidated. The problem is that we're spending the money on administrators and largely worthless ancillary programs, instead of improving the classroom product. As long as the money goes to the wrong places, it won't solve the problem.

The problem with education is that in the private sector, the better you do, the more money you make, whereas in government the worse job you do the more you can claim that you need more money. Start holding people accountable for results, and you will see vast and rapid improvement. And not the kind of accountability you get from a TAKS test, or whatever it is called these days.

Entire undergraduate courses? Really? What a waste.

(12-04-2012 11:02 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  Entire undergraduate courses? Really?

Really! There might even be some continuing studies courses for those of us who have graduated already...

(12-04-2012 12:12 PM)FanViaThresherSports09 Wrote:  

(12-04-2012 11:02 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  Entire undergraduate courses? Really?

Really! There might even be some continuing studies courses for those of us who have graduated already...

That is a waste of resources.

From Wiki:

"According to a 2007 article in The Washington Post, the Washington D.C. public school district spends $12,979 per student per year. This is the third highest level of funding per student out of the 100 biggest school districts in the U.S. According to the article, however, these schools are ranked last in the amount of funding spent on teachers and instruction, and first on the amount spent on administration. The school district has produced outcomes that are lower than the national average. In reading and math, the district's students score the lowest among 11 major school districts – even when poor children are compared with other poor children. 33% of poor fourth graders in the U.S. lack basic skills in math, but in Washington D.C., it's 62%.[83]"

If money solved the problem, I think most of our legislators and and politicians would be sending their kids to the public schools in DC.

(12-04-2012 03:49 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  From Wiki:

"According to a 2007 article in The Washington Post, the Washington D.C. public school district spends $12,979 per student per year. This is the third highest level of funding per student out of the 100 biggest school districts in the U.S. According to the article, however, these schools are ranked last in the amount of funding spent on teachers and instruction, and first on the amount spent on administration. The school district has produced outcomes that are lower than the national average. In reading and math, the district's students score the lowest among 11 major school districts – even when poor children are compared with other poor children. 33% of poor fourth graders in the U.S. lack basic skills in math, but in Washington D.C., it's 62%.[83]"

If money solved the problem, I think most of our legislators and and politicians would be sending their kids to the public schools in DC.

It should also be noted that the best systems in the world spend less than we do.

(12-04-2012 04:03 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(12-04-2012 03:49 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  From Wiki:

"According to a 2007 article in The Washington Post, the Washington D.C. public school district spends $12,979 per student per year. This is the third highest level of funding per student out of the 100 biggest school districts in the U.S. According to the article, however, these schools are ranked last in the amount of funding spent on teachers and instruction, and first on the amount spent on administration. The school district has produced outcomes that are lower than the national average. In reading and math, the district's students score the lowest among 11 major school districts – even when poor children are compared with other poor children. 33% of poor fourth graders in the U.S. lack basic skills in math, but in Washington D.C., it's 62%.[83]"

If money solved the problem, I think most of our legislators and and politicians would be sending their kids to the public schools in DC.

It should also be noted that the best systems in the world spend less than we do.

1) I guess I'll just say it again - obviously, money alone is not sufficient to ensure success, but it is necessary. From both of your earlier posts, I gather that, at least in some sense, you agree with me, because you keep pointing out that the money we have already is being spent too heavily on administration, which implies you think it should go elsewhere within education.

2) Yeah, inner city schools need more money to achieve the same results as suburban schools. They have more safety issues, which means they need more security personnel. Chances are they have students at higher risk of dropping out, so they need more counselors, etc. They likely have more kids who aren't proficient in English, which means they need extra language coaches with special ESL skills (which don't come cheap). We've already talked about how urban schools are often more dilapidated. Urban schools have less parent volunteerism, so many of the classroom-level organizational jobs that are handled by parent volunteers in the suburbs have to be handled by a paid employee. And, of course, inner city schools are often in undesirable neighborhoods, so it generally takes more money to attract teachers and administrators if you want to get good ones. Would you rather be a teacher with a 25:1 ratio, full sets of textbooks, and all the technology you can handle, or have a 35:1 ratio, 5 books per class, and broken, graffiti covered windows?

3) D.C. is a huge exception to the standard school funding model. In most places, the inner city is a terrible place to raise education tax revenue. In San Antonio, for instance, the poorest districts tax their residents at a rate at least three times as high as the rich districts, but only obtain about a quarter of the income. Does that sound like the strategy of people who don't care about education?

4) Yes, we do spend more per student than other countries, but that could be for many reasons. Maybe other countries spend more on early childhood education than we do, which in turn lowers the amount of money they have to spend on remediation and dropout prevention later. Many studies have shown that you get more bang for your buck in the early years of education, and yet we pour most of our money into adolescent, reactionary education. Undoubtedly the social safety nets in other countries are more comprehensive, which means that basic health needs and other incidental services provided by schools here are provided by the state, instead.

And while we're on the subject, demanding that low performing schools do more with the money they already have seems a little misguided to me. Wealthy neighborhoods schools often enjoy substantial community support, and their students do quite a bit more learning after the school day is over by virtue of simply having more resources at home. The school's role in developing children is, essentially, supplemental. This is in contrast to many inner city schools, which take on a much more central role in each child's development (which requires more money to make up for the intangible benefits they lack). This is the premise behind charter schools like KIPP Academy or YES Prep, who keep their kids at school for 9 hour school days because their home lives are not conducive to continued learning. Urban schools, to a far larger degree than in the suburbs, have to become both educator and parent, which yes, takes more money.

I'm getting a little lost here. Can you relate community support to income inequality? And what should be done to increase community and familial support in the underperforming school districts?

(12-04-2012 08:46 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(12-04-2012 07:11 AM)JOwl Wrote:  

(12-03-2012 12:08 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  1. Better public education certainly is a good goal, but somebody wil always be attending the worst school in the nation. They are not doomed - they have paths to success, if they will only take them. I know, I had an excellent example of this - my Dad. I doubt you could find many people starting off life more disadvantaged than he was. But he found his way out. PM me if you want details.
2. Once again, people have opportunities if they will take advantage of them. Going back to my Dad, he was raised in one of the lowest income communities in the nation, a minority-majority city, in the depths of the Depression. Not all of us start out in the most hygienic place or the finest school. So what. We all have an equal opportunity to what is needed to get out, to go from rags to riches, or in some cases, from riches to rags. That is what equal opportunity means, not we all have to have the exact same starting point.
3. Income inequality is based on results. Some people end up making more money than others. I see the results coming primarily (not solely) from each individual's choices and efforts. Do accidents of birth help some more than others? Sure. That is why there is a show called Keeping up with the Kardashians and not one called Keeping up with OptimisticOwl. I was not lucky enough to be born female, beautiful, and the child of a famous and wealthy dad. But I dealt with it. We don't all have to end up the same, just as we don't all have to have the same assets or be the same height. I wish I had Cam Newton's athletic talent. I wish I had Taylor Swift's ability to sing and write music. But I don't. How can we equalize that? They both make a lot more than me. Not fair. I had to go to a little country school. Bet it wasn't as good as the one you went to. I was disadvantaged compared to those in the big city schools, and boy did it show when I got to Rice.

Interesting that you see opportunities as equal. I'll flip your question a bit -- at what point in the past do you feel the US achieved equality of opportunity? I think we would probably agree that we weren't there prior to Emancipation. So when did we hit it?

I think your question depends on a different interpretation of equality that what OO intends. Since I objected to what I consider to be his doing that to my post on the Bailiff issue, it is only fair that I object to your doing that to him here.

How so? What does OO intend by "equality of opportunity" that makes my question impossible?

(12-05-2012 06:22 AM)JOwl Wrote:  

(12-04-2012 08:46 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(12-04-2012 07:11 AM)JOwl Wrote:  

(12-03-2012 12:08 AM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  1. Better public education certainly is a good goal, but somebody wil always be attending the worst school in the nation. They are not doomed - they have paths to success, if they will only take them. I know, I had an excellent example of this - my Dad. I doubt you could find many people starting off life more disadvantaged than he was. But he found his way out. PM me if you want details.
2. Once again, people have opportunities if they will take advantage of them. Going back to my Dad, he was raised in one of the lowest income communities in the nation, a minority-majority city, in the depths of the Depression. Not all of us start out in the most hygienic place or the finest school. So what. We all have an equal opportunity to what is needed to get out, to go from rags to riches, or in some cases, from riches to rags. That is what equal opportunity means, not we all have to have the exact same starting point.
3. Income inequality is based on results. Some people end up making more money than others. I see the results coming primarily (not solely) from each individual's choices and efforts. Do accidents of birth help some more than others? Sure. That is why there is a show called Keeping up with the Kardashians and not one called Keeping up with OptimisticOwl. I was not lucky enough to be born female, beautiful, and the child of a famous and wealthy dad. But I dealt with it. We don't all have to end up the same, just as we don't all have to have the same assets or be the same height. I wish I had Cam Newton's athletic talent. I wish I had Taylor Swift's ability to sing and write music. But I don't. How can we equalize that? They both make a lot more than me. Not fair. I had to go to a little country school. Bet it wasn't as good as the one you went to. I was disadvantaged compared to those in the big city schools, and boy did it show when I got to Rice.

Interesting that you see opportunities as equal. I'll flip your question a bit -- at what point in the past do you feel the US achieved equality of opportunity? I think we would probably agree that we weren't there prior to Emancipation. So when did we hit it?

I think your question depends on a different interpretation of equality that what OO intends. Since I objected to what I consider to be his doing that to my post on the Bailiff issue, it is only fair that I object to your doing that to him here.

How so? What does OO intend by "equality of opportunity" that makes my question impossible?

If that's not obvious to you from the context, then I have no interest in taking on the project of explaining it to you. I can explain it to you, but I can't make you understand it. Perhaps OO would like to take on that project, perhaps not.

(12-04-2012 11:44 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  I'm getting a little lost here. Can you relate community support to income inequality? And what should be done to increase community and familial support in the underperforming school districts?

Sure. Wealthy families are often more involved in their children's schooling, for any number of reasons - they're more likely to have a stay-at-home parent; they're more likely to have jobs with hours that more or less mirror the school day (and more likely to have only one job), so that they can match their kids' schedules; speaking from personal experience, they're more likely to be assertive and inquisitive about their children's education in a way that many low income parents are not (and there are many reasons for this which would take a more than message board post to explain).

I don't have any ready answers for what we can do to increase community involvement in low-income schools, other than to increase the economic situation in low-income communities generally. My point was that given the current state of things, schools in poor communities have to take on extra support roles that are generally handled by the community at large in wealthy communities, and that costs money.

I was thinking about this earlier, and I feel like we agree that the money we're currently using for education could be more efficiently spent. I think one problem is that the large increase in spending in recent decades has come at the federal level, which means it is often earmarked and comes with strings attached (and isn't mandatory for states to take - see, e.g. Rick Perry's refusal to take "Race to the Top" money). I'm more interested in the local finance situation, which makes it much harder for property-poor districts to raise money, even if they tax themselves at a higher rate than their wealthy counterparts. This problem is exacerbated in Texas because we have multiple school districts per urban area, and the district lines often divide rich and poor areas. Other states, like North Carolina, insulate themselves from this problem (at least to some extent) by having school districts co-extensive with county lines, creating a larger pool of property tax money from which more schools can draw.

(12-05-2012 10:13 AM)FanViaThresherSports09 Wrote:  

(12-04-2012 11:44 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  I'm getting a little lost here. Can you relate community support to income inequality? And what should be done to increase community and familial support in the underperforming school districts?

Sure. Wealthy families are often more involved in their children's schooling, for any number of reasons - they're more likely to have a stay-at-home parent; they're more likely to have jobs with hours that more or less mirror the school day (and more likely to have only one job), so that they can match their kids' schedules; speaking from personal experience, they're more likely to be assertive and inquisitive about their children's education in a way that many low income parents are not (and there are many reasons for this which would take a more than message board post to explain).

I guess we need to define "wealthy" for purposes of this discussion. I think we are reverting to stereotypes that include mansions and smoking jackets, Do you or anybody else have any data relating family income to two job families?

Most kids in the high achieving public schools come from middle class familes. The rich kids tend to go to private schools.

I think a lot of the middle class familes have two workers. My family did, when I had young children, my son's family does, most of the families I know both parents work, sometimes by necessity, sometimes by choice, and in some cases, because they jointly own and run a business. My wife chose to stay home until the youngest went to school, then she chose to go back to work. Her choices. I was running two businesses with lots of travel and going to grad school at night. Either way, we both stayed involved. It wasn't because we had lots of leisure and nothing better to do.

On the other hand, I think a lot of lower income families have only one worker - that is part of the reason they are in the lower economic group. Maybe Dad has two jobs, but often Mom doesn't. Sometimes neither has a job.

It is my experience that concerned parents will find ways to overcome obstacles. Certainly work schedules will prevent some from as much involvment as they would like, but I don't think it is a primary cause.

Quote:I don't have any ready answers for what we can do to increase community involvement in low-income schools, other than to increase the economic situation in low-income communities generally.

Sounds like you argeeing with Owl69 that what we need is to make everybody richer, not to squeeze the ends toward the middle.

On second thought, maybe not.

An additional aspect:

Single parenthood is higher among lower-income families. Perhaps the parents never got married, or they got divorced. With money being the most cited reason for strains on marriages, you see more divorces among lower-income families, I believe. I think we can mostly agree that, generally speaking, children of single-parent households get less time with their parents than those with two parents (even if both parents are working because there is back-up for each parent, and certainly if one parent is staying at home).

My experience has been that richer people don't get divorced as much. For middle school in Houston, I went to a private school that had many middle class families, a fair number of whom had divorce in their history and single parents. I then went to a pretty exclusive, wealthy school (St. John's), where almost everybody had both parents--and generally enjoyed the benefits of having both around.

I have a two-year old daughter, and both my wife and I are attorneys, so we both work long hours. But having some financial stability allows us to not only send our kid to a $15,000/year preschool, but also have a live-in au pair for her (but only recently). My wife and my schedules are also such that we have some flexibility to attend school functions, participate in the life of the school, and taking her to things like private swim lessons and the weekly onslaught of kids' birthday parties on the weekends. Working together, my wife and I have the time and energy to read up on children's nutrition, to police bedtimes, don't need to rely on TV to entertain the kid, etc.

I know this is just one data point, but with respect to a child's development and education, it seems common sense to me that growing up with both parents and some money is markedly better than having a single parent and none. And growing up middle or upper-middle class is better for development/education than growing up poor. (Socio-economics of the parents, in almost all the literature, is cited as the biggest predictor of academic success of a child.)

(12-05-2012 12:47 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  

(12-05-2012 10:13 AM)FanViaThresherSports09 Wrote:  

(12-04-2012 11:44 PM)OptimisticOwl Wrote:  I'm getting a little lost here. Can you relate community support to income inequality? And what should be done to increase community and familial support in the underperforming school districts?

Sure. Wealthy families are often more involved in their children's schooling, for any number of reasons - they're more likely to have a stay-at-home parent; they're more likely to have jobs with hours that more or less mirror the school day (and more likely to have only one job), so that they can match their kids' schedules; speaking from personal experience, they're more likely to be assertive and inquisitive about their children's education in a way that many low income parents are not (and there are many reasons for this which would take a more than message board post to explain).

I guess we need to define "wealthy" for purposes of this discussion. I think we are reverting to stereotypes that include mansions and smoking jackets, Do you or anybody else have any data relating family income to two job families?

Most kids in the high achieving public schools come from middle class familes. The rich kids tend to go to private schools.

I think a lot of the middle class familes have two workers. My family did, when I had young children, my son's family does, most of the families I know both parents work, sometimes by necessity, sometimes by choice, and in some cases, because they jointly own and run a business. My wife chose to stay home until the youngest went to school, then she chose to go back to work. Her choices. I was running two businesses with lots of travel and going to grad school at night. Either way, we both stayed involved. It wasn't because we had lots of leisure and nothing better to do.

On the other hand, I think a lot of lower income families have only one worker - that is part of the reason they are in the lower economic group. Maybe Dad has two jobs, but often Mom doesn't. Sometimes neither has a job.

It is my experience that concerned parents will find ways to overcome obstacles. Certainly work schedules will prevent some from as much involvment as they would like, but I don't think it is a primary cause.

Quote:I don't have any ready answers for what we can do to increase community involvement in low-income schools, other than to increase the economic situation in low-income communities generally.

Sounds like you argeeing with Owl69 that what we need is to make everybody richer, not to squeeze the ends toward the middle.

On second thought, maybe not.

Nothing much to say here, other than to point out that all I was trying to do was offer several explanations for why schools in poor communities might need more money. I've done so, and I might as well point out that most of what I've said has gone un-refuted. If you'd like to discuss any of those points, I'll be happy to continue the conversation.