Hacker News Reader

Comment by roguecoder | Hacker News Reader

Except that even those things don't predict later success. Any kid with a family that can afford books will score higher on "can this kid read English". Any kid who's been drilled can learn to multiply two numbers together. Without cognitive skills behind them, though, those are not useful abilities.

The best predictors of future success are self-control, emotional intelligence and a grasp of functional algebra (which I believe, but don't have evidence to support, is because of the importance of computational and systems-level thinking.) Only one of those, self-control, is even indirectly measured by current standardized tests.

View on HN

> Without cognitive skills behind them, though, [multiplication, reading] are not useful abilities.

Maybe I misunderstand you, but I fail to see how multiplication or reading are not useful skills. Good reading comprehension will help you navigate life in general, which is something lots of people struggle with. Similar for multiplication.

Even if someone is not very intelligent, if he's mastered a basic skill like that, he'll find lots of places to apply it. That's why there's so much emphasis in school on them.

From my work teaching I am very skeptical of the notion that it is a family's ability to "afford" books that makes the difference. It is whether the family knows that books are important and chooses to get them and read with their children. While monetary poverty is horrible, it's effect on educational outcome is dwarfed in comparison to cultural dysfunction and despair.

Yeah, the monetary poverty theory doesn't hold up when it comes to the case of poor Asian (or African) immigrants. Although it certainly plays some role when all other things are equal, I think the major issue to be tackled is the glorification of thug life and demonization of education in contemporary African American culture.

Sorry, that was unclear: the study I was thinking of specifically looked at giving poor families children's books and founded a measurable improvement in English skills. Of course access to a library that is open when a parent doesn't have to work, the time and energy to read to children and many other factors also play a role in early exposure to literacy.

> Any kid with a family that can afford books will score higher on "can this kid read English".

True, but there are also many families that can afford books but don't buy them, instead spending money on other things. Not having books in the house has been shown to correlate with decreased academic success.[1] I'm not saying this isn't a wealth issue, but that probably isn't the only dimension.

[1] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0276562410...

I think it's worth emphasizing that the research done in this article doesn't look at kids' absolute test scores, but only the difference between test scores before and after the school year.

Also, my school emphasized self-control, but how do you learn emotional intelligence?

While it is a relatively recent topic of interest, surprisingly it doesn't seem particularly difficult to teach. Much of the research is still in the preliminary stages, but one study found persistent improvement after a brief four-session intervention: http://orbi.ulg.ac.be/bitstream/2268/30253/1/Nelis%20PAID%20...

It will take further work to associate learning such skills with the positive outcomes associated with the skills themselves and figure out what the best ways to teach the skills are, but current research is promising.

Cool, thanks!

I didn't read that as saying that testing can predict (outstanding) success. I read it as saying that testing can detect (outstanding) failure.

If a student does at least moderately well on standardized tests, there's a decent chance they'll do at least moderately well later in life.

If most of a teacher's students flunk completely on the standardized tests, the teacher probably isn't doing a very good job.

>Any kid with a family that can afford books will score higher on "can this kid read English".

I don't think this is true. Those who can't afford books can goto the public library and get them.

Plus, books are really really really cheap. Go to any Goodwill or Salvation Army or Once Upon A Child and you will find gobs and gobs of books at very cheap prices. Yes, even undamaged.

We toss lots of books in the trash in America, not because we hate books, but because we make so many of them and then need to make room for the new books.

"Able to afford books" was once a status symbol. It's not any more.

This was more a correlation than causation (see Freakonomics for a description). Typically, families that can't afford books have other general issues that preclude their children from doing well (for example, they are poor, their parents typically work more than 1 job and can't spend much time with their children, etc).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com