The problem with uneducated parents is that they are still very valuable for the children in terms of emotional development. The problem however is, that they tend to make critical mistakes which sometimes affect the children's development.
And to bridge those two aspects, this 'high-quality' school model might be a very good answer.
Just to be clear: Not all uneducated parents are the same and some of them might be very good parents, its just that the probability of finding problematic behavior is much higher for uneducated parents.
The only alternative is to recognize the people who start at a disadvantage and offer them compensation for that.
I don't know exactly what you mean there. Do you mean - let the kid develop sub-optimally and then when they grow up, give them a job even though they are less qualified?
Because that is an idiotic alternative. Much better to do our best to get kids as close to equality of chance as possible by providing everyone with a high quality education and health care.
If you are born out of two drug-addict parents, even if you are given the same education tools as some from middle-class parents, you will likely perform less well. It is not a breach of equality to offer special classes to such kids.
"From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" is a slogan popularised by Karl Marx.
I've always personally been open to this idea. I find families to be tribal and often problematic. I think it be nice to start seeing all children as your own, the children belong to society, and maybe we should all pay for them.
That's the dangerous way of thinking that we should avoid. Children belong to their parents, until they come out of age when they start "belonging" only to themselves. Seeing children as belonging to society is typical for totalitarian regimes (see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler_Youth)
I think the way CPS is currently done in the US is actually causing a great deal of harm to current kids whose parents are totally reasonable parents...
For the record, I don't consider this obviously true. If you search "cps horror stories", some of the results are about horrible family situations that Child Protective Services has encountered, and others are about family situations that CPS has horribly mishandled. A couple of links focusing on the latter:
https://parentalrights.org/child_protective_services/
https://lfb.org/confessions-of-an-ex-cps-agent/
I'm not sure if anyone has tried very hard to make a case that the good of CPS outweighs the bad.
Could we say that children are part of our society and that parents are their guardians and primary educators? I would like to convey that we have shifted from the "pater familias" model to something different were we recognize that children are no more properties.
Children belong with their parents. Parents belong with their children. It's mutual.
That aside:
High levels of intellectual learning are not the be-all-and-end-all; ie should not be the ultimate goal. Fulfillment of the person, and in turn of those around them, is a better outcome IMO.
Schools often focus on intellectual outcomes to set kids up for their future; but parents should watch that the kids have a measure of fulfillment now -- this is why the huge focus on attendance as the primary statistic in UK schools is so damaging IMO. Kids need an education (not necessarily in a school) but a family holiday can be a part of that education and provide a measure of enjoyment to life.
"What is this life if full of care we have no time to stand and stare, ..." (W H Davies)
I 100% agree that intellectual outcomes (and even more fitness to the job market) shouldn't be the ultimate goal. We should look back to a well rounded education. And you re quite right that education is provided in a lot of way. "It takes a village to raise a child"
It is also very hard to achieve, as even if you break up the family structure, there will be a disparity of compétences accross the education institution and will also magnify genetic advantages and handicap, things that as a society we do not feel legitimate to attribute merit.
I am open to the idea of banning inheritance though, which seems to me the most unfair family advantage out there.
"And does the touted "closing" of the black-white achievement gap persist if white students receive the same treatment?"
That would be surprising, seeing how many other biased factors there are to handicap these kids. Even pre-natal conditions are a factor there! (Uneducated and poor women are more likely to smoke while pregnant)
Now I have a child it's tempting to leave the country.
Anecdotally - growing up a single parent on <£20k a year was enough for me to have a good childhood.
Today my household will have a combined earning of nearly 3x that and the quality of life isn't 3x better. Probably only 1.5x-2x (I can now go on 2-3 holidays a year instead of 0 in my first 20 years)
In the special school, 100% of the kids/parents actively took an interest in education. In the alternatives, less than 100% did.
School quality is largely determined by the students in the school. This doesn't just mean that the performance of student X is determined by student X caring about school. The performance of student X is also determined by the fact that student Y cares or doesn't care about school.
So in all the non-special schools, there exist the sort of uncaring disruptive students who will drag down everybody. It isn't that the special school is itself somehow wonderful, but that the bad influences are excluded.
Simply put, one can not scale this solution. Providing the supposed quality school to everybody is not possible because the quality of a school is largely determined by the students.
No. They are simply stating the truth that there is no evidence it will work.
It is basic selection bias.
I think "confounding variable" would the describe the problem. Basically there are two variables that seem to affect the outcome, but since they only controlled for one of them, they can't tell if the second variable is affecting the experiment or not.
Curious -- is this something that you're not aware of? I find it odd that you end your post with "of white students receive the same treatment?"
What exactly is the gap that has been closed?
Is there still an achievement gap between these kids and white kids at similar high-involvement charter schools?
There are two pieces of evidence that, taken together, suggest that high quality schools are enough to significantly increase the achievement of poor minority students (see also Atila Abdulkadiroglu et al. (2009) and Angrist et al. (2010)). First, students who live outside the Zone garner the same benefit from attending the Promise Academy as the students inside the Zone, suggesting that proximity to the community programs is not important. Second, siblings of Promise Academy students who have access to the same community programs but were ineligible for the Promise Academy because of their age show no detectable gains in achievement.
I'm not familiar with any legal or otherwise definition that constrains what services a school can and cannot provide. There are in fact high-quality boarding schools in Europe that provide all these services and more. (In fact they provide free housing to some of their students!)
> And does the touted "closing" of the black-white achievement gap persist if white students receive the same treatment?
Why be a coward, Andrew Anglin? Why don't you just come out and say what you mean?
It is important to note in a study where the abstract suggests a community focused approach is not necessary.
They should put in the abstract: Community approach not necessary if you get the school to provide the most critical community offerings.
No, it doesn't make any sense. What do you think actually causes the gap? Is it some magical force inherent in white children?
They've shown they can eliminate the gap by addressing environmental issues like nutrition and providing more school time. That would indicate to a logical person that the gap is caused or at least correlated with precisely these deficiencies that were corrected. If other kids don't experience these deficiencies what would make you think more nutrition or more school time could increase their performance?
You mean genetics?
Why do you go straight to the absurd?
Can you not think of any other factors?
As an example what if poor early childhood nutrition maxes you out at a lower peak?
It is a fair question.