Poverty Stunts IQ In the US But Not In Other Developed Countries (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader writes: New research published in the journal Psychological Science (abstract) found that children who grow up in poverty within the United States tend to have lower IQs than peers from other socioeconomic brackets. Previous studies have shown a complex relationship between a child's genetics, his environment, and his IQ. Your genes can't pinpoint your IQ, but they can indicate a rough range of values within which your IQ is quite likely to fall. For kids in poverty, they seem to consistently end up on the low end of that window. Interestingly, this effect was not seen for any of the other countries hosting kids within the study, which included Australia, Germany, England, Sweden, and the Netherlands. The study authors speculate that "inequalities in educational and medical access in the U.S." may be the root of the differences, though another researcher is planning to study the effect of school environments as well.

Comments

Schooling, perhaps?

[Anonymous Coward]

Public schools in the US are beholden to teacher's unions, and teacher's unions are all about funneling dues collected from members into contributions to politicians who tend to do things that increase the power of the teacher's unions.

And the kids be damned - especially poor kids with no alternative.

Ever notice how politician's kids go to private schools?

Re:Schooling, perhaps?

[Anonymous Coward]

blah blah unions blah blah leftism blah blah

And this stupid attitude is the problem. The US is the most right wing Western country, and that is the reason why there is such inequality of opportunity - the unions, if anything, are too weak, not too strong.

Re:Schooling, perhaps?

[jcr]

the unions, if anything, are too weak, not too strong.

Bullshit. The unions fight tooth and nail against any improvements in public schooling.

-jcr

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[thinkwaitfast]

Or maybe Americans watch five hours of tv per day vs 2 hours for Sweden. The three hours difference is way more than I ever spent on homework.

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[Sique]

Most teachers in the other countries are union members too. Thus this can't be the problem. It's the scapegoat.

Re:Schooling, perhaps?

[Anonymous Coward]

a good 1/2 of my friends are teachers
 
  every single one of them complains about how they are stopped from doing the right thing because of the unions
 
  bad teachers cant be fired, and good teachers are pushed to the "good schools"

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[Falconhell]

Well, it works in developed countries, the US still hasn't managed to rise to either civilised or developed.

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[tsotha]

Most people who put up those kinds of TV numbers don't actually watch it for five hours. The TV is just always on while they're home and doing other things.

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[tsotha]

That is, perhaps, the dumbest thing I've read today. I should think up some kind of prize to award.

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[vtcodger]

You sayin that American TV might be BAD for kids? I think there might be laws against asserting that. If not, there probably will be.

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[valnar]

No, that is bullshit. Unions exist for the purpose of their constituents, not the schools. Schools without unions (private schools, whose teachers also get paid less) have students who do better than average.

Re:Schooling, perhaps?

[Anonymous Coward]

The unions fight tooth and nail against any improvements in public schooling.

Perhaps there is a severe disconnect between what professional educators and your favorite politicians consider an "improvement."

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[dgatwood]

Public schools in the US are beholden to teacher's unions, and teacher's unions are all about funneling dues collected from members into contributions to politicians who tend to do things that increase the power of the teacher's unions.

Sorry, but that's crap. Some of the worst schools in the U.S. are in states that have bans on teacher unions, e.g. most of the American South. Others are in some parts of heavily unionized states, such as California. And some of the best public schools are also in other parts of California, in spite of it being so heavily unionized. The general consensus is that there is no correlation whatsoever between unionization and quality of schools.

There are, however correlations between the quality of education and:

• Teacher salaries. If you have to choose between teaching and a job in industry that pays twice as much, most of the best and the brightest won't choose to teach unless they really enjoy teaching.
• Class size (inverse correlation). More individual attention—particularly in early grades that build the foundation for later learning—leads to better outcomes.
• Language skills. In the U.S., an increasingly large percentage of poor people are not native English speakers, which has a double impact. First, they have a harder time learning because they're having to learn the language as they go. Second, the school district has to spend extra money to hire additional ESL teachers to help them get up to speed. The salary for those extra ESL teachers ends up reducing the pool of money available for everybody else, which means larger classes and lower overall teacher pay.

Note, however, that there is no inherent correlation between total spending and outcome. Pumping more money into failed school districts doesn't help if most of that money goes into administrator salaries, increased administration size, equipment purchasing, building construction, etc. However, experimentally, pumping extra money into struggling districts almost invariably improves education quality dramatically, for much the same reason that giving $1,000 to someone who just bought a new Tesla isn't likely to help that person nearly as much as giving that same amount of money to someone who is struggling to pay his or her electric bill.

Re:Schooling, perhaps?

[Yunzil]

Ever notice how politician's kids go to private schools?

It couldn't possibly be because they've systematically done everything they could to destroy the public schools could it?

Nah.

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[Sique]

If you a member of a union in Germany, of course you have to pay a due. And of course the unions are closely associated with a party. Moreso, each party has their own union, and the leading union members are also high ranking party officials. For instance, in Germany, there is one teacher's union, the GEW, which is associated with the Social Democrats, and another one, the Philologenverband, which has close connections to the right leaning CDU (the party of Chancellor Merkel).

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[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

This is closer to the truth. Family emphasis on scholastics outweigh anything else. When Dems and Republicans argue TEECHER UNION MORE/LESS, they are both missing the point.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Wonder why Wisconsin Democrats when absolutely ape shit when Walker got rid of that mandatory union membership and the funneling of those dues to Democrats?

Yes, where did Saint Walker send all that money instead? Where indeed?

Hint: To his own supporters.

But hey, maybe he can teach Rick Perry to remember a list of more than three names!

Oh wait, Rick's out, and we've got Trump left.

Huh, I wonder who he'll feed?

Re:Schooling, perhaps?

[PopeRatzo]

Public schools in the US are beholden to teacher's unions, and teacher's unions are all about funneling dues collected from members into contributions to politicians who tend to do things that increase the power of the teacher's unions.

Twelve of the thirteen states with the greatest poverty are solid red states where the teachers unions have been curbed or eliminated. These are also twelve of the thirteen states with the worst schools.

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[jblues]

"The enormous benefits given to the very wealthy, the privileges for the very wealthy here, are way beyond those of other comparable societies and are part of the ongoing class war. Take a look at CEO salaries. CEOs are no more productive or brilliant here than they are in Europe, but the pay, bonuses, and enormous power they get here are out of sight. They’re probably a drain on the economy, and they become even more powerful when they are able to gain control of policy decisions." -- Noam Chomsky

In the USA it is considered completely normal for the big end of town to finance and control policy decisions, either through legitimate channels, or with "hooker and blow" deals. The moment another grassroots group, like a Union, has coordination or funding to present a defensible point of view, it is considered a travesty.

All these other countries in the study also have healthcare, public transport, and so forth. The USA is the lone wolf. I live in a third world country and the similarities to the USA are striking. Here we have powerful elite can do what they want, there's a tiny middle class and most people get shit on. Of course a missing middle class means a missing consumer base, so the business interests of the elite are mostly export oriented, just like the USA with its IT services. And IT products/services is arguably the only thing currently keeping the USA afloat.

My wife, who is usually pretty open-minded, having grown up in a house without basic amenities like running water, was shocked when we visited San Francisco. There was one particular street made entirely of shit - people just shitting all over the road everywhere. Not at all what was expected, after having visited some other first world nations, previously. The expectation was the the USA would be like these, and yet given its wealth and image, even better. Nope. Streets made of human shit.

Re:Schooling, perhaps?

[Darinbob]

Blame the teachers, but no one ever blames the school administration and school boards. The teacher's unions are there to protect their interests against that of the administrators. They already have some of the lowest paying professional jobs.

Re:Schooling, perhaps?

[Darinbob]

This doesn't happen as much as hysteria claims. Teachers are a part of the union and teachers *do* want the best for the children. No teacher would take such a lousy low paying job like this if they didn't care about the children. Yes, the unions have problems but the unions are also vital because the school boards often try their hardest to ruin things even more.

The biggest problem I see is white flight. All the rich and upper middle class people have moved their kids out of public schools. Maybe they want better schools, maybe they think all those poorer kids get in fights too much, whatever, but there is a huge migration. This leaves the public school system damaged, they can't get better teachers, they can't fix the schools, there is no money left. The only public schools that do well are those in richer neighborhoods, and there is no equality of schools across even a single school district. The worse it gets the more people leave, and it's a vicious cycle. Fix the schools and no one would come back, people at work look at me like I'm insane if I suggest going to a public school instead of spending most of their income on private schools, and then they whine about how they have to be interviewed in order to have the kids accepted at a kindergarten.

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[Darinbob]

Ohh, that sounds like a well researched and thoughtful comment. Did some teacher give you bad grade one day to leave a chip on your shoulder?

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[Darinbob]

Schools without unions are private, meaning they get lots more money than public schools, and this directly correlates to how well students do. Private school teachers are paid more than public school teachers, and they also get respect rather than being accused of being the one and only cause of school declines. Private schools have funds to maintain the buildings, keep around additional classes like art and music that contribute to learning, they can afford to have up to date school books, they don't have cafeterias with budgets cut to the bare bone so that ketchup has to be considered a vegetable to meet standards, etc. Private schools have never had to deal with white flight, they never have a mass migration of parents worried that their kids are associating with the wrong sort, and they don't have to deal with lobbying groups asking for vouchers so that their kids can be taught elsewhere.

There is a breakdown in schools and it is primarily caused by the citizens abandoning the schools and insisting that education is not a right but a privilege that has to be paid for by something other than tax dollars.

Re:Schooling, perhaps?

[FooAtWFU]

The US is the most right wing Western country, and that is the reason why there is such inequality of opportunity - the unions, if anything, are too weak, not too strong.

There are strong teachers' unions in cities like New York and Chicago. You hear about these regularly. Usually it's because some teacher was caught on a camera in some Bronx school doing nothing but reading a newspaper all class long, while the elementary-school students sit around gambling, and he can't be fired, and instead is transferred to a "rubber room" facility where he collects a salary for not doing any work.

Teachers' unions are a hell of a lot closer to the problem in this country than they are the solution, but even though they claim to care about the children more than anything else, they will never consider admitting any fault whatsoever, even in the face of the system's most obvious failure and corruption. They will gladly dish out blame on everyone else for failing schools (administrations, politicians, budgets, parents) but are wholly incapable of countenancing the possibility that their organization might be part of the problem too. It is perhaps the saddest part of American politics.

Re:Schooling, perhaps?

[Darinbob]

Unions do good and bad things. The question is do you throw it all out because of the bad things, then let the teachers work for near poverty wages? Which is not hyperbole, the school boards are always trying to cut back anywhere they can.

I grew up with teachers. My family was pretty conservative and anti-union. But when it came time for contract negotations my anti-union father was out there on the picket lines when they were being shafted by the board. And that's because the unions are the only thing we have in any form that protects rights of workers and that can balance the power of the employers. For every bad thing a union has done there are even more bad things the employers and governments do.

Re:Schooling, perhaps?

[Darinbob]

And if you get rid of the unions then what protection do teachers have left? Remember that the school boards, administrators, and politicians do not care about the interests of the kids either. If they could put 60 students in one classroom they would because it would save the cost of one underpaid teacher.

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[valnar]

Private schools and teachers get paid more than public? WTF are you talking about?

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[nytes]

My wife, who is usually pretty open-minded, having grown up in a house without basic amenities like running water, was shocked when we visited San Francisco. There was one particular street made entirely of shit - people just shitting all over the road everywhere. Not at all what was expected, after having visited some other first world nations, previously. The expectation was the the USA would be like these, and yet given its wealth and image, even better. Nope. Streets made of human shit.

Lucky you! You got there just in time for the annual Shit Festival.

Re:Schooling, perhaps?

[hondo77]

Good thing there aren't any teachers' unions in Europe. Oh, wait...

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[Anonymous Coward]

False. My wife is a teacher. She interviewed at several private schools. The pay is awful, and the facilities are often not as nice as public schools. Don't confuse expensive school with high teacher pay. Parental involvement is what matters most.

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[ShanghaiBill]

The TV is just always on while they're home and doing other things.

I was listening to NPR, and the interviewee mentioned that her research showed that for 40% of American children, the TV was on, and visible, during all three meals.

So, yes, Americans watch a lot of TV, but is there any evidence that watching TV lowers IQ? I would suspect that the causation is the other way around.

Re:Schooling, perhaps?

[ShanghaiBill]

Family emphasis on scholastics outweigh anything else.

Several studies, described in Freakonomics and elsewhere, found that this is not true. Parental attitudes make surprisingly little difference. Who the parents are, makes far more difference that what the parents do. Family income, and the IQ of the biological parents (but not adoptive parents) makes much more difference than reading to your kids, helping them with homework, etc.

Re:Schooling, perhaps?

[ShanghaiBill]

Schools without unions are private, meaning they get lots more money than public schools

Charter schools are seldom unionized. They are publicly funded, and often receive less per student than public schools. They also are not allowed to select their students, and must take anyone who applies, ether on a first-applied-first-admitted basis, or by lottery.

Private school teachers are paid more than public school teachers

Nonsense. Most private school teachers are paid significantly less than public school teachers.

Re:Schooling, perhaps?

[ShanghaiBill]

The question is do you throw it all out because of the bad things, then let the teachers work for near poverty wages?

All or nothing are not the only options. You can allow collective bargaining for wages, without allowing union interference in other areas, such as testing and classroom management. This is how it is done in several states, including Wisconsin.

Re:Schooling, perhaps?

[Darinbob]

Each charter school is different though. The point is they get to make up their own charter. They aren't required to follow the same rules as public schools, though they do remain public schools. I suppose they could have a union if they wanted, though I doubt the school boards would like that.

If private schools pay less then it's different than when my family were teachers. But either way it's not a lot of pay and you don't take the job for the money. And definitely not for the lousy retirement plan (though many public unions did negotiate good benefit deals when the economy was zooming which is what has led to all the union backlash today when the economy sucks).

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[jblues]

Ah . . . the soap-box had gone to my head a little by that point in the speech.

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[IBME]

Actually here in the US it's just simply too hard to spell us.

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[Vinegar Joe]

Let's send all the public school students in Washington, DC, LA, Chicago, Detroit and Atlanta to Europe and/or Canada.

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[IBME]

Whatever. Management is not a label.

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[dryeo]

Depends on what else they might be doing. Personally I'd think that lots of things may stimulate the mind more then TV, things such as being outside playing.

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[vlad30]

Unions are only part of the problem and that goes in each country In Australia pay increase in public schools is by years of teaching that is 10 year teacher gets the same pay as every other 10 year teacher regardless of ability want to get more accept a role in a less desirable school (country, bad area) and that wil alllow you to move up to be a principle faster or apply in the private schools where they select better teachers and fire bad ones.

Parents are another part lower income parents have less time as they are working multiple jobs to survive to involve themselves in the students teaching and if the wealthier parent doesn't have the time they can hire a tutor.

Although this is limited to stats for NSW schools showed the number 2 dropped 6 places this year while catholic schools in the area picked up why tutored for exam students entering that selective high school should not be there the students who should be there moved into the local Catholic schools and are still thriving raising the average there

then we have ethnic values Asians value education more than Non English speaking Europeans etc all the way down to aussie bogans and american rednecks. Now education will drive up IQ to a point but it does not mean the educated are smart creative thinkers this is something inherent in your genes and upbringing

Many factors i am sure I could go on

Re: Schooling, perhaps?

[Anonymous Coward]

There are strong teachers' unions in cities like New York and Chicago. You hear about these regularly.

And elsewhere you might hear about a teacher fired because they won't pass Johnny Football or because they point out that there is some flaw in a local religious organization, or just because they teach about evolution. OK,OK, Inherit the Wind was decades ago.

Usually it's because some teacher was caught on a camera in some Bronx school doing nothing but reading a newspaper all class long, while the elementary-school students sit around gambling, and he can't be fired, and instead is transferred to a "rubber room" facility where he collects a salary for not doing any work.

And then you learn that the school administration doesn't want to document any real cause for termination so they decide to let the teacher go stir crazy. It is nearly as bad as police unions.

Teachers' unions are a hell of a lot closer to the problem in this country than they are the solution, but even though they claim to care about the children more than anything else, they will never consider admitting any fault whatsoever, even in the face of the system's most obvious failure and corruption.

Past presidents of the Teachers Unions have been loudly and regularly lambasted for pointing out that they represent teachers, not students.

But no, teachers admit fault and work for changes. They have taken paycuts and done performance reviews. Perhaps the real issue is that people like you never want to look at the other side of the coin. The school boards and administration, the testing industry, the textbook industry, all you have to offer is that the teacher's are at fault. Somehow. It is like being in an abusive relationship where all you want to do is present the other side as the paragon of evil while ignoring the log in your own eye.

When will you fix your side of things? Oh no wait, according to you, it is the teachers with that problem. Nobody else warrants a mention.

Can you learn a new tune? And no, "Throw money at it" isn't a new song either. You might as well blame communists.

Re:Schooling, perhaps?

[Anonymous Coward]

I was listening to NPR, and the interviewee mentioned that her research showed that for 40% of American children, the TV was on, and visible, during all three meals.

So, yes, Americans watch a lot of TV, but is there any evidence that watching TV lowers IQ?

I'm not going to claim this is an American thing anymore (it has spread to the rest of the world).... but as a exchange student from Europe to America (I went to several countries in college), I've never seen a people so fascinated with activity as Americans but without any focus. Like, jack of all trades, master of none.

Like, my exchange family had 2 boys and 1 girl, and every day after school all of them had varied activities - the closest one I was too but was typical for his sibling went to a dojo one day a week, had choir sometime, and then soccer and then paintball (right name?) and sometime some bike thing....

Their mother was like a grown version of this, shuttling her kids to multiple events, always on her phone, and bragging about multitasking while cooking/cleaning and a million other things....

But none of them did anything they spent a little time on particularly well nor did they try to get better. They never had the TV off during meals (I swear it was blaring 16 hours a day).... I took over the cooking because I, could cook better than her but I said just to help out. None of them really practiced at anything outside the events... it's as if they wanted to be seen being busy that they constantly invited extended family to than to truly master or begin to master anything.

And I don't think it's even conscious, just the way they hang. It made an impression on me because I thought it all was rather expensive (the hardware for some of these activities were a bit more costly in my country while the salaries are simultaneously lower) to be half-assing 5, 6, 7 hobbies rather than be really good at 1-2-3.

I'm saying this more than a decade later, as a small time employer, but I notice that lack of focus is usually a sign of unproductivity or true passion. They're are people who go to all the meeting and will even volunteer to be a body heading some project -- but it's like they are filling checkmarks of some bucket list and rollcall more than actually doing something.

Re:Schooling, perhaps?

[Kohath]

If the union was stronger, how would that help poor children learn? Do you care at all about poor children learning?

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[MobyDisk]

Hmmm... True. But consider this: Freakonomics was talking about overall IQ, where genetics dominates. But this article is saying that, taking into account the genetics, poverty puts them at the low-end of the IQ window. So taking into account the genetics, within that IQ window, perhaps family emphasis on scholastics does outweight anything else. To know this, we would need to correlate family emphasis on scholastics, poverty, and IQ while controlling for for genetics.

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[MobyDisk]

Most teachers in the other countries are union members too. Thus this can't be the problem.

Do the unions operate the same way though?

The complaint in the US is that unions establish a tenure system where years of service is more important than performance. This "reverse meritocracy" supposedly forces the best teachers out. I don't know anything about teachers' unions in Europe - do they suffer from the same problem?

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[Kohath]

Forgotten in this (story about a) power struggle: children.

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[TarPitt]

And you don't know that the other countries mentioned also have a unionized teaching workforce? Australia , Germany , and Sweden all have active teacher's unions.

Your right wing anti union propaganda does not hold up when researching the actual conditions in educationally high ranking nations. The rest of the world does not follow what you believe.

Re: Schooling, perhaps?

[guruevi]

Teacher pay in private schools is lower than unionized teachers in public schools however the very good teachers often make more in private schools due to the parents wanting to keep these good teachers around. Parental involvement is also higher in private schools.

Unions just make it that teachers stay around even when not needed or utterly horrible at their job.

In a nearby school district we have a building filled with teachers that the school district is unable to fire but due to their performance can't put in front of a classroom, a few years ago it was decreed that teachers needed to have a college degree, the unions subsequently got it in a contract that the teachers couldn't be forced to go to school so they can't perform but they can't be forced to perform.

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[MachineShedFred]

False equivalence.

Not all unions are filled with corrupt motherfuckers who are more interested in perpetuating the union then they are at advancing the cause of their members, or what those members are employed to do.

I imagine a Teachers' Union in Chicago is a completely different beast from a Teachers' Union in Brussels.

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[Falconhell]

The US is the first empire to go from rise to decline without an intervening period of civilisation.

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[Kohath]

The "good schools" are the real problem. The system can't be fixed because the parents who overpaid for their house to make sure their children get in the "good schools" have a big stake in the system staying as it is. Their child is getting a (relatively) good education, so that's taken care of -- they don't support any major reforms that might disrupt that. The "good school" teachers don't support changes either.

In fact, the premium value of houses near the "good schools" depends on their school remaining above average. Poor children in poor neighborhoods getting a bad education actually helps support the valuation of homes in wealthier neighborhoods.

Meanwhile, children in poor neighborhoods get cheated out of an education and the unions oppose reforms. Folks in the poor neighborhoods vote for union-backed politicians based on race and class. Nothing changes because poor children matter less than home values to wealthy parents, less than cultural issues to poor parents, less than money and re-election to politicians, and less than union benefits and grievances to the teachers' unions.

Re: Schooling, perhaps?

[Darinbob]

I suspect in many places that teachers can be fired. I know when my father got tenure it did not mean he could not be fired it just meant he didn't have to deal with the contract every year or wait until a few weeks before school starts to know if he still had the job. Consider how many corporations keep around deadwood who should have been fired ages ago, including managers, so school districts are likely the same. It's too much of a hassle to fire someone, deal with the union, getting real proof of bad performance, and getting a replacement. Though I don't doubt in large cities with stronger unions that it's harder to fire for cause (say New York), but I don't think it's true everywhere. A school board may say they're powerless but that's because they never ever want to rock the boat because it's a cushy elected office most places.

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[phantomfive]

was shocked when we visited San Francisco. There was one particular street made entirely of shit - people just shitting all over the road everywhere.

Which street?

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[chipschap]

half-assing 5, 6, 7 hobbies rather than be really good at 1-2-3.

I'm saying this more than a decade later, as a small time employer, but I notice that lack of focus is usually a sign of unproductivity or true passion. They're are people who go to all the meeting and will even volunteer to be a body heading some project -- but it's like they are filling checkmarks of some bucket list and rollcall more than actually doing something.

This is a really insightful comment. A lot of it I think is a "keeping up with the Joneses" thing. The other kids go to soccer and piano and judo so my kid has to do it to, even if he has no interest, let alone passion.

Better to do something you love and do it well than to do something you're "expected" to do not out of necessity but because others are doing it for some sort of "status" that you have to have, too.

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[phantomfive]

That's rather bizarre. How do you know which union you have to pay dues to? Do you get to choose the union? In the US, you can only be a member of the union that is associated with your company (unless all the workers choose a different one).

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[chipschap]

I'm not even sure unions exist to serve their constituents. It seems they exist to take money from their members, to be used to increase the power of the union leadership, who only care about themselves.

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[toadlife]

Well then. That settles it. Your anecdote from some random webpage swayed me. All teachers must not give a shit about the children they teach.

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[toadlife]

and how do you blame someone for making a better life for themselves or their kids? thats low

It's not the fault of the individual parents who make rational choices. It's the fault of our elected leaders for setting up an environment where such choices become rational.

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[erikkemperman]

I'm not sure European unions operate the same way American ones do. For one thing much of Europe doesn't have a political system where influence is correlated to forking over cash to politicians. Not nearly to the same extent anyway. Meaning they get to spend contributions toward collective bargaining.

Having said that, I guess some of the above posts are just reflexive "unions baad" bleats.

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[dcollins]

In all the countries with better education results, unions are stronger and more respected have more input to the educational process.

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[ksheff]

You're thinking that private schools are all the type that the "upper crust aka the 1%" sends their kids. There are a lot of small private schools (usually religious) that spend a lot less per student than the public schools in the same area and the kids still do better than their public school peers. The reasons range from parental involvement, the schools focusing more on the basics, smaller class sizes, use more traditional teaching methods, disruptive kids are easily expelled, etc. There is often less administration overhead too. Yes, teacher pay is often lower too. For some school systems, the higher pay is considered "combat pay" and some teachers are willing to give up the higher pay for a less stressful work environment.

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[dcollins]

I seriously don't believe this. Unions don't dictate classroom activities. If anyone does that, it's city and state departments of education, or local principal/school board. I'd like to hear two or three examples of a "right thing" desired by one of your friends that was blocked by a union.

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[ksheff]

it could be worse. Apparently, in Oaxaca, Mexico, the teacher unions have made it so one can inherit a job as a teacher - no experience or formal education necessary.

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[dcollins]

Wisconsin is a blistering disaster of an example. The worst thing about education in this country is that classroom management has been taken out of the hands of the people in the classrooms, organized in their professional union, and taken over by political wonks with axes to grind in spite of the kids.

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[jblues]

Not sure. It would've been somewhere within walking distance to the downtown hotels.

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[Anonymous Coward]

So, yes, Americans watch a lot of TV, but is there any evidence that watching TV lowers IQ?

Good question, actually. Having visited the US a few times, the typical TV programming gives me a headache. It's utterly destroyed by the constant commercial breaks and general tone of the presenters.

I would suspect that the causation is the other way around.

Quite possible. Having a lower IQ than average I guess could provide the tolerance needed to be able to watch said TV programming without getting a headache.

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[The_countess]

"and kids can go to non-government schools." can they? and are you really saying the US can't do public schools while every developed nation on the planet can?

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[cyber-vandal]

And of course there are no teaching unions in European countries.

Re: Schooling, perhaps?

[cyber-vandal]

I can't speak for the rest of Europe but in the UK teachers' unions are affiliated to the Labour Party and part of the union dues is paid to that party.

Re: Schooling, perhaps?

[cyber-vandal]

If you think the unions are less powerful or corrupt in Europe I have a bridge to sell you.

Re: Schooling, perhaps?

[cyber-vandal]

And how will the people mentioned in this article afford to go?

Re:Schooling, perhaps?

[jandersen]

So, yes, Americans watch a lot of TV, but is there any evidence that watching TV lowers IQ? I would suspect that the causation is the other way around.

You mean, low intellligence causes TV in the US? That would explain a few things ;-)

Seriously, though, there probably hasn't been much research directly into the effect of TV on IQ - traditionally, IQ has been assumed to be an innate characteristic, not something that was fundamentally changed by the environment; which is not to say that a given IQ is not shaped by training, but the assumption has always been that you wer born with 'a given amount of intelligence' - an ability to learn - and that schooling would be secondary in shaping how well you did academically. So, on this basis, one would assume that watching TV has no influence either way.

On the other hand, it has always been clear that even if you are very intelligent, you still need to put in a certain amount of effort in order to develop your abilities, and time spent on passively watching pointless TV programmes is likely to develop a person's abilities less than actively studying something or working to solve problems of some sort. There has been recent research to suggest that intelligence may be somewhat plastic, at least when you are child, so it could be there is a basis for saying that watching too much TV lowers intelligence - or at least doesn't develop it to it full potential, which arguably is the same thing.

Re:Schooling, perhaps?

[tsotha]

Well, I guess it's a new day now, and there's no rule against winning twice in a row.

Re:Schooling, perhaps?

[TheRaven64]

It's worth noting that unions in the USA are very different to most of Europe. For some reason, the US tends towards monopolistic unions, i.e. there is one union representing all of the employees for a particular field, and often membership is compulsory. This means that the union has no real incentive to work for its members. In contrast, the UK has two big teachers' unions and a number of smaller ones, that are all national. And, by law, any deal offered to members of one union must be offered to all employees. This means that there's competition between unions for members and unions that don't do much for their members lose bargaining power (being able to bring 5% of a company's employees out on strike is only a threat if they're a really important 5%).

Re:Schooling, perhaps?

[TheRaven64]

Yes, unions in the USA are broken. If you only have one union that you can be a member of, and no choice whether to be a member of that union, it's hardly surprising that the union represents the interests of the management, rather than its members.

Re:Schooling, perhaps?

[houghi]

The way I see it is that they are not unions, but rather gildes. And yes, there is a difference.

In Belgium I can go to any union I like. There are three major ones. Or I can not go. Nobody cares. I am free to do so an my boss will never ask, because he does not care.

Re:Schooling, perhaps?

[Feyshtey]

Unless your argument is that poor kids watch more TV than rich kids, your argument is irrelevant to the conversation. And if you are arguing that poor kids do watch more TV which causes the disparity in IQ, then it's a cultural problem rather than a financial one. Their families have enough resources to access television (a luxury), so that removes income from the equation. They choose, or have learned from their parents to use their time in a less productive way, by your logic.

Re:Schooling, perhaps?

[Feyshtey]

How about if Unions are given the power to remove ineffective teachers that give their unions a bad name?

This will never happen of course. Unions have lobbied with vigor for the exact opposite, saying that it is unfair that a teacher ever be fired for being ineffective, or for even being graded. Which puts a different perspective on the "unions need more power" argument, yes?

Re:Schooling, perhaps?

[dywolf]

B.S.
wife is a teacher.
its not the unions that tie teacher's hands and dictate classroom activities.
it's the idiotic rules barring deviation from schedules determined by someone else (other than the teacher) and continuous test prep / high stakes testing.

Re:Schooling, perhaps?

[dywolf]

First sentence was correct, only it applies to your own post, not the GP.

Re:Schooling, perhaps?

[dywolf]

depends on the type.

rich kid private schools are more likely to pay well, better than local public schools.

catholic diocese schools are more likely to not pay well, worse than local public schools.
unless they're both in a well-off/rich area AND supported by tithes from the associated parish church.

Re:Schooling, perhaps?

[TechnoCore]

In Sweden you can chose which Union you want to belong to. Depending on what your occupation is, there may be a couple Unions to pick between. You can opt out entirely of course as well.

Re:Schooling, perhaps?

[ananamouse]

>Public schools in the US are beholden to teacher's unions
This is just wrong. My wife's school, and the schools of the wives of my cow-orkers treat teachers worse than Wal-Mart associates are treated. The only thing education in Texas is motivated by is standardized test scores - period. Teachers unions in Texas cannot even raise safety issues like faulty fume hoods or leaking gas jets in science labs. The football team comes in second followed by groveling before helicopter parents.

I know you will not believe that but others from around here can chime in.

Re:Schooling, perhaps?

[houghi]

In Belgium there are three large unions. I can join any union I desire anf they represend roughly the political ideas of some large parties.

You need to pay a due (and some companies even pay back that dues). Hoevere ther is never an obligation to join a union. If there are more than 50 employees, a union representative is enforced by law, so basically all comapnies are unionized.

You can be part of a union or not and nobody cares. I have no idea who is in a union and who is not. Management does not care either as all people are treated equally (some exceptions of the union reps).

Sometimes they go on strike and I hate that. But in general they are the people that can stand up to companies and say no, where you would be out of luck.

And companies use this as well. At one company that was in a reorginisation, they included the unions and when I asked the CEO if he was not pissed off that it now too longer, his answer was:
It might have taken longer, but we anticipated that, so there is no real delay. Also now the unions are ok with it, we can go on as expected and the changes they brought up were well founded and implemented most of the time.

You see, there can be a gain if you look at your staff as psrtners and not as a cost.

Thanks to the unions I get payed extra if I do overtime and my boss tries to avoid it. Instead he rather hires more people. So instead of two people working 60 hours, 3 work 40 hours. I get 35 days holiday + sick days when I am sick. I get presents and bonusses and the company does well and is making money.

On the downside, the CEO has only two cars and no helicopters. So there's that, but he is not unhappy and still can take his holidays anywhere he likes, because he ALSO has 35 holdiays.

Re:Schooling, perhaps?

[Kohath]

Most teachers in the other countries are union members too. Thus this can't be the problem. It's the scapegoat.

Other countries have parents, so parents can't be the problem.
Other countries have tests, so tests can't be the problem.
Other countries have politicians, so politicians can't be the problem.
Other countries have school administrators, so school administrators can't be the problem.

I guess there are no problems? Or maybe this kind of analysis is simplistic and false?

Re: Schooling, perhaps?

[Kohath]

versus wasting their lives in "destroyed" schools?

Re:Schooling, perhaps?

[stdarg]

Is it really "white flight" or is it just changing demographics? You're not going to be able to count on whites to prop up your school averages anymore. http://www.childstats.gov/amer...

Re:Schooling, perhaps?

[mrclevesque]

"but is there any evidence that watching TV lowers IQ?"

Maybe it's more about what some people are not doing, activity wise and emotionally, and are watching TV instead (or have it on in the 'background')

"watching TV lowers IQ? I would suspect that the causation is the other way around"

Why?

Re:Schooling, perhaps?

[stdarg]

How does that make good schools the problem? Rather, good schools show the solution -- parents have to have a big stake in their children's education.

So maybe we should start fining parents for bad grades or misbehavior and/or rewarding parents for good grades and attendance. It would make sense to tie it to welfare support since those kids are higher risk.

Re:Schooling, perhaps?

[Kohath]

Do European teachers' unions care whether children learn? The US union defenders posting here don't seem very interested. They talk about "protections" for teachers instead.

Re:Schooling, perhaps?

[stdarg]

Plenty of high performing schools have large class sizes. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/edu...

Maybe not 60 kids per class, but if we bump our average from 24 to 30 that would take a lot of teachers off the payroll (or alternately, let us stop hiring new teachers for a while and let it change gradually) and open up money for other things that might help kids more than class size politics.

Re: Schooling, perhaps?

[stdarg]

It's not necessarily a function of power, just goals. I've heard German unions described as working with the business, and considering the achievement of business goals a way to ensure a stable job for their members, whereas American unions are described as having a more hostile relationship and working under the assumption that anything the business does is trying to screw the employees.

Re: Schooling, perhaps?

[stdarg]

That's like asking how people can afford to eat if we don't make food a nationalized industry. Somehow it happens. Education is a huge market and there will be a school that caters to every level of society, just like there are fine dining restaurants and McDonalds. Both get you your calories.

Re:Schooling, perhaps?

[DigiShaman]

So assuming the CRISPR method could re-arrange the genes in such a way to boost IQ potential in adults, would you do it? Could turn you into meatloaf, or make you a psychotic evil genius!

Re: Schooling, perhaps?

[cyber-vandal]

I suggest a look at any country that doesn't have taxpayer funded education for a very obvious example of what happens.

Re:Schooling, perhaps?

[HornWumpus]

Did they take genetics into account? Because that would be politically incorrect and would get them black balled from tenure.

Re:Schooling, perhaps?

[T.E.D.]

rich kid private schools are more likely to pay well, better than local public schools.

I don't know if things have changed in the last 30 years, but when I went to one of those (we called it "preppy" back then), the teachers there told me they got much less than public school teachers got paid. They worked there anyway because they liked the job, and didn't have the right kind of degrees to get a public school teaching job. (Today the former sounds like a rationalization for the latter).

Some of them were really good teachers, yes. But some of my public school teachers were really good teachers too.

If memory serves, what I didn't have there that I had at public schools was a) A lot of the dumber kids (because there were tests to get in), and b) A lot of the poorer kids (because the yearly tuition could buy you a new car). Also, if your behavior became a problem (and your parents weren't obscenely rich) it was trivial to kick you out. Presumably to become the Public School's problem.

Re: Schooling, perhaps?

[cyber-vandal]

Have a look at countries that don't have government funded schools. Do they appear in the top 20 countries for education? The problems with the education system are deep rooted and getting rid of unions will not magically solve them.

Re:Schooling, perhaps?

[HornWumpus]

Teaching is a lousy paying job for smart people that work hard.

It is an excellent paying job for a dumb person who doesn't work hard at anything.

Guess who's working as public school teachers? Do I need to pull out SAT/HS GPA statistics for education schools?

Re: Schooling, perhaps?

[Kohath]

Tell it to the guy who said schools are "destroyed".

Re:Schooling, perhaps?

[Kohath]

"Good schools" support the system. The system perpetuates bad schools.

Re:Schooling, perhaps?

[GameboyRMH]

There is one street in SF which is a well-known mass hobo bathroom (don't remember the name of it). I guess he ran into that one.

Re: Schooling, perhaps?

[HornWumpus]

Those are called 'right to work' states in the USA and are considered EVIL by leftists and democrats.

Those opposed to American teachers unions would be happy with that deal. Scott Walker is the devil for implementing it in Wisconsin.

Re:Schooling, perhaps?

[tehcyder]

Most people who put up those kinds of TV numbers don't actually watch it for five hours. The TV is just always on while they're home and doing other things.

But the other things they're doing are drinking, farting and sexting, not studying Latin or quantum mechanics.

Re:Schooling, perhaps?

[Kohath]

The question is do you throw it all out because of the bad things, then let the teachers work for near poverty wages?

Sounds like a way to reduce class sizes. Reduced class sizes are supposedly really important.

Re:Schooling, perhaps?

[GameboyRMH]

Yep, just like health care and gun laws :-P

Re: Schooling, perhaps?

[stdarg]

No... you're falling for the false dichotomy of "public school" vs "non-taxpayer funded".

For a simple example of non-public schools that are taxpayer funded, check out voucher programs. Going back to my example of food, your dichotomy is like saying "it's either government run restaurants and grocery stores, or nothing" which leaves out the possibility of welfare checks and food stamps.

Re:Schooling, perhaps?

[phantomfive]

Maybe that's why unions in Europe tend to be better than unions in the US.

Re:Schooling, perhaps?

[phantomfive]

it's hardly surprising that the union represents the interests of the management, rather than its members.

Yeah, that is exactly what happens.

Re: Schooling, perhaps?

[Feyshtey]

Teaching isn't like a profession where you deal with simple inputs and outputs.

I'm quite sure that the parents of the kids leaving high schools (the output of the education system and the teachers within) that actually give a shit what their kids learned there would disagree.

I'm fully aware that there are many factors at play in the outcome of a student's education, and the teachers are but one. But they are a significant one. As the parent of a child that receives additional assistance in his public school I've experienced it first hand. I've known teachers able to do a great deal with very little. I've known teachers wholly incapable of helping because they cannot approach a child in any way other than the one spoon fed them in their college programs to certify them as teachers.

And while I agree that the average grade of the teacher's students is often not a meaningful statistic on which to assess the teacher's performance, unions have consistently resisted any measure by which teachers may be evaluated, arguing essentially that the outcome of education is never the teacher's fault.

Re:Schooling, perhaps?

[Darinbob]

White flight or demographic shifts, it results to the same thing. Demographic shifts is just a polite way of explaining why you moved away from the old neighborhood. However school integration has raised test scores for ALL students, not just white, not just a school wide average, but the averages across the demographics went up. There is not about whites being better than browns, but rich doing better than poor. But everyone fights integration tooth and nail, no one wants to call it racism but they'll claim it's about being busing in violent students to their posh school or sending their precious snowflakes to drug infested slums. The kids in "that school" are bad they claim and they don't want them here.

This has happened in modern America for some school districts, not just during the integration experiments (that were canceled despite the successes). Schools were declared failing, laws demanded that the students be allowed to go to other schools despite angry parents from the rich schools protesting, and those students had their academic achievement increase despite the two hour bus rides every day. Even their parents were willing to put in the effort to make sure their students got up earlier or even drove the students, so it's not just rich parents who care about their children.

The higher schools in white districts are not due to whites being smarter. The differences are due to money. Money for better schools and teachers, money for better educational materials, money so that there's a parent that has more free time, etc.

Re: Schooling, perhaps?

[KGIII]

We natives are doing fine, most of us. It's handy to be able to sell you tobacco and take your money by was of the mighty casino. Well, my people use High Stake Bingo to take your money. Would you like to buy a dream catcher? Oh yes, we made it ourselves out of hemp grown along the Trail of Tears. (We ordered it from China.) (Also, I'm Micmac, we don't do dream catchers but we'll still sell you one. Don't blame us, you kept asking to buy the damned things.)

Re:Schooling, perhaps?

[Darinbob]

My family were public school teachers. I still have relatives who are public school teachers. Your comment is repulsive.

when my father retired he was glad to get out of teaching, because the problem was all the parents blaming him for daring to raise his voice at their precious snowflakes. It was the parents who treated the schools as day care centers.

Re:Schooling, perhaps?

[KGIII]

That sounds well and good but it doesn't actually appear to be entirely correct. I went to a private school that had a ski slope, observatory, ice arena, etc... I now pay for three to five students to attend that same school. They live on campus. The price-per-student is not too dissimilar from what I pay in taxes for other kids to go to public school - as in about 10% lower than I pay for the kids to go to the private school.

I have no other data beyond that.

Re:Schooling, perhaps?

[wyHunter]

That is absolutely untrue. Private school teachers get far less pay than public school teachers AND no gold plated pensions. It's THAT which consumes most public school education money - and athletics.

Re:Schooling, perhaps?

[HornWumpus]

You need to examine why you are repulsed by facts.

Re:Schooling, perhaps?

[HornWumpus]

Hobos ride the rails.

You are thinking of bums.

Re:Schooling, perhaps?

[wyHunter]

You are clearly not thinking straight. If you want to say the US is not a country that believes in the state making choices about significant portions of the lives of individuals, and insuring that these things are carried out, you are absolutely right. But to say the US is neither civilized nor developed is insane. The US and its form of government is probably the first in the western world to put the sovereign rights of the individual over those of the state and the nobility. In doing this, we took from other nations, primarily Britain, many ideas about its legal system and laws, but added a uniquely American twist of "The state shall not without due cause, do X' It is only in the last 50 years this has been so egregiously violated, mostly because of the decline in critical thinking of its populace. As a nation, we are incredibly wealthy, far wealthier than in (say) 1970. The old adage of "walking to school uphill both ways in two feet of snow" is amusing, but it has some merit: The reason why there are bad results in our education system is that people do not want to be educated. Including you.

Re:Schooling, perhaps?

[wyHunter]

Indeed. You can say this of both major political parties in the USA.

Re: Schooling, perhaps?

[baristabrian]

OH ... [rolling eyes] ... here we go again ... the "dollars spent per student" myth. Clueless much? Teachers and their unions have tried for *years* to connect per-capita spending with academic achievement and scholastic success. Much to their chagrin, their sponsoring and funding of multiple studies and research have been in vain. Teacher-to-student ratio? Same thing. Me? 20 years combined union experience. AFL-CIO, Teamsters and independent CB groups. I speak from experience so go fuck yourself. Unless you have actually been a dues-paying member of some labor gang that really *does* care about anything *other* than itself and its constituents (i.e. students) and would like to share details, crawl back under your rock. Poverty [how "unfair!] has never been a good indicator of a child's "ceiling." Factor? Yes. Issue? Yes. Universal determinant? Nope. Abe Lincoln? Poor. George Carver? Poor. Two perfect examples. Poor---but BUT not on welfare. Back around 1993/94 there was quite a bit of commotion and controversy (among teachers unions and libtards) surrounding some research that indicated "welfare status" was much more strongly related to poor progress in school than "poverty status." The research summary I saw didn't address "IQ," but academic achievement. Sweltering one-room schools in sub-Saharan Africa? Crowded Japanese classrooms? The list goes on. They all (most of 'em) out perform American schools where (thanks to teachers and their militant CBA gang leaders) good money is being thrown after bad. Johnny and Suzy? Their parents eat it up! "Oh, we gotta pay better salaries to compete!" Private schools can afford better teachers? Bullshit generalization. Number One: (again) no corelation of *money spent* per student to achievement. Number Two: some private schools pay their educators "dirt," but the teachers are unfettered by politics (especially "liberal"), "bad apple," union-protected teachers, and top-heavy moronic management. In a nutshell, *none* of the SJWs out there *want* to hear that "poverty" in the US is *not* the problem. Instead, they'd rather petulantly whine about the "unfairness" of it all while (frequently) sending *their* Johnny and Suzy to ... [wait for it] ... PRIVATE school. Rich.

Re:Schooling, perhaps?

[wlbeen]

Public schools in the US are beholden to teacher's unions, and teacher's unions are all about funneling dues collected from members into contributions to politicians who tend to do things that increase the power of the teacher's unions.

And the kids be damned - especially poor kids with no alternative.

Ever notice how politician's kids go to private schools?

You are so full of shit I'm sure your eyes are brown! Bullshit on you! I work for one of those unions that you think are evil. Fight any improvement in public schooling? Did you even go to school? That's not true at all, we care about our students and have given back pay raises when it was called for. We've given blood to injured students, given our own money to feed and clothe homeless students. We take good care of the kids. We want the best for education because our kids are in there too!! Ever think about that, smart guy? As for the teacher union, they are the most concerned about students. Seems all you know is what drug addled gasbag Rush and Fox Noise tell you. Go spend some time at public schools and see what goes on, if you don't have a criminal record, that is. We sure as hell don't. Who do you think cleaned up after you when or if you went to school.? Who do you think keeps schools operating and with little money I might add. Fucking idiot!!!

Re:Schooling, perhaps?

[missneht]

This does not just apply to private schools versus public. Students in public schools in affluent areas score much higher on tests than in public schools in poor neighborhoods, at least in California. This is because public schools get money based on the taxes paid in the area of the school, also parents with higher income can spend more time with their children. Way back in the late 50's when I first moved to California the first school I went to was in the Watts District a very poor area. Back then all the schools before and after Watts provided each student with text books, paper and pencils and tests that were printed at the school. Not Watts, no books, no pencils, no paper. The teacher lectured and had a chalk board and chalk. One day a week we got one piece of paper and a pencil to practice writing, but mostly the teachers physically sat on the children to keep them under control and there was very little learning. All other schools had regular reading assignments from the text books and home work, not the school in Watts.

Re:Schooling, perhaps?

[Darinbob]

Gold plated pensions sounds like an exageration. It varies from state to state, and I hope it has changed since my family were teachers because it really sucked. No social security or medicare unless you explicitly opt in (with medicare being much more important here), low spousal benefits can come as a major surprise.

As with most public sector jobs, the pension is the reward for putting up with lousy pay. Yes there are problems especially today because so many contracts were negotiated when the state and local governments had lots of extra money, meaning today there are unfunded liabilities. Pensions may be more than private sector pensions, but few companies offer pensions anymore and if they do it is in combination with 401Ks

If teachers are overpaid while working and overpaid in retirement then you'd expect to see lots more people going into teaching. Teaching today does not appear to be anyone's first choice of career anymore.

Re:Schooling, perhaps?

[Darinbob]

You insulted all teachers. Why do you call an ad hominem attack "facts?

Re:Schooling, perhaps?

[lsatenstein]

Public schools in the US are beholden to teacher's unions, and teacher's unions are all about funnelling dues collected from members into contributions to politicians who tend to do things that increase the power of the teacher's unions.

And the kids be damned - especially poor kids with no alternative.

Ever notice how politician's kids go to private schools?

I have a different viewpoint. Different areas of the state have different school boards. The school tax, instead of being uniformly applied state-wide, is based on the individual school boards budget and ability to collect taxes. The result is that poor areas get under-funded, whereas affluent area school-boards are comfortably funded. Charter schools are one example of rich/poor dichotomy.

Teacher salaries stop during the summer months. If the teacher is lucky, he/she gets unemployment, otherwise it is to find a summer job or do without $$$. No large salaries here. Many teachers take summer courses so as to learn new advanced teaching techniques, psychology and dealing with exceptional children. No, not many people would want a teacher's job ever.

Re:Schooling, perhaps?

[RockDoctor]

Which trade unions have you been a member of where this is true? All the unions that I've been an activist for have been extremely for public education, and specifically the education of their members. OK - one of them was the National Union of Students, which is actually involved in the education industry, so you'd sort of expect an involvement in education. But the others (in the engineering and energy industries) have been as vigorously involved in and promoting of education for the workers and their families.

Or - is it just possible that you've never actually been a member of a trade union, and don't actually know that you assert to be true.

Re:Schooling, perhaps?

[Falconhell]

Let me make it clear, if my spelling and grammar doesn't already, I'm not a product of the US education system, I was fortunate enough to be born in a civilised country, one where mental patients can't buy guns, where everyone gets health care regardless of social status, you don't get shot by cops for being black and we don't go around starting wars against brown people for economic gain.

Re:Schooling, perhaps?

[Falconhell]

I can see from your post the poor quality of US edumaction

Re:Schooling, perhaps?

[Falconhell]

Awe, poor widdle didums is upset, why not go out and shoot some people with your machine gun? Just for once why don't they shoot someone who deserves it, like Westbro baptist.
You have nothing but threats of violence, how delightfully typical of an American gun nut.

Re:Schooling, perhaps?

[HornWumpus]

Would you like to discuss the average SAT scores or HS GPA of those who go into teaching? The average GPA education schools give out to these geniuses on their way to getting doctorates? The failure rate for doctoral candidates in the education schools?

The fact is we aren't even getting what we pay for. If we went to a Finnish model, the first thing we would have to do is fire all the teachers, bulldoze all the education colleges and shoot all the education professors.

My parents are also teachers. Mom ran her own preschool. Dad is a college professor, he deals with the output of public schools and it sucks, even form the 'burbs.

He tried to make a cause of teaching basic science to primary school teachers, basically ran seminars to try to teach 4th grade science to 4th grade teachers. Quit in frustration...idiots. Mostly kind nurturing idiots, but idiots.

Re:Schooling, perhaps?

[stoatwblr]

"As of now, there's an opposite behavior teacher on the second page, where she power trips and behaves as a tyrant and needed to be warned by the administration."

These are the kind of teacher you end up having to put up with because noone else will work for such shitty pay.

In an environment with better supply, you can fire the power-trippers. If you have a teacher shortage and you're not willing to increase pay rates, then you keep them because you need (qualified) bums in seats at the front of the classroom. It's that ot remove the need for qualification and then you get inundated in such idiots (most of them never manage to qualify in the first place)

The other thing to bear in mind about low pay is that it makes the occupation ripe for capture by religious groups who see it as a perfect opportunity to gain a captive audience for their points of view. The increasing number of constitutionally-related cases about forced prayer in schools is a good example that this is already happening.

Re:Schooling, perhaps?

[nobodie]

No, he is right. I belong to an NEA connected teacher's Union and we battle to get a 3% raise for faculty at a rising star university in Florida. Florida has the money, Florida needs to keep their faculty (and they are leaving now to get better pay in other universities) andwe are already in the bottom quartile for Adjuncts and instructors (instructional faculty as opposed to research faculty who are tenured or tenure track). But even the tenure track stars are still well below average here. The Unions struggle to keep @10% of the faculty as members, when we pay 1% of our income to the union for dues. So the 3% return is well worth it for our income which would be stagnant without the pressure they provide.

So, the old ideas about unions are real bullshit now, but, interestingly, I was teaching a History remedial class this past semester and in my prep I ran across anti-union speeches given by the 1%ers of the time and damned if they weren't reading from the same playbook more than 100 years ago. Join a union, get a payraise and lose your job because you are too expensive to hire any more.

Really, read some real history about working class and middle class people and forget what your buddies at Fox are telling you. They are the pawns of the system.

Re:Schooling, perhaps?

[nobodie]

Or is it just that if the kids stayed home then the parent would have to stay home, and therefore do something other than chauffeur the kids around. Remember though, that the kids the P is talking about are not the poor, they are the upper middies who can afford to have one of the parents as chauffeur. So this is less important for them. I would worry more about parents who are working threee jobs, kids unsupervised after school, homework not being finished or attempted, students not meeting the standards and goals set by the teacher and belonging to a group that prides itself on being "stupid."

That is the America in a lot of schools today, for poor kids especially.

My god, it's worse than we thought!

[Anonymous Coward]

Does this mean Donald Trump is one of the smart ones?

What are you guys doing over there?!

So that explains it!

[BarbaraHudson]

If America is the only country where poor people end up testing at the lower end of the IQ range, that means that, in the aggregate, the poor will pull down the country's average IQ. That, of course, explains Fox News, Honey BooBoo, and the current Republican candidates for president.

While the authors speculate that inequalities in educational and medical access in the US may beef up poverty’s effects, Turkheimer thinks school environments in particular may be to blame. He plans to follow up on the findings in his own work.

You might want to stop screwing around with your schools, teaching to the test, and replace the patchwork of medical coverage with universal single-payer for your own good.

Re:So that explains it!

[mi]

for your own good

How egoistical of you! I, for one, still remember flaming Leftists arguing for the Greater Good and the Common Good... Sad, really sad, as one Republican candidate for President would say...

Re: So that explains it!

[bestweasel]

Hey, don't shoot the messenger, these are American researchers: "The authors ... speculate that the wider inequalities in education and medical access in the US may explain povertyâ(TM)s extra power".

Re:So that explains it!

[i.r.id10t]

Teaching to the test is a very valid educational method - IF the test is any good. Unfortunately, this is the Final Exam of the course called Life that we should be preparing them for... and we aren't doing such a good job of it.

Re: So that explains it!

[tsotha]

Yeah, pretty much. Social science in the US is terribly polluted by political bias. It's hard to know if it's all crap or just most of it.

Re:So that explains it!

[BarbaraHudson]

Your current republican party candidates for president say otherwise. Everyone is looking forward to the latest screw-up, and they never fail to deliver. In the nature of the christmas season, they are truly the gift that keeps on giving.

Re: So that explains it!

[beastofburdon]

Yeah, pretty much. Social science everywhere terribly polluted by political bias. It's hard to know if it's all crap or just most of it.

There, I fixed that for you.

Re: So that explains it!

[tsotha]

Well, okay, but there is a large difference in degree here. I'm a lot less likely to dismiss a finding from physics or biology, say.

Re: So that explains it!

[AK Marc]

money confiscated from the captive citizenry at gun-point

Nobody ever came to demand my 1040 with a gun on their hip. And "captive" would indicate there's some government barrier to you moving away. What barrier is there? None. Reality proves your little fantasy a lie. Just gather more guns, and move out to the wilderness and lament how Randy Weaver is your idol.

Re: So that explains it!

[BarbaraHudson]

It's not limited to "ultra-liberals." Look at how many republican candidates have been saying things like when it comes to god or the supreme court, god wins, and people just lapping it up.

Marriage equality has won at the Supreme Court, but the fight over gay marriage is far from over. Now we enter the Republican temper tantrum phase.

Even before the Supreme Court’s ruling, several prominent Republicans had pledged to disobey any high court ruling in favor of marriage equality—and had called on their fellow Republican leaders to do the same.

For instance, Republican presidential candidates Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee have both signed a pledge that reads, “We will not honor any decision by the Supreme Court which will force us to violate a clear biblical understanding of marriage as solely the union of one man and one woman.”

Huckabee also challenged the authority of our nation’s highest court when he said, “The Supreme Court can’t overrule God.”

Republican Senator Ted Cruz and Representative Steve King also called for Congress and any future Republican president to flagrantly ignore such a Supreme Court ruling.

Let’s be clear: These are current and former officeholders, who have taken an oath to uphold the laws of our nation, literally pledging to violate those laws as interpreted by the Supreme Court.

In any reasonable political environment, this should be a disqualifier for elected office. Certainly, measures should be considered to charge those of them who hold office with violating their oath.

Apparently a large percentage of republican politicians and republican voters haven't got a clue either.

Re: So that explains it!

[beastofburdon]

I was still only referring to social sciences.

75% of intelligence is inherited

[mi]

Supposedly, 75% of intelligence is determined by genes. The results reported in TFA would seem to explain the reasons of poverty in the US — the poor aren't too smart to begin with. Their children — despite going to the same schools as others — remain stupid.

If other countries do not demonstrate an effect so profound, that may mean, being intelligent is not as rewarding over there and smart people may remain poor.

Re:75% of intelligence is inherited

[Cyberax]

Please, read the article. Each individual's IQ is mostly determined by genes, true. But there is little genetic difference between IQ of various populations. So each population will have individuals with high IQ and low IQ.

The problem is that the US system reinforces poverty - schools are funded from local sources and poor districts provide poor education. Add to this a high rate of de-facto segregation.

Re:75% of intelligence is inherited

[davecb]

We see the same "sorting" effect in Canada, where being the child of well-to-do parents is absolutely wonderful, and leads to success in business and industry, roughly commensurate with the sum of (intelligence && opportunity). Starting out the child of poor parents gets you no respect, and people assume you're stupid.

The smartest three people in my high schools were a poor kid with parents from the Ukraine, me, with mostly white middle-class parents and the son of a successful businessman. In business success over the years, the businessman's kid came first, then me, then the poor kid. We all did better than the merely not-dumb folks, and really really well by comparison to the dumb kids, with one exception...

Some immensely likeable dumb kids went into sales and did better than any of us (;-))

Re:75% of intelligence is inherited

[mi]

Those factors are 50 times more important in determining a person's ability to learn than genetics.

Citations needed.

all of those kids are 100% fucked for the rest of their life

Rather gloomy. What makes you so convinced? All I found was talk of potentially dangerous ...

greedy rich asshole fuckheads that made decisions they had no right making

Relax, pal — a town spending less money on water-supply has more money left for public schools, has it not?

Re:75% of intelligence is inherited

[HiThere]

Your comment is excessively extreme. Flint is an outlier...admittedly not as much of an outlier as one would wish. And many rich children are also poisoning themselves, admittedly usually by choice and in different ways.

I, personally, suspect that poorer US citizens feed their children more junk food than wealthier ones do. That would probably be sufficient environmental degradation to explain most of the statistics.

Re:75% of intelligence is inherited

[phantomfive]

Indeed, at most, you can accuse the US system of not helping the dumb become rich(er). However, because the wealth is relative, that's the same thing as preventing the smart from achieving their full potential

It would be interesting to see if there's a correlation between wealth and IQ (and bonus points for showing that correlation doesn't exist or does exist in European countries as well).

Re:75% of intelligence is inherited

[rtb61]

Far more likely, the poor in the US live in high density highly polluted environments ie inner suburbs where loaded up with lead from traffic jams and those environments remain polluted. This in conjunction with poor diets, dominated by cheap junk food, results in double the impact. This added to cut backs in planned parent hood and you have the recipe for failure.

Theoretical intelligence is theoretical outcome and when it comes to reality, the environment in which people live will dramatically subvert genetics. America, stop blaming the victims, of pollution and junk food, they are what you have turned them into.

Re:75% of intelligence is inherited

[Cyberax]

Is it? I wonder, why TFA — which you made me read — does not even have the word "excercise" in it...

It is. It's not in TFA, though.

Or, maybe, they are smart — and leave the safe-but-low-paying academia jobs for the much more rewarding private sector?

Most academics eventually make it into private industry.

Re:75% of intelligence is inherited

[Anonymous Coward]

The Ukraine, like the Netherlands, is prefixed, mr. Asshole.

Re:75% of intelligence is inherited

[jedidiah]

It also doesn't help that they have a culture that is specifically anti-assimilation. Doing well and trying to fit into the larger culture and be a success is considered "selling out". That's probably one key difference right there between blacks in the US and blacks in the UK.

Liberals telling them that they're helpless victims all the time probably doesn't help.

Re:75% of intelligence is inherited

[skam240]

The crux of your argument is incorrect probably due to either a misreading of the article or an intentional skewing of what the article is saying to make it say what you want it to.

From your article's introduction (the only place this is mentioned): "Researchers have believed for some time that intellect is inherited with studies suggesting that up to 75 per cent of IQ is genetic". The bold text being what you missed or are glossing over.

In summary, there is no consensus on how much IQ is inherited and you are putting out as fact the most extreme percentage according to this single article from a newspaper.

Re:75% of intelligence is inherited

[Anonymous Coward]

In the US "equality" still means equality of opportunity, not that of results

This is quite possibly the dumbest thing I've ever read on Slashdot, and I was here through the Natalie Portman Hot Grits era. (Been AC the whole time too)

This is whole new levels of pseudo-racist nonsense, even for the basment-dwelling libertarian circlerjerk that remains in this once prominent forum. Seriously buddy. If we've got one thing down in this country It's shitting on the poor. We've got it down to a well-honed science.

The poor aren't bad people. They're citizens that we, have a country, have failed- Failed where our peers have succeeded. And this is damning proof.

Fucking. Racist. - You might as well own it, buddy. No anti-intellectual liburl panic hand waving. Just join your cretins and gobble up Trump's dick, then wipe your chin off and open up for the next tool when the bad haired buffoon wanes and someone takes his place.

Re:75% of intelligence is inherited

[Culture20]

The United States of America. The United Kingdom. The Grand Duchy of Luxemburg. The the the the the!

Re:75% of intelligence is inherited

[Carewolf]

Supposedly, 75% of intelligence is determined by genes

Only in young children it goes down to 40% by the end of school and 0% by the end of university.

Re: 75% of intelligence is inherited

[davecb]

A single example always suffices as disproof (;-))

Re:75% of intelligence is inherited

[tsotha]

As for reality not conforming to your prejudices... There's a _reason_ most academics are left-leaning. Right-wingers are simply not smart enough. Duh.

Said without a hint of irony, I expect. Slashdot is pretty amusing today.

Re:75% of intelligence is inherited

[mi]

The Ukraine, like the Netherlands, is prefixed, mr. Asshole.

From your own link, Mr. Deepshit:

"The Ukraine" is incorrect both grammatically and politically, says Oksana Kyzyma of the Embassy of Ukraine in London. [...] The use of the article relates to the time before independence in 1991, when Ukraine was a republic of the Soviet Union known as the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, she says. Since then, it should be merely Ukraine. Those who called it "the Ukraine" in English must have known that the word meant "borderland", says Anatoly Liberman, a professor at the University of Minnesota with a specialism in etymology. So they referred to it as "the borderland".

Re:75% of intelligence is inherited

[mi]

United States. Britain. Luxemburg.

Re:75% of intelligence is inherited

[mi]

It's not in TFA, though.

Ah, so you gave up the pretense of discussing the study and simply went on venting your flaming Left ideas of how the world should be.

Sorry, not interested.

Re:75% of intelligence is inherited

[AmiMoJo]

The majority of people have an IQ around 100 and with effort are capable of getting an undergraduate level degree. 50+% of people do in some European countries, and our degrees are not easier than US ones.

What really matters is that quality education is available right from the child's early years. Working two jobs and not being able to afford quality child care tends to make it hard for kids to get early language skills, for example.

Your post is full of excuses and blame. An ad-hom against academics who contradict your opinion, really? Many, many of the problems that America has which other countries solved are due to poverty.

Re:75% of intelligence is inherited

[ksheff]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:75% of intelligence is inherited

[Jesrad]

I, personally, suspect that poorer US citizens feed their children more junk food than wealthier ones do.

Ding ding ding, give this man a (gluten-free, certified-organic, unrefined sugarcane syrup) cookie ! Food in the US horrifies me, especially that usually consumed among the poorest populations who do not have the means to pay the many opportunity costs required to collect the knowledge that top "public health" institutions peddle mostly nonsense as dietary guidelines.

If you also account for drugs into general nutrition, I'm pretty sure you could explain the IQ gap between poor and wealthy in the US.

Hopefully the various home-cooked/home-farmed, raw/whole foods, paleo/primal, wisdom-of-crowd/social-networked approach to medecine and other assorted health-conscious movements recently born there will reverse the trend.

Re:75% of intelligence is inherited

[jopsen]

Far more likely, the poor in the US live in high density highly polluted environments ie inner suburbs where loaded up with lead from traffic jams and those environments remain polluted. This in conjunction with poor diets, dominated by cheap junk food, results in double the impact.

Yeah, poor people in the US, have it far worse than poor people in most other industrialized countries...

Re:75% of intelligence is inherited

[Culture20]

Use "United States" in a sentence. "He went to United States." Doesn't work. Needs the article. Britain is a region within the larger country of the United Kingdom. Luxemburg was a joke, but there are other countries where an article is needed, for a historical example: the U.S.S.R. (hint, it's not the same as Russia). Of course in Russian, CCCP does not have article preceding.

Re:75% of intelligence is inherited

[HornWumpus]

I hate the 'Whole foods' idiots as much as anybody.

But I don't wish decreased IQ on their kids. Being born to such parents is handicap enough.

Re:75% of intelligence is inherited

[HornWumpus]

50% of people do not need college degrees. Especially if you have to give out worthless degrees to get there. They don't have to be easier then ours to be worthless wastes of time, we have plenty too.

Re:75% of intelligence is inherited

[rocker_wannabe]

I totally agree. Various food additives cause ADD type symptoms while excess sugar creates a 'brain fog' that makes it hard to concentrate. Unfortunately, crappy food is cheap.

Re:75% of intelligence is inherited

[JazzLad]

Let's play "Fill in the blank"

"I pledge allegiance to the flag of ____ United States of America..."

Re:75% of intelligence is inherited

[stephanruby]

The problem is that the US system reinforces poverty - schools are funded from local sources and poor districts provide poor education. Add to this a high rate of de-facto segregation.

Along the same lines, I think that prenatal care, subsidized daycare/preschool, parent time off after birth, more vacation days, and easier access to contraception/abortions, all could be reasons for those skewed statistics.

Re:75% of intelligence is inherited

[AK Marc]

75% of your peak IQ is genetic. You'll never be smarter than nature allows. But lead in your air, mercury in your fish, and poor schools, and you'll find there's no limit to how low your IQ can go. The poor in the US live vastly different lives from the middle class. The environmental factors hold back people more in the US than anywhere else.

A brain is like a car. The listed top speed is 150. Without great effort, you'll not go above 150, but poor tire inflation, bad gas, fouled spark plugs, and a car with no major mechanical failure will go much slower. The rich can afford to tune up the engine and take heroic efforts to exceed 150. The poor have a clogged air filter and fouled fuel filter, with bad oil and a crappy alignment. And are told it's their fault.

Re:75% of intelligence is inherited

[AK Marc]

Citations needed.

Would you like a LMGTFY link to "lead effect on iq" or can you use Google all by your self?

Demanding citations to settled science just makes you look like an idiot.

Re:75% of intelligence is inherited

[rtb61]

'ER' yes, have you not heard of universal health care, public housing, full social welfare benefits at rates 10 times that of food stamps, more inclusion and less ostracising from economic failure, full government training programs, cleaner environs, better quality of infrastructure, far higher quality of policing, better consumer protections, more effective public transport, lower crime rates, far more accessible higher education. America is number one only if you are more focused on greed rather than quality of life. Suck it up, when it comes to quality of life America is not even in the top ten and is in a race to to the bottom, good luck dude but sure hold onto American Exceptionlism as long as you want for all the good it will do you.

Re:75% of intelligence is inherited

[ToddInSF]

Meta studies have a notorious track record of being bullshit. I consider most meta-studies to be a shining example of how people take science and turn it into political bullshit, as well as treating science as if it were a religion. People WANT to believe the results of a meta-study, so they will insist the study is accurate and the conclusions true, when there is simply no way for them to actually PROVE it. Meta studies are the exact opposite of evidence-based science.

Re:Um...

[viperidaenz]

The study accounted for genes. Genes predict the window, but only in USA, socioeconomic factors predict where in the window you're likely to be.

It's the Parents

[Art3x]

In school I did a report on parenting. A child's IQ is set by 3, largely from stimulation: holding them, talking to them, reading to them, etc. --- even though they don't yet know exactly what you're saying.

Aren't many poor families in America a young, single mother, working one or two jobs, and her children? Probably not the best upbringing.

Re:It's the Parents

[Jack Griffin]

My wife is an early childhood teacher, and when we had kids she advised me that her going to work while the kids were under 5 was not negotiable. In her experience, there is a strong correlation between child development and parental care in the early years. It's never black and white, but even in her school in the one of the wealthiest suburbs in the country, the worst behaved kids are the ones with the least devoted parents.

social safety nets WORK, vs cowboy attitudes

[Anonymous Coward]

The experience of many, many other countries shows conclusively and overwhelmingly that society is better off with a good social system that supports the poor and underprivileged. It constantly amazes that Americans are SO insistent on their "every man for himself" mentality, in the face of the evidence. The countries ranked the best to live in are socialist societies, where the rich are compelled to help the poor rather than say "fuck it dude I got mine, so screw you". They have government run medical systems, and high taxes to support a well functioning society.

America has one of the biggest wealth disparities in the world, a poor education system, a health care system that is massively expensive but comes up far short of the best ones in results, has more murder, and a crumbling infrastructure. When will you all wake up and realize that your culture needs to be changed? It's OK. You can join the modern world. The rest of us will be happy to see you do well! We don't wish bad things for you. But you have to give up the cowboy attitude, in order to get there.

Re:social safety nets WORK, vs cowboy attitudes

[pubwvj]

It constantly amazes that idiots like you think America (a.k.a. the USA) is homogenous in anything including it's thinking. We're a melting pot with a lot more variety than almost any country, perhaps any country, because the USA was settled by and built by immigrants from around the world. There is no "American Mentality".

Re:social safety nets WORK, vs cowboy attitudes

[Anonymous Coward]

You can join the modern world. The rest of us will be happy to see you do well! .

Cool! Can we stop paying for your defense and leave NATO?

Re:social safety nets WORK, vs cowboy attitudes

[sjames]

Sure there is. Once all the differences even out, our "left" looks like everyone else's right and our right looks insane.

Re:social safety nets WORK, vs cowboy attitudes

[sjames]

Many here in the U.S. would like to see the U.S. scale back in that department and put it into health care, education, and infrastructure. It's mostly the right that opposes it.

Re:social safety nets WORK, vs cowboy attitudes

[serviscope_minor]

Your post is what's known as "Americn Exceptionalism".

Whenever a post comes up on slashdot criticising something in America (which is quite often as it's run from and always had had an American influence), a bunch of people like you pop up to tell us how different and special America is and so nothing anywhere else in the world could possibly serve as a comparison so everything's fine and America's great.

Every country is unique in a variety of ways. Most other countries have more variety than you obviously realise. You'd also do well to realise that America isn't perfect and that you can actually learn things from other countries.

Re:social safety nets WORK, vs cowboy attitudes

[HornWumpus]

Anybody who can still support 'the left' after the 20th century is insane.

Re:social safety nets WORK, vs cowboy attitudes

[HornWumpus]

Scale back in that department and put it into a balanced budget.

The fact is that our government (and all others) has proven itself to not be trustworthy with money.

Re:social safety nets WORK, vs cowboy attitudes

[rocker_wannabe]

Yes there is. That doesn't mean everyone in the country believes exactly the same thing but this country attracts people who want to live a more materially prosperous life through hard work. In a sense, it engenders a "I got mine now you work hard to get yours" attitude in many people. Public policy is driven by what the majority wants to a great extent so where it differs from the rest of the world it reflects our "American Mentality".

Re:social safety nets WORK, vs cowboy attitudes

[sjames]

So the vast majority of the civilized world?

Re:social safety nets WORK, vs cowboy attitudes

[wyHunter]

We have a social safety net. Direct transfer payments, housing credits, SNAP, other things. Whether it works is another question.

Re:social safety nets WORK, vs cowboy attitudes

[HornWumpus]

99% of which have had to be rescued from their own or neighboring out of control socialist governments in the last 100 years.

Re:social safety nets WORK, vs cowboy attitudes

[sjames]

Most only needed rescuing from the fascist government in their midst. The country where that all got started is now more left than we are and is essentially the pillar holding up the EU.

Re:social safety nets WORK, vs cowboy attitudes

[sjames]

Go re-read your history books. They started out talking the talk, but by the time they became a threat to their neighbors, the Nazi party was far right. The neoNazis are still far right.

They were socialists in the same way the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is democratic or for the people.

Like much of the world, today's Germany is a mixed economy and is to the left of the United States.

Re:social safety nets WORK, vs cowboy attitudes

[HornWumpus]

Talked the talk my ass. They nationalized industries and threatened to nationalize others to get what they wanted.

In the 1930s 'capitalist' was code for 'Jewish bankers'.

I will grant that Fascist nations are hard to tell apart from Corporatist nations, but that doesn't change that they got there from opposite sides.

Re:social safety nets WORK, vs cowboy attitudes

[sjames]

Then why does practically the whole world except for you consider them far right?

Re:social safety nets WORK, vs cowboy attitudes

[graphius]

please...

Re:social safety nets WORK, vs cowboy attitudes

[Jack Griffin]

It constantly amazes that idiots like you think America (a.k.a. the USA) is homogenous in anything including it's thinking. We're a melting pot with a lot more variety than almost any country, perhaps any country, because the USA was settled by and built by immigrants from around the world. There is no "American Mentality".

True, but it's still remarkably 'mono-cultured' for its size. Compare any other similar land mass or population size and the diversity is far greater everywhere else.

Public Schools?

[SeaFox]

Could this be because the school systems in these other countries are funded in a way where the budget is less dependent on local taxes. If the money is region/nationalized you don't end up with the more prosperous cities having nicer schools because they have higher income from local property taxes.

Also -- college is cheaper/free in many European countries. Less of a financial barrier-to-entry for higher education means more poverty-sicken students get to go to school.

Re:Public Schools?

[nnull]

US schools are bureaucratic nightmares. Where as a lot of European schools just have a director and a bunch of teachers and usually much smaller with a much tightly integrated community, US schools operate like little prisons with security guards, lots of office work secretaries, counsellors, principals and vice principals, etc etc. Lets also not forget about the school board and school districts with their luxurious salaries and beautiful office buildings. Most school employees get treated better than the kids while we stuff the kids into over crowded classrooms. The kids are usually an after thought.

Re:Public Schools?

[houghi]

Or perhaps being poor in the US means being poor and in Europe it means, having less money. So you compare two different groups.

Re:Public Schools?

[cascadingstylesheet]

Could this be because the school systems in these other countries are funded in a way where the budget is less dependent on local taxes. If the money is region/nationalized you don't end up with the more prosperous cities having nicer schools because they have higher income from local property taxes.

School funding in Michigan changed a long time ago, on precisely this theory. (Had nothing to do with sticking a needle in the eye of those evil "wealthy" districts, no no.) School funding now comes mainly from a higher sales tax. Your school has more kids? You get more money. Per pupil stuff.

Strangely enough, Detroit schools still suck, and the "wealthy" districts still don't (as much). So no, that wasn't it.

Re:Um...

[BarbaraHudson]

Then why don't blacks in the other countries pull down the averages in those other countries? Oh, right, because "Murikah, f*ck yeah!"

To all the racists

[Anonymous Coward]

who are just attributing this to the ethnic makeup of the US, you're missing the point. The study isn't saying that poor American blacks are not as smart as affluent American whites. It's saying that poor American blacks are less intelligent than affluent American blacks, and poor American whites are less intelligent than affluent American whites, and the same poor vs. affluent gap doesn't exist in other countries.

Re:To all the racists

[Anonymous Coward]

Like most bigots, you're mixing and matching factors. "Ghettos" are not a black thing, they are a poor thing. "a mostly white and Asian environment" is what you are using when you actually mean "a well-funded school". All you seem to be saying is that affluent people live in better environments and go to better schools compared to poor people, and sure, I don't think anyone would argue with that.

If it would make it easier for the frothier prejudiced folks hereabout, just pretend everyone is white when thinking about it: white twins are adopted by two different white families, one poor white family and one affluent white family. If the adoptive white families are in the US, then, statistically, the poor white twin will wind up with a lower IQ than the affluent white twin. If the white families are instead in the same western European country or Australia, the white twins will, statistically, have the same IQ. That is all the study is saying.

Re:To all the racists

[HornWumpus]

If they will not work, they shall not eat

Paraphrased: The new testament. One of Sauls post psychotic break letters IIRC.

Duh.

[Lumpy]

Here in the USA lead abatement in rentals is a thin coat of paint. Elsewhere they require the landlord to remove it ALL from the home.

And who lives in the shitty run down really old homes with lead paint in them? poor people.

Re:Duh.

[Orgasmatron]

I agree. We really do need more homeless people.

Re:Um...

[ILongForDarkness]

They do: https://upload.wikimedia.org/w...

Assuming that is accurate. There is also a reason why asians are considered for affirmative action: their average income is larger than whites (as well as average years of education if I recall correctly).Meh. Ghettos in the US I'd say probably does the correlation, old Chris Rock joke something like "Blacks are only in like 4 places, NY, Atlanta, Chicago (forget the other))". Not quite true but close enough to effect the trend I think. if inner city is poorer and where black people are and prejudice determines/d where the funding for schools or even where the good teachers choose to teach ...

Re:Duh

[Sique]

Spain has 100% hispanics, but not the problem the U.S. has. Try again!

preschools rather than schools

[Anonymous Coward]

Everything I've read on the subject of IQ and academic aptitude (which admittedly isn't a huge amount) has suggested that the main culprit isn't the fact that the US's K-12 schools are terrible in poor areas, but that there's basically no access to preschools in those same communities. I know that at least in the Netherlands there's publicly funded preschool starting at age 2, and wouldn't be surprised if it's the same in most or all of the other non-US countries on that list. It doesn't seem like a stretch to suggest that a kid who spent ages 2-5 in an interaction-rich environment with adults making efforts to nurture their developing brain would have a higher IQ (and do better in school) than if the same kid spent most of that time plopped in front of the TV with far less adult involvement, as I've anecdotally seen happen with kids in poorer families.

Re:Government schools in the USA are shit.

[Guy Harris]

That's the long and short of it. Until and unless we get competition in primary schooling, poor kids are going to keep getting ignored.

So are they not shit in those other countries? If not, what's responsible for that?

Re:Government schools in the USA are shit.

[jcr]

Depends on which country you're talking about.

-jcr

My guess

[OrangeTide]

Other developed nations, which have stronger environmental regulations than the US, don't have children living in areas highly contaminated by lead.

Re:Government schools in the USA are shit.

[Actually, I do RTFA]

How would competition in schools work? Are midyear transfers a frequent thing? Is there no priority to remain where you are, so that children in a good school have to recompete with people fleeing a bad school every year? And if so, how. If not, how does the good school get transfers in at any real rate? Or is a lottery at Kindergarden the determinate factor. If you move to a new place, are you guaranteed everywhere with a spot is a bad school?

Re:'murkans r stoopid?

[hey!]

Well, if the data said we're stupid then that'd mean we're stupid -- even if we wouldn't like to accept that. But that's not the data is saying.

What the data says is that growing up poor in the US limits your intellectual development in a way it doesn't other countries. Since this is based on siblings-raised-apart data this excludes the explanation that poor people in America are poor because they're inherently stupider than people who are wealthier. Since this discrepancy between siblings raised apart doesn't happen in similarly advanced countries, it is not something that is inherent in poverty, either.

Provided that the data stand up to scrutiny, this indicates that America squanders at least some of its intellectual potential.

Re:Government schools in the USA are shit.

[Guy Harris]

Depends on which country you're talking about.

-jcr

I'm talking about all of them. Are there any in which government schools aren't shit? If so, for each of those countries, what are they doing differently that makes their schools not shit?

Re:Um...

[Anonymous Coward]

I live in London, England and my daughter is the only white English girl in her class at an outstanding school. There are lots and lots of people of African descent living in England, they are as bright as the rest of us, if not brighter. The parent post is just racist twaddle.

"poverty"

[Anonymous Coward]

There isn't much genuine "poverty" in the US anymore. Hasn't been for a couple generations.

Go watch hood fight videos on WSHH or Darien Long patrolling an Atlanta mall on Youtube. We certainly have ghettos. But the people in them are not suffering grinding "poverty." They're all fat, equipped with cell phones and cars and spend their disposable income on status symbols and various vices. The kids they make are fed good meals in public schools and junk food at home till they're fat. Aside from the pencil whipping "education" they get in government funded schools they're raised by Nintendo and TV.

This is gross neglect, not "poverty." And more benefits and deficits aren't going to make good parents out of the denizens of our proto-idiocracy.

No, I don't have a solution either. At least none that doesn't involve pretty serious compromises of civil rights. And we all know the subjects of such attention would rather the stunted IQs than suffer any impositions.

Re:"poverty"

[strstr]

I disagree. We have extreme poverty. Things people actually need costs hundreds to thousands a dollars a month, which they cannot afford, such as regular dental visits, lawyers, tutors, private schools, paid vacations, non-medication based health care, maid service, fully equipped apartment/house, etc.

Those types of things are provided free from the government in Europe.

They have substantially better free services to replace the out of pocket expenses of the same services in the United States.

Re:"poverty"

[epyT-R]

1. private schools? I thought public schools in european countries were supposed to be great.
2. paid vacations are not really paid. They come out of your paycheck one way or another.
3. maid service is certainly not a must have. wtf?
4. lawyers are only needed with over litigious societies and law. 'Free' lawyers is like ordering a 1300cal meal and compensating with a diet soda.
5. I've seen pics of government provided flats in europe and the UK. They're no better than the ghettos, here. Too many people crammed into too small a space.

Re:"poverty"

[jopsen]

There isn't much genuine "poverty" in the US anymore.

US: 1 in 30 children experience homelessness each year, citation: http://new.homelesschildrename...
Denmark: 0.001 % homelessness for the entire population (all ages), source: http://www.sfi.dk/rapportoplys...
Germany: 0.003 % homelessness for the entire population (all ages), source: http://www.dw.com/en/homeless-...

FYI; 1 in 30 = 0.03, meaning the US has 10 times as many homeless children, as Germany have homeless people in total...
(Yeah, I'm not sure all these numbers of perfectly comparable, feel free find better ones)

And yes, families homeless families probably more of an issue in eastern Europe. But they are taking serious steps to do something about it.
US certainly has the resources to fix homelessness, but chooses not to do so! Poverty is still an issue, because as a country you've decided not to help the poor.

Re:"poverty"

[T.E.D.]

Things people actually need costs hundreds to thousands a dollars a month, which they cannot afford, such as regular dental visits, lawyers, tutors, private schools, paid vacations, non-medication based health care, maid service, fully equipped apartment/house, etc.

Those types of things are provided free from the government in Europe.

Whereas the USA blows all that money on silly trivialities like its military that is defending Europe.

Re:"poverty"

[HornWumpus]

To be fair, you should get your Danish and German statistics from a charity trying to get more money for the cause of 'homelessness'.

There are many ways these stats can be lies. Just off the top of my head I'm betting the German ones don't count foreigners. I was there recently and there are many foreign beggars in the big cities (Berlin and Hamburg).

1 in 30 kids? Only if you count the family stays because mom is temporarily homeless.

America spends millions treating obesity related health care issues with our 'poor'.

Re:"poverty"

[HornWumpus]

You have to note that spending one night sleeping on a friends couch qualifies you to be part of that 500,000 for the year.

I was homeless just as I bought my house. The close was delayed by a week and I had to move out of my apartment. Woe is me.

Re:"poverty"

[HornWumpus]

Two meals a day? Luxury.

Go to Africa and see some real poverty. Poor people cannot be fat. If someone is fat, they are not poor.

Re:Um...

[jedidiah]

2% of the population is not "a lot".

On the other hand, this can be stratified even further between those that are ex-slaves and those that are not as well as those that have escaped from the ghetto entirely. You could even break this down in general between poor non-immigrants and poor immigrants.

I would not expect the trailer parks to do any better than the ghettos.

Re:Government schools in the USA are shit.

[hey!]

You are laboring under the misapprehension that all US states do education the same way they apparently do in our part of the country. Students in some states get world class educations; if Massachusetts were a country it would be tied with Japan for student math achievement.

Massachusetts does have charter schools, but they're a relatively small part of the system. Although Massachusetts charter schools perform well, so do public schools there on average. Only about 3% of students attend charter schools there so competition doesn't drive it's overall excellent public school performance.

Re:Duh

[jedidiah]

Spain also doesn't have dirt poor 3rd world displaced farmers that have a great work ethic but simply don't see the value of literacy or a lot of formal education.

Poverty=crappy food=poor development=lower IQ?

[kheldan]

Didn't I read somewhere (like on /.) a while back, that the cheap, shitty food that the poor have no choice but to eat, has much to do with children's brains not developing as well as their more healthily-fed peers?

Re:Poverty=crappy food=poor development=lower IQ?

[HornWumpus]

The shitty food isn't cheap. Poor people eat what they choose. Stores in poor neighborhoods stock what sells.

Re:Um...

[BarbaraHudson]

I guess you're running for inclusion in the lower-end-of-the-iq-spectrum the article talks about. Consider your last post as "Achievement Unlocked."

Slapping kids upside the head is bad

[mveloso]

Slapping kids upside the head, while amusing and culturally acceptable, seriously degrades the academic performance of Our Fellow Americans.

PSA: don't slap your child upside the head.

Re:Slapping kids upside the head is bad

[tshawkins]

What does "upside the head" mean?.

Re:Slapping kids upside the head is bad

[Jack Griffin]

Which side is 'upside'?

'Psychological Science'

[swell]

Ah yes, 'Psychological Science' ... that's akin to 'Military Intelligence' and 'Astrological Science'.

When I studied psickology in 1959, and then again in 1969, I couldn't help noticing that the field had changed about as much as the runways of Paris fashion. Since then many more dynamic changes; each generation displacing the previous and 'outing' their theories.

Sorry to demean them, and in fact I believe there is some truth in this observation. I also assume that as their peers and others review this work we will see different conclusions drawn from the same data.

Re:School lunch probably explains a lot of it

[Ost99]

I'm not sure the school meals pay a very large role, they have that in the US as well (but an argument could be made about the difference in nutritional value of the school food...).

The likelihood of anyone suffering from malnutrition in Australia, Germany, England, Sweden, or the Netherlands are very close to 0%, no matter how poor you are. This is not true for the US. I'm not talking about just getting enough calories, but getting the necessary nutrients to not limit brain development.

Re:Genes And the Ghetto

[mschuyler]

Because everyone is EQUAL because that's the LAW and we say so and no one could POSSIBLY have a lower IQ because of genetics. It must be because of the Republicans.

In other words...

[Anonymous Coward]

The gap in the US between the rich and the poor is so wide that the US poor have IQs comparable to the poor in developing countries.

the first thing I thought when I read this

[strstr]

was that United States poverty actually means extreme poverty where money, education, healthcare, nuturement, homes, cars, transporation, day care, special needs services and all that is completely denied.

and the comparison countries "Germany, UK, Australia,.." are all actually really rich countries with more of a socialism style to their economic systems. In those countries they have completely free healthcare, free college educations, better school systems (although I have no studied each country, I have looked at countries such as Germany which has completely free college education even for people who go there from out of the country, and Finland has a revolutionary system with three teachers per class and 20 student caps, France puts more money into kids and "fixing" life problems, etc).

I grew up in Oregon and as such I was denied all school after the 6th grade, and I had no health insurance and therefore could not see a dentist, psychologist, PCP, or any other type of doctor growing up. Until the year 2011 when Affordable Health Care Act kicked in, there were hundreds of thousands of uninsured children in Oregon .. meaning when they had a health problem, they were denied medical care most of the time.

Oregon just so happens to also have the worst graduation rates .. 70% of disabled kids drop out of school because the services push them out and don't have services for them, and 40% of regular kids drop out.

Compare that to Finland with 95% graduation rate!

In America they also prefer to "drug" kids with medications for mental disorders they don't have, rather than to fix the underlining cause of their problems, which is often times rooted in their homes, poverty, and lack of services and infrastructure for them to succeed in.

Those medications cause IQ drops, autism, brain damage, and prevent learning and fail to actually correct kids/adults problems.

In most of those European countries they also have social housing programs (for example, housing is free in Germany and you also get free basic income, health care, plus education as mentioned before). In America, if you can't afford the sky high rent, you're probably going to be homeless and completely desolate, stressed out wondering the streets or if you're lucky in a bed bug infested ghetto homeless shelter with crap food and dirty insides (they serve people expired food at most of these places).

So the author missed one thing. It does appear the problem is linked to poverty. Because America and those other countries have vastly different systems. Poverty means way different things in America compared to European countries. In America they expect you to "pay for everything out of pocket" but if you cannot do that, you do not get free service drop ins. The rich therefore are the only ones who can afford to properly raise their children in America because they have the money for private schools, private services, tutors, private doctors, private lawyers, leisure, exploration, etc; everyone else suffers and rots. But in Europe, basic services and living needs are free to the poor.

The only way to fix this is to adopt a new United States constitution perhaps based on the one from South Africa, as some US Supreme Court justices indicated was a model replacement for our own. Other countries are already built with better constitutions, as after World War II President Roosevelt sent aids to European/foreign countries and helped build in economic rights into their new constitutions. The United States was to get a new Bill of Rights 2 with economic rights, but when Roosevelt died prematurely, his work was successfully subverted in the United States. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

The problem with the United States is purely it's shitty geared for the wealthy and rich constitution.

We don't even have the right to live in dignity, as other nations have. We have no right to basic income. No right to medica

Re:the first thing I thought when I read this

[Anonymous Coward]

The only way to fix this is to adopt a new United States constitution perhaps based on the one from South Africa, as some US Supreme Court justices indicated was a model replacement for our own.

As a South African citizen, I find this ironic, as the majority of South Africans aspire to be like americans (sans all the remaining whiteness, of course). And the constitution is pretty much just a piece of paper. If you don't have the connections with the ruling elite that enable you to route around law enforcement and jurisprudence, or otherwise have at least a good chunk of money for lengthy court proceedings with doubtful outcomes sometime hopefully in your lifetime, sorry for you. Which seems not too far removed from the current american mode. Only difference to me seems that the US has a lot more momentum to carry it a while further.

Re:the first thing I thought when I read this

[CptPicard]

Finland has a revolutionary system with three teachers per class and 20 student caps

I wonder where this three teachers per class idea comes from, I've never heard anything of the sort, and I'm Finnish and have gone through said system. There is one teacher per class, sometimes an assistant, and two teachers per class in cases where the class size is very big. Because of cutbacks, we've had to stuff as many kids into a classroom as we can -- Finland is not doing too well at the moment when it comes to government finances.

But the system does have a lot of strengths, among other things the fact that teachers are well educated and it is a very respected profession with a lot of autonomy. They don't want to screw up the kids' futures a bit like a doctor wouldn't want to kill a patient, because it was competitive to get into teacher education to begin with...

Also, even though our school system does encourage kids to think for themselves, I would offer a somewhat conservative take as to why it works -- it really still is a somewhat traditional, teacher-led system. And of course it helps that Finland is for the time being a rather homogenous society where it is understood that if you are supposed to listen to the teacher, you are supposed to listen to the teacher.

Re:the first thing I thought when I read this

[vel-ex-tech]

Strong bleeding-heart libertarian here.

Did you even read the comment you're responding to?

Economic rights need to happen. I'm not sure what strawman you're attacking, but GP appears to be in support of the 2nd bill of rights that was proposed to be the capstone of the New Deal. GP also put forward the alternative of adopting a new Constitution.

Is your problem that s/he didn't invoke things like the Several States' right to call for a Constitutional Convention that would be necessary for such changes?

These are the things I think need to happen:

1. The Several States should invoke Article V and apply for a constitutional convention. Although it is not specified, I believe there is precedent from when the Articles of Confederation were replaced that such a convention could entirely replace the existing constitution. However, I don't see any glaring problems that haven't been patched.

2. Repeal the 16th and 17th Amendments.

3. Reaffirm the 9th and 10th Amendments. (Effectively, strike down the existing social safety net, drug war, and Obamacare.)

4. Ratify an amendment to give Congress the power to create a single payer national healthcare system. (Yes, funded by my taxes. TANSTAAFL, and I will gladly pay my dues to live in civilization.)

5. Ratify an amendment to give Congress the power to create a basic minimum income. (Yes, funded by my taxes. TANSTAAFL, and I will gladly pay my dues to live in civilization.)

6. Ratify an amendment to change federal elections for Representatives and POTUS to a saner system than first-past-the-post. (Remember, I've already changed it so that the Several States are now electing their senators again, the way it was meant to be.)

7. Ratify an amendment to clarify that corporations are only people in a strict legal sense when involved in a lawsuit. Give congress broad regulatory powers over corporations, particularly concerning federal elections. This one might also include a provision for a corporate death penalty according to due process. (Don't like it? Then make your business a sole proprietorship or partnership.)

8. Ratify an amendment to change the treaty ratification process. Make it so that the Several States themselves are the ones who ratify treaties, and make it by three-fourths majority. Essentially the same requirement as applying for an Article V convention.

That should be a good start at least. I hope I used all the correct magick words, but I'm sure #4 and #5 will get your knee jerking anyway.

Re:the first thing I thought when I read this

[HornWumpus]

2nd bill of rights?

New deal?

Not just NO...FUCK NO. To all your proposals.

The New deal has already bankrupted us. No more.

Re:the first thing I thought when I read this

[wyHunter]

Indeed. If most welfare money wasn't wasted - aka spent in 'administration' - we might actually be able to do something useful. If people getting transfer payments aren't interested in heterodying themselves out of poverty, you cannot fix that. And no, I'm hardly wealthy, I grew up in a ghetto - but I didn't want to stay there.

I work in a public high school and have worked

[waspleg]

in "the system" (yes that is how employees refer to it, the same as inmates) for 7+ years. I am not a teacher but I work closely with them.

In my midwestern red state, teachers unions (and all unions, really) have been completely castrated by "right to work" (aka go fuck yourself you're in an At Will state; profit uber alles) laws and have no power to do fuck all except get collectively and willfully fucked over by the fake-elected board members (gerrymandering/huge back door corporate funding for the candidates that support money for the corporations, it's a thing) and corporate-minded management many of whom have very questionable ties to the entities that really get all the money - the corporations (Schoolastic/Pearsonvue/Questar/Various self-appointed education experts/the list is endless; tests pretests benchmarks prep work programs, I could go on). They literally have their sales people telling teachers what they should be doing and how.

This is even worse and the abuses just as bad as for-profit prisons in the Charter schools. Many states that have them have abandoned them because they're literally a middleman siphoning off money that would otherwise have had at least a fleeting chance of ending up somewhere that might help.

You sound like a Faux News talking point. Come to the trenches sometime, see how it really is, if you have a degree you can be a substitute teacher in a lot of places without a teaching license. Good luck. You'll need it.

Re:Government schools in the USA are shit.

[dgatwood]

Until and unless we get competition in primary schooling, poor kids are going to keep getting ignored.

The problem is that nobody wants to teach in poor districts because of problems like gangs. To get good teachers into those schools requires paying way above the regional average. You're not going to get competition in those poorer areas no matter what you do, because there's no possibility of getting enough money into those districts to properly operate one school, much less two.

The closest you could get would be completely shutting down all the schools in poor districts and bussing the kids to other districts. Unfortunately, long bus rides are also correlated with poorer performance in school, so that doesn't fix the problem, either.

There's only one way to really improve schooling, and that's to put more money into the districts that are having the most trouble with test scores so that they can staff up.

Re:School lunch probably explains a lot of it

[nytes]

We have school lunches in the US.

They don't look especially good compared to the rest of the world, but we do have them.

Yet another academic propaganda post

[epyT-R]

Lets compare the US to socialist countries in areas that it supposedly doesn't do as well in, and then make poorly causated links between success and levels of applied socialism. It is never that simple. The US spends more money per student than just about every other country in the world. The problem isn't money or access.

Yet another academic propaganda post implying socialism as the answer. I am sick of these.

Re:Yet another academic propaganda post

[HornWumpus]

That all depends on how you measure the outcomes.

The oft quoted study that puts the USA last in the first world weighs 'equality of access' above all else.

If you use another metric (say cancer survival time) the USA does very well.

Re:Yet another academic propaganda post

[epyT-R]

Exactly my point.

Re:Yet another academic propaganda post

[epyT-R]

Actually, the debate is over the definition of equality. The US traditionally defines it as equal opportunity while europe's is equal outcome.

Re:Yet another academic propaganda post

[Jack Griffin]

Yet another academic propaganda post implying socialism as the answer. I am sick of these.

If you had socialised medicine you wouldn't be sick :)

Re:Yet another academic propaganda post

[epyT-R]

Certainly more statist. Relatively speaking, the UK and AU are left of the US, which is the country being criticized in the article.

Re:Yet another academic propaganda post

[epyT-R]

What "socialist" countries do you mean ? There are no "socialist" First World countries.

Right, of course not. They're all wonderful 'liberal', and 'democratic' societies. They didn't just come up with new names for the old ideology, right? It's sad that europeans are quick to judge americans as 'sheeple' while their criticisms make it obvious they're busily consuming their own governments' propaganda in the same way.

Hey genius, who pays for your military ? Police forces ? Ambulances ?

We do. We pay for our own oppression while the state slowly unravels the protections that limit its ability to abuse those forces. Until obamacare, ambulances were private. Now they're a tiny fraction of the ever growing bureaucracy that costs taxpayers more and more money each year. Such 'progress.'

Re:Yet another academic propaganda post

[epyT-R]

No. If I was, I would've died while on the waiting list.

Re:Yet another academic propaganda post

[Jack Griffin]

No. If I was, I would've died while on the waiting list.

So why is the US life expectancy lower than the OECD average, where most other countries have socialised medicine?
What's even more embarrassing is that the US spends nearly twice as much as the OECD average on medicine, yet still has some of the worst outcomes.

Re:'murkans r stoopid?

[maple_shaft]

it is not something that is inherent in poverty, either.

No that is the exact opposite conclusion actually. It has EVERYTHING to do with REAL poverty.

The problem with comparing the US to other advanced countries is that with the social services and money that is spent on them in those countries, even when you are born into a poor family in Sweden lets say, you are immediately and profoundly more wealthy than your American counterpart. This wealth isn't judged in dollars, cents and purchasing power however in excellent public transportation, strong workers rights, disability programs, top notch education for all, excellent first world healthcare, retirement benefits and more.

Societal wealth makes all the difference here. A better comparison to America would be a country like Saudi Arabia. You have a handful of disgustingly wealthy people who control almost all of the actionable power and wealth in society, a single digit percentage of REAL middle class (and I mean the real definition of middle class not this bogus American definition that was created for political expediency). If you are REALLY middle class then you are afforded modern conveniences and a level of financial, retirement, educational and healthcare security to where you don't have to frequently worry too hard about being poor in the near or long term future.

Also just like Saudi Arabia, the rest of the society is so broke they're broken, so poor they can't even pay attention.

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Re: 'murkans r stoopid?

[IBME]

Dollars for eyes.

Cause, effect

[PPH]

So there is a correlation between low IQ and poverty, more so in the USA than elsewhere. But which is the cause and which the resulting effect?

In countries without a mobile class structure, high or low IQ has much less effect on an individuals than in the USA. Your destiny depends on your ancestry and inherited position. In the USA, people are free to rise or sink to an economic level defined by their individual capabilities. The smart become wealthy, the stupid sink into poverty. The end result gives the same correlation between poverty and IQ, but for widely different reasons.

Re:Cause, effect

[SuiteSisterMary]

I find that, a lot of the time, when you find two things that are 'correlated,' it's time to start looking for the external factors that cause them both.

Re:Um...

[Anonymous Coward]

Posting AC so as to not undo my mod-points, one of which was very well spent in knocking this particular bit off bullshit down.

It's actually mathematically impossible for Africans in the US or worldwide to be IQ 75. IQ 75 is the fifth percentile. In the US they're 15-20% of the population, worldwide it's 10-15%, which makes it rather difficult for them to average (statistically speaking) 75ish IQ.

Re:'murkans r stoopid?

[MobyDisk]

What the data says is that growing up poor in the US limits your intellectual development in a way it doesn't other countries

Devil's advocate: Or does it say that growing up wealthy in the US gives you intellectual development opportunities in a way it doesn't in other countries?

I'm reading the linked article and it is hard to tell.

...the authors found that the brute force of poverty in the US clearly pushed aside genetic influence on intelligence. But, the same relationship was not seen in any of the other countries.

It does not sound like they are seeing a difference in IQ amongst Americans and non-Americans. Or even amongst impoverished and non-impoverished. It sounds like they are seeing more variation in IQ between siblings in Europe than in America, which leads them to believe that perhaps poverty limits intellectual potential in the US. That is one possible explanation, but that's a pretty indirect correlation. Read the section in the article about "seeds" and "growth" for their analogy on the topic. But it is really hard to know from the limited information the ars article offers.

Union defense force

[Kohath]

Note how the union defense force very rarely mentions the actual mission of schools: learning -- teaching children. It's almost as if that's not their primary concern...

Re: Union defense force

[cyber-vandal]

Notice how the anti-union alliance are incapable of seeing that it's more complex than "unions bad" given that every other country in the developed world has active teaching unions as well.

Re: Union defense force

[Kohath]

Your response doesn't mention learning or children.

Re: Union defense force

[cyber-vandal]

What is the job of a union? Who does it represent?

Re: Union defense force

[Kohath]

Not children. That's the problem.

Re:School lunch probably explains a lot of it

[riverat1]

Poor kids may be more overweight but that just means they're getting a lot of calories. If the nutrition they're getting is otherwise poor that will be a factor in their learning ability.

Re: 'murkans r stoopid?

[guruevi]

I've lived it dude. I came from poverty in the EU. I went to bad schools because that's what we could afford. I walked and later biked to school because we couldn't afford the bus and we maintained chickens for food. And yes we had government support for food and housing. Electric was only paid up to 100W/h during the day and 500W/h at night (dual metering is standard there). Gas subsidy was calculated to maintain 18C in the house.

In the US families on government support have at least 1 working car, a decent sized house and a TV and can keep the heat and electric on and food on the table just on government support which simply requires you not being a criminal.

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Its the culture "stupid"

[Anonymous Coward]

To borrow a phrase from Clinton years, "its the culture, stupid." People are going to look high and low for all sorts of reason, but the uncomfortable truth is obvious but unpleasant. The same anti-success cultures that produce ecconomically poor people in the US are the same ones that produce failing students.

Being interested in why students are becoming worse, I left the university and have now taught in public, private, and charter schools. In public schools, there are vast resources and tremendous waste. It is not a dollars spent issue. It is simply a matter of attitude of the students. They actively chose not to learn. They actively choose to fail. They see no reason to improve. They do not see school as an out. They think misbehaving is cool. They do not believe in controlling impulses of any sort. They do not believe in doing homework. Worse, in doing any of these things, it makes you "white" which is a complete pejorative. In short, they set themselves up to fail, and do so proudly. As long as we tolerate and encourage this behavior, we will get more of the same. It will not matter how many computers, tutorials, specialized classes you offer. The true battle is at the baseline culture.

This is start contrast to poor students from other cultures. This is why they do well and we don't.

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IQ Tests are biased

[mysidia]

Poverty Stunts IQ In the US

No.... the IQ test as an intelligence test is biased in favor of people with certain experiences, showing lower IQs for Poverty, but only in certain regions, is more evidence against the validity of IQ tests as a measure of fluid intelligence.

Those who are in poverty are less likely to have certain experiences, that does not mean they are less intelligent ---- it means they have different knowledge and different adaptations.

Re:IQ Tests are biased

[T.E.D.]

No.... the IQ test as an intelligence test is biased in favor of people with certain experiences, showing lower IQs for Poverty, but only in certain regions, is more evidence against the validity of IQ tests as a measure of fluid intelligence.

This reminds me of a friend from Philly. He had a really smart kid who lost points on one of those standardized tests because he had no clue what a "fire hydrant" was. In Philly where he grew up, those were "fireplug"s. His kid had no chance on that. Basically, the "verbal" parts of those standardized tests are dialect tests. If your native dialect isn't American Midlands, your kids are at a disadvantage.

Note that the native dialects for people from particularly poverty-stricken places tend to be pretty dang different from American Midlands. For the two most poverty-stricken dialects, AAVE and Appalachian, American "verbal" tests often have questions specifically written to trick their speakers. So if you speak Midlands and are competing on test scores with kids from those backgrounds, the test writers have essentially spotted you a bunch of points for growing up in the right place.

Re:IQ Tests are biased

[HornWumpus]

Midlands kids also speak a dialect, fire plug is a common synonym. They also speak 'standard English', as should everybody. The kid should have lost points for vocabulary.

Re:IQ Tests are biased

[T.E.D.]

Midlands kids also speak a dialect, fire plug is a common synonym. They also speak 'standard English', as should everybody

There are some misconceptions here that have surprisingly non-trivial impact.

• "Midlands" is not a place, it is a dialect
• There is no such thing as "standard English". "correct" English in the USA will be "bad English" in England, and both will be "bad" in Australia. Our language has diffuse cultural islands all over the globe, and each has its own "prestige" dialect(s)
• The prestige dialect in the USA is the Standard American English (or "General American") dialect. However, nobody really speaks this natively.
• "General American" appears to have derived from early American Midlands. That means it isn't really a fair compromise. If you were raised in a culture that primarily uses an American Midlands dialect, then switching to GA is less work for you. (and the penalty for not bothering to switch at all is much less)

The kid should have lost points for vocabulary.

To be fair, this is the exact thought that flashed through my head when he first talked to me about this. But that kind of misses the point. Yes, to his kids "fire hydrant" is probably a vocabulary word that they should eventually know. But for my kids its no more of a "vocabularly word" than "cat" or "hat" are. In other words, his kids have to be smarter than my kids just to get the same score. That's the issue here.

Re:IQ Tests are biased

[HornWumpus]

Bull.

TV uses mostly standard American English. Fire Hydrant would not have been a new word to anybody paying any attention.

I'd go so far as to say TV has mostly squashed local dialects with kids in the last 20 years. Atlanta doesn't even have a drawl anymore. Hick towns still do, but even there it's much more understandable. You can even understand a wisconie, as long as they talk slow.

Is that the worst example you've got? Hell, I took an IQ test once that asked 'who wrote Faust?' That was 40+ years ago.

Re:IQ Tests are biased

[T.E.D.]

Bull. ...

*sigh*. I put a lot of work into researching that answer. Looking up the linguistic consensus on American dialects, finding the proper terms, providing good links, etc. I wish someone had told me ahead of time that simply asserting the parent message is saying nothing of worth with a colorful one-word colloquialism, and then throwing up some fuzzy personal observations, is a sufficient to make a compelling argument. I could have done that in 30 seconds and gone on with my day!

You live, you learn I guess...

Re: 'murkans r stoopid?

[cyber-vandal]

[Citation fucking needed]

That's America

[NicknameUnavailable]

Where smart people actually have a marginally better chance at success than elsewhere. Who'd have thought evolution is real..

Re:Um...

[AmiMoJo]

You are assuming that IQ represents a persons potential intelligence, which it doesn't. You can easily increase your IQ by studying and learning to answer the kinds of things they ask on the test.

In school I took an IQ test. Scored over 100 but thought I could do better. Got a book from the library, studied for a week or too and tried again. IQ went by up double digits.

All this discrepancy proves is that some races are historically disadvantaged compared to others, and that the way we measure IQ is not very good.

Dinner Tables

[ThatsNotPudding]

I was listening to NPR, and the interviewee mentioned that her research showed that for 40% of American children, the TV was on, and visible, during all three meals.

Dinner tables in most US homes are no longer used for the designed purpose; I suspicion many folk don't even have one any more. But if they do, they share a room with a TV.

Re:'murkans r stoopid?

[dywolf]

The problem with comparing the US to other advanced countries is that with the social services and money that is spent on them in those countries, even when you are born into a poor family in Sweden lets say, you are immediately and profoundly more wealthy than your American counterpart. This wealth isn't judged in dollars, cents and purchasing power however in excellent public transportation, strong workers rights, disability programs, top notch education for all, excellent first world healthcare, retirement benefits and more.

Societal wealth makes all the difference here. A better comparison to America would be a country like Saudi Arabia. You have a handful of disgustingly wealthy people who control almost all of the actionable power and wealth in society, a single digit percentage of REAL middle class (and I mean the real definition of middle class not this bogus American definition that was created for political expediency). If you are REALLY middle class then you are afforded modern conveniences and a level of financial, retirement, educational and healthcare security to where you don't have to frequently worry too hard about being poor in the near or long term future.

Also just like Saudi Arabia, the rest of the society is so broke they're broken, so poor they can't even pay attention.

quoted for emphasis, because this, a million times this, this is what is the issue.

the US is a third world country that currently, for now, still has first world wealth.
but don't worry, because we are quickly fixing that.

Poverty and Drugs

[EmagGeek]

In the US, people who live in poverty are also more likely to be users of illegal drugs. The effects of using drugs during pregnancy are well-documented, as are second-hand effects.

Supportive Enviroment

[DarthVain]

IQ is likely far more influenced by being raised in a supportive environment over any other factors. Bottom line, is that it is self re-enforcing where smart parents will do well, and will raise their children to do the same. There there is the supportive culture, and even financial support, formal education, etc... It is really common sense and not all that surprising.

It isn't so much that there are some genetics at play here.

As to why there is a big difference between the US and the rest of the countries, well that is interesting. The article mentions a few possibilities, but I think you could probably group them all under "Socialism", to which the US seems to have an usual fear of.

Obviously not every poor kid is going to turn out dumb, many will be able to elevate themselves out of the cycle. However having a society with additional social supports they can use where that support is not given by the family unit, would probably increase that number by quite a bit.

I don't even think I would be joking to say that there are people in the US that would get very animated about protecting their god given right to raise their dumb children however they please...

Re:Um...

[stdarg]

Your mathematical argument assumes that the worldwide population of people of African descent were included in the creation and grade scaling of the IQ test. That is a false assumption.

If an IQ test is designed in America, and given to a population of Africans, and they all score a 75 IQ, that means that the African population performs on the test equivalently to the 5th percentile of Americans. It's irrelevant what the size of the African population is.

Maybe you should post non-AC to undo your bad moderation?

Poor kid in Germany vs. poor kid in US

[Qbertino]

Poor kid in Germany:
- Can't get the newest Nike AirMax Special Sneakers for 180 Euros a pop, must wear brandless and/or sturdy all-rounder shoes. ("BoooHoooo")
- Has a cheap 130€ Huawei Phone vs. the 650€ iPhone its comrades have - can do the exact same things with said cheap phone. (again "BoooHooo")
- Has to use said smartphone for 3 years instead of getting a new one every year.
- Get's fresh clothing roughly twice a year, some of it second-hand or brandless and cheap, vs. the rich comrades that go binge shopping at H&M every two months. ("Booo ..." ... you get the picture)
- Can't go on long-distance vacation in the mediteranian, has to spend hollydays at the dug-out lake or visiting grandma by buss. Will catch up on traveling as soon as schools over with a backpack and an international youth-hostel card. Will have at least as much fun as its rich comrades.
- Lives on welfare that is frugal and not always pleasant but is enough to get by with its rich comrades able to do notable frivolous spending on all kinds of stuff (This can actually be pretty tough)
- is entitled to relief from public library fees and simular things.
- Has to go and work to extend its allowance vs. the rich comrades that just have to bug daddy for and extra 100€ (this actually sucks quite a bit - but it teaches a useful discipline and work-ethic)

- Get's the exact same education as its rich comrades.
- Uses the exact same public transport as its rich comrades.
- Can ride from Düsseldorf to Dortmund on its school PT ticket for free, just like its rich comrades.
- Can go to college for free, just like everybody else

Poor kid in the US:
Get's nothing? Lives on laughable wellfare? Has to pay through the nose to go to college? Can't go to college because it's prohibitively expensive? ... I don't know - you tell me.

*good* TV

[phorm]

Yeah, I think the problem is that most people watch crap TV (and even for "good" TV there's still a limit). Educational shows such as Sesame Street have been long known as a positive influence on kids. Well, at least before Elmo they were. It's gone a bit downhill since then but still isn't too bad.

But even as an adult I find most broadcast TV pretty stupid these days. Craploads of reality TV BS not to mention the *tons* of commercials trying to teach you to be a good little consumer.

Medical support,time off and diet

[phorm]

I could see three big influences on this.

The first is medical support. If you have no medical coverage and you're poor, you often can't afford to take your sick kid to a doc. Poor health leads to poor development, not to mention missed school time etc.

Second is time off. You have low-income parents working two, three jobs to make ends meet, with terrible schedules. That cuts into other stuff, like being able to spend quality time with the kids, make good meals, etc. One of the travesties of North America (Canada included) is not just the number of people in low-income jobs, but how those jobs screw people with insufficient hours, forcing them to take multiple jobs and juggle insane, inconsistent timetables. The US is also legendary for lack of time off, so even people in middle-class jobs often little in the way of holidays other than stats (and low-income often end up working even those).

Third, diet. Shitty diet = shitty development. A good diet depends on at least two factors, quality/nutritional food, and time to prepare it. In many cases, that means poor kids are getting crappy, cheap insta-foods. Of course you'll have lots of people saying "well, a good home-cooked meal can be cheaper than instant, so it's their fault for being lazy", but keep in mind that these are the same people juggling multiple jobs and shitty schedules. So yes, they can buy quality ingredients, but a good meal still takes time to prepare and half of these people seem to barely have time to get the kids up and to school before work, then pick them up after, let alone cook.

It's not that poor people are lazy, stupid, or don't care. Many are often *very* hard workers. Unfortunately many are stuck working hard just trying to get by, and thus have little opportunity for improving their lot in life.

Re:Um...

[cyberchondriac]

It's not race, per se, this issue is far more likely due to cultural influences, upbringing, that kind of thing. There is a cultural problem among the lowest classes in the US. Same is true of the "white trash" culture as is ghetto culture. Too many of these people see nothing wrong with their viewpoint, treating their kids like crap, and eschewing education. A few rise above it, but not many.

Re:Government schools in the USA are shit.

[HornWumpus]

Doesn't work. See the DC school district.

The problem is the people in charge don't want it fixed. If DC had educated voters crack heads could not get reelected.

Re:'murkans r stoopid?

[RandomUsername99]

That's hilarious

Re:School lunch probably explains a lot of it

[HornWumpus]

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink. Do they each need a nutritionist to follow them around?

Re:School lunch probably explains a lot of it

[HornWumpus]

Bullshit. They have people in all those countries that prefer to drink their meals or are just crazy and don't eat right.

You simply can't fix that while leaving people 'free to fuck up'.

Re:natural outcome

[HornWumpus]

Every family that arrived in the USA dead broke in the last 50 years proves you wrong.

The real question is why is their a permanent underclass while new immigrants overcome even bigger obstacles and succeed.

Ug, this is the most loaded post

[rsilvergun]

I've ever seen. Private schools do well for two reasons:

1. They're mostly filled with upper class or rich kids who can afford tuition. These kids have private tutors, stay at home moms that drive them to school and make breakfast, clean, violence free living spaces, etc, etc. This is what people are referring to when they use the word "privileged".

2. The few low income kids that are there have behave like angles and keep their grades up or get booted out. Imagine how much better the public school's scores would be if ever time a kid acted up or his GPA dropped below a 3.0 they got permanently expelled. Imagine how much worse the the scores would be at the schools those kids ended up.

Studies show scores have been dropping in American Schools for 50+ years. These are often sited by Regressives (I refuse to call them "Conservatives", they're not, they're policies are Radical Regressions) as a reason to turn back the clock to the 1950s. Those folks conveniently ignore the other half of the study that shows the reason for the drops are that we don't kick lower income kids to the curb anymore. We've cut down on the dog eat dog sink or swim ideals because folks were sinking, and we got tired of watching them gasp their last painful breath while drowning. The Regressives didn't get tired of that, they seem to enjoy it...

Income inequality harms everybody ...

[Martin S.]

Income inequality harms everybody and income equality increases the quality of life of all including the wealth.

So much beating around the bush...

[conquistadorst]

My opinions may not carry much currency because they're purely anecdotal. I still believe the US education system is one of the best in the world but at the same time I think our sometimes lack-luster education and performance results are far more culturally based than anyone gives it credit. Growing up as a US-born child of an immigrant family may give me a very biased perspective but I use it all the time nonetheless. My story is typical for many immigrants, it's practically a cliche. My parents didn't know English and came to the US with $400 in their pocket in the early 80s. Yes, we were on welfare, yes we collected food stamps, yes my family took terrible low skill and low earning jobs like cleaning, harvesting, and the like, yes we grew up in the inner city being the 1 of 2 Caucasian families in the entire neighborhood, yes we had 3 generations living in one household, and yes English was not my first language.

But we climbed the *#!@ out of there as fast as we could, because that's why we came to the US: to do well. We came with ambitions, with the belief that education was one thing the "man", whether it's a Soviet government or oppressive oligarchy, could not take away from you. Not doing well in school simply was not an option. My mother get her degree and my father got a decent job at a factory. While my parents certainly did well for themselves, the next generation, like myself, we did even better. I can say from my limited exposure to the education system, at least here in NY, is that very, very, very few of my classmates had the same ambitions. In fact, most would have seen me as being aggressively competitive but in my eyes and my parents I was only allowed to see myself as still not trying hard enough. I admit that half of my class mates were brighter than me, but I'm sorry to say that few of them tried half as hard nor did as well.

If every kid had that ambition you'd have to be scared of what the US could do instead of can't do. Unfortunately it's my observation that many kids *and* their adult parents here in the US lack any self control. They are far too wrapped up in finding the next source of entertainment than setting up a future for themselves, family, and country. Be it TV, alcohol, music, fame, partying, drugs, games, and sports (yes, I said sports, let your verbal abuse fly!). There's nothing wrong with any of those things are just fine per se, as long as they're done in moderation.

Re:Um...

[nmr_andrew]

If I had mod points, you'd get them. Thanks for pointing out the real problem here. I do think though that the way populations of those "lowest classes" are distributed throughout the US contributes to the perception in that far more people see the ghetto culture, which is concentrated in and near larger cities, than see the white trash culture which tends to concentrate in the boonies.

Re:Government schools in the USA are shit.

[dgatwood]

Actually it does work. Study after study has proven that pumping more money into the weakest districts results in statistically significant improvements in graduation rates and other key metrics.

The problem with the DC school district is that it has one administrator per 128 students, give or take, as compared with the national average of almost 300 students per administrator. To improve education in the DC school district, you would have to pump in almost three times as much money as you would have to pump into almost any other school district in the nation, simply because the district is run so inefficiently to begin with.

Re:Can't draw any inference

[HornWumpus]

Idiocracy is happening everywhere. China, USA, Europe, Africa etc. The dumber you are the more kids you have.

Re:Duh

[wyHunter]

No. "Hispanic" is a term created by the US census to describe people coming from a bunch of countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. Guess what? The people of Spain are..Spanish.

Re:'murkans r stoopid?

[wyHunter]

It has to do with social consensus. If a society believes that education is important, everyone gets educated regardless of wealth. The USA is an anti-education country. This is somewhat new - brought here by the Baby Boomers.

Re:'murkans r stoopid?

[wyHunter]

Indeed. Look what the Demopublicans have done - especially in the last 8 years.

social welfare, education, medical care, and

[cas2000]

the other important factor is food, or the shit that passes for food.

Your poor eat McDonalds and similar shit on a regular, daily basis. They also drink Coke and other soft-drinks routinely, and consume vast amounts of sugar. Poor food is sugary food is shit food.

This shit is a *normal* diet for your poor - but is not the normal diet of the poor in other countries.

Funding is NOT the issue.

[jcr]

The difference is that incompetence isn't rewarded in other countries' educational systems.

-jcr

Re:Government schools in the USA are shit.

[HornWumpus]

Who did those studies? 90% of statistics are lies.

DC is not just down to overhead. It's broken and they don't even want to fix it. Same as NYC. They just want more money to not fix anything.

Re:School lunch probably explains a lot of it

[Ost99]

Seems my typing was a few steps behind my thinking, sorry.
The scope of my comment was meant to be malnutrition in children.

Re:Government schools in the USA are shit.

[HornWumpus]

Our schools do a good job with the top 75% of students. Right through high school.

It's our morons that bring down the average. European and Asian schools are apparently better at forcing the slow ones to learn something.

Re:School lunch probably explains a lot of it

[riverat1]

Many of those poor kids live in areas that are food deserts where good nutritious food is difficult and expensive to obtain compared to fast food restaurants and mini-mart food. If it takes a lot of extra effort to obtain nutritious food many don't make the effort.

This is the stupidest premise I've ever read

[DrStoooopid]

Poverty doesn't "stunt IQ's"....did you ever stop and think for 2 seconds, that those people are just stupid?

Re:Government schools in the USA are shit.

[dgatwood]

DC is a disaster and a half, with basically two competing school systems—a charter system and a normal public school system—each of which has about the same number of students. The charter schools are performing negligibly above the national average, and the public school system is performing significantly below it.

Recent studies showed that the charter schools got about $12k less per student than the public schools. Why are they doing better? Because the system itself is lightweight. Each charter school mostly runs itself. There's no huge overarching administrative organization. Mistakes at a school cost small amounts of money. Mistakes at a district level that apply to every school cost large amounts of money. Add to that problems like systemic corruption, and you have a recipe for failure. And as a result, when you pump more money into it, that money goes everywhere but into the schools themselves.

Eventually, I suspect that the charter schools will displace the public schools entirely, and at that point, the massive overhead problem will just go away, along with the school system itself. They can keep wanting more and more money to not fix the problem, but that's not going to save the system when the public votes to close it down entirely.

Let's blame everyone

[gravitas77]

It is more traumatic to grow up poor in the U.S. This trauma affects every aspect of development, employment, and all aspects of a poor person's life including brain development. Our complicity with allowing this inter-generational trauma to continue to accelerate means will all are at fault regardless of of our favorite scapegoat. Let's go.

Wondering...

[Doctrinsograce]

The title claims a causal connection. How might we prove that it is not the other way around?

Re:'murkans r stoopid?

[Areyoukiddingme]

Also just like Saudi Arabia, the rest of the society is so broke they're broken, so poor they can't even pay attention.

Props for the KMFDM reference.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Um...

[BarbaraHudson]

Your chart says nothing about other countries. Please try again ... or not :-)

Re:Um...

[ILongForDarkness]

The chart says nothing about which if any country was the source. As far as we know it could be a world wide study, or Lichtenstein. Maybe you figured out which wiki page actually references that chart? I don't know I just did a quick: race vs IQ google. I don't claim that the chart is from any definitive study etc. All I'm saying is it does appear that there has been a study that showed a racial correlation. I also seem to recall that it was accepted as fact that black IQs in the US tended lower than whites and the argument was it is either/or/both socioeconomic factors and the test being written for "whites" being used to explain it. I didn't hear any arguments about it not being a known fact just explanations for why it might be. Not that I did a through study on the subject I tend not to discriminate I either like the person or I don't, idiots come in all shades.

The PC police are so quick to jump on anything that shows a potential negative treat with racial tendencies but anything positive often gets a slide. Kenyans and black people in general being good distance runners, black men having "large members" etc.I suppose you could maybe more clearly show a strong correlation to some things (like showing top 10 finishers or major marathons): it is taken as a given that because I'm white I somehow had an easier life than the black guy working next to me so I need to "check my white privilege" every time I think I'm entitled to something (read "earned" if I wasn't white)..It seems to be the case that even if there is a study showing something negative it is automatically thrown out as bigoted and something to be ignored in order to be PC.

Same thing for studies showing global cooling, or that volcanoes do way more CO2 omissions than humans etc. or that "thousands of scientists "all agree" man made climate change is real" regardless of many of those scientists specialties being completely unrelated etc (heck I have a degree in physics but I know I haven't studied it hard enough to be able to give an expert opinion but BS PR firms are more than happy to call up someone like me and ask them what they think) It isn't PC to be a denier: "shut up and get with the program we got grants to get approved".

Re:Um...

[BarbaraHudson]

So you picked a random chart not knowing what's behind it, but it agrees with what you believe. Confirmation bias much?

Re:Um...

[ILongForDarkness]

No first hit I found. How about the first paragraph of: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... ? Again till you provide examples of the contrary, as far as I know/been thought (by liberal teachers in "liberal" tending subjects like sociology): there is an "accepted" differential between white and black IQ scores.There is a mix of results when you account for environmental factors (it seems either no significant differences to the "expected" direction of difference (ie measured IQ differences persist even after accounting for environment, ex kids adopted by parents of different race etc) but there does seem to be neutral to positive evidence for some biological differences: size of brain, reaction time of brain to stimulus etc.

There is a difference in the average muscle/fat ratio, difference in skeleton and such (ex nose) etc. Is it really that unreasonable to expect there might be a difference in the brain? These are just averages it doesn't mean that a given individual might not have the "required" IQ for the field in question just the relative likelihood of a member of the selected population having that score. You still need to meet the person and judge them based on their own merits to find out where they lie on the sucker-superstar spectrum.

Re:Um...

[BarbaraHudson]

Linked to a wikipedia article that is listed as having multiple problems. And it doesn't change the fact that the chart, as presented, doesn't give any information as to the group measured, and the page does NOT show the graph you linked to.