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Kids from rich families are more likely to succeed?

Economic Disparity = Education Inequality?

  • Yes

    Votes: 31 83.8%
  • No

    Votes: 6 16.2%

  • Total voters
    37
And the intergenerationally poor often can't even see the value in attempting to succeed in high school.

Perfectly said. They are not doing class work much less home work and study at the library? Forget it.

Like you said they will only finish high school because they are led by the hand by teachers. If not for the teachers and the low standards to pass high school these kids wouldn't even get a diploma. University? Forget about it...
 
Of course kids from rich families are more likely to succeed. The rich kids get sent off to private schools showered with private funding where they can interact and become friends with the children of other people in positions of power and participate in a variety of enticing extracurriculars while the poor kids attend underfunded, overcrowded public schools where they have no real role models and have to work professionally unimpressive part-time jobs to support themselves and their families.

Or, instead of segregating themselves educationally, the rich segregate themselves geographically and you get 99% white public schools funded about as well as private schools, but still have virtually zero social integration. Like the public school I was lucky enough to go to due to my parents' success.

Educational inequality is much much much worse than wealth inequality, because it creates social immobility. To have true social mobility, all kids needs to have access to the same quality of basic education in their formative years, regardless of their parents' assets or what neighborhoods they live in. And poor and rich kids need to interact with one another. This would also help the social/political division between the rich and poor - if people of different income classes actually interacted with each other ever.
 
I disagree on a lot of this.

1. Money does not dictate how a family may feel about the value of education. There are countless people living in poverty who understand the value of education and want nothing more than to be able to provide that education for their children and themselves. They may not have the money to ensure their kids can get the education needed to succeed, that doesn't mean they don't understand the value.

2. Money does not equal intelligence. And lack of money does not equal lack of intelligence.

Quite simply money = opportunity. Not just in education but in influence, opportunity, and chances.

No argument on that from me. At the same time I have defined "success" differently at various stages of life. While I very much value education for many reasons, I do believe that it is often a mistake to pursue an education for the purpose of being financially successful and assuming that great financial success will be the foundation of great happiness. Some people learn early on what will make them happiest in life and they pursue it with great passion. I define doing and being what truly makes you happy as succeeding in life.
 
Oh, it's a huge advantage no doubt. Since you mention college, the difference is usually not taking out tens of thousands in debt, a free car, study abroad, internships in south africa or summer classes without having to work, dropping 'hard' classes with no fear of losing financial aid, eating out anytime one feels like it, and hell, my first roommate decided dorms were too ghetto, so his parents quickly got him a hotel to stay at. Mentioning that i always had to share a small room with a sibling had no impact on his entitlement syndrome.

Being from a poor background means listening to crybaby 'adults' whine that they had to settle for 1st class seats instead of their parent's private jet, while you had to save up from a minimum wage summer job to drive a beat up rental car. It's where i learned there is no end to the bull**** spoiled brats will expect handed to them.

But how the hell is someone supposed to get into an elite college, coming from a school system that doesn't offer a single class foreign language, calculus, chemistry, business? Or a ghetto in detroit with 50 kids per teacher?

But of course, the pampering begins much earlier. Just about any obstacle that a rich kid faces growing up can be overcome simply by their parents buying their way out of it.
 
No argument on that from me. At the same time I have defined "success" differently at various stages of life. While I very much value education for many reasons, I do believe that it is often a mistake to pursue an education for the purpose of being financially successful and assuming that great financial success will be the foundation of great happiness. Some people learn early on what will make them happiest in life and they pursue it with great passion. I define doing and being what truly makes you happy as succeeding in life.

That's very true, but not everyone is going to be content doing factory work in rotating temp jobs, i.e. the kind of career one can expect without an education.

Also, a primary reason so many kids change majors is they do not discover their passion early on. It's much easier to do so when $ is no obstacle and you can literally travel the world and have access to people/mentors who have found success in a given path, or at the very least, attend some posh K-12 that offers classes in a far wider range of subjects. I knew how utterly inferior my K-12 was at helping me identify a passion, when i realized i had never heard of 80% of my college's majors.
 
The reason they typically don't attend Harvard is that they're not exceptional academic performers and/or they're not rich and powerful.

And the intergenerationally poor often can't even see the value in attempting to succeed in high school.

Harvard these days expects national/international awards and likes to 'sculpt' their classes. Now if among the tens of thousands of applicants they've got a space for a jazz soloist and your K-12 doesn't even offer music lessons? You can't afford private lessons or even an instrument? Good luck!

I've read a few of these "how to get into harvard by a harvard admit" and practically everything they list in terms of ECs wasn't even a possibility in my entire county. I see them brush off things like "FBLA nationals" and "FCCLA" and i'm like wtf are those?

You're right that many are slackers, seeing the situation as hopeless, which is foolish because they still could get into very good schools if only their grades and tests are decent. But even the few who really try have no shot at harvard.
 
No argument on that from me. At the same time I have defined "success" differently at various stages of life. While I very much value education for many reasons, I do believe that it is often a mistake to pursue an education for the purpose of being financially successful and assuming that great financial success will be the foundation of great happiness. Some people learn early on what will make them happiest in life and they pursue it with great passion. I define doing and being what truly makes you happy as succeeding in life.

I know what you are saying and I agree. Education doesn't equal money and money doesn't equal happiness. However money does equal opportunity. Opportunity for education, and a means of pursuing what will make you happy.
 
Harvard these days expects national/international awards and likes to 'sculpt' their classes. Now if among the tens of thousands of applicants they've got a space for a jazz soloist and your K-12 doesn't even offer music lessons? You can't afford private lessons or even an instrument? Good luck!

I've read a few of these "how to get into harvard by a harvard admit" and practically everything they list in terms of ECs wasn't even a possibility in my entire county. I see them brush off things like "FBLA nationals" and "FCCLA" and i'm like wtf are those?

You're right that many are slackers, seeing the situation as hopeless, which is foolish because they still could get into very good schools if only their grades and tests are decent. But even the few who really try have no shot at harvard.

And that's fine. Harvard is probably the best overall institution of higher education in the world. There is no way to mass produce a Harvard education whereby everyone gets a Harvard degree, and even if there were, it would just devalue (make meaningless) a Harvard diploma.

So many people concerned with educational inequality end up sidetracked and bitching about privilege and wishing they had it instead of focusing on improving education. It is much more feasible to improve access to education (using modern technology) than it is to try to knock privileged people down and hand out free "opportunities" to people who don't give a **** about it in the first place. Creating two problems to try to fix one.
 
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And that's fine. Harvard is probably the best overall institution of higher education in the world. There is no way to mass produce a Harvard education whereby everyone gets a Harvard degree, and even if there were, it would just devalue (make meaningless) a Harvard diploma.

So many people concerned with educational inequality end up sidetracked and bitching about privilege and wishing they had it instead of focusing on improving education. It is much more feasible to improve access to education (using modern technology) than it is to try to knock privileged people down and hand out free "opportunities" to people who don't give a **** about it in the first place. Creating two problems to try to fix one.

I didn't say to mass produce it, only contending with your claim that it's due to lack of effort from the kids. I think we agree that it's not feasible to introduce quality education with unlimited EC opportunities to rural areas.

However, and this goes for urban schools too, removing the ceiling for the few exceptional kids in those areas so that they can further prove their potential and don't die of boredom is definitely possible. We have the resources to transplant those kids to a better learning environment, if that's what they want. We simply aren't making the effort. We are failing them, not the other way around.

I doubt that technology will soon duplicate the harvard education, especially the hands on majors and group work. Direct access to world leaders in a given field, research work and internships on campus, even just living in a community like that is hard to replace. Furthermore, given the no loans policy there, current online degrees are actually more expensive for the middle class student.

If you're talking about using technology to obsolete a lot of the departments at 3rd tier schools, which the disadvantaged already have access to, i do think that's taking place, largely because of costs and the disgusting dropout rates. Online "schools" like Phoenix are often regarded as a joke by employers and grad programs for good reason. Still, if it's the only affordable and convenient option for students...

I think bottom line, certainly won't see an online poorman's Harvard while Commuter U is still afloat. When you see online programs with quality instructors yet dirt cheap thanks to 200,000 students and no overhead, at that point we won't be so concerned about education again becoming finishing schools for the rich. It won't be harvard quality, but it can be an improvement for many.
 
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Then get a part time job like I did while I was going to school. Or you can do a few years in the military and get out with some additional skills and the GI Bill. Hell they might just enjoy it and stay in as I did. Now I make a very good living and get all the being it's as pass the GI bill to my son so he can go to school. There are many many ways to get ahead in the US if you make good choices and work hard. Always making excuses for other people does not do anyone any good.

And you're still starting at a disadvantage.

I took the military route, and now I am limited on what I can do because I am too old for some jobs or at least to excel well in some jobs (even only being in my 30s).

My entire point has been that there absolutely is some unfair educational opportunities in this country, no matter how much people want to say differently, and those inequalities do make it harder for those at the bottom to push to the top and easier for those families at the top to stay there. And it simply is not all about working hard and the choices alone that a person makes. Not all choices are available to everyone.
 
And you're still starting at a disadvantage.

I took the military route, and now I am limited on what I can do because I am too old for some jobs or at least to excel well in some jobs (even only being in my 30s).

My entire point has been that there absolutely is some unfair educational opportunities in this country, no matter how much people want to say differently, and those inequalities do make it harder for those at the bottom to push to the top and easier for those families at the top to stay there. And it simply is not all about working hard and the choices alone that a person makes. Not all choices are available to everyone.

That is because you have chosen to stay in the military. You could have gotten out after your first enlistment and enjoyed the same benefits or joined the national guard. You made the choice not to. That is not a disadvantage but a choice.

You are right that not everyone has exactly the same staring point and that some have it harder than others. I don't think anyone would really argue differently. And it is not just money. Some people have better parents and I would bet that makes more of a difference than money. But that is life. You will never create a world where everyone starts out exactly the same. Nor should you. One of the reasons I work as hard as I do and save as much as I do is so my sons will hopefully not have to work when they go to school. Are you going to start saying that parents who do as I do can no longer help their kids. Are we going to start taking kids away from parents who the government decides are not perfect parents. That is the only way you are going to make everyone star out equal and that is not a country I think many people would agree.
The fact of the matter is that in this country anyone who is born without major mental or physical handicaps can be as successful as they want to be by making good decisions and working hard. And before anyone starts going off about how many poor work hard and that is true they decision part is just as important. Working hard as a Mcdonalds fry cook for your whole life may be hard work (not that it really is) but it is not a good choice. You need both.
 
That is because you have chosen to stay in the military. You could have gotten out after your first enlistment and enjoyed the same benefits or joined the national guard. You made the choice not to. That is not a disadvantage but a choice.

You are right that not everyone has exactly the same staring point and that some have it harder than others. I don't think anyone would really argue differently. And it is not just money. Some people have better parents and I would bet that makes more of a difference than money. But that is life. You will never create a world where everyone starts out exactly the same. Nor should you. One of the reasons I work as hard as I do and save as much as I do is so my sons will hopefully not have to work when they go to school. Are you going to start saying that parents who do as I do can no longer help their kids. Are we going to start taking kids away from parents who the government decides are not perfect parents. That is the only way you are going to make everyone star out equal and that is not a country I think many people would agree.
The fact of the matter is that in this country anyone who is born without major mental or physical handicaps can be as successful as they want to be by making good decisions and working hard. And before anyone starts going off about how many poor work hard and that is true they decision part is just as important. Working hard as a Mcdonalds fry cook for your whole life may be hard work (not that it really is) but it is not a good choice. You need both.

And still would have faced greater challenges. Plus, the military does not pay for 8 years of college, especially not at a major university.

Money makes much more of a difference than parenting, when the parents are both relatively good, caring parents.

And as for the other stuff, you are going off on some pretty stupid tangents and strawmen arguments. I never suggested anywhere close to what you are talking about with parents and children. I am saying that there is a definite disadvantage for poor kids when it comes to education in this country, a disadvantage that makes a huge difference in opportunities, and which should not exist, at least to the extent that it does.
 
And still would have faced greater challenges. Plus, the military does not pay for 8 years of college, especially not at a major university.

Money makes much more of a difference than parenting, when the parents are both relatively good, caring parents.

And as for the other stuff, you are going off on some pretty stupid tangents and strawmen arguments. I never suggested anywhere close to what you are talking about with parents and children. I am saying that there is a definite disadvantage for poor kids when it comes to education in this country, a disadvantage that makes a huge difference in opportunities, and which should not exist, at least to the extent that it does.
But statistics show that your average poor parent is not as good as your average well to do or middle class parent. Hence the extremely different numbers of poor kids who drop out of school, have kids out of wedlock and spend time in jail vs the number of rich or middle class kids who do the same. I would be willing to bet the same bad decision making ability that keeps them poor also has them being less than great parents.

As to the rest how else do you plan on making everyone start at the exact same spot without it.
 
But statistics show that your average poor parent is not as good as your average well to do or middle class parent. Hence the extremely different numbers of poor kids who drop out of school, have kids out of wedlock and spend time in jail vs the number of rich or middle class kids who do the same. I would be willing to bet the same bad decision making ability that keeps them poor also has them being less than great parents.

As to the rest how else do you plan on making everyone start at the exact same spot without it.

Statistics can be very misleading. When it comes to poor parents vs rich parents, are the differences in the circumstances taken into account?

There are a lot of really great poor parents out there too. Parents who put all their children through school, didn't have any with teens having children, and who have none who did any time in jail. Whereas, there are also plenty of things that rich parents can do to simply keep their children out of jail where poor parents can't. Even where they live can affect such things. The very difference in how you even are showing that people look at rich kids or even middle class kids compared to poor kids can be the difference. Who would you believe if there was a fight between two students, one's rich or middle class and one's poor? There is only their own versions, no cameras, no witnesses or any witnesses are friends of one of the students or the other. Because this is part of the problem. Plenty of people out there who would automatically either a) blame everything on the poor kid or b) treat both of them as if they both share equal blame, even if that isn't the case, and it is just to avoid the possibility of a lawsuit, which would be likely to come from the rich/middle class parents than the poor parents.

There are ways to make things more even, better. Ensure people have the opportunities to go to school, get the upper education. Finding ways to reduce college costs, even if it pisses off the colleges. We have educational
 
Statistics can be very misleading. When it comes to poor parents vs rich parents, are the differences in the circumstances taken into account?

There are a lot of really great poor parents out there too. Parents who put all their children through school, didn't have any with teens having children, and who have none who did any time in jail. Whereas, there are also plenty of things that rich parents can do to simply keep their children out of jail where poor parents can't. Even where they live can affect such things. The very difference in how you even are showing that people look at rich kids or even middle class kids compared to poor kids can be the difference. Who would you believe if there was a fight between two students, one's rich or middle class and one's poor? There is only their own versions, no cameras, no witnesses or any witnesses are friends of one of the students or the other. Because this is part of the problem. Plenty of people out there who would automatically either a) blame everything on the poor kid or b) treat both of them as if they both share equal blame, even if that isn't the case, and it is just to avoid the possibility of a lawsuit, which would be likely to come from the rich/middle class parents than the poor parents.

There are ways to make things more even, better. Ensure people have the opportunities to go to school, get the upper education. Finding ways to reduce college costs, even if it pisses off the colleges. We have educational

If it was mainly circumstance that was keeping those poor kids from getting an education then how are those good poor parents that you just talked about getting their kids on the right path. If some can than their is no excuse.

Look I have no doubt that poorer parents have a harder time than rich kids and no doubt there are some really crappy rich parents out there but we should not taking even more away from those who have made good choices in their life to help support others who for the most part suffering do to their own decisions.

I could fully support finding a way to make collages more affordable as long as we are not talking about giving away more tax money.
Life is not fair and never will be and taking more and more of someone's money to give to others is no more fair than some people not having things as easy as others.
 
Heres my question-why on earth would we expect people from enormously variable backgrounds to "succeed equally"?
Where on earth has that situation ever existed and why should that be the standard?
 
1. There are absolutely wide disparities in the opportunities offered by our education system here in the US.

2. However, the education/test score/money relationship is not causal, it is correlative, both stemming from the same basic cause of a family who prioritizes and makes good decisions.



In the my childhood immediate family, for example, there are more collegiate and graduate degrees than people. My brother has the least (1), and he got his in Engineering from Georgia Tech. Yet we weren't rich - dad was a small town southern Methodist minister. We saved up all month to go to Shoney's. But my parents prioritized education, reading to their children, strengthening their marriage, providing us stability, etc. I don't have more education because my folks had money, but because I was taught to pursue it, to value it, and to work hard. Those same values also increase my ability to earn a higher income, and as a result, my income will probably be above average over the course of my lifetime.
 
Poll: Economic Disparity = Education Inequality?

The advent of the Internet has changed that dynamic entirely. Why blow $50,000+ on a college (and all of the bull**** "required classes") when the same information can be learned for the price of a monthly Internet bill, that is, if a person even pays for it and just doesn't leech the connection?
 
The advent of the Internet has changed that dynamic entirely. Why blow $50,000+ on a college (and all of the bull**** "required classes") when the same information can be learned for the price of a monthly Internet bill, that is, if a person even pays for it and just doesn't leech the connection?

The same could have been said about libraries, but I agree with what you're saying. There is value to learning in an academic environment and, for better or worse, having a certificate of successfully completing a degree program. Though I don't know that it's worth tens of thousands of dollars per year for two years before kids have even decided what career track appeals to them.
 
The same could have been said about libraries, but I agree with what you're saying. There is value to learning in an academic environment and, for better or worse, having a certificate of successfully completing a degree program. Though I don't know that it's worth tens of thousands of dollars per year for two years before kids have even decided what career track appeals to them.

What gets me is what the university lumps on-top, the aforementioned "required classes" which the universities defend by saying, "We want well-rounded students." No, they want more money, they could give a **** about a student being well-rounded.

Today's world requires that ultra expensive piece of paper that supposedly says that so-and-so knows X, Y and Z to a certain proficiency. The game is unfortunately rigged and is seemingly getting worse with every passing semester.
 
The same could have been said about libraries, but I agree with what you're saying. There is value to learning in an academic environment and, for better or worse, having a certificate of successfully completing a degree program. Though I don't know that it's worth tens of thousands of dollars per year for two years before kids have even decided what career track appeals to them.

I say college is overrated, and I say this as a college student almost continually for the last 15 years off and on. It turns too many into robots, and with things like the internet and the information age its even less vital. The dogma of college really took off with the boomers.
 
It turns too many into robots, and with things like the internet and the information age its even less vital.

If anything, it's taught me it's become more vital. People have taken an inherently undemocratic hierarchy of knowledge and quality of material and proposed it was somehow democratic. The internet has become a place where everyone's source material is seen with equal value and democratized to such an extent that the average person is somehow granted equal weight to that of the expert in the field. It's preposterous.
 
If anything, it's taught me it's become more vital. People have taken an inherently undemocratic hierarchy of knowledge and quality of material and proposed it was somehow democratic. The internet has become a place where everyone's source material is seen with equal value and democratized to such an extent that the average person is somehow granted equal weight to that of the expert in the field. It's preposterous.

I practice medicine as a PA, you dont need to tell me that a little bit of knowledge, without knowing sources or context can be dangerous-but still the overall net effect is a positive. The more people there are pouring over this data, the better long term.
 
But they're not. The reason so many schools in poor neighborhoods are bad is because the parents don't care. They don't get involved. They don't care about education. They don't instill a love of learning in their children. Most kids drop out before they graduate high school. None of that has anything to do with the amount of money someone has, but with the amount of interest they have. We just have this really stupid and destructive ghetto culture in place that teaches people not to care about getting an education because the government will give them a check and crime pays a lot more. They do it to themselves.

High_School_Graduation_Rates.jpg


chart-census-poverty.top.jpg


Tell me what you notice.
 
Studies have shown that children coming from families of the top 10% of income generally had better test scores than children from the the lower 90% of income. Not only do they generally have better test scores, but also are much more likely to get into an elite college. For decades, parents from higher income families spend an exponential amount of money on learning expense for their children. These numbers are only increasing, possibly giving children from lower income families a massive disadvantage.

So my questions to you guys--the Debate Politics community--are:

Could the possible increase in educational inequality of children of different social classes be due to the wide economic disparity that we have today between the rich and the poor?

Do you think there should be more elite educational programs for children of the lower class?

Also, what other factors could possibly be involved?

Growing wealth gap may threaten education


Some Other Good Reads:
Money Makes A Difference, Even In Kindergarten
Inequality among students rises - Business - The Boston Globe
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/10/e...grows-between-rich-and-poor-studies-show.html

My parents were by no means wealthy--I was the poor kid growing up mostly with kids whose families had much more money--but I don't believe I was handicapped in any way. Yes more rich kids succeed than poor kids not because they are born rich but because their parents infuse them with the same values that helped their parents be rich. But the poor kid who is encouraged to educate himself/herself, and I was, has the same ability and desire to learn. And he has the same ability to achieve and succeed as his richer peers. They might have a head start so far as having access and opportunity to more ways to learn, but also the poor kid is not handicapped with a sense of privilege and entitlement that could hinder his drive to get ahead.

In my own family I have watched kids with parents who have barely a high school education or even less go on to accomplish themselves impressively. And I've watched a lot of kids of privilege fail to apply themselves and succeed at the same level as their rich parents.

It's all relative.
 
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