Charles Murray, co-author of the infamous The Bell Curve, has written a series of three new essays for the Wall Street Journal about intelligence and education in America:
The third one contains this rather startling fact:
"In 2006, the Department of Education spent about $84 billion. The only program to improve the education of the gifted got $9.6 million, one-hundredth of 1% of expenditures. In the 2007 budget, President Bush zeroed it out."
These are well worth the read for anyone interested in education and social policy in America, independant of whether or not you agree with The Bell Curve.
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 4:01 am Posts: 19477 Location: Brooklyn NY
Good articles, thanks for the link. He probably could have elaborated some of his points further.
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LittleWing sometime in July 2007 wrote:
Unfortunately, it's so elementary, and the big time investors behind the drive in the stock market aren't so stupid. This isn't the false economy of 2000.
I agree with a lot of what was said in those articles. The top 10% of students are going to be the future leaders of our country in all major fields. Those students need rigorous training and need to be challenged. Trying to lump them into classes with other kids who aren't as smart isn't fair to either group. To use myself as an example. I always did really well at school as a child and went to a private liberal arts school. It was only when I hit college level math courses did I hit an intellectual wall and realized that there are things that I won't excel at. I gravitated toward other courses and got a degree in English. I gained a lot of wisdom from knowing that I had just barely scratched the surface of how much info was out there. It was humbling to know that I would probably never master math concepts past calculus, but once I made peace with it, I moved on. The kids that do understand that stuff need to be challenged and given opportunities to use that knowledge for the good of all of the country.
_________________ "Relaxed, but Edgy" - Ed, Raleigh, NC April, 2003
Joined: Thu Dec 16, 2004 1:54 am Posts: 7189 Location: CA
Quote:
The allocation of this human capital can be criticized--it would probably be better for the nation if more of the gifted went into the sciences and fewer into the law.
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