Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
This is from a book written five years ago, but I think some of the material is as relevant today as ever. Here they are, in a nutshell:
1. (Student) Ability varies.
2. Half of the children are below average.
3. Too many people are going to college.
4. America's future depends on how we educate the academically gifted.
I haven't read the book and I think it's important that we're careful about how we apply these "truths," but it seems like these are things that are worth having a conversation/debate about instead of simply accepting the current narrative and expectations that are in many ways unrealistic.
Why should Murray's ideas be given any more credence than any other political writer's self-serving screed? He's a right wing intellectual pushing his political agenda.
This is from a book written five years ago, but I think some of the material is as relevant today as ever. Here they are, in a nutshell:
1. (Student) Ability varies.
2. Half of the children are below average.
3. Too many people are going to college.
4. America's future depends on how we educate the academically gifted.
I haven't read the book and I think it's important that we're careful about how we apply these "truths," but it seems like these are things that are worth having a conversation/debate about instead of simply accepting the current narrative and expectations that are in many ways unrealistic.
1. Earth shattering news.
2. False. Four students score 1, 7, 8, 9. Average is 25/4 = 6.25. Only one is below average.
3. What does "Too many" mean?
4. America's future depends on many things, one of with is how the academically gifted are educated.
This is from a book written five years ago, but I think some of the material is as relevant today as ever. Here they are, in a nutshell:
1. (Student) Ability varies.
2. Half of the children are below average.
3. Too many people are going to college.
4. America's future depends on how we educate the academically gifted.
I haven't read the book and I think it's important that we're careful about how we apply these "truths," but it seems like these are things that are worth having a conversation/debate about instead of simply accepting the current narrative and expectations that are in many ways unrealistic.
Murray wrote a more recent book which revised his statement that "America's future depends on how we educate the academically gifted."
He realized that the super problem for America is that we are NOT getting married and half the country is composed of Single Mothers, divorced women, and worse, step-fathers.
Every social problem today can be brought the door of these fatherless children:
[
Statistics on Fatherlessness
CHILDREN NEED BOTH PARENTS
It’s a Fact
Here’s why:
85% of all youths sitting in prisons grew up in a fatherlesshome. (Source: Fulton County Georgia jail populations, Texas Dept. OfCorrections, 1992)
63% of youth suicides are from fatherless homes. (Source:U.S. D.H.H.S., Bureau of the Census).
90% of all homeless and runaway children are from fatherless homes.
85% of all children that exhibit behavioral disorders comefrom fatherless homes.
(Source: Center for Disease Control
80% of rapist motivated by displaced anger come fromfatherless homes.
(Source:
Criminal Justice and Behavior, Vol. 14, pp. 403-26).
71% of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes. (Source: National Principals Assoc. Report on the State of High Schools).
These statistics translate to mean that children fromfatherless homes are:
5 times more likely to commit suicide
32 times more likely to run away
20 times more likely to have behavioral disorders
14 times more likely to commit rape 9 times more likely to drop out of high school
20 times more likely to end up in prison
Children from "fatherless families of single mother" homes are:
• 15.3 times more likely to have behavioral disorders
• 4.6 times more likely to commit suicide
• 6.6 times more likely to become teenaged mothers
• 24.3 times more likely to run away
• 15.3 times more likely to have behavioral disorders
• 6.3 times more likely to be in a state-operated institutions
• 10.8 times more likely to commit rape
• 15.3 times more likely to end up in prison while a teenage
• 73% of adolescent murderers come from mother only homes
• 6.3 times morelikely to be in state operated institutions
Daughters who live in mother only homes are 92% more likely to divorce
Last edited by cupid dave; 11-25-2013 at 09:06 AM..
Why should Murray's ideas be given any more credence than any other political writer's self-serving screed? He's a right wing intellectual pushing his political agenda.
Because he has empirical data and legitimate statistical analysis to back up everything in his books. Have you actually read Coming Apart?
Murray wrote a more recent book which revised his statement that "America's future depends on how we educate the academically gifted."
He realized that the super problem for America is that we are NOT getting married and half the country is composed of Single Mothers, divorced women, and worse, step-fathers.
Every social problem today can be brought the door of these fatherless children:
[
Statistics on Fatherlessness
CHILDREN NEED BOTH PARENTS
It’s a Fact
Here’s why:
85% of all youths sitting in prisons grew up in a fatherlesshome. (Source: Fulton County Georgia jail populations, Texas Dept. OfCorrections, 1992)
63% of youth suicides are from fatherless homes. (Source:U.S. D.H.H.S., Bureau of the Census).
90% of all homeless and runaway children are from fatherless homes.
85% of all children that exhibit behavioral disorders comefrom fatherless homes.
(Source: Center for Disease Control
80% of rapist motivated by displaced anger come fromfatherless homes.
(Source:
Criminal Justice and Behavior, Vol. 14, pp. 403-26).
71% of all high school dropouts come from fatherless homes. (Source: National Principals Assoc. Report on the State of High Schools).
These statistics translate to mean that children fromfatherless homes are:
5 times more likely to commit suicide
32 times more likely to run away
20 times more likely to have behavioral disorders
14 times more likely to commit rape 9 times more likely to drop out of high school
20 times more likely to end up in prison
Children from "fatherless families of single mother" homes are:
• 15.3 times more likely to have behavioral disorders
• 4.6 times more likely to commit suicide
• 6.6 times more likely to become teenaged mothers
• 24.3 times more likely to run away
• 15.3 times more likely to have behavioral disorders
• 6.3 times more likely to be in a state-operated institutions
• 10.8 times more likely to commit rape
• 15.3 times more likely to end up in prison while a teenage
• 73% of adolescent murderers come from mother only homes
• 6.3 times morelikely to be in state operated institutions
Daughters who live in mother only homes are 92% more likely to divorce
When they started the "don't stay married for the sake of the kids" idea that is when a lot of these numbers took off.
Please no anecdotal evidence responses that your a good step father, your single mom was different, you had a single mom and are successful, etc.
Marriage, or rather who you marry, is the biggest decision a person makes and 1/2 screw it up. That is what needs to change.
My mother and my aunt were both life-long teachers. They told me the following: They could predict (approximately) how well a student might do by whether or not he came from an intact two-parent family, or, moving down the hierarchy, whether the separated/divorced father was active in the child's life, or, at the bottom, whether anyone knew who the father actually was. Yes, there were individual exceptions . . .
When they started the "don't stay married for the sake of the kids" idea that is when a lot of these numbers took off.
Please no anecdotal evidence responses that your a good step father, your single mom was different, you had a single mom and are successful, etc.
Marriage, or rather who you marry, is the biggest decision a person makes and 1/2 screw it up. That is what needs to change.
Why not? Good social scientists actually do polls and interviews to gather original data rather than simply find statistics that fit their predetermined conclusions. This book is simply another lament on "how the US is going to hell in a hand basket because of the underclass" from a right-wing psuedo intellectual trying to sell some books. How is his current "thesis" any different from the agenda he was pushing twenty years ago in The Bell Curve or thirty years ago in Losing Ground?
Why would I waste my money to support some pop-political writer?
Has his work been peer reviewed? No. That's because his "peers" are talking heads on TV, politicians, and other writers of political polemics.
You are quite wrong. The work that Murray draws from and synthesizes has been published in every peer-reviewed journal relevant to the subject at hand. His doctorate is from MIT -- talking TV heads and politicians are not his peers.
Compare his work to that of, say, George Will and Robert Reich. Will and Reich, who are both brilliant, and who are the political opposites of each other, both argue more-or-less deductively from sets of (different) principles that they hold to be true. Murray, on the other hand, argues inductively from empirical data and statistical analysis. You would know this if you had ever read any of his work (seriously, that might be a necessary condition for holding a competent opinion about his books -- the critic might have read at least one of them before opining on their merits).
Regarding the Bell Curve -- as I mentioned above, the first author (Herrnstein) was a long-tenured, full professor holding an endowed chair in psychology at Harvard, who published widely in the most highly esteemed peer-reviewed journals. I am afraid that it is a bit of an overreach for an anonymous internet poster to challenge his competence and expect anyone to take her seriously.
Talents may come out on their own, but they only soar if they are harnessed and prefected. It is from our best and brightest that all our innovations come. This is not to say that we shouldn't educate our bottom, work to get the most out of them, make sure they get as many of the basic skills as possible, or meet their needs, just that we can't continue to ignore the top. We especially need to stop teaching to the bottom. At minimum, we at least need to go back to teaching to the middle.
Every child should be nurtured to reach his/her potential. I think that one of Murray's points is that we spend a disproportionate amount of resources on the bottom and that it usually comes at the expense of those at the top. Can anyone argue that this is a mischaracterization of educational policy in the United States in the past 10-15 years?
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
