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I understand what you're trying to say. The youngest siblings can have the advantage of seeings their older siblings success/failure and then attempt to emulate, or avoid that. They can also fall into the trap of being taken care of by the older siblings.

>> Especially when you have such a disparity in age: from 42 years old to 18 years old.

You're making the assumption that the successful children are all similar in age. They're not.

>> As a result, my oldest brother's only option was public school in an underfunded district for grades 1-12. College was out of the qusetion, even if he could make it!

None of your brothers classmates made it beyond high school?

Interesting, I'd be all for hearing more about your observations. Feel free to shoot me an email: [HN name].morris1 'at' gmail.

>> None of your brothers classmates made it beyond high school?

I can't say for sure because it's difficult to find the statistics from back then. The difference in expectations between the schools is definitely palpable. (I tutored there throughout HS.) Even in comparison today, his school's graduation rate is 63% and is ranked 482nd out of 489 districts by state assessment scores, while my school has a graduation rate of 94% and ranks in the top 5%.

>Even in comparison today, his school's graduation rate is 63% and is ranked 482nd out of 489 districts by state assessment scores, while my school has a graduation rate of 94% and ranks in the top 5%.

I am curious if you believe that this is because the schools was a bad school (under-funded, bad teachers and administrators), or because the parents of the kids that attended there were generally lower than average quality parents? (on drugs, welfare baby mommas, abusive, spend all their free time watching TV and not disciplining or spending any time with their children, non loving, single parent with 3 jobs to make ends meat, ETC.)

The problem is that you cannot say whether your older brother is the way he is because of a lifetime of crummy public schooling or just because he's wired that way. The age old causation vs correlation issue.

All else equal (in this case, primarily your family), I don't think school quality has much to do with whether you are relatively dysfunctional as an adult. Family values, work ethic, and god-given intelligence probably make up 95% of your outcome in life.

School quality absolutely has a big impact on how well you do in life, that's not even a question. If you go to a school where most of your classmates read 2 or 3 grades below grade level and your teachers struggle every day to maintain order in the class, much less teach the actual subjects, of course it hurts the students. When you go to a school that is overrun with gangs and you have to take care when walking home from school lest you get gunned down, that certainly makes it far more difficult to do well in school.

A kid's upbringing and environment at home also play very large factors. Truth is that all of those things matter.

I think whether or not someone does well in life is game of probabilities. If you go to a bad school, it lowers your probability of doing well in life. If they have great parents maybe that cancels out that negative, maybe it doesn't. Some people will beat the odds and do well at a bad school with bad parenting. But that doesn't mean that access to a quality school doesn't have a big impact.

Well, I suppose you are right, but you have to cite an extreme case of literally worrying about getting murdered every day. Do those schools exist? Yes, but they are few and far between, and there is a world of difference between "underfunded" and the case you're citing. Since the original comment made no mention of a gangland war zone at his brother's school (seems relevant to the story) I assumed this was not the case, though I could be wrong in which case I'll concede the point.

Does school quality have an impact? Sure, I think around the edges it does. It can certainly grease the wheels. But over time the people who are wired properly for success (good values, work ethic, god-given intelligence) usually figure out a way. Perhaps more accurately, they don't live relatively dysfunctional adult lives and are unable to hold "neck down" jobs.

Just to provide context, underfunded was my nice way of saying exactly what you describe. Kids have been stabbed and gun fights have broken out inside the school.

That was my fault for not making it clear, I apologize.

Thanks for the clarification. As I said, in these extreme cases then yes, I do believe school plays a larger role than normal.

Also, to further clarify, I think the more important issue with school isn't so much the quality of the learning going on or what material is being taught or whether every classroom has smartboard or whatever. I think it has far more to do with the nature of the kids you're surrounded with, whether one starts hanging out with the wrong crowd which can corrupt all those other things (iq, family values, etc).

Yes but do good values and work ethic come from genetics? I would argue no. That comes from the enviroment you grow up in, from your parents and siblings, to your peers, to your community.

When we're talking school quality there are a couple of different components. Funding isn't a good metric as the United States spends a lot per student but gets worse results than many other countries (not unlike our healthcare system). I think there are a lot of systemic improvements to be made on that front.

When we're talking about the significantly below average schools in the United States, those are absolutely producing worse outcomes for the kids that come out of them. Some of them will succeed anyway but that doesn't mean improving the school wouldn't lift up many of the others who struggle now.

> A kid's upbringing and environment at home also play very large factors.

I think you vastly overestimate the importance of those things. Decades of twin studies show the impact of shared environment on life outcome to be pretty small. See Judith Rich Harris' work for more info.

I'd have to view that with a large grain of salt. I'm sure there are a lot of innate components of personality that are genetic. And those components of personality do make a big difference in life outcomes. But at the same time there are a lot of home enviromental factors that I've seen make a big difference in children's lives.

For one, if you have parents who got you started reading and doing math early, you're going to have an advantage going into school. If you get school and are ahead of your peers, you're more likely to get extra attention or to be put into gifted and talented programs, which will in turn, reinforce that advantage.

Kids who come from disrupted or abusive households are going to be at an undeniable disadvantage. Kids from families that don't teach them the value of education are more likely not to value education. Kids from families with poor work habits are more likely to have poor work habits.

Again, it doesn't mean that 100% of kids who don't learn to read by 2 and have 2 perfect parents are going to fail, it just means it is harder for those kids to succeed. If that wasn't the case, parents shouldn't bother putting much effort into parenting at all. "Welp son, I hope the genes I gave ya will do ya some good, you're on your own. I'm sure you'll figure out how to feed and clothe yourself..."

Value of education depends a great lot on other aspects of personality and circumstances and at least to me, is not undeniable (while for most people, it has some value).

Education gets you some extra miles in the low-middle class range, like, you are more likely to get to mid-middle class if you were low-middle without it. It won't save you from poverty, and it won't make you rich. None of the moderately rich/high middle class people i know are well-educated. If they have anything in common then it's that they are smart and sociopathic.

Education itself even doesn't much improve chances to get a good career as an employee, most Ph.D. and MBAs i know are wasting their time doing mundane pseudo-intellectual work for meager pay. While i know senior and top management in large and powerful corporations, earning ca. million a year, without any business or economic degrees (one of them has a programmer diploma by the way). Just people who have a habit of getting work done, reliable and proactive. Be like that and nobody will ask you which school have you finished.

Proof: median income of a Ph.D. is not even 2x the median income of an American in general.

http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm

And Ph.D. are a high elite when an education attainment in concerned, under 50,000 are graduated each year, compared to 4.1 million Americans reaching age of 25 each year. So Ph.D.s are top 1.2% and getting under 2x as much as median. Top 1% population gets 1.6 million a year on average compared to under 50k median - a difference of about 30x. Even if you compare thresholds it is over 10x. So an highly elite education does not get you into a highly elite social class, or does not get you even a marginally comfortable life. It definitely gets you SOMEWHERE, but probably to a very, very low degree (difference is not even 2x if you remember that an average guy is mentally incapable of becoming a Ph.D. - he is just plain too dumb. so if someone capable of making it did something else instead he will anyways earn somewhat more than median guy will, it is impossible to tell how much more, but somewhat more for sure). In my opinion it is 1.5x difference max.

But it is fair to say, "you are assuming the kids had equal opportunities and environments, here is my story in which they clearly did not". Maybe the schools were of equal quality, but we can't assume that.

Really? You don't see why being warehoused and told to shut up for 12 years, as opposed to being gently cultivated like an orchid, provided with interesting literature and opportunities for scientific observation and experimentation, might be different?

I had a pretty good public school education. But I got to go to a fancy private school for one day when my parents were searching for options that would challenge me -- I was bored in one of my schools (even though it was in a foreign language) and they were afraid I'd start performing poorly just because I was bored. That one day at the private school... it was so pretty, and the chairs were comfortable, and there were so many books, and there was a tasty lunch cooked there at the school, with vegetables, and they had small classes, and people were so nice, and there were so many books! And their science labs worked!

My high school gave me a great education despite the fact that we had so many students in classes that we sat on the floor or in the windowsills, we only had one set of history books for three classes of European history so we couldn't take them home, I never sat at a table during my 18 minute lunches because there weren't enough tables (and lunches were 18 minutes because they split the school into 3 shifts so we could all fit in the lunchroom more or less). It was a great education because of the teachers in the "good" classes. In the "lower" classes the teachers were not good and I still get crap for bringing a pillow to school so I could sleep in first period health.

Yeah I'm super-great & made good choices & am virtuous and hard-working and "wired right." But I also didn't have to eat the school lunch crap, got some great teachers to counteract some of the warehousing I experienced in our public schools, and got exposure to STEM possibilities through a nearby college rather than wasting 5 years in stultifying math classes that my friends went through. Classes in which their grades went up once they started skipping and working with me during study hall instead.

Interestingly, both of you highlight other factors aside from your ethnic background as the main reason for success or failure. So then, what is the difference between white and east Asians vs black/latino/south east Asians?

(I add the split between Asian groups because there is definitely a difference in prosperity)

Good question. It's one that puzzles me every day. While my ethnic background appears to have had no bearing on my life, it most certainly affected my parents' lives.

>> While my ethnic background appears to have had no bearing on my life

Of course it has. You have to realize that everyone you encounter in your life is going to judge you differently based on your height, weight, clothes, skin color, hairstyle, and even your name.

When you go for a job interview or on a sales call, people are going to have pre-concieved notions and their judgement affected by the name on your email signature. If you're 'Tom Gomez' or 'Dave Johnson' you're going to have pretty good head start over someone named 'Alejandra DeJesus Valtierra' or 'Wumi Hassan Abdullah'.

If you're good and you can get past that, people don't care. You'll become 'my friend Hassan', or 'I know that guy with the dreads, I should introduce you'. But as unfair as it is, and it shouldn't be, it does affect first impressions. We're all guilty of it.

Your typical 'successful' Asian student most likely had the stereotypical strict Asian parents who placed school success very highly. Obviously all the parents aren't like that and you get Asian kids who join gangs and such.

as an African-American your comment rubs me the wrong way

Can you briefly expand on why/how your ethnicity factors into your displeasure with his comment?

>> The truth is blacks and Latinos need to step it up.

This generalized statement, specifically. I don't enjoy treating "blacks" as a group anymore than I like seeing "latinos" or "whites" treated as one. Most situations are unique to an individual.

Ok. I suspected it was something along those lines, but I wasn't quite sure as your specific objection to his logic was nothing to do with ethnicity.

So your parents sent your middle brother to private school from first grade on and simultaneously kept your oldest brother in a stink hole situation?

That sounds pretty rough. Why didn't they put the oldest in private school instead? Surely by 7th grade you can see that there are problems there. Perhaps by 12 grade in the private school, he could have turned things around.

Perhaps it was the mere fact that the younger brother was given such preferential treatment that the older never became successful.

Perhaps it was the fact that your parents became better parents with more experience, or because they were less stressed out since they did not have the financial hardship that they had before.

I am not trying to discount your story, but the problem lies in the fact that it can be compared with plenty of other similar situations as yours but having completely different results (the kids in public school fared better in life).

Quality of school definitely CAN have a profound effect on a child's life. But in my experience and personal observation, this is only because of a failure on the parenting side. If a child is reared with enough love and enough wisdom, discipline and vision is imparted into them before, and during the school years - they will do fine if they are in a run down inner city school, or a middle class private school.

So maybe you say that this is unfair that some parents have to raise their kids with such diligence to have them succeed, while some others don't (because of economic factors).

Trust me, the kid and parents in the situation where extra attention is needed to enhance the likelihood of success in the child's life are better off and happier people than a wealthy parent that hires a nanny to raise their kids and sends them to private school. Which situation is true parenting after all? Which kid will carry on a true legacy of their parents and hold their ideals and values continuing their legacy?

>> Surely by 7th grade you can see that there are problems there. Perhaps by 12 grade in the private school, he could have turned things around.

My parents didn't have the money to pay for private school. Both myself and my middle brother earned fully paid scholarships. They tried to send my oldest brother to the same private school, but due to his entrance exams, that would've required $20K a year that they didn't have.

You're right, we don't know what the cause is. Whether it's the school or the parents, my point was that you can't just look at an individual and tell them to "step it up." It's not that simple.

You earned a scholarship in kindergarten?