I assume you have seen the interview of James Heckman by Gonzalo Schwarz. You can tell that Heckman is not a fan of Piketty and Saez.
In truth, the evidence based on the IRS data is deeply flawed and has been incorrectly analyzed. Take “The Opportunity Atlas” promoted by the New York Times. It claims that “zip code is destiny.” Careful statistical analysis of the data shows otherwise. The same can be said of the academics who write about the growth of the Top 1%.
Heckman is known for his studies of education. A lot of support for the Null Hypothesis, with the exception of pre-school for impoverished children. But this may be his bottom line:
The main barriers to developing effective policies for income and social mobility is fear of honest engagement in the changes in the American family and the consequences it has wrought. . .Dysfunctional families produce dysfunctional children. Schools can only partially compensate for the damage done to the children by dysfunctional families.
I see food-lines alongside new highs on the nasdaq. He’s fighting an uphill battle to reverse the inequality narrative.
Crazy but prob true. All that money printing and inflation go into top 100 corporations.
I thought shared environment was unimportant.
“The main barriers to developing effective policies for income and social mobility is fear of honest engagement in the changes in the American family and the consequences it has wrought…” Uhh, he forgot to mention wide average group disparities in cognitive capacity..
And why should we want government intervention to pursue the fruitless goal of egality?
The opposite is true as well
Families can only partially compensate for the damage done to the children by dysfunctional schools.
The worst evil in education is the wrongheaded belief that what they teach in government-curriculum schools is what the student needs to be successful in life, work and society.
Hechman says children in single parent homes in which the parent continues to work will likely be worse off. That seems intuitively logical but perhaps it doesn’t give children enough credit. Being liberated from the smothering school environment and peer pressures, children may develop their potential for self-directed learning. I say the jury is still out.
“Families can only partially compensate for the damage done to the children by dysfunctional schools.”
Hahahahaha.
Uh, no.
“Uhh, he forgot to mention wide average group disparities in cognitive capacity..”
Given that this isn’t changeable, a solid family structure is a good basis for a kid being motivated to do his best, whatever that is.
Sure wouldn’t hurt to have more kids living in stable environments, whatever their IQ.
Personally, my family was much more functional than my elementary school. When finances permitted, they sent me to a private school instead, which was much better but still pretty bad. I’m pretty sure schools have gotten worse since then.
Of course, some kids will come from families that are even less functional than their schools. They probably take a disproportionate share of their teacher’s attention, so I’m not surprised if you think most kids are like this. In your school, it may even be true.
“Personally, my family was much more functional than my elementary school. ”
“Personally” is not only grammatically incorrect, but redundant.
Which falls in line with your apparent inability to comprehend. At no point did I say schools were more functional than families.