Does income inequality decrease opportunity? Debate

Many on the right say that, but don't practice what they preach with our wars crime, drugs, poverty, terror.

 

I support P2P trade of any and all drugs in defiance of state regulation or taxation of any description. I do not support the existence of a standing army. While it's very rarely in your interests, I have no moral objection to lethal retaliation against police. I do not support a cent of spending on entitlements, nor a minimum wage or any sort of intervention in the labor market (including immigration laws).

I don't much care what the rest of the right thinks. (*)(*)(*)(*) em.

 

how is the "right" responsible for war, crime, drugs, poverty and terror? I consider myself a "libertarian", and probably a "right libertarian", but I support legalizing most drugs, a common sense national defense, gay marriage, and helping poor people (but not through the coercion of wealthier people). I would disagree with Steady Pie, however, when it comes to certain circumstances regarding opportunity. Race, for example, cannot simply be equalized by making racism or discrimination illegal. African Americans have been oppressed for generations, and their disadvantaged positions have been handed down to them from their parents who couldn't work at jobs that white people could, get the education that white people could, or get access the the money (through credit) that white people could. This means that it can't simply be looked at as "if you can't provide opportunity for yourself, you don't deserve it" because a child born into a home with parents that were poorly educated (because of their parents, and their parents before them), it really isn't fair. I don't think the solution is to just give people money to create artificial socioeconomic equality, but I do think one solution is focusing on improving the quality of education that many inner city students have access to. Because of the generations of discrimination, much of the population of most inner city schools are minority groups, and they are often quite poor, with little access to high quality public education. Again, this doesn't so much speak to income inequality as it does to the quality of public education.

Also, just so you understand who I am, I am a white male, born into a white, middle class family (although I have a sister who is 50% African American) and had access to a very high quality public education, and ended up going to the University of Washington. While I have strongly opposed any kind of affirmative action in the past, based on the theory that "we eliminated discrimination, therefore black people and white people are equal", but I have since realized that that theory is incorrect (as explained above). Hopefully this didn't get too off topic, but I think race and education are two important issues that often arise when discussing income inequality, and I think both should be recognized.

 

the right lays the most claim to alleged, conservativism.

 

maybe if you look up sociolinguistics you might get what I am saying.

Bernstein's theory from the early seventies was where I first came across it, and some early intervention approaches havevtaken this into account.

there has been more recent research into this, including in the US, although I can't point you to anything specific.

I agree though that in many cases, attending a better resourced school can make a difference, but having worked in education for decades, I have seen that in many (perhaps most) cases family background is at least as important as an indicator of future academic success as is school attended. Kids can go to bad schools, and still get into top universities (at least in our system), but kids who come from deprived (not necessarily poor) backgrounds are lucky to finish school, and find it difficult to get into anything that gives them a future, whether it is education, or work.

 

Solving simple poverty could better position parents for home schooling, or helping with school work instead of having to be repugnant to a federal doctrine and State laws regarding the concept of employment at will, and unemployment compensation that clears our poverty guidelines on that same, at-will basis in our at-will employment State.

 

I got what you said the first time you said it.

We may just have to agree to agree here as you've basically restated what I've been saying. As a group those kids will do better if they attend a better school. Individually, some kids may have issues egregious enough to not benefit from a better school but as a group there will be a benefit.

 

you mean agree to disagree. The factors affecting the child before they even start school are far more important than what school they go to.

 

First, if you disagree with what I said then you must also disagree with what you said.

If you're going to make a claim like that you'll need to provide supporting evidence. I'd like to see the study that shows disadvantaged kids that went to private schools have a failure rate equal to members of that same group of disadvantaged kids that went to their designated government schools.

 

Home schooling can help in modern times with our modern Information Age; why do those on the right believe public schools are worse than private schools, ceteris paribus?

 

Not all private schools are as equal as public schools are equal. I believe the private versus public option is disingenuous, except for those on the right; since they may believe that merely "competing" for market share for "public goods and public services" is the same as creating better products at lower cost. Why should the left believe the right when they beg the question that we would be better off with private schools on a for-profit basis under our form of Capitalism? It seems like just another government program, blah...blah...blah.

 

Anybody that takes an honest look at the data will find that public schools are worse than private schools. Only those people with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo (and perhaps their credulous followers) make excuses for the government school system. As for home schooling I agree, for many that would be the best option. The primary thing should be to return the freedom of choice to the parents, to home school or send their kids to the school that best meets their own needs.

 

In a free market system the consumer, in the case of school, the parents and the children, can make a far better choice of what form of education best meets their needs than anyone else. If a private school doesn't perform to the satisfaction of its clientele, it goes bankrupt. If a government school doesn't perform nothing happens for a couple of years and then they'll change administrators and throw some more money at it.

Ideally, there would be a complete separation of school and state, but an interim step in that direction could be tax funded vouchers that would introduce some competition between schools and give the parents a greater latitude in their choice of what school their kids will attend.

 

I generally agree with what you are saying but I think you are over-emphasizing education and under-emphasizing parenting. Kids can have good education and still not succeed because some parents don't kick em in the arse and can't help them with their homework when needed.

There is plenty of blame to go around. Again I agree with what you are saying, but I also agree with Charles Barkley's comments. A MAJOR problem in the minority communities is the negativity toward those kids who "act white" by trying to do well in school. No amount of social engineering by government or anybody else will ever fix that. That must be fixed from within the minority communities.

 

"Every single rational person here would agree going to a better school will surely increase your child's opportunity, which clearly means kids who go to bad schools have less opportunity than rich kids who go to good schools."

Are you sayhing only poor kids go to bad schools and good schools are only full of rich kids?

 

No. I know what I said. You don't seem to understand at all what I am talking about. My guess is that you are not at all familiar with research on this issue, which is why you are confused.

I would like to see the figures on disadvanted kids getting into private schools in the early years in sufficient numbers so that a comparison is relevant.

most disadvantaged kids get into those schools via a scholarship awarded on merit. They are already going to be doing well relative to other students, and will already have completed a number of years of schooling.

the other thing is, you may want to clarify which private schools you are talking about. When I coordinated a program for disadvantaged students at university, a number of them had attended private schools. These students were exceptional in their schools, where the average student did ok, but few would do well enough to get in to a good university,

 

I agree with a lot of what you say. Early intervention programs can include parental education, and can include educators from within the community. This can encourage kids to see positive role models as belonging to their own community, and can alleviate the fear some parents can experience about their own inadequacies in dealing with the education system.

the thing to focus on is that parents in general do want the best for their kids. This applies even in the majority of cases where parental neglect and abuse do occur. so by working with parents, and having community driven initiatives, you are likely to get better outcomes.

 

I hear what you are saying and I don't disagree, but parenting must improve or the minority education problem will never improve. If the parents don't help the kids with their homework because they can't, they should at least be banding together to put a foot in the arse of every kid who doesn't want to learn because they don't want to "act white." Charles Barkley is spot on but the parents are mostly to blame for this.

I say banding together because if your kid is good and studious and the kid he hangs around with pressures him not to ""act white" then he will listen to his friend. He will tell his parents he is trying in school but will more often than not listen to his friend and not try. I have teenagers and they are really good kids but they sometimes believe what their idiot teenage friends tell them over what I tell them. They all do this.

 

What do you mean by honest look at the data? How equal are the requirements for public schools versus private schools.

 

Dude, part of the problem for academicians is that an institution going bankrupt interferes with academics. It is like saying don't work for the public sector when you can work at Hostess instead.

 

The academicians can pound sand. If they fail to educate their charges, they should be sacked. That doesn't happen in government education but it does in private education. That's one of the many reasons private education is better than government education.

 

you need more than propaganda and rhetoric to convince me.

 

What propaganda or rhetoric?
You need proof that its easier to sack a person in a private school than it is in a government school?
You disagree that an "educator" that fails to do his job should be fired?

 

It depends, is it more difficult to get hired by a public school?

I only agree that a School of Human Resources Management should come up with more effective teaching and learning methods.

 

When I was in public school, and it's been over 30 years ago, I was in class with wealthy students, middle class students like me, and poor students. I don't recall each of us having different books, getting different lesson, sitting in different desks, etc. based on SES. We all sat in the same classes with the same teachers, received the same lessons, and had the same chances at success regardless of our economic place in life. Opportunities are there is people want them. Excuses are there is people choose not to use the ones the have.