We'd be richer if the average American did as well in school as the average Finn.
Closing the educational-achievement gap between the U.S. and higher-performing nations such as Finland and South Korea could boost U.S. gross domestic product by as much as $2.3 trillion, or about 16%, according to a new study by McKinsey & Co., the international consulting concern.
The report, which used a formula McKinsey helped develop to link educational achievement to economic output, also estimated closing the gap in the U.S. between white students and their black and Latino peers could increase annual GDP by as much as an additional $525 billion, or about 4%.
In its report, McKinsey said existing achievement gaps have "created the equivalent of a permanent, deep recession in terms of the gap between actual and potential output in the economy."
That "permanent, deep recession" is going to get much bigger in coming decades.
Strangely enough, over at the New York Times Catherine Rampell speaks out of school when she points out that America spends big on education as compared to other countries with little to show for it.
Unfortunately, throwing money at the system doesn’t seem to help, either. As it is, the United States gets comparatively little bang for its buck on education spending. The United States spends more than any other country per point on the PISA math exam, and 60 percent more than the O.E.C.D. average:
Educators say "give us more money and then we can make it better". My reaction? MRD.
The New York City schools chancellor, Joel I. Klein, who introduced the findings at the National Press Club in Washington, said the study vindicated the idea that the root cause of test-score disparities was not poverty or family circumstances, but subpar teachers and principals. He pointed to an analysis in the report showing low-income black fourth graders from the city outperformed students in all other major urban districts on reading (they came in second in math).
The population growth of higher performing Asian immigrants is far too slow to make up for the huge influx of lower performing Hispanic Amerind immigrants. The Hispanics do not improve in academic performance after the second generation. But academic achievement is as much a symptom of deeper causes of economic achievement as it is a cause of economic achievement. A more powerful factor influences economic growth and does this at the level of nations. Though one can get in trouble for stating the obvious.
By Randall Parker at 2009 April 24 12:14 AM EducationI hate it when I read about studies like this. Not because I think they're wrong, but because of how they are manipulated by the elites, the education establishment, and the government bureaucrats. Studies like this always, always lead to calls for "closing the achievement gap" which invariably means throw more money at it while making emotional appeals about how our economy depends on it, children are the future, etc.
We're stuck with this problem because of the underlying assumption of all acceptable, mainstream political and social discourse: that every individual is endowed with basically the same intellectual, moral, physical, etc. abilities. It's all nurture, not nature. As long as this assumption is held, the debate will always fundamentally be about the means of social policy. If you have achievement gaps, social dysfunction, social problems, it can be remedied with the correct type of nurture, that is social policy. You can never question the fundamental assumption, that maybe everyone isn't equal and can't be molded into an individual with an above average intellect.
At this point, we are beyond the pale. Not only have so many people been brainwashed with this silly dogma, there are many powerful elites who may be cynical and not actually believe such silly fables, but have so much vested in keeping the racket going that they will do everything to maintain it.
Remember, half the kids today in the US under 5 are Hispanic. This means that in less than a generation half of the young people entering the US labor force will be Hispanic. Growing up in the US, these young Hispanic kids will not want to toil in the tough labor intensive, low wage work that their parents did. And even if they did, that would half the young labor force would be basically serfs doing low value added, worthless work in the context of an advanced industrial/information economy.
Much can change on the immigration policy front in the next 20 or 30 years, but large looming demographic changes are already in the pipeline so to speak.
There's a very good probability of things sucking pretty bad in the US, in light of all this.
What should we expect? What can we do about this?
Steve Sailer and others have pointed out the Mexican-run UCLA research study that shows Mexicans in the US do not integrate.
The figure that appalled me was that after four generations living off America only 6% get a college diploma. But why should we be suprised?
They are called "Hispanic" but there are millions in Mexico who cannot speak Spanish after 500 years of Spanish domination.
If Mestizos and Indians cannot speak Spanish after 500 years, why do we expect that us Anglos (who they hate) will have better luck making them productive and civilizing them?
Jorge Castaneda in a speech to the Burkle (Murkle? Buckle?) center in LA admitted that over 80% of Oaxacans are on welfare.
Can you imagine just how worthless they are as economically productive units if they cannot even compete with your average run-of-the-mill Mexican peasant and hold down a job shoveling sh!t in Mexico?
Of course, there is always the possibility that we will experience some sort "soft partitioning." There may still be an entity called the United States of America (or perhaps Los Estados Unidos de Norteamerica), but we'll probably see a sort of self-segregation happen, with Hispanics gradually coming to run southern California, most of Arizona, New Mexico, and south Texas, while the Anglo population shifts to the upper Midwest, the Pacific Northwest, and the South (excepting Florida). There will undoubtedly be massive transfer payments directed by Washington to those areas under Hispanic control in order to maintain social order and level the playing field, economically speaking, but I think a not-inconsiderable number of Anglos and blacks will view this as simply being part of the cost of doing business.
Naturally, this is unsustainable over the long run; once southern California's transformation into Tijuana north is complete, people will leave in droves looking for a place where there is a functioning society with actual jobs and we will have an internal migration problem, rather than an illegal immigration problem. The other possibility is that at some point the non-Hispanic population will say "screw it, we're better off on our own" and some sort of secession movement will gain momentum. I'll be long gone by then (I hope), but it would be interesting to see if the federal government used violence to subdue the would-be secessionists.
I am old enough to know that by the time the country really begins to fall behind and falls apart I may be gone too which is why it is so disturbing seeing the roots of it today. I come in contact with Hispanics of school age frequently and I know they are not going to contribute to the advancement of the USA.They are not competitive students. It is obvious that a disproportionate number are going to fall into lazy and or criminal ways.
There will undoubtedly be massive transfer payments directed by Washington to those areas under Hispanic control in order to maintain social order and level the playing field, economically speaking, but I think a not-inconsiderable number of Anglos and blacks will view this as simply being part of the cost of doing business.
Welfare for sterilization is the answer:
Welfare and HBD
http://www.halfsigma.com/2009/02/why-we-need-sterilization-for-welfare.html
It seems to me that conservatives have bought into the egalitarian fallacy that the typical person on welfare is not burdened by low IQ and low future time orientation genes. The only difference between liberals and conservatives is how they think they can reform welfare recipients and make them into model SWPL types.
The liberals believe that poor people are poor because they lack money. They believe that if you give poor people enough money, then they will magically start behaving like middle class people.
Conservatives also believe that they can turn poor people into middle class people. The conservative solution is to give poor people the proper incentives. They figure that if you take away their welfare money, they will then be forced to rise to the challenge of being middle class. The conservatives refuse to acknowledge that a person genetically predisposed to low intelligence and low future time orientation, furthermore corrupted by low class values, probably won't be able to rise to the challenge.
The conservative approach will probably work for some poor people, but most are hopeless. Having been raised without middle class values, it’s too late for adult poor people to acquire them.
My two-pronged solution to the problems of poverty, which would actually work if anyone bothered to implement them, is (1) sterilization as a requirement for collecting welfare; and (2) teaching children middle class values in school.
Commenters have claimed that there is no support for sterilization, so beating the drums for it is a waste of time. Well, if you look at it that way, most of my blogging is a waste of time. The problem is that people don’t believe in HBD (that's human biodiversity). All things we perceive to be “social problems” have their roots in HBD, so if you refuse to acknowledge HBD, then it’s impossible to figure out the correct solution to “social problems.”
Commenters have said that people will think that sterilization for welfare is inhumane. But how can it be more inhumane than no welfare at all? At least under my plan, people have a choice. If they don't want to be sterilized, then they have the opportunity to rise to the challenge and get a job.
Oops, wrong link:
www.halfsigma.com/2009/04/welfare-and-hbd.html
Interesting to see an estimate (~$5800 a year) of the per capita NAM 'opportunity cost' to the US economy. Otherwise, painfully predictable.
Ned,
I provided a link precisely so that people could find out who Mandy Rice-Davies was in the Profumo affair.
Mandy Rice-Davies was a 17 year old Welsh whore whose only claim to fame was f*cking the British war minister (as he was honestly known in those days), John Profumo, and consequently destroying the 'old-boy' Tory party hegemony that ruled Britain since time immemorial and bringing in Harold Wilson's socialist government (yes, in those days Labour actually WAS a real socialist party and nothe Blairite, sub-Thatcherite dog-shit we have today).
Mandy Rice-Davies was being simultaneously and independently (as the say of the birth of calculus) fucked by one Peter Rachnan, a notoroios Jew slum-landlord who rented out rubbish housing to Britain's burgeoning black population (no-one else would rent to them at that time), and who was notorious for screwing his black tenants with extortionate rents and terrorising them - famously his henchmen had an Alsatian dog that was trained to shit on beds.
Add to the salacious mix one Christine Keeler (another 17 year old whore, but better looking than Mandy), a handsome Russian naval attache/spy (who Fucked Keeler), and the well-connected 'society osteopath' Stephen Ward, black gangsters (Aloysius Gordon also fucked Keeler), and we have a perfect storm , the tabloid gift from heaven.
Mandy uttered the famous words when cross-examined in court over whetther she fucked Profumo - profumo denied it. Mandy answered to the barrister - "Well he would say that, wouldn't he", Which the tabloid press famously seized upon as an example of her insouciance.
In "Why Men Rule*", Steven Goldberg points out (Footnote 15 on Page 27) that because of the devastation of the Soviet Union during WWII, there were so few competent men left that status striving was reduced, and women were able to occupy higher positions.
Broadly similar conditions could be said to apply in the near future in the US. Because of the influx of economically useless people, quality will have less competition.
However, what is worrying is the New Deal-like policies being enacted. The last time around they were followed by WWII.
* http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0812692373/ref=ord_cart_shr?_encoding=UTF8&m=A3NQ2M0DF0SXBD&v=glance
50% of under-5's arent Hispanic; that would mean Hispanics actually outnumber whites. I think what you mean is that 50% of kids under five are non-white.