Monday, March 3, 2008

The Smartest Grandchild

Read it and weep. Of course, this assumes the difference is cultural/genetic and not systematic.
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3 comments:

Ryan said...

Could I gently refer the Wall Street journal to Bosworth and Caliendo, Economics of Education Review, 2007?

The answer is...Homogeneity!

From our concluding remarks: "The type of instruction that is best for one student may not be beneficial to another, and the time-constrained teacher is forced to make tradeoffs between different teaching strategies. This problem is removed when students are sorted. Teacher incentives and the goal of maximal achievement are aligned when students are fully sorted by type."

If you look at cross country comparisons, the countries that do best (finland, japan, taiwan, etc.) are culturally homogeneous. The countries that do bad (u.s., france, etc.) are heterogeneous. The (politically incorrect) reason that american schools perform poorly is:....wait for it...Diversity!

I should qualify this answer by pointing out that, from all the data I have been able to gather, Finns are just freaking smart!

March 3, 2008 at 9:18 AM
Mom said...

An homogeneous class makes the job of the teacher much easier, enabling the teacher to do more for the students. This translates to more learning by the students. That's all obvious, isn't it? Yes, kids in a culturally diverse class learn a lot from each other (both good and bad), but that learning is not the kind measured on achievement tests (mostly just reading and math skills).

Mom

March 3, 2008 at 11:24 AM
Ryan said...

Exactly. I should stress that the only type of learning we really know much about is the measurable kind. Standardized tests only capture a small slice of what students learn.

March 4, 2008 at 6:26 AM

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