As baby boomers retire, the American workforce will become dumber and dumber…
…according to a new report from the Educational Testing Service.
Specifically, three factors are converging in a “perfect storm” that is turning the American labor force into a highly illiterate one, profoundly impacting our ability to compete: 1) the educational and skills gap between the races, 2) a global economy that rewards the educated and highly skilled; and 3) the influx of non-English speaking hispanic illegal aliens into the workforce.
Download the PDF version of “America’s Perfect Storm: Three Forces Changing Our Nation’s Future.” The report also includes a brief history of the U.S. economy and the role education has played. I suggest you read it and draw your own conclusions because this post provides only a snapshot of its findings, interspersed with my highly biased commentary. This post by no means includes all arguments and points mentioned in the report or arguments relevant to education, jobs skills, poverty, the economy, or whatever else you can think of.
This Christian Science Monitor story summarizes the report.
Educational and Skills Gap
According to the report, blacks and hispanics “lag considerably” behind whites and Asians in educational achievement. The high school graduation rate for blacks is 50 percent, hispanics 53 percent, whites 75 percent, and Asians 77 percent. Although the U.S. ranks near the top in per-pupil spending, it ranks in the middle among international achievement.
(In the case of Washington D.C., among the nation’s highest in per-pupil spending, consistently ranks near the bottom nationally.)
Exacerbating the educational and skills gap is the fact that “minorities” continue to have disproportionately high out-of-wedlock birth rates. These parents tend to lack high school diploma’s and come from fatherless poor households themselves. They repeat the cycle, giving birth to children likely to be poor and have children out-of-wedlock. The scenario will play out generation after generation. From the report:
[C]hildren raised in low-income, single parent families often suffer from a number of critical cognitive, health, and nutritional deficits that are likely to limit their future academic achievement and educational attainment.
White Americans may care about the deficits, but whites everywhere else don’t. Black Americans won’t be able to appeal to white guilt in the global economy. Now that illegal aliens are replacing native-born blacks in low skilled industries, the employment outlook for lower educated blacks is becoming worse. Consequently, getting an education and acquiring higher level job skills are more important than ever for black Americans.
Trivia: Did you know that foreign-born blacks performed better on the prose literacy portion of national literacy surveys than native-born blacks?
Global Economy
In an increasingly outsourced labor market, owed in part to innovative technology (especially information technology, i.e., computers, broadband), international trade agreements and the like, the demand for highly skilled workers is growing. From the report:
There also has been a dramatic shift in the composition of the job distribution in America toward professional, management and management support, technical, and high-level sales positions. Many of the faster-growing private-sector services and financial industries employ a greater proportion of individuals in these college-labor-market occupations. At the same time, changes in technology and the mix of industries in manufacturing have also increased the demand for workers with these skills.
In other words, the global economy favors innovation and highly literate workers with college degrees. If Americans mired in a cycle of poverty, which contributes to low educational attainment, don’t reverse the trend, they will be virtually left out of the global economy, contributing nothing and living on government crumbs.
Trivia: In 1979, the expected lifetime earnings of men with a college degree were 51 percent higher than for men with only a high school diploma. By 2004, expected lifetime earnings were 96 percent higher.
Illiterate Illegal Aliens
Back in the day, immigrants flocked to the United States, ready, willing, and able to become assimilated, English-speaking Americans. They prized not only America’s opportunities but what America symbolized. These immigrants didn’t just want a good job or higher standard of living. They wanted to be productive and proud Americans.
Today’s “immigrants,” mostly from Central America, have no such ambitions. They come to the U.S. for the employment opportunities and to take advantage of America’s social services. They know what suckers we are for the “disadvantaged,” and they use our own generosity and laws against us.
Not only are illegal aliens pouring across the border, they’re reproducing at higher rates than the native population. Since the federal government is uninterested in carrying out immigration law, illegal aliens are here to stay. This new wave of “immigrants” is uneducated, poor, lacks good English-speaking skills, has disproportionately higher rates of out-of-wedlock births and crime. While black Americans have the convenient white boogeyman to point to as the cause of all their troubles, illegal aliens aren’t really complaining or blaming anyone for anything. At least not yet.
Lower skilled Americans are the ones most negatively affected by illegal aliens. From the report:
Over this same period, nearly half of the projected job growth will be concentrated in occupations associated with higher education and skill levels. This means that tens of millions more of our students and adults will be less able to qualify for higher paying jobs. Instead, they will be competing not only with each other and millions of newly arrived immigrants but also with equally (or better) skilled workers in lower-wage economies around the world.
Wrap-Up
Just focusing on blacks for the time being, I’m convinced that living in a stable family is necessary for the success of a black child today. There are certainly exceptions — the poor black child with an uncaring parent rising to the top academically and professionally — but generally speaking, that’s not the way it works.
Back in the day when blacks as a group valued education more than they do now, even poor blacks did what they had to do – work two or three jobs – to pay their way through schools or send family members to school.
Somewhere along the line, the black “self-help” mantra shifted to a “government action” mantra. Subsequent generations lost the self-help motivation. That, in my opinion, has been devastating. In a global economy, it’s more important than ever that people start taking advantage of opportunities sitting right in front of them. Those on the lower rungs of the socioeconomic ladder can no longer afford to sit back, mired in ignorance and victimhood. They are being left behind, and there will be fewer white people around who care.
Get this through your thick heads: No government program will ever close the educational achievement gap (Correction: Only if the program dumbs down the standards) or wipe out poverty. Individuals must take responsibility for their own situations and find the motivation and determination to alter their own life course. Parents must push their kids to stay in school and succeed (even in a lousy school), but that is assuming the parents care about their kids staying in school and succeeding in the first place. The kind of people who make babies without the foresight and intelligence to form families first are less likely to motivate their kids.
Children of these parents have a tough road ahead of them. They learn warped values in a subculture that claims to care about education but doesn’t practice it. In their world, everything comes down to one thing: victimhood and government handouts. No one taught them that they are indeed masters of their own destinies. No one taught them that education is valuable in itself, let alone where it can take them in this life. I have no sympathy for the adults in this scenario, only for the children of these dolts.
My disgruntled critics love bringing up the fact that “white people do it too” when I write about illegitimacy and crime. It’s a stupid response, really, because we’re talking about proportionality, a concept liberals understand when it comes to race preferences and entitlements but suddenly become ignorant about when the discussion drifts toward crime, poverty, and out-of-wedlock birth statistics. 
Yes, social pathologies are found in all races and in all socioeconomic classes, but they’re found not only in greater proportions in the black community, the damage they cause is much worse. For example, during the “free love” era of the 1960s, sexual standards were relaxed, as was the stigma against getting knocked up. Whites were better equipped to absorb the negative impact of sexual permissiveness (increased rates of sexually transmitted diseases, fatherless children, etc.) than blacks. In a group with higher poverty and illegitimacy rates to begin with, the loosening of moral standards was akin to letting loose an aggressive virus.
People are always whining to me about solutions. Solutions. “What don’t you offer solutions instead of criticizing black folks, La Shawn,” they drone. The thing is, I always offer solutions and suggestions, but those solutions and suggestions aren’t what they want to hear. Absent from my list are any references to white people or slavery or government action.
Blacks have within themselves the power to stop committing crimes, stop having sex outside marriage, and to hold a job, any job, learn new skills and network with people who can steer them toward higher paying jobs. These things are not lofty or unrealistic. They are highly do-able and necessary if blacks, especially blacks with lower job skills and educational attainment, want to improve their lot, compete in the global arena, and live decent and productive lives.
Addendum: Some people just can’t help themselves when it comes to the “white people do it, too” refrain. It’s some sort of reflexive yet misguided and pointless defense tactic. Nothing in this post implies that whites don’t “do it, too.” But…oh, never mind. Whatever I say will be ignored anyway.
Related:
- Review of Enough, by Juan Williams
- Review of Raising Boys Without Men
- Hispanics vs. Blacks: The Battle For ‘Preferred Minority’ Status
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Ditto on low achievement of many Americans.
Disagree on college as a goal for all – half people are “below average” and many don’t benefit from college and many drop out.
Yet we have a shortage of highly trained but not college graduated workers – many highly paid.
Try to get an electrician or plumber in LA. Try to get your car repaired following an accident.
Government subsidy of colleges (State schools, easy loans etc..) has fueled an industry with guaranteed failing students, and the neglect of technical education has left us short.
PS – Do we really need to spend another dime of Government money training more attorneys?
Tragic, if hardly surprising. The contrast between the Fredrick Douglasses, George Washington Carvers, and yes, Martin Luther Kings and the Jesse Jacksons and Al Sharptons of the world pretty much tells you all you need to know. Its not a racial thing (I know you’ve commented about black on average having a lower “g” LaShawn–but even if that is true I don’t think the amount of the difference is significant enough to have more than a trivial effect). If you started brainwashing all Asian children that the only reason their parents aren’t both together working at $200k a year jobs is a history of racism, and further tell them that every single time they are disappointed in life it isn’t maybe because they didn’t’ work hard enough but rather the fault of the “white devils,” and further tell them that the way to get ahead is not to work but to have babies out of wedlock and point fingers, and further that “you don’t have to work–I’ll pay you enough money to live as long as you vote for me”–I’m sure it wouldn’t be long before Asian culture would adopt in much the same way American black culture has. To think of all the promise that has been squandered away since Martin Luther King was shot is just sickening. A once proud people have sold their soles for a few paltry handouts from the new plantation-masters—the democrats and their fellow travelers in the “black community.”
I agree with most everything you are saying, LaShawn, but you’re preaching to the choir. Most people on this blog agree with you. I believe you’re a natural to write a book for teens or other at risk groups and then get out on the lecture circuit. I first saw you on C-Span. I’d really like to see you on C-Span’s Book TV!
stop having sex outside marriage
Whites have sex outside of marriage similarly to blacks. The difference is that, with regards to whites, these sexual encounters are less likely to result in pregnancy.
Lashawn,
I think that Dianne is correct because it is not individuals like those reading your blog are in trouble.
It is time that local politicians start doing their jobs before they climb the ranks as professional politicians. We as a whole in the Black community need to stop playing the victim and try to promote a change in lifestyle.
It does make it hard to change the lifestyle when there is very little legitimate help.
YESSS!!!! To all of it!! But I have more hope today that I did 10 years ago, because voices like yours are coming from the black community. Just like you can’t make your children become something they don’t want to be…it has to come from within. And it’s starting to…it certainly was always there among a relative few, but now there is a gaining of voice and the voices are being heard.
Just watch out for the co-dependents who need to be needed – they’ll try to keep you down so they can have someone to help!
Shade, do you think it’s a good idea for all races to stop having sex outside marriage and to stop having illegitimate kids? Justifying the bad behavior of some in one ethnic group by pointing to the bad behavior of some in another ethnic group doesn’t really play.
Further, if (as Zavisca has posted) there is a serious problem with unwed pregnancy in the military, how would we solve that? And how are such solutions helpful to the black community?
Blacks are no more dependent on government than any other demographic, as DarkStar has ably pointed out several times.
Now that we have solutions, how do we implement these solutions? How do we break the cycle?
She shoots, she scores! Good one!
Disagree on college as a goal for all – half people are “below average†and many don’t benefit from college and many drop out.
I disagree with you. Anyone who is does not suffer from a mental disability can achieve a college degree. Many cannot gain this degree from any institution, but there are many small colleges and universities whose standards are not so high as to limit any student who TRULY desires a degree.
Youngstown State University has complete open enrollment for Ohio residents, which means that all you need is a high school diploma and the means to pay (grades, test scores, etc. are not considered). There are similar schools throughout the country. Entrance standards are still low for non Ohio residents.
People who drop out of college either entered a school whose standards are to high for them, or were irresponsible with their school work.
John Ogbu’s book Black American Students in an Affluent Suburb: A Study of Academic Disengagement explains this phenomenon.
Again La Shawn I agree with you 100%. When will Black people learn? Maybe being driven out of New Orleans will be a wake up call.
This was the real message of “The Bell Curve”.
To ignore this reality will be devastating for all segments of American society. We must find a way for all of our citizens to have a productive place in our society and economy. To ignore all evidence that certain groups consistently lack skills and education necessary to prosper may be politically correct, but it is not productive. The point that a stonger support group of family is needed by the very people who have the least education and skills was also made repeatedly by Herrnstein and Murray.
Shade, do you think it’s a good idea for all races to stop having sex outside marriage and to stop having illegitimate kids? Justifying the bad behavior of some in one ethnic group by pointing to the bad behavior of some in another ethnic group doesn’t really play.
Yes I do think that both are good ideas and stating that I am justifying anything is a lame strawman that has no basis in anything that I have said.
If I commented about hate crimes committed against blacks by whites, you would be the first to express that blacks have a greater tendency to commit hate crimes against whites. Would you then be justifying white hate crimes against blacks?
maybe I’m way off base, but I don’t see it so much as a “we” breaking the cycle, but each individual choosing to take personal responsibility for his/her actions. Modern society has made it so that the consequences of many actions are muted, and the disincentives for harmful behavior are lessened. The safety nets are nice, but too many people have begun living in them instead of pulling themselves back together when they fall, and trying to climb back up. Why worry about finding a new job when you get laid off, if you know you can get welfare? Why worry about gaining additional job skills or education when you’ll be promoted just by longevity at the job? Why wait until you have the resources (personal and/or material) to have children, when the government will pay for their most basic needs?
I also think there’s something really wrong with a society where so many people look down on certain types of employment (fast food, cleaning, whatever). If someone is getting up, going to work, and trying to make it, good for him/her!
You are aware that the only reason for outsourcing is the cheap cost of labor in other countries. How much do you think an Engineer in India makes compared to his American counterpart. Also, are you aware that H1B workers make almost 20% less than their American coworkers with the same job title. Any company can hire at a minimum 4 newly graduated engineers in per say India compared to 1 newly graduated American engineer. It is not that we are lagging behind, we have priced ourselves out of the market. America is slowly become a service and consumer economy. We no longer make stuff here.
One thing jumped out at me in all of this. The CSM article reported Landgraf as saying we need, “increasing attention and resources to early childhood education.” I agree with this 100%, but the big questions are what should be taught and how? I believe that core moral values must to be taught to children BEFORE they get to school age. Children need to be able to have self control, have respect for the authority of their teachers, and pay attention and concentrate in class. These abilities are rooted in moral principles, not academic. Most pre-schools are falling into the same academic focused mind set that dominates the standards for public schools. Where and when will solid moral values be taught to children from homes where mom stays home for 12 weeks of FMLA leave and then goes back to work.
The number of single parent homes continues to grow. This social circumstance forces the parents to hand over their children to be raised by strangers in daycare and public schools in most cases. Many two-parent homes are in the same boat due to both parents working. Parents get a couple of short hours in the evening to verify and correct the moral course their children are traveling on.
Choices in high quality pre-school (early childhood education) are limited. Many parents I know are grateful just to find a safe place for their children to go while they work, much less be able to go through the grueling admissions processes of private schools that offer lower teacher/child ratios and focus on moral training. Most parents can’t afford the choice schools. Many other private schools are no better quality than a standard daycare.
I frequently have conversations with dad’s of two parent homes about whether their wives will be able to stay home and possibly home school. The most popular concern is, “I don’t believe we can afford for my wife to stay home.” My standard response is to ask them if they can afford to let someone else decide the moral standards that will be taught to their children.
From a big picture perspective, we need get our public and private schools to focus more on early childhood development programs that teach moral and character skills first before worrying about academics. The academics will come much more easily for children who are grounded in the areas of self control, respect, and focusing. We also need to be emphasizing a return to a two parent family as a standard rather than the exception. This will come with time as children who have been taught self control and respect evolve into responsible adults.
I agree with Frank’s comments on college education. The report also suggestions:
Reaching this goal is not going to solve anything in my opinion. It may even cause more problems. If everyone is brought to the higher level in the playing field then the employers have more reason to hoard the higher wages due to a plentiful supply of highly qualified applicants. That affects the abilities of the families to provide quality care and education for their children as mentioned above. We would also end up with a higher number of burger flippers with graduate degrees.
According to John Taylor Gatto (I don’t see that he lists sources for this info) foreign “blacks” living in Jamaica are more literate than American “whites.” I’m trying to be consistent with the quoted text, but I hate referring to people by a single descriptor. Does anybody refer to people as “shorts” or “talls”? I much prefer “black people” or “white people.” But, maybe that’s just me.
>>I disagree with you. Anyone who is does not suffer from a mental disability can achieve a college degree. >>
I disagree…100%. (Wow…what a surprise!) If what you say is true, then colleges are not doing their job. There are many without mental disability who are unable to achieve a high school degree, much less college. Now maybe if they have the grit they can overcome a low IQ handicap, but it really is improbable for a low achiever – by definition – to make the grade. And – as I say – if they do, then the standards are set too low.
PS. Mentally disabled in my school system is someone with an IQ of below 80. Average is 120. We have a problem with achievement in those students between 80-100 or so. If your definition is different, please clarify.
Strange because I was just discussing this with a friend today. Her daughter struggles in middle school. She’s not really interested in studying. She is going to high school next year and has decisions to make regarding curriculum. My friend is a hairdresser who learned her skill at technical school during high school. She is self-employed, middle class, and a good taxpaying, churchgoing citizen.
I have one son in college, and one still in high school. But I have been wondering for years why there is no technical training at the high school level anymore. Back in the 70s, we had “Vo-Tech”. Students spent the mornings at school with their core courses, then got on a bus and went to technical school in the afternoon (car repair, cosmetology, plumbing, electric, etc). Not every child is going to go to college!!! What happens to the kids who manage to graduate from high school (sometimes barely), don’t go to college, but haven’t learned any valuable skill to enter the workforce?
Yes, after high school they can shell out thousands of dollars on “trade” schools (if they have it), but I think skill training should be part of the education students receive from public school. Because NOT EVERY child is going to go to college.
I jokingly told my son that he should skip college and learn to be a plumber. It is a worthy profession, well paid, and it is something that cannot be outsourced – ever! Honestly, I come from blue collar roots and I’m proud of it. My kids are the first generation of my family that will attend college. I think that there should be more technical training in high schools so that the children who aren’t going to college have a useful skill to make their way in the world….
I disagree…100%. (Wow…what a surprise!) If what you say is true, then colleges are not doing their job.
See, this is a mindframe that we must get over. Instead of saying that the college is not doing its job when a student fails, how about saying that the student didn’t do his or her job? The former is the liberal, not taking responsibility for your own actions, viewpoint.
There are many without mental disability who are unable to achieve a high school degree, much less college.
No, there are many without mental disabilities who don’t have the desire, focus nor discipline to achieve a high school degree, much less college.
Now maybe if they have the grit they can overcome a low IQ handicap, but it really is improbable for a low achiever – by definition – to make the grade.
It is less probable, yet 100% do-able.
And – as I say – if they do, then the standards are set too low.
I don’t think so. College is as much a test of fortitude as it is intellect. You would recommend to a kid who is ‘normal’ yet not very smart to not have college ambitions? You’re not a teacher are you?
There are many non-prestiguous schools out there whose standards are lower than the bigger schools. Employers have the choice of considering the schools where their applicants attended, but an ambitious kid should be encouraged to continue his or her education. The just should be steered toward the most appropriate school.
I there is a school where blacks graduate at high numbers, do you automatically question that school’s standards?
PS. Mentally disabled in my school system is someone with an IQ of below 80. Average is 120. We have a problem with achievement in those students between 80-100 or so. If your definition is different, please clarify.
I’m talking about diagnosed mental retardation, which is generally 70 or below, with 100 as normal. Such kids tend to show evidence of this early on with developmental delays such as delayed walking and talking.
>>See, this is a mindframe that we must get over. Instead of saying that the college is not doing its job when a student fails, how about saying that the student didn’t do his or her job? The former is the liberal, not taking responsibility for your own actions, viewpoint.>>
Once more, we disagree. I’m saying that if a student is below a certain level of capability and still passes college requirements, then the college’s standards are not high enough. You set a standard and ask students to measure up, you don’t set the standard low enough so all students _do_ measure up.
>>I there is a school where blacks graduate at high numbers, do you automatically question that school’s standards?>>
No, it’s irrelevant. The college usually earns a reputation based on the accomplishments of it’s grads, not the color of it’s grads.
>>You would recommend to a kid who is ‘normal’ yet not very smart to not have college ambitions?>>
Depends on the kid. Does the kid _want_ to go to college? Does s/he have a goal that requires college? If so, then by all means, do whatever needs to be done to get in and succeed. If, on the other hand, kid has no particular interest in scholastics, doesn’t have any particular goal in life, doesn’t think college has any particular relevance in his/her life…then I’d recommend that kid skip college and find a job – any job. There’s nothing like hard work that may not be particularly pleasant to convince someone of what they _don’t_ want to do. That’s not as good as knowing what they _do_ want to do, but it’s a start. Some kids are late bloomers – they might be ready for college later in life. Maybe not at all, but right now, electricians in my area earn $65 per hour (non-union) and are booked well in advance. They don’t go to college – in fact, there doesn’t seem to be any way for them to learn the trade except by apprenticing. I’m with Terri on this one.
>>Instead of saying that the college is not doing its job when a student fails, how about saying that the student didn’t do his or her job?>>
Just curious…what do you consider to _be_ a college’s “job”?
PS. Mentally disabled in my school system is someone with an IQ of below 80. Average is 120. We have a problem with achievement in those students between 80-100 or so. If your definition is different, please clarify.
That doesn’t make sense. An average “IQ” is said to be 100 with a standard deviation of 10, so most people fall between the range 90-110. How is it that your school defines average as 120?
I have to admit I disagree with Shade on this one.
What is the point of sending a kid to college if that kid does not have the ability and/or the desire for further education? It is a waste of resources and time for both.
Those resources can be put to better use. That time and effort can be put to better use.
Are we saying we don’t need plumbers, electricians, carpenters, etc. anymore? Of course we do.
Of what value is a diploma to such a person? What about the debt that kid or his family is likely to incur? What about the lost time that he/she could have put to use learning a trade and making money?
If you say that person should go to college just for the education, I have two
responses:
1) If the kid is lacking in either the ability or the desire for further education, you can’t force them to receive any value from it.
or,2)If the kid simply prefers to work in a field that does not require a college diploma and doesn’t want to waste time acquiring one, there is nothing to stop him from furthering his education on his own.
Speaking as a person with a B.S., there isn’t a darn thing I learned in college that I couldn’t have learned on my own. And there are plenty of areas in which I have furthered my own education without the benefit of going to school.
I just don’t get this ‘one size fits all’ mentality. We NEED people of differing interests, abilities and goals. It seems to me as if it is more of that ‘equal outcome’ rather than ‘equal opportunity’ type of thinking.
And I’ll add this too. Of all the friends and family in my life, probably slightly less that half have college degrees. This is just anecdotal, of course, but I find the possession of a college degree or the lack thereof amongst all of us to be of no predictive value as far as happiness, income level, lifestyle, etc.
The wealthiest family amongst us have no college degree – a supervisor in a plant and a real-estate agent. The one who probably has the most extensive education is a commercial fisherman who reads incessantly, has dinners with governors and Senators, has occasionally helped out National Geographic and looks as if he’d just walked out of the stone-age. I also have a family member who has a college degree who has never made more than 23K and is on welfare. Go figure.
Maybe High Schools need to teach different subjects. Take out all those Home Economics, Wood Shop, Choir, Drama, etc… and replace them with subjects which deal with reality and how to better yourselves in the future.
Shade, I live in Ohio, Columbus to be exact and I will tell you first hand that there are more foreigners coming to this country opening up small businesses than there are true Black Americans opening up small businesses. That is NOT fair at all.
It is not fair that foreigners get scholarships at our colleges when those scholarships should go to America’s children first.
I’m trying to decide if #27 is meant to be a joke or serious…I can’t tell. For real.
I can’t tell if you’re joking, Sherry. I’m betting that you’re not serious. But if you are, have you ever seen HGTV or the DIY channel? The folks fixing up houses on those channels are the ones who paid attention in their shop class and home-ec classes. Part of why I think you’re joking is because you dismissed economics as a subject with no real world applications, which makes no sense at all. I still get some mileage out of my high school economics class. Supply and demand? Those are definitely real world concepts people need to know. As you complain about owning businesses, you might consider that lacking a basic grasp of economics is what’s actually holding back some people.
As for scholarships for foreigners…what? You’re not one of those people who think there’s a conspiracy to give secret loans and such to foreigners, are you? You comes across that way. Did you mean to? What are you going for? I can set your mind at ease, though. My father’s a foreigner and he’s been attending college the last couple of years. Trust me, there’s no loan or scholarship he’s received that Americans can’t get.
And it’s perfectly fair for foreigners to own businesses. It’s a legitimate aim for them, and I frankly prefer that kind of immigrant to the ones who fill our prisons or welfare doles. If they see opportunities that Americans don’t–and it puzzles them that Americans don’t see it–then all that means is that the Americans in question have something to learn. It means that instead of being jealous and angry they should be observant and try to learn from what they see.
As far as the college versus voc-ed debate, in my high school we had the college-prep track, the regular track, the voc-ed track, and the business track. The voc-ed students learned about the stuff that you see on DIY. The business students competed in DECA and ran the school store. I didn’t know that this was unusual, and if it is I don’t think it should be, and these days I’d add the IT track, too.
suek and Stacey
Why do you keep injecting “desire” into the discussion when I specifically excluded those who lack the desire to get a college education?
Again, I say that anyone of medically normal intellectual capacity can gain a college degree if they are willing to work for it. They are only limited in where they can obtain a degree.
Setting standards at a level such that every child can succeed in college=having no standards.
DarkStar…
I will research…that was my understanding, but as usual, all things are subject to revision!
All sorts of questions arise – do kids even _take_ IQ tests anymore? When were these averages established and how(meaning how many people under what circumstances etc).
Sometimes I think I know a basic fact and don’t really give it much thought. Then a question – like yours – makes me have to start all over again!! Oh well…back to the drawing board, as they say.
My point is still the same though, even if my numbers may be inaccurate. We have a group of kids between the special ed group and the “average” achievers who just fall between the cracks. They’re the “dummies”. They’re slow learners, and are always going to _be_ slow learners. I disagree with _anyone_ who says these kids are going to master any college that is worthy of being called college. They have a difficult time mastering elementary school. As far as I’m concerned, our schools are not serving these kids by expecting them to follow the “usual” track, but should be giving them an education that will allow them to be self-sufficient adults, and I don’t think we’re doing that. I was trying to delineate “mentally disabled” from “average” and indicate that there are some inbetween. There are several groups that we don’t really address, and frankly, I’m not sure I know how to classify them. In the end, each one is an individual, but in discussions like these, it would be useful to have a way to group them.
What does Shade mean by “mentally disabled”? There’s retarded and there’s special ed. Special ed can mean a child with learning disabilities, emotional problems or physical disabilities. Some kids in special ed can accomplish amazing things in their own time, but some just never will.
Then you get into the question of resources…does it make sense to spend resources on those who are never really going to be contributing members of society, or should those resources be going to help the most capable jump ahead to their potential? Or should resources be used to help move the most – the average – as far ahead as possible?
We’re so lucky to live where we do and when we do…we have enough resources to have to consider where to use them! Such a problem!!
If everyone had graduated from college and taken a white collar job, who would wire or plumb the new skyscraper that’s going up downtown?
The problem with the global economy is not about education it purely about cost. Here is the latest example:
http://manufacturing.net/article/CA6414774.html
Also, here is a reverse trend: http://www.newsobserver.com/104/story/540861.html
It is clearly that other countries are smarter or out performing Americans. Plain and simple they are cheaper. The total cost for a help desk worker in India is around 500 dollars a month. Here in America that cost is on the low end 15 dollars and hour not including the cost of benefits.
What many people don’t want to admit or shield themselves from even learning is that a large part of the difference in intelligence between people is innate – that is genetic. Not all of the difference but most evidence suggests northward of 60% and perhaps as much as 80%.
It’s also likely but the evidence is a little tougher because such things as twin studies don’t work so well across racial lines, that much of the very stable IQ difference between blacks and whites is also genetic. Again not all the difference. (But most of the rest seems to be such things as reading to children and using a substantial vocabulary with them when they are very young, and that is a hard thing to change as well.) This is one of the great unmentionables in American life and there is a lot of dissembling about the issue by researchers and even more by ideologues who don’t really know the literature but pretend to often enough. You can scream racism all you like but the truth here is really an empirical issue, and political attitudes can’t make it go away.
Of course the black and white population and the white and Latino population (meaning heavily AmerIndian in mixture usually, especially in the case of illegals) heavily overlap on traits such as IQ. There are lots of blacks that are smarter than lots of whites and similarly with Latinos. But the black median is about 85 versus the overall US population median of 100, and the Latino median of around 90 (which is probably declining as a higher percentage of illegals make up the mix and as more of them are more Mestizo.) If you don’t understand statistics well enough to make sense of this then you really shouldn’t talk about the issue. (But most people can understand these things if they try and apply themselves a bit.)
Now the situation is a bit complicated. It’s perfectly true that if an environment is sufficiently stunted, that people’s intellectual potential isn’t reached and in extreme cases may even be far from being reached. A good deal of that may have gone on in Jim Crow days in a number of parts of the old south for example. The Mississippi delta region was infamous for example. The appalling average IQ in s. Saharan Africa of around 70 (with some places such as Equatorial Guinea in the mid 60s!) is probably very significantly depressed by nutrition and other issues. But these numbers do not appear to be mere artifacts of testing methods. They seem to be measuring a real phenomenon and a significant part of Africa’s appalling lack of development progress in the last fifty years, unlike just about the rest of the planet.
As well one’s very best performance requires discipline and practice. The mental muscle needs exercise to reach its full potential just as other muscles do. It’s probably true that blacks and especially many Mexicans and other Central Americans still reach less of their mental potential than whites do. Blacks do LESS well in school and college than their IQ’s alone would predict. And yes even the IQ’s could probably be boosted some with enough application. LaShawn’s admonitions and advice can be very important here.
Again though the situation is a bit complicated. People tend to like to devote their energies and best efforts at thing’s they are good at, or believe they can become better at than most people, with effort. It’s a natural human phenomenon. Even though everyone can benefit by studying more and paying better attention in class, smarter people tend to be more naturally attracted to doing so, or can be more easily converted to the idea that it’s worth the effort. Just as athletes with natural physical talents can be more easily attracted to the virtues of working out with diligence – even though everyone’s muscle and body shape can profit from more exercise.
The situation is so dire among many ghetto blacks and Latinos though in not even learning to read much less write with any competence, or even do mental arithmetic, that school improvement could make a real difference. The biggest problems tend to be lack of discipline however, and lack of belief in repetition and drill PARTICULARLY for those most behind who do not grasp many concepts with ease and speed. As well in places like California resistance to teaching competence in English before all else and above all else, does much damage. The evidence is clear that children learn foreign languages more easily than adults, and that English immersion should be begun as soon as possible, but there are conflicting special interests and identity ethnic politics at stake.
Virtually everyone with an IQ above 70 (and even some with one somewhat below that) can learn to read and comprehend relatively simple passages however. And need to be taught that. Beyond that vocational education is appropriate for many.
The long hard slog to reverse the deterioration of the levels of education among the black and Latino lower half will not be easy but it’s very important.
However, this turning a blind eye to our inundation by low skilled Latino illegals is completely insane and must stop immediately. It’s a more important issue than the war in Iraq and Bush is failing us miserably on it. If third generation Latinos were doing much better than they are in school I wouldn’t be so worried, but they aren’t.
Setting standards at a level such that every child can succeed in college=having no standards.
So did Notre Dame have no standards when it graduated Daniel Ruettiger?
suek
I anwered your question in post #22.
>>Setting standards at a level such that every child can succeed in college=having no standards.
So did Notre Dame have no standards when it graduated Daniel Ruettiger? >>
So you’re suggesting that Daniel was below average IQ and needed lower standards in order to graduate? ?? do you have any cites for that assumption? I checked Wikipedia, and it mentions that he apparently had a dyslexia problem, but that falls into a special ed category, not a mentally disabled category. Are we talking past each other here? Low IQ and learning disabilities don’t seem to me to be equivalent.
This was the real message of “The Bell Curveâ€.
To ignore this reality will be devastating for all segments of American society. We must find a way for all of our citizens to have a productive place in our society and economy. To ignore all evidence that certain groups consistently lack skills and education necessary to prosper may be politically correct, but it is not productive. The point that a stonger support group of family is needed by the very people who have the least education and skills was also made repeatedly by Herrnstein and Murray.
Absolutely correct.
We owe things to our lower IQ citizens who are already here. We don’t necessarily owe them a living or advancement without the right sort of effective efforts on their part, but we should do what we can to help them succeed and live a decent life.
Lest that sound too soft headed liberal to you, I agree with most of LaShawn’s approach to achieving that end. (I’m not so insistent as she is on the no premarital sex thing, but I agree completely about the enormous importance of no pre-marital babies and for many the first might be necessary to achieve the second. Yeah it doesn’t have to be but then everyone isn’t as conscientious about birth control as are some and all methods have some core of unavoidable failure rates. That takes us to abortion as a last resort, where I disagree with the vast majority here (because I think no pre-marital babies trumps other considerations), but have no interest in arguing.)
What we don’t owe is a secure continuing right to remain in America and be given all sorts of very expensive help which often doesn’t work very well, to illegal aliens particularly of the low skilled, low IQ and low family preference for education variety.
It’s got to stop and NOW. It is incredibly stupid to allow it to continue. We are building in horrific costs in this 21st century global world. We will lose to China soon enough and disastrously if we keep this up. (And there’s no sign whatsoever that they are going to adopt our sorts of PC policies to Third Worlders.)
Go after employers. And deport illegals. Hell, mine the border and post lots of signs if we have to. Their inundation is most costly of all to many blacks at the lower end of the IQ distribution.
This article indicates that in high school, he(Ruettiger) got average grades.
http://www.sportshollywood.com/askrudy.html
I agree that any _average_ student should be able to get a college degree if s/he is willing to work for it.
So you’re suggesting that Daniel was below average IQ and needed lower standards in order to graduate? ?? do you have any cites for that assumption?
Your perception is off. Clearly I was showing that he ROSE to meet their standards, not the reverse. Some bios state that he stuggled academically due to his learning disabililty. A dyslexic student who basically just managed to pass is below Notre Dame standards, which is precisely why he was repeatedly rejected by the school. Only through obsession was he able to achieve grades in junior college well above what he made in high school and eventually enter a university of higher than average standards and graduate.
If he could graduate from Notre Dame, I see no reason why someone who may be less intelligent than he was, with the same effort, graduating from a small, less prestigious open enrollment college. I have seen it happen on several occasions.
link
During his time at Holy Cross, Rudy learned that he suffered from a mild case of dyslexia, which may have contributed to his previous academic struggles.
a) Anyone who is does not suffer from a mental disability can achieve a college degree.
(Me)
“Now maybe if they have the grit they can overcome a low IQ handicap, but it really is improbable for a low achiever – by definition – to make the grade.”
b)It is less probable, yet 100% do-able.
c)You would recommend to a kid who is ‘normal’ yet not very smart to not have college ambitions?
d)I’m talking about diagnosed mental retardation, which is generally 70 or below, with 100 as normal.
Ok…trying one last time. Reading all of these, I’m concluding that you equate “normal” with “average”, and you’re saying that anyone with an “average” (by which you mean someone with an IQ of 100 or up) is capable of completing some college somewhere, even if perhaps not an ivy league or equivalent college. You are not stating that someone who is mentally retarded (below 70 IQ) can be expected to complete college. No disagreement from me on either statement.
What about those who fall between 70 and 100?
I have a problem with this part: “a kid who is ‘normal’ yet not very smart”. What does that mean?
e)If he could graduate from Notre Dame, I see no reason why someone who may be less intelligent than he was, with the same effort, graduating from a small, less prestigious open enrollment college.
In this statement, it seems to me that you equate a dyslexic person with not being particularly intelligent. I think that’s a false equation. Dyslexia and intelligence are – as far as I know – unrelated. He had a learning problem due to his dyslexia – he may (or may not, we don’t know)have been brilliant and the dyslexia just masked it. Even so, neither of these give any indication that ND lowered it’s standards to “get him through”. Maybe he had extra help, but lowering its standards would demean both the college and the individual, imo, and I don’t believe that ND would do that. Nor should they.
Extra help – yes. If it will help, all they need.
Lowering standards – no. It doesn’t help anyone in the long run.
The real issue here is that parents are coddling their kids.
When you get out of school and have to: work for your money, have to support yourself, have see how much everything costs and how much your taxes are…well, you get scared. Unfortunately, if you haven’t done a good job of getting educated before hand, it will take you a long time to succeed in life.
Parents MUST get involved with their child’s education and complain to high heaven when a school isn’t doing it’s job. They shouldn’t try to protect their kids from failing in school and bad grades should be PUNISHED. Christan parents should teach their kids what God thinks about sluggards. Kids need to understand their future lives depend on education and that Mommy won’t always be there to rescue them.
If my Mom hadn’t threaten me like that I would probably have been a slacker. It’s my nature. Children need to be taught to think about their future.
Anyone who is does not suffer from a mental disability can achieve a college degree.
Anything is possible if you lower your standards far enough. In the end, if someone graduates with a degree but still has no marketable skills, are they ahead or are they just deep in student loan debt?
IMO, the worst thing that could happen to America would be for everyone to have a college degree. We need people with degrees to do the jobs that actually require college education such as engineering and medicine. However, we also need people who can build and fix things. We certainly have a greater need for more machinists than we need additional lawyers.
Not too long ago, the joke was that a high school drop out needed to learn how to say, “Do you want fries with that?” College graduates with worthless degrees had better get used to saying “Do you want a muffin with your latte?”
Stable home life with educated and loving parents who demonstrate commitment and consistent moral values . . . cause high IQ’s.
Those who point to test results seeming to show differences in “g” as meaningful are faced with the problem of how to establish boundary conditions. It is the old nurture vs nature problem made fresh by a problem with rather extreme differences in social upbringing.
Anyone who is does not suffer from a mental disability can achieve a college degree.
That’s only true to the extent that some colleges have lower academic standards than a good many high schools. It’s only true by way of a sort of fraud.
There are no national minimum standards, much less enforced ones, for receiving a B.A. degree. Some states may have reasonable minimum standards in their public colleges but some do not, often by the mechanism of having several different levels of colleges within their systems, and considerable variation between colleges within the same level. And no state really enforces minimum standards for students in private colleges. Yeah there are accreditation requirements but those go to faculty education, curriculum and to some extent physical plant, not to quality of student output. As the lowering of standards for evaluating students at many colleges has decline with the mushrooming of the college attending, the effects have cascaded to the quality of faculty who nonetheless possess the requisite degrees for accreditation.
In other words some college degrees have no more meaning than a high school diploma, which though still not completely meaningless in most places, approaches being so in some. In some places it reflects little more than a semi decent attendance record. As well many departments are notorious for often having notably low requirements to appear to be doing well. Such as African American Studies departments, and many or most of the other “studies†departments such as gender studies. Adopting the correct political line and learning to throw around a modest amount of jargon is often almost all that is required. I’m not saying that everyone who adopts such majors is dim, only that it’s a good ticket through college if you are.
And most employers know this. But then again there are diversity requirements.
Just because many would like it to be so that only effort is required for a meaningful college education, doesn’t make it so. And it isn’t so.
What is true is that hard work can make any given amount of intelligence go further. A colorable decent college education might be barely possible for someone whose IQ is at say 100, but only if they were at an extreme point in consistent motivation and discipline, despite many setbacks. It simply isn’t for someone with an IQ of 90. And it generally takes about a 110-115. And to do really well at an elite institution in any demanding field of study generally takes about a 125, at which level it’s a waste to not to go to professional school as well (though an engineer’s professional education for reasons of tradition can sometimes be completed during undergrad college years, by a lot of concentration in those subjects). However all of this is considerably easier and/or higher performance is possible at somewhat higher IQ levels. And then there’s genius level work – which requires genius.
What is true is that hard work can make any given amount of intelligence go further. A colorable decent college education might be barely possible for someone whose IQ is at say 100, but only if they were at an extreme point in consistent motivation and discipline, despite many setbacks. It simply isn’t for someone with an IQ of 90. And it generally takes about a 110-115. And to do really well at an elite institution in any demanding field of study generally takes about a 125, at which level it’s a waste to not to go to professional school as well (though an engineer’s professional education for reasons of tradition can sometimes be completed during undergrad college years, by a lot of concentration in those subjects). However all of this is considerably easier and/or higher performance is possible at somewhat higher IQ levels. And then there’s genius level work – which requires genius.
Where mental effort really makes a difference is in elementary school. And even more so, before that. Which is why playing with erector sets or legos and reading increasingly elaborate stories to your kids and exposing them to complex rather than only jungle rhythm music at an early age can make a difference. As can hearing and learning at least orally another language before grade school, which regrettably was an advantage I didn’t have. But all of these things tend to require bright parents, or at the very least a bright peer group that the parents talk and compare themselves to (my Johnny is a wiz at building stuff with legos and can’t listen to enough Wind in the Willows, how about yours?) It’s another mechanism by which intelligence is heavily heritable (always with a certain genetic roulette wheel factor), in addition to genes.
The thing is for smarter people it’s less of an effort to get the requisite mental exercise. Instead it tends to be fun. That is they tend to love reading, rather than finding it a chore or always preferring physical play, and often like math problems, as a kind of puzzle they’re good at. They often play with science experiments as a hobby that no one pushed them into. I built a shortwave radio from parts as a kid in 7th grade, and before that built rockets (sometimes successful, sometimes not) in the back yard, not from any kit. Even earlier like in 4th grade or so, my parents tried to keep me from staying up in bed reading too late, but after the flashlight under the covers failed me in avoiding being busted, I taped the bottom of my door and rigged a tin foil relay switch to the door that instantly turned off my light. And read sometimes into the wee hours for fun. Then they just gave up, but cautioned me if I was getting too tired.
Hence the most effective teaching styles for different levels of intelligence are quite different. For the more gifted the most important thing is to keep them interested by showing the way to increasing levels of intellectual challenge, as rapidly as they can handle them, so long as the basic foundations have (demonstrably) been firmly mastered. For the less bright, repetition and drill of the most important things are essential, without wasting too much time on “frills†e.g. lots of social studies lefty indoctrination, etc. (which is often what social studies primarily consists of these days in many places). Actually some drill is needed for just about everybody for some things. Such as learning the multiplication table (when and where that’s even really taught these days, amazingly). But not everyone. One of my classmates claimed to have instantly memorized the full multiplication tables the first time he stared at it for awhile, and it seems to have been true, or almost true. Yeah, that filled me with envy, but also lead me to work really hard at thoroughly memorizing as fast as I could. Because you see I thought I was pretty smart and didn’t want to embarrass myself next to that guy.
I’m not talking about music and art being frills. They can be very important alternate or additional paths for many students.
Sorry for repeating a paragraph. I wrote as one long piece that seemed to long so I cut it up. Also a few places needed some editing for grammar they didn’t get. Oh well, they were only blog comments.
Hi,
I have a very well-placed source in a high-income community whose kids do very well on standardized tests. Here’s the problem. They get help from the teachers so they don’t fail. These test scores are used as bait by the town to get families with kids to buy there so they can grow the tax base.
I really think we in the black community should pull our kids out of public schools and establish private academies that stress the basics. And, I’m talking about the foundations of Western civilization, not some type of Black Panther indoctrination centre. That won’t get our kids anywhere in the global economy.
However, there is a place to discuss the black experience in the context of the founding of this country. But, I would focus on the people who prospered in spite of our “situation”. We also have to teach that these things would not have been possible in any other country in the world.
The principle of equality, not equal outcomes, has been America’s greatest gift.
Angel–
Excellent ideas.
Vouchers would help a great deal in bringing your ideas about, or at least among a much broader segment of the black community.
Of course they are anathema to the teachers unions, other public sector unions in solidarity, and hence the Democrat party.
Dougjnn,
The major problem with vouchers is that some folks get pissed off when they see a little brown kid sitting next to their kid. Some people see them as an entitlement rather than an equalizer.
It’s a case of people talking a good game, but falling short on the court.
And, I’m talking about money from the major players in the black community (like Oprah, although you have to be African to get money from her these days. Or maybe Bill Cosby.) to set up these urban academies. The example I think of all the time is Spike Lee. When he started making studio films, he couldn’t find black people for various positions because the unions would shut them out of the apprenticeships necessary to become a grip, for example. He really opened up the crew side of the film industry for blacks.
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