Born To Win, Schooled To Lose Why Equally Talented Students Don’t Get Equal Chances to Be All They Can Be

3 comments

1. The single greatest factor in becoming wealthy is being BORN wealthy.

   I thought it was best to put up an actual source since I made that statement a few days ago, only to have multiple conservatives proclaim otherwise (WITHOUT any valid sources), and a few even posted comments and then blocked me.

   To be clear, this country suffers from aristocracy. Claiming otherwise is to ignore who becomes successful politicians, who become successful businessmen(women — note, there are exceptions but they are not the rule), etc.

   And while on the topic, sorry conservatives – Chatgpt is NOT a valid source, neither is your unsupported claimed of statistic, nor your feelz.

   I’ll even go a bit further. I own 2 small businesses. I am easily in the “self made” camp. But I am a rarity and it is becoming ever harder to do what I have done (and before that too is disputed)
   >Recent research, however, shows that in the United States, the rate of upward absolute income mobility—the fraction of children who grow up to earn more than their parents, after adjusting for inflation—declined substantially over the past 50 years. see https://opportunityinsights.org/paper/the-fading-american-dream/ see also https://www.brookings.edu/articles/stuck-on-the-ladder-wealth-mobility-is-low-and-decreases-with-age/ see also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socioeconomic_mobility_in_the_United_States

   The point is, no it isn’t a level playing field, no you won’t likely be wealthy, and no you probably won’t do as well as your parents.

   BTW, full report of what I linked to make this thread found here: https://cew.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/FR-Born_to_win-schooled_to_lose.pdf

2. I’m struggling to understand how standardized math scores of kindergarten students mean anything. Kids can’t even read well enough to take a standardized test independently at that point. They barely know how to add in kindergarten. Not only that you are dealing with kids that are wildly different developmentally. You have kids finishing kindergarten that are 5 and others at 7. You could easily find high SES students are more likely to be 5 vs low SES students that are 7.

   What’s that? Jimbo the 7 year old kindergarten math prodigy that could add 4+8 has fallen behind his high SES 5 year old peers by 8th grade. No way
   … Let’s grab the pitchforks are rise up against such terrible injustice!

   At least by 4-5th grade you have kids learning multiplication, division, fractions etc. and mastering those skills will determine their success in junior high and above. Trying to make any meaningful statement about student progress before that point seems… Suspect.

   My next take away is… How is anyone below the 50th percentile in math earning a college degree in any SES bracket. Below the 50th percentile as an adult you struggle with fractions, compound interest, percentages etc.

   If you can’t look at a $50 item in a store, see it is 30% off, and determine its price without pulling out your phone you don’t need to go to college.

   Anyway, this is the absolute worst type of politically driven social science that polutes the national discourse. It serves no purpose but to give the thin veneer of legitimacy to political arguments. It enters the zeitgeist without question because it confirms political bias and deals with topics no sane person has the energy or professional capital to refute.

   Wtf are we even doing at this point?

3. That report is really interesting, thanks. Nice to see the data so clearly match what people experience in the real world. The playing field is certainly tilted in favor of the rich.