Does America Hate Bright Kids? Some thoughts on education and the Pareto principle; Possible good news about China.

Mail 809 Sunday, February 02, 2014

The Superbowl was interesting but a bit of a surprise. Since I met Roberta in Seattle, we were married there, and I got my advanced degrees from the University of Washington before we came to California in 1964, we naturally favored the Seahawks, but I was astonished at the actual outcome of the game. I certainly would have thought it would be a lot closer. The Legion of Doom was remarkably effective. I suspect that coaches everywhere are reviewing every play.

Mail has been piling up. I’ll try to get up some interesting letters. We are recovering from the – flu, I would say, but we had our flu shots. Whatever we were inoculated against it wasn’t what I came down with in early January.

Regressing to the mean?

NYC School Cuts Gifted Program for "Lack of Diversity" <http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3118319/posts>

townhall.com ^ <http://www.freerepublic.com/%5Ehttp://townhall.com/tipsheet/christinerousselle/2014/01/31/nyc-school-cuts-gifted-program-for-lack-of-diversity-n1787812> | Jan 31, 2014 | Christine Rousselle

Another case of political correctness gone awry: a school in Brooklyn has decided to scrap its gifted and talented program after accusations that the program was not "diverse" enough.

Citing a lack of diversity, PS 139 Principal Mary McDonald informed parents in a letter that the Students of Academic Rigor and two other in-house programs would no longer accept applications for incoming kindergartners.

“Our Kindergarten classes will be heterogeneously grouped to reflect the diversity of our student body and the community we live in,” McDonald told parents in a letter posted on the photo-sharing site flickr and obtained by Ditmas Park Corner.

The school is roughly two-thirds African American or Hispanic. Asian and white students account for almost 30 percent of the student body. Exact ethnic breakdowns of the Students of Academic Rigor program were not given, although the program was described by some as being "overwhelmingly Caucasian."

This move infuriates me. It would be insane for a school to cut its special education program for developmentally disabled students due to a "lack of diversity" among those who need the services. Students on both ends of the special education spectrum — either gifted or developmentally delayed — need the specialized classes to reach their highest potential as a student. It would be insane to suggest someone with an IQ of 70 (the benchmark for mental retardation) should be grouped in the same classroom with students with an IQ of 100 and treated like everyone else, and it should be considered equally insane to suggest that students who have an IQ of greater than 130 (gifted) need to be in the same classroom as average students to fill some sort of "diversity" quota. That is not fair to both the above-average students and the average students. Studies have shown that grouping gifted children with their non-gifted peers has a negative effect on both parties.

This is a bad move by PS 139. I hope the principal reconsiders her decision, and I hope the parents of children enrolled in the gifted education program are able to successfully advocate for their kids.

Al Perrella

See also http://www.newsweek.com/america-hates-its-gifted-kids-226327

I am working on a major article about this whole matter. Either one believes, as we all used to believe, that the world is sustained by about 20% of the population – which generally controls 80% of the property, the so-called Pareto distribution, or one must come up with an alternate theory. Marx so little understood technology and industrialization that he presumed that anyone could be trained to do any job; management was easy if everyone cooperated, and sustaining the industrial civilization would be simple. Ownership was not important. Others thought differently, and all the data seems to indicate that the great advances have been sparked by a rather small number of people. It isn’t that only Shockley could have discovered the transistor, but it does seem likely that only someone with Shockley’s smarts could have done so. I knew Shockley. My very conservative friend Peter De Lucca thought him a “civilizational monster” after a couple of dinners with him; he was certainly a good example of C P Snow’s “Two Societies”. But no one could doubt his intelligence and his – stamina? Fortitude? Determination? – which kept him working on the transistor principle once he had a hint of it from his observations.

I discovered science fiction in the 1940’s when I was in high school. In particular I discovered John W. Campbell’s Astounding Science Fiction (later Analog), and I wrote Campbell a letter about one of his editorials. He answered it with two pages of comment on my comments. Needless to say I took him seriously after that; and one of Campbell’s principles was that the human race was sustained by its top 20% and advanced by its top 10%. There were exceptions, but not many. My reading of history as well as the newspapers seemed to confirm those beliefs, and when I discovered Pareto I was more confirmed in those views. Galton’s Genetic Studies of Genius came to an interesting conclusion: while “Great Men” were far more likely to sire a “Great Man,” most Great Men were not descendants of Great Men. This led me to the conclusion that the most important resource of a society was the undiscovered potential great men, who might be educated to a level as to allow them to reach their potential. I must have concluded this in 1948 or thereabouts. I have never found any good reason to abandon this view. Fortunately at the same time I came to this conclusion, the Brothers made certain I was aware of George Washington Carver and Booker T. Washington along with other Great Men of American history – which led me to the conclusion that the law ought to be color blind, a view I have held since and which has generated no end of contempt, which I had expected from my contemporaries in legally segregated Memphis, but I still get plenty from those who claim to be champions of equality now.  But that’s another story.

But of course the United States hates the gifted kids who are not descended from the 20% who control 80% of the resources. We do not say that, of course, but were it true it would be hard to show a more efficient system for keeping those upstarts – potential great men and women not born to the rich – down where they belong. We have a system whereby they are sent to inferior schools and kept there since their parents can’t afford to get them out. Once through 12 years of mostly inferior education they are invited to go to universities: but unlike the system that allowed my wife (11^th child of a coal miner) and I to get through college, we have devised a system that allows them through only if they owe the establishment a great sum which is unlikely ever to be paid. I do not expect that the children of Bill and Melissa Gates will have any lifelong debts due to the cost of their education – whether they are potentially Great or not.

The result of the efforts to “equalize” education in the public schools is obvious. No child left behind is easy to accomplish if no child is allowed to get ahead. Of course that does not apply to the children of the 10% wealthiest, and even less to those of the 5%.

And the rest never catch wise.

The lights we see in this educational darkness come from technology which makes it possible for the best and brightest to acquire an actual education without incurring a monstrous burden of debt; Alas, we also have “equal opportunity” employment laws which make it almost certain that personnel departments – excuse me, Human Resources – will hire only those with credentials, and the credentials are far more important than actual abilities. The universities charge heavy sums for those credentials, and those who enforce the bureaucratic credential exercises are very well paid. The credentials don’[t mean much but employers must use them. What else do they have? Human judgment which is certain to bring lawsuits? (We have already outlawed the use of IQ tests in employment.) The results would be predictable if they were not already known. Couple this with regulations that make it very difficult to start new businesses – particularly those which require high technology investments – and you will find that the phrase “You can’t keep a good man or woman down” proves to be objectively false.

The ruling class may repeatedly state that they do not hate bright kids (other than their own) but it would be difficult to prove that from their actions.

Greetings!

Reading your reports about your new hearing aids brings a smile to my face every time I read one.

You mention that, by third grade, no one can tell which children went to head start and which children didn’t. I think that’s the point of the program; if there were no head start, the kids who would’ve gone to head start but didn’t would lag behind the rest of the kids. I wonder if anyone has ever tracked these kids through their school careers to see where they end up.

Wishing you good health and happiness,

Nick Hegge

Believe me, nearly everyone who studies education wishes mightily to be able to show that Head Start is effective. Charles Murray has worked very hard to find evidence for the effectiveness of Head Start. But when you examine a class of fourth graders, some of whom were Head Start and some of whom were not, you cannot reliably determine who went through the program and who did not. This comes as a surprise to nearly everyone who makes the attempt.

Now yes, this can be made complicated, because in some communities Head Start-like opportunities continue after pre-Kindergarten age, and those selected into Head Start have a big head start on learning how to get into such programs; controlling for such factors is what makes evaluation so difficult and often contaminates the conclusions. Once again, though, a great number of people sympathetic to Head Start have attempted to do all this. After all, whether you are liberal or conservative, it is not hard to be convinced that improving education is the key to cutting the costs of Great Society like programs. Anything that allows kids to learn more in later life is going to make the system cheaper, and just about every employer wants a smarter labor pool to hire from.

There are many studies tracking Head Start kids from pre-school to adulthood. If any could show unambiguous positive effects they would be widely known.

Wasn’t It Supposed To Be Fiction?

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jan/30/nyc-school-cuts-popular-gifted-program-over-lack-d/

“A popular gifted-student program at a New York City elementary school is getting the ax after school officials decided it lacked diversity.

“PS 139 Principal Mary McDonald told parents in a letter Jan. 24 that Students of Academic Rigor, or SOAR, would no longer accept applications for incoming kindergartners, the New York Daily News reported.”

I thought "Higher Education" (Pournelle & Sheffield) was supposed to be fiction.

–John R. Strohm

Well, we showed a way out, and that part certainly was fiction. Many of my early stories postulated that the great corporations would get so disgusted with the schools that they would set up company schools for employees’ children, and go on to set up programs that would substitute for college education. That last wasn’t entirely speculation: when I went to work for Boeing in the 1950’s a large portion of the aeronautical engineers were not college graduates; they had begun as draftsmen and mechanics, learned on the job and in company classes, and became certified by examination. I think there a none of those now. My friend Paul Turner was one of the last non-degree professional engineers in the North American Shuttle program, and he retired years ago.

We can only conclude that the ruling class hates bright upstarts kids not their own.

3D printing will stir ethics, regulation debate,

Jerry

“3D printing will stir ethics, regulation debate, Gartner predicts.” No big surprises, right? But this caught my eye:

“Companies that have the ability to print human tissue and organs, for example, are well-intentioned, but there is very little medical precedent.”

“3D bioprinting facilities with the ability to print human organs and tissue will advance far faster than general understanding and acceptance of the ramifications of this technology," claims Pete Basiliere, Gartner Research Director, in a statement. "These initiatives are well-intentioned, but raise a number of questions that remain unanswered. What happens when complex ‘enhanced’ organs involving nonhuman cells are made? Who will control the ability to produce them? Who will ensure the quality of the resulting organs?"

Oops.

http://www.tweaktown.com/news/35150/3d-printing-will-stir-ethics-regulation-debate-gartner-predicts/index.html

Oh, and there is this:

“Major ethical debates will likely take place by 2016, according to research firm Gartner, as developing nations and emerging markets should drive 3D demand.”

Ed

I can imagine many stories that can come from this. Note that technology is still in the exponential-appearing part of the logistic (or S curve, see Strategy of Technology) that describes technological advances.

It’s about time!

Jerry, a non-profit advocacy group, Students Matter, is suing to have California’s tenure laws ruled unconstitutional because they prevent giving all students equal access to a good education:

http://www.latimes.com/local/la-me-teachers-lawsuit-20140126,0,4567951.story#ixzz2rXXaqUjv

One can only imagine how the plaintiffs are going to be demonized by the Teacher’s Union and all of the Democrats who depend on their contributions to keep getting re-elected. Only time will tell, of course, but this is certainly a step in the right direction.

We can hope. But of course you assume impartial courts not influenced by teachers unions.

Jerry,

I’m bringing this to your attention for the climate change pieces herein and for the link to the George Will column on the Unaffordable Uncaring Act appearing at the end, that because of the Constitutional issues addressed.

J

Subj: Fwd: Daily Digest for Thursday

View online at: http://patriotpost.us/digests/23051

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Daily Digest for Thursday

January 30, 2014 <http://patriotpost.us/digests/23051/print>

THE FOUNDATION

"If there be a principle that ought not to be questioned within the United States, it is, that every nation has a right to abolish an old government and establish a new one. This principle is not only recorded in every public archive, written in every American heart, and sealed with the blood of a host of American martyrs; but is the only lawful tenure by which the United States hold their existence as a nation." –James Madison, Helevidius, No. 3, 1793

TOP 5 RIGHT HOOKS

Pelosi Wants Action

Nancy Pelosi says she’s glad Barack Obama promises to keep up his habit of merely bypassing Congress when he doesn’t get his way. "When you have exhausted the legislative remedies," she said, "then the question is why don’t you do something about it where you have the power to do it?" For starters, Obama often doesn’t have the power to do things he does — but constitutional limits have never stopped Democrats from pushing their agenda.

Comment <http://patriotpost.us/posts/23047#post-comment> | Share <http://patriotpost.us/posts/23047#share>

Biden Speaks His Heart

Joe Biden was asked about another possible presidential run in 2016, but, as all possible candidates do at this stage, he demurred. That said, he confessed, "In my heart, I’m confident that I can make a good president. It’s a very different decision to decide whether or not to run for president." We have no brief for Biden but we’ll give him one thing: He’d be a much funnier president than most, though his humor generally makes you want to bury your head in your hands.

Comment <http://patriotpost.us/posts/23046#post-comment> | Share <http://patriotpost.us/posts/23046#share>

Climatologist Gets It Right

At the turn of the century, climatologist Dr. Don Easterbrook issued his own offbeat prediction. "[I]n 1999 … the PDO [Pacific Decadol Oscillation, a natural cycle that fluctuates between warm and cold phases] said we’re due for a climate change," he explained, "and so I said okay. It looks as though we’re going to be entering a period of about three decades or so of global cooling." Indeed, data reveals his prognostication was correct. "We have now had 17 years with no global warming and my original prediction was right so far," Easterbrook points out. "For the next 20 years, I predict global cooling of about 3/10ths of a degree Fahrenheit." And that’s not necessarily a good thing: "Cold is way worse for humanity than warm is," he adds. So as alarmists continue with ostentatious rants about nonexistent global warming, just remember that what we’re actually seeing was foreseen long ago by someone with facts on their side.

Comment <http://patriotpost.us/posts/23032#post-comment> | Share <http://patriotpost.us/posts/23032#share>

NC Unemployment Drop

North Carolina ended its own long-term unemployment benefits last summer, making the state a possible glimpse into what might happen if Congress quit authorizing the perpetual extensions. The unemployment rate in North Carolina dropped precipitously after benefits were not extended, and its rate is falling much faster than the national rate. Nationwide, the rate is dropping largely because people are dropping out of the labor force and it’s not clear how much that’s true in North Carolina. Either way, however, slowing down the gravy train certainly didn’t hurt, which is a lesson Congress would do well to heed.

Comment <http://patriotpost.us/posts/23045#post-comment> | Share <http://patriotpost.us/posts/23045#share>

DC’s ‘Mental Disorder’

This statistic explains a lot. A new report on the Social Security Disability Insurance Program reveals that of the more than 10 million Americans collecting disability benefits, 35% are characterized as having a "mental disorder," topping all categories. In Washington, DC, however, that number jumps to 43.2% of recipients. We’ll need to dig a little deeper into the data, but we’re expecting to find that the majority of these individuals work on Capitol Hill.

Comment <http://patriotpost.us/posts/23031#post-comment> | Share <http://patriotpost.us/posts/23031#share>

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Don’t Miss Alexander’s Column

Read 2014 SOTU: The MO BO Show <http://patriotpost.us/alexander/23023> .

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RIGHT ANALYSIS

MyRA Proposal Is a Head-Scratcher

One of the more puzzling proposals in the State of the Union address <http://patriotpost.us/alexander/23023> was the idea of MyRAs. Structured like a Roth IRA that invests in savings bonds, the federal government would guarantee these beginner investment accounts aimed at the poor. "It’s a new savings bond that encourages folks to build a nest egg," Barack Obama said. "MyRA guarantees a decent return with no risk of losing what you put in." Naturally, he implemented the plan Wednesday with his infamous pen.

Given that there are already many retirement-account options out there, we’re left wondering what problem Obama is trying to solve. And as National Review’s Kevin Williamson notes <http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/369738/what-heck-myra-kevin-d-williamson> , "Does anybody know why savings bonds went out of fashion? Because they are a terrible way to save money." Low-risk, low-return. In fact, the federal workers’ program this seems to be based on had a return of less than 1.5% last year and 2.24% over the last three. While the principal protection would keep the account balance from going down, the account could still lose value if inflation outpaces the return.

Given Obama’s predisposal to nationalize everything, we question if this isn’t the first step in doing so for retirement accounts. After all, just think about all the tax-free earnings sitting in IRAs that Obama wishes he could get his hands on. At a minimum, he seems to want poor, uninformed voters to invest more of their paychecks into the U.S. government. To the extent that MyRAs are used, that money will be invested in U.S. debt instead of private equity — at least until each account hits $15,000 and rolls into a private IRA.

We have another idea. How about privatizing (even partially) Social Security? That’s what George W. Bush proposed in his post-re-election State of the Union. Unfortunately, the idea never went anywhere, and Social Security, with its multi-trillion dollar liabilities, remains unsustainable. In fact, the MyRA proposal is a tacit admission that Social Security isn’t going to be enough for younger workers. According to the Employee Benefit Research Institute, that’s exactly the case: Baby boomers and Generation Xers need $4.3 trillion more for retirement than Social Security and savings currently provide.

Comment <http://patriotpost.us/articles/23050#post-comment> | Share <http://patriotpost.us/articles/23050#share>

Climate Change Nonsense

Atlanta with two inches of snow

In his State of the Union address <http://patriotpost.us/alexander/23023> Tuesday night, Barack Obama warned, "[W]e have to act with more urgency — because a changing climate is already harming Western communities struggling with drought, and coastal cities dealing with floods. That’s why I directed my administration to work with states, utilities and others to set new standards on the amount of carbon pollution our power plants are allowed to dump into the air." Those regulations are greatly harming the coal industry and are thus reflected on your monthly power bill.

Obama then declared, "[T]he debate is settled. Climate change is a fact."

Indeed, much of the nation saw several inches of "climate change" Tuesday, as snow and ice covered several states as far south as the Gulf Coast. In the South, thousands of people were stuck for hours — often overnight — in traffic or wherever they could find shelter, kids were stranded at school, and a region unaccustomed to dealing with such weather was crippled.

One of the main problems in the South was inaccurate forecasting. Chattanooga meteorologist Paul Barys admitted, "This was just not what we were seeing in the forecast models." Therefore, road crews made almost no preparation until the snow actually began to fall, and schools waited until then to send kids home, compounding a bad situation. The South isn’t exactly known for its snowplows anyway.

It’s important to note that weather is not the same thing as climate, but we’ll make some observations. First, climatologists also use computer forecast models to show that the climate is changing. Computer models can be wrong, especially if the data entered is faulty, and that’s true if the prediction is tomorrow’s weather or the next century’s climate. Indeed, as we noted above, there hasn’t been any global warming in 17 years — hence the change in terminology to "climate change." Second, alarmists like Barack Obama constantly point to weather patterns — drought and floods, for example — as definitive proof that, in order to prevent climate change, we need draconian government regulations and taxes that will hit the economy like, well, a snow storm in Atlanta. And no matter the weather, these alarmists blame climate change. Truth is the only thing getting plowed.

Comment <http://patriotpost.us/articles/23049#post-comment> | Share <http://patriotpost.us/articles/23049#share>

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TOP 5 RIGHT OPINION COLUMNS

* Michael Reagan: Lots of Laughs but Sad Commentary <http://patriotpost.us/opinion/23041>

* R. Emmett Tyrrell: Politics Double Standard <http://patriotpost.us/opinion/23038>

* Rebecca Hagelin: Do You Know What They’re Teaching Your Kids? <http://patriotpost.us/opinion/23035>

* George Will: The ACA’s Four-Word Waterloo? <http://patriotpost.us/opinion/23005>

* Jeff Jacoby: Income Gap? Not Many Are Obsessed <http://patriotpost.us/opinion/23030>

For more, visit Right Opinion <http://patriotpost.us/opinion> .

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OPINION IN BRIEF

Columnist Ann Coulter: "Immigrants … have always been the bulwark of the Democratic Party. For one thing, recent arrivals tend to be poor and in need of government assistance. Also, they’re coming from societies that are far more left-wing than our own. History shows that, rather than fleeing those policies, they bring their cultures with them. … This is not a secret. For at least a century, there’s never been a period when a majority of immigrants weren’t Democrats. … The two largest immigrant groups, Hispanics and Asians, have little in common economically, culturally or historically. But they both overwhelmingly support big government, Obamacare, affirmative action and gun control. … It’s not [Republicans’] position on amnesty that immigrants don’t like; it’s Republicans’ support for small government, gun rights, patriotism, the Constitution and capitalism. Reading these statistics, does anyone wonder why Democrats think vastly increasing immigration should be the nation’s No. 1 priority?"

Comment <http://patriotpost.us/opinion/23040#post-comment> | Share <http://patriotpost.us/opinion/23040#share>

Historian Victor Davis Hanson: "Postmodernism (the cultural fad ‘after modernism’) went well beyond questioning norms and rules. It attacked the very idea of having any rules at all. Postmodernist relativists claimed that things like ‘truth’ were mere fictions to preserve elite privilege. … Without notions of objective truth, there can never be lies, just competing narratives and discourses. Stories that supposedly serve the noble majority are true; those that supposedly don’t become lies — the facts are irrelevant. … To paraphrase George Orwell, everything is relative, but some things are more relative than others."

Comment <http://patriotpost.us/opinion/23025#post-comment> | Share <http://patriotpost.us/opinion/23025#share>

Lyndon B. Johnson (1908-1973): "You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harm it would cause if improperly administered." (If only he’d followed his own advice…)

Columnist Burt Prelutsky: "When Muslim terrorists threatened to make their presence felt at the Olympic Games in Sochi, Obama quickly responded by sending men, equipment and warships, to help beef up Russian security. I’m sure that somewhere, Ambassador Chris Stevens was musing, ‘Instead of diplomacy, I knew I should have taken up figure skating.’"

Comedian Jay Leno: "In his speech [Tuesday night], President Obama urged Congress to raise the minimum wage. Now don’t confuse that with congressional minimum wage. See, that’s doing the minimum for your wage. That’s completely different."

Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!

Nate Jackson for The Patriot Post Editorial Team

Join us in daily prayer for our Patriots in uniform — Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen — standing in harm’s way in defense of Liberty, and for their families.

*PUBLIUS*

And now for a touch of possible good news:

‘China’s military is intentionally organized to bureaucratically enforce risk-averse behavior, because an army that spends too much time training is an army that is not engaging in enough political indoctrination.’

‘China’s military is intentionally organized to bureaucratically enforce risk-averse behavior, because an army that spends too much time training is an army that is not engaging in enough political indoctrination.’

<http://thediplomat.com/2014/01/chinas-deceptively-weak-and-dangerous-military/?allpages=yes>

Of course one underestimates a potential enemy at great peril; still, there is historical evidence for these trends. Most of the rulers of China have survived purges from the left and from the right and a couple of simply weird campaigns like the Cultural Revolution.

Educating the Brightest

"It says little we haven’t been saying here for years, but the long term effect of ignoring the brightest 10% so that you can devote a larger portion of education to bringing up those just below normal up to normal is disastrous."

I recall a lesson from a high school economics class… Two people shoveling, one who is 10% faster than the other. Two shovels are available, one that can shovel lift 10% more material than the other. Which of the two people should get the better shovel? If the goal is to increase the overall production, then the better shoveler should get the better shovel If the goal is to try to equalize the output between the two, then give the better shovel to the less capable person.

Obviously, this is a very simplistic demonstration of how to allocate resources. But the concept can be applied to education. Of course… the first thing that needs to be done is to decide: What is the goal?

Karl

But would you not say that whichever goal you choose, you must have enough resources at least to sustain the situation? If there’s only this one hole to dig and it’s going to take more than one day to dig it whichever way you decide, is that different from when there are twenty holes to dig and no one gets paid until all the holes are dug?

Jerry Pournelle

Chaos Manor

Yeah.. as I noted, it was an overly simplified scenario, being used to make a point. In a perfect world, we would be able to provide the best of resources to all people, so they could each work to their maximum potential. But of course, perfect worlds are hard to come by. If we provide the limited better resources to those better able to use them, overall production may be increased. That increase may perhaps be used to provide more of the limited resources, allowing the less capable to improve their productivity, too. But if we set "fairness" as the initial goal, will the overall production ever improve enough to provide more of the better resources?

Fairness may feel good, but it also may not allow the situation to ever be improved. Anyway, I always appreciate your insight….

Vexillari

And I’ll do more of these shortly. There’s enough to think about here.

Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free.