The intersectional feminist rewriting the national curriculum

As far as school models go, tbh I am not sure if we just aren't on almost entirely the wrong track.

I think for most children up to about 13 or so, the ideal is something like the old fashioned cottage school, with very little in the way of big money resources like gymnasiums and computers, but small, mixed groups of local kids with solid emphasis on basics like reading and maths, but also plenty of good stories, music, time outside in nature, as well as practical skills.

But that is so far from what we have I have no clue how we'd get there.

I feel the fathers issue is more complex, but is relevant. Fathers typically play a different role than mothers in terms of what they mean for their child's outcomes, psychologically. This is however hard to test in a way that gives very comprehensive information.

And then there is the economic issue.

Some of this comes down to the fact that when we don't see fatherhood as very important, it means more men don't see the need to stick around when things get difficult, or men who in a different age might have shaped up due to fatherhood don't see the need.

People who argue the fatherhood question, for example Glen Loury, would say that you can see a clear correlation between reduction of two parent households in the black community, and poorer outcomes and fewer gains for black families (in the US.) Now maybe that is not causal, but it seems a real possibility that I am hesitant to dismiss out of hand.

My partner, who is an Afro-Carribean working class man, who immigrated here as a young man, grew up in a very matriarchal house, and his own father was barely present. He does not think fathers are particularly important to children at all, and I think it certainly affected his relationship to his own kids (who were grown by the time I met him,) and I think has been damaging to him (something he's only understood as he got older) and to them as well, if only because they've lacked the support of one parent - but I cannot think it likely that's the only way it's had an affect. And FWIW, I think not having a present father figure, and the one that was there having children all over the place, affected his relationships with women as well.

Generally I deeply agree. Other European countries do not have our disparities of outcome. Intelligence is inherited and slates are not blank. Some are a bit smudged.
Good, well-organised knowledge-based education can help the most disadvantaged, whatever their intelligence.
Class and opportunity are what lead to success, with some academic achievement (doesn't have to be more than average). Working-class children are massively disadvantaged by an education that is skewed towards skills (knowledge leads to skills, but skills cannot be taught of themselves) and which omits as elitist the things children who go to private schools get e.g. education in the arts and drama, Classics, wide-ranging history and other humanities (not all lumped together) as well as good science and maths teaching. When state school children can all reliably get that then we will bridge the current gap. Unfortunately many in education see Classics and classical languages as elitist (when people - men mostly, sorry - who do these as degrees go far and do well), and consider e.g. Shakespeare not 'relevant'. Relevance is the curse of education. We cannot know what will be relevant but we do know what has been relevant to success, so we can teach that - except mostly we will not.

I think your general point is that the family a child comes from influences their educational outcomes. To me it is pretty clear that some factors can also be influenced by the education system but many can’t (eg genetic intelligence).

Is there a correlation between wealth and intelligence? I would say 100% and in a meritocracy that is one of the aims. But of course not every wealthy person is intelligent and it does depend on how you define intelligence. On average though, kids who have wealthy parents are likely to benefit from the material ability to buy opportunities, as well as the genetic advantages of parents who are intelligent/hardworking, as well as a culture that values education. It is impossible to eliminate this type of advantage completely, unless you want a dystopian level of state intervention.

And in fact you wouldn’t want to: parental interest is what powers the education system. If you remove it (in the same way kin-caring has been removed from hospitals, for example), the state will have to compensate for every child. It’s much better if the state only has to compensate for the parents who can’t/won’t show an interest.

@cupcaske123

Yes, I agree with all of that.

(I usually use IQ and intelligence as synonyms, but I agree with you that environment, parenting, etc all play a role in shaping that).

Children who go to private schools tend to do better than those who don't. Their parents tend to be wealthy. Wealth isn't necessarily an indicator of intelligence, some children inherit businesses or money, get into good careers through knowing the right people and of course there's the old school tie.

A private school also provides many amenities a state school does not and instills confidence. It gives children more opportunities to discover talents and abilities. Wealthy parents may also be able to introduce their children to more cultural activities and travel than their less wealthy counterparts.

When universities were free, many children from deprived backgrounds went on to develop successful careers for themselves and were the first in their families to get a degree. That wasn't because their parents didn't have a high IQ, it was because they may have come from working class backgrounds where it was expected that they'd go straight into work from a young age.

IQ isn't the only factor when it comes to intelligence. A person's environment is a strong influence. Things that contribute towards intelligence include, home environment, parenting, education and availability of learning resources, and healthcare and nutrition. Both genetic factors and environment play a part in a child's intelligence.

Key excerpts from a bbc report 18 months ago:

Overcrowded specialist schools: ‘We’re teaching in cupboards’ www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-64418797

The shortage of places in special educational needs schools is a problem across the UK, with unprecedented demand for support.

Advances in life expectancy, more awareness and better diagnosis means there are now more children and young people with needs that are difficult to meet within mainstream schools. The pandemic has added to a system already under pressure.

Over the past five years, the number of children and young people being educated in specialist schools and colleges in England has increased by nearly a third - to 142,028 last year.

We found that just over half (52%) of SEND schools had more children in classes than their number of commissioned places.

Nationwide, the number of pupils with EHCPs has risen by 50% since 2016, to just over 355,500 last year.

Money for specialist schools comes from the high needs funding given to councils. Per pupil funding at specialist schools starts at £10,000 per child and is topped up further depending on need.

If a school takes on more pupils above their commissioned places, it won't necessarily receive the full high-needs funding for each additional child - that's a decision for the local authority.

Despite an extra £400m in high-needs funding announced in the Autumn Statement, the Local Government Association (LGA) says councils are facing "significant financial challenges" and need long-term certainty over funding to support children with SEND.

Louise Gittins, a councillor and chairwoman of the LGA's children and young people board, has told the BBC that if no action is taken, councils will be in deficit by £3.6bn on SEND spending by 2025.

What's actually happening is that private companies are setting up send schools and alternative provisions left right and centre for children who've no appropriate place in state send schools.

It's costing some LAs as much as 70,000 per pupil to send them there.

This is an old article from 2017 describing the issue back then. schoolsweek.co.uk/private-special-school-places-cost-480-million-per-year/

@cupcaske123

I agree 100% with your first two paragraphs.

In your final paragraph, it depends what you mean by no evidence.

There is extremely strong evidence that IQ is heritable. And extremely strong evidence that IQ correlates positively with educational success (which is what I take you mean by “successful”. Many other types of success exist, of course).

It's about providing flexibility of opportunities. Which needs a carefully constructed education system. It's a lot of work. (Unfortunately from my pov standardised testing creates the opposite focus within education.)

It also starts at eyfs. And a much much much better send system. I just don't think there's the money to do it.

It would be a brave government who really prioritised education in this way.

Also, the arts are well known for supporting better engagement, as is PE, but simply doesn't have the funding. And we also need teachers who are skilled in these areas, specialists, at primary level. And very skilled at eyfs level.

There could be many reasons why someone of high intelligence doesn't succeed for example, disability, deprived background, lack of encouragement from parents, poor teaching, addiction, abuse etc

There are also many examples of children from less wealthy backgrounds doing very well at university and going on to have successful careers. There are also many examples of children from wealthy backgrounds who don't do well.

Children tend to do well at school when they have supportive parents, irrespective of how successful those parents are. There is no evidence to back up the assertion that parents of low intelligence have unsuccessful children.

Hang on. I didn’t insult you. I asked what you were familiar with so I could help explain. It’s not a given that everyone on MN understands statistical concepts, especially if they’ve said they have no idea at all what a post means.

Anyway:

People who have a high IQ tend to have higher family incomes than average, and tend to have higher-IQ children than average. Higher-IQ children tend to have better educational outcomes. On average.

That means, all else equal, that we should expect a link between family income and educational attainment.

There will be many, many exceptions to this, of course. Tend to doesn’t mean must, but the pattern is there.

I support policies to help all children succeed to the best of their abilities, and I would expect many poor children to do extremely well, and that is a great thing to be celebrated. I also support policies that help people who don’t have high academic achievement too.

But to want to break the link between family income and educational attainment implies to me a desire to bring that correlation to zero.

I think that would be a very bad idea, as it would imply the state doing things that I think are too much.

For example, it could try to break the link between parental IQ and income (maybe by paying all jobs the same). Or between parental IQ and child IQ (really hard to see how this could be done). Or between IQ and educational attainment (perhaps by reducing the curriculum to the easiest bits only). I would strongly oppose all of those.

That means that the outcome we should expect in a fair world would still have a significant degree of correlation.

But, worse, I think if an expert is starting from the wrong assumption about what a fair outcome would look like, they are likely to come up with policy suggestions that actually do harm. Or that fail to do as much good as they could.

I see. Is there evidence to back this up?

I think the point is clear @cupcaske123 . There is a link between the family of origin and children’s educational achievement, due to factors that can’t be eliminated (eg parental intelligence). Attempting to break this link completely is unrealistic.

Of course, are you familiar with the concept of clarity of thought?

No.

I’m happy to explain, but to help me do so, could you tell me first if you are familiar with the concept of correlation?

I have no idea what you're talking about. It's very difficult to follow your argument. You seem to be suggesting that only children from wealthy families can achieve at school and those from less wealthy can't and that's inevitable because of their background.

Is that correct?

@the2andahalfmillion I wouldn’t use the words inevitably predestined, but I do think that there are entirely non-nefarious reasons why we should expect family wealth and educational achievement to correlate to a significant degree.

I think trying to help all children achieve more (including those with ‘good’ factors and those without) is a very worthy cause.

But ‘breaking the link’ to me implies reducing correlation to materially zero (it wasn’t ‘weakening the link’).

That would imply unacceptably (to me) massive state intervention to achieve.

And even if incrementally, starting from the wrong model hinders attempts to produce policies that actually help.

From the right, for example, it justifies socially damaging up-by-bootstraps judgmentalism. And from the left, socially damaging insinuations that if people who come from any but the poorest homes succeed, they must be cheating.

If I took as my aim to break the link between height and basketball success, I’d waste a massive amount of effort, and produce a lot of frustration and blame, versus taking as my goal improving everyone’s sporting ability.

Well, @GeneralPeter it rather reads as if you are saying children are inevitably predestined to a significant degree, to meet the same fates as their parents. Do explain if that isn’t what you mean.

Which point that you think I’m making are you disagreeing with?

*percieved

And also, don’t forget the persuasive power of male privilege. None of the boys at my poor, white comp in the 1980s gave a rats nadge about education unless they had educated parents. They knew they could make plenty of money anyway in a trade, semi skilled profession etc. That’s what 80% did, and it appears things haven’t changed that much going on what I see in the destinations of male children of my school friends who stayed in our small town.

perceives options for girls in a similar position were and still are much more limited. Unskilled girls will be fucked unless they are OK with a gas fitter apprenticeship. Unskilled boys will probably be fine if they have a good work ethic and some common sense.

Of course blank slate-ism is stupid. intelligence is highly heritable. But it’s a complete nonsense to think the ‘most intelligent’ do best in life because of their intelligence and genes, and those who do poorly so so because of a lack of braincells.

You are the one who is showing your ignorance of evidence. Lots of countries in Europe have a much weaker link between parental outcomes/ economic status/ education and child’s outcomes/ economic status/ education than does the UK. We are completely backwards. And lots of incredibly averagely-intellectually endowed children from ultra privileged backgrounds go on to be very successful. It really isn’t because of a genetic advantage!

No, I don't think downgrading the arts has had any effect on disengagement of ethnic minorities, either. But children are no longer getting a rounded education, they are getting a lop-sided one which only fits them for the job market. That is not the purpose of education.

Young is such a berk. Defines himself in opposition to his father, who wrote the 1945 Labour Party Manifesto.