thowawayanother's comments

thowawayanother | 12 years ago | on: Measuring America's Decline, in Three Charts

There's a disturbing issue not to think seriously about the causes of educational inequalities at all, at least not to the point where people weigh more than one hypothesis.

I've found the writings of a high school teacher under the name "education realist" to be thought-provoking. That's where I got this link from. He may be a Voldemort[1], but he's an honest one.

[1] http://www.nas.org/articles/Achievement_Gap_Politics

thowawayanother | 12 years ago | on: Measuring America's Decline, in Three Charts

In the United States, low income whites perform better than high income blacks on the SAT - it's not a fact I suggest you go around citing at parties[1]

" Blacks from families with incomes of more than $100,000 had a mean SAT score that was 85 points below the mean score for whites from all income levels, 139 points below the mean score of whites from families at the same income level, and 10 points below the average score of white students from families whose income was less than $10,000."

[1] http://www.jbhe.com/features/49_college_admissions-test.html

thowawayanother | 12 years ago | on: Measuring America's Decline, in Three Charts

If the United States is becoming a Latin American country, why would you expect it to have macrostatistics comparable to Finland?

It would be interesting to see international test scores from 1960, when the US was ~90% people of European descent. I would bet the US would compare closer to Europe on those. The demographic changes in the US over the last 50 years have been huge, and you can't ignore them in international comparisons.

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