As I need to say by writing my review, we are succeeding pretty well now, and by ignoring demographics Caplan basically elides reality. Also, the past success of our education system has much to do with the difficulty of educating poor.https://twitter.com/bryan_caplan/status/1011630336093097986 …
-
Next, 1/3 of adults barely literate includes non-Americans, who can't really be expected to know English. Moreover, black literacy has consistently improved over the past 30 years, based on the same study you cites.
Even within each ethnic group, the changes in basic skills are slight, and the absolute level of basic skills is terrible. Marginal improvements are always welcome, but if we want to rate education's overall effectiveness, we should look at absolute levels.pic.twitter.com/drOB6NgUcm
-
-
In your book, you didn't even mention improvements, marginal or otherwise, which allows you to not mention race/ethnicity at all. By avoiding race/ethnicity, you can act as if "poor students shouldn't go to college" applies to all equally.
-
When in fact, the people who would find it worthwhile to go to college would be predominantly white and Asian, while the people who you would advise not to go would be predominantly black and Hispanic.
-
Were anyone to point out the implications of your policy--namely, massively reduce funding for blacks and Hispanics--your book would have gotten much more attention, but it would have been something like "Caplan hates blacks".
-
Furthermore, there's a huge interim step you neglect that would do a lot to reduce the underperformance of college--namely, colleges should have standards. But they don't. Including your own. Why not call for a basic ability level for college?
-
Fefore you decide to kill all education funding by unilaterally declaring against all historic precedence that education is utilitarian only, you might try a smaller step and call for an end to college funding for those who can't meet a particular standard?
-
This would also be unpopular, as it would similarly and disproportionately reduce black and Hispanic college participation (to say nothing of college sports) but it's far more achievable.
-
And then there's your push for open borders. I'm frankly shocked that no one has pointed out that by calling for both open borders and an end to all education funding, you're creating an insanely dystopian future for most Americans who lack either wealth or intelligence.
End of conversation
New conversation -
Loading seems to be taking a while.
Twitter may be over capacity or experiencing a momentary hiccup. Try again or visit Twitter Status for more information.