America actually has a pretty good education system

[MikeH]

I agree with Sloww. Hera, you don't understand America at all.

When DaShi and Sloww agree on something you can have some high confidence that it is pretty solidly uncontroversial.

[Heraclitus]

I agree with Sloww. Hera, you don't understand America at all.

Americans don't understand America very well because they can't disentangle their prejudices to look at America from the outside.

[MikeH]

DaShi lives in China (at least some of the time) and Sloww lives in Texas, so they are both looking at America from the outside.

[Heraclitus]

DaShi lives in China (at least some of the time) and Sloww lives in Texas, so they are both looking at America from the outside.

Good point.

[Al B. Sure!]

Well aren't you a regular Alexis Tocqueville, Heraclitus

[Heraclitus]

Richard Posner writes:

International comparisons are tricky, as Becker points out, but the PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment), which tests 15-year-olds for proficiency in reading, math, and science by well designed standard tests conducted in thousands of schools all over the world, is a careful and responsible program, the results of which deserve to be taken seriously. The latest results (which are for 2009) reveal among other things that although the United States spends more money per student on secondary school education than any other country except Switzerland and Austria, Americans’ performance on the PISA tests is mediocre. In the latest tests Americans ranked 17 in reading, 24 in science, and 30 in math. 15-year-old kids in East Asian nations (including Australia and New Zealand), along with Finland, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Canada, outperform the United States in all three subjects. Since 2000, when the PISA tests were first given, the United States has fallen in rank in reading and science, and is unchanged in math.

The rankings tend to be interpreted as measures of the quality of a nation’s pre-collegiate school system (primary and secondary education, since primary education influences performance in secondary schools). But this may be a mistake. Schooling is only one, though doubtless an important, input into performance on the PISA tests. Another is IQ. There have been some efforts to compare IQ across countries, notably by Richard Lynn and Tatu Vanhanen; see their 2006 book IQ and Global Inequality. Their results cannot be regarded as definitive, given significant limitations in the data, but they are suggestive. The authors find that the East Asian countries, which generally rank highest on the PISA tests (including reading—not just math and sciene), have the highest average IQs; the average IQ of Americans is lower because of our large black and Hispanic populations, which have lower average IQs than whites and Asians.

IQ is understood to reflect both genetic endowment and environmental factors, particularly factors operative very early in a child’s life, including prenatal care, maternal health, the educational level of the parents, family stability, and poverty (all these are correlated, and could of course reflect low IQs of parents as well as causing low IQs in their children). The case for very early intervention in children’s development, powerfully urged by the distinguished University of Chicago economist James Heckman, can be understood as an effort to lift IQs in the black and Hispanic communities and by doing so improve the educational performance of black and Hispanic children, including performance on the PISA tests. It is true that Heckman emphasizes noncognitive skills that facilitate learning, but these skills could also increase performance on IQ tests, indicating a positive effect on IQ.

The 2009 PISA test scores reveal that in American schools in which only a small percentage (no more than 10 percent) of the students receive free lunches or reduced-cost lunches, which are benefits provided to students from poor families, the PISA reading test scores are the highest in the world. But in the many American schools in which 75 percent or more of the students are from poor families, the scores are the second lowest among the 34 countries of the OECD; and the OECD includes such countries as Mexico, Turkey, Portugal, and Slovakia.

If IQ is playing a significant role in America’s mediocre showing on the PISA tests, improvements in secondary school education are unlikely to have dramatic effects. The white and Asian kids in American schools are already doing fine, for the most part; the black and Hispanic kids may not do much better until their early childhood environment is improved to the point at which black and Hispanic IQs are raised significantly.

[Al B. Sure!]

I like how you ignore the rest of the blog post which has two bits which are more relevant than your racial theories. Here's the rest of the article:

Analysis of the PISA results has revealed some other interesting facts. One is that higher teacher salaries dominate small class size as a factor in high PISA scores. This is a reassuring finding because it suggests that secondary school education can be improved at no net increase in cost, since higher teacher salaries are offset by larger classes—if class size is raised in proportion to increases in teacher salaries, there is no net increase in the school’s cost, and there should actually be a reduction in cost in the long term because a reduction in the number of classrooms reduces the size and therefore cost of a school even if each classroom is larger. Another reassuring finding, in light of all the agitation over charter schools and voucher systems, is that private schools on average do not outperform public schools after adjusting for the quality of students upon entrance and that competition for students does not seem to improve average performance either. Of course these are generalizations across many countries and America’s individualistic culture may not fit them.

This observation is especially pertinent to another finding in the PISA report, which is that poor kids do better in a school that has mostly middle-class kids. Our education system, both public and private, tends as a practical matter to be segregated according to family income and social class. This is a reflection of economic inequality, which is great in the United States and growing.

Becker points out that despite the imperfections of its educational system, America remains preeminent in innovation. This is important but it appears to be due in part to the nation’s attractiveness to immigrants. Many of our innovators are foreign born; increasingly they are Asian. The United States, as a result of generous immigration policies in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, also has the largest Jewish population in the world—larger than Israel’s, and a higher percentage of American Jews are Ashkenazi—that is, descendants of European Jewish immigrants. This is significant because Ashkenazi Jews have a significantly higher average IQ than other Americans, including (though the margin is small) East Asians, and, as important, a very strong cultural orientation toward high achievement in business, science, and intellectual fields generally. From the standpoint of innovation, a wide distribution of IQs is more important than the average IQ, because most innovations will come from persons with an above-average IQ, and in scientific and other technical fields from persons with a way-above-average IQ. Moreover, because of the bell shape (normal distribution) of IQ across persons, a higher average IQ translates into a much longer upper tail—the part of the distribution that contains the highest IQs.

If as I am speculating (and I emphasize that it is speculation), IQ is a major factor in school performance, we should hesitate to place too much weight on variance in educational investments, methods, etc. in explaining differences in that performance, relative to genetic and cultural factors and also (and importantly) to economic inequality.

[Heraclitus]

I like how you ignore the rest of the blog post which has two bits which are more relevant than your racial theories. Here's the rest of the article:

You are projecting.

1. I never claimed private schools added any value beyond beinga good way to get away with the benefits class, inteligence and racial segregation bring.

2. Less inteligent people benfit from the company of inteligent people.

3.

which is that poor kids do better in a school that has mostly middle-class kids. Our education system, both public and private, tends as a practical matter to be segregated according to family income and social class. This is a reflection of economic inequality, which is great in the United States and growing.

Well, duh.


I don't disagree with anything he wrote, however it cotains little that is new to the debate, what is new and potentially encouraging is his acceptance and use of:

a) The (by the large majority of experts accepted) fact of real racial differences in cognitive performance
b) Accepting genetics as a possible cause of some of these differences (making him not only sane but also a hereditarian since its most hereditarians consider enivornment to be the bigger or equal factor, while blank slatists usually deny even the possiblity of any genetic factor)


You seem to think I have something in for NAMs (nonAsian minorities), I don't.

I do want to keep White identity but this dosen't need segregation or White nationalism or even harsh limits to (legal) immigration, all it needs is to take moral posturing out of miscgenation and let people follow their heart and a higher White birth rate. None of these harm nonEuropeans in any real way.

And I *do* want to help NAMs. I don't mind spending a lot on them, twice, three times as much as is currently spent if I tought it would really help reach a permanently higher level. I just think we've maxed out what can be done with "education", there are potential gains in healhcare but they won't be enough to end dysfunction. This is the reason why I strongly support reasearch into genetic engineering and think some forms of it should be covered by universal healthcare, I think everyone should have the opportunity to have children as smart as the average Askenazi or Korean if they so desire.

I would heartily for example endorse not just spending twice as much on Aboriginals as other Australians but ten, twenty times if this enabled them free genetic modifications for their children (ie actually had a snowflakes chance in hell of helping them without making them dependant on others).

If Liberals endorsed colour blindness and free genetic engineering I would never waste time arguing for illiberal policies that happen to have a very inefficient and small eugenic effect. And considering Bible thumpers have trouble with evolution happening at all I would vote Liberal on most issues as well.

[Jon Miller]

I don't see how you can argue that koreans/etc have some real genetic IQ differences when they work so much harder than their american/european peers.

I always wonder that asians achieve so little, not that they achieve so much.

JM

JM

[Heraclitus]

I don't see how you can argue that koreans/etc have some real genetic IQ differences when they work so much harder than their american/european peers.

I always wonder that asians achieve so little, not that they achieve so much.

JM

JM

1. Then why does the IQ difference remain exactly the same when the children are raised by nonAsian parents?
2. Why can hard work raise adult Korean IQs above say 100, but not say the adult IQ of children of less inteligent European parents? Why can't they match the IQ of more inteligent parents? This again is confirmed with adoption studies.
3. The hard work culture does have an effect. East Asians outperform what is predicted by their IQ tests when it comes to earnings.
4. One can make a good argument that the differing frequencies of personality types among populations is also due to genetics.
5. However yes it is a general mistery why East Asians acheive so little in the top category when they do so well at the upper middle and lower higher level. In the past theories where floated about them having a "narrower" bell curve than Europeans, but we now have sufficient empiric grounds to say that the stdv is pretty much the same across the major human groups (~15 IQ points).
The high IQ of the Askenazi Jews might be part of the explanation, but even taking them away Europeans and Indians while not dominating seem to be doing much better than they should. Inertia from the historical advantage when picking the low hanging fruit is certainly part of it, but again the patter is still there with work done in the last 20 years.

If you're interested in these questions a good list of references to relevant studies and discussion can be found in the archives of Steve Hsu's blog information proccesing.

[DaShi]

I call BS on your studies.

JM

[Heraclitus]

Steve Hsu is clearly RACIST I can't belive you linked to him.

Al B. Sure

[Heraclitus]

Non sequitor

DaShi

[DaShi]

Questioning the validity of the nonsense studies you base your racist assumptions on is now non sequitur?

Maybe someone smart should take up your position. Oh wait, no one smart ever would.

[DaShi]

Hell, I have ten times as many studies that disprove what you are saying. And don't try to change the subject by questioning them.