"it’s almost impossible to raise academic ability, to turn the below-average into even the slightly less below-average. It’s only “educational romanticism” that makes us think we can."
I disagree in principle, although I don't have a lot of exposure to the science/data concerned here. What is pretty clear to me is that currently, the United States as a whole is not culturally geared to hold education, science, etc as important and/or "sexy". Consider the ratio of how many people watch Reality TV compared to Mythbusters and the like.
Unless Tom Murray has significantly changed his opinion in the last few months, I think this is a major oversimplification, if not obfuscation, of his argument. I mean, half the article is devoted to a "Mr. Fish," who as far as I can tell, is just another commentator that has nothing to do with the book. The reviewer clearly dislikes this book (as well as "The Bell Curve"), and I can't help but be put off by the disjointed organization of the article.
For instance, I think this review misses a point of Murray's that I consider important. In an article I read by Murray in the American last month [http://www.american.com/archive/2008/september-october-magaz...], his idea seems to be that core knowledge, the kind of things that we as a culture need to know, like basic American history, geography, cultural literacy, science, etc, should be taught at a much earlier age, in the K-8 curriculum, and not wait until college. He said that the average student needs to know much more about the above fields than they know now, and so it should be taught earlier, so that most people don't need a four-year college education in order to have the core knowledge necessary in a modern society.
"The more people who go to college, the more stigmatizing the failure to complete college becomes."
I think Mr. Murray needs to lighten up a little. One way in which American culture excels over many others, is in our embrace of failure. If you want to try to go to college, and end up failing, so what? Do something else. You're still in your early 20s.
Certainly, there is the issue of going into heavy debt in a failed attempt at a college education. But that is different from people thinking less of you for having tried something and failed.
People reading Hacker News should empathize with this sentiment more than most, I think.
"it’s almost impossible to raise academic ability, to turn the below-average into even the slightly less below-average. It’s only “educational romanticism” that makes us think we can."
I disagree in principle, although I don't have a lot of exposure to the science/data concerned here. What is pretty clear to me is that currently, the United States as a whole is not culturally geared to hold education, science, etc as important and/or "sexy". Consider the ratio of how many people watch Reality TV compared to Mythbusters and the like.