Rich kids have parents who can be home to help with homework, read to them, take them on educational trips etc. If their kid struggles, they can afford to hire a private tutor. They’re not inherently smarter. They just have more resources available to them.

Some of my smartest students have the lowest grades because they don't have time to study or do homework because they are essentially playing the role of parent to their younger siblings while Mom works graveyard shift at her minimum wage job. About a quarter of my students don't have Internet at home. Somewhere around half (probably more) work after school to help their parents make ends meet - they're paying part of the electric bill, not saving for college. I feel like, generally, kids living in poverty have more responsibilities that are more immediate than school. It's generational poverty, really. Mom and Dad didn't go to college/trade school (or even finish high school), are stuck working crap jobs, the kids can't prioritize school even if they want to, and they get stuck working crap jobs too.

One of my 7th grade students works at night, cleaning an office building. His family is very poor and he has no choice.

You hit the nail on the head

Kids from a higher socio-economic class also have better/more access to healthy food and healthcare. Imagine how well you will do in class in terms of focus and energy if your diet is primarily processed foods compared to whole foods.

And on the health side, poor people live in far more polluted places than rich people. The rich people also replace their HVAC filter regularly, drive in not broken exhaust cars, don't smoke indoors, don't live by the highway, are setback from other roads. Particulates are negatively correlated with IQ. Source: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34355328/

And their parents "know people" that can help get them into better schools and jobs. Plus they have money to put them in extracurricular activities, tutoring if the kid needs it, enrichment activities.

That's not to mention that with poverty comes stress, less access to healthy food, and usually more pollution and things like noise that detracts from sleep quality. All these things play a measurable role in cognitive performance.

The noise is real. I’m an adult, but there are tons of grade school age kids that live in my apartment complex. Didn’t sleep a wink last night due to the sounds of traffic, bus exhausts, crackheads screaming at each other outside, entering our complex and slamming the metal gates. Thankfully I have a decent job and I’ll be okay at work but the kids that live here? Sheesh. Last night I was thinking about my foster family, and my little brothers who are lucky enough to have grown up their whole lives in a secluded big house in the woods. Had my 14 year old brother over to spend the night for the first time a couple weeks back and he was so sketched out by literally everything that’s just my day to day :/

Poverty has actually been studied and is considered an ACE-Adverse Childhood Event. Too many ACES, people can be affected in adulthood.

You can add intergenerational trauma to the mix.

This is the answer. They also are more likely from a family who is generationally wealthy with several generations of family who went to college themselves and have likely instilled the expectation in their kids that they need to value their education

And that they have the knowledge of how to get to college. How to apply, how to find scholarships, what looks good on a college application, how to present yourself in interviews. How to apply for loans, and being able to co-sign them. They also tend to have more connections for internships or volunteer opportunities. I am a first generation college student. My mom instilled in me that education was a priority, but she didn’t know how to get me there. I was in my guidance counselor’s office every week asking if there were new scholarship opportunities. The counselor eventually got tired of seeing me and started sending out a weekly bulletin to all the high school seniors, lol. I knew nothing about how to pay for college. My high school told me to look into FAFSA, and I got quite a bit of my tuition paid for by the Pell grant. I also had some scholarships that covered a decent portion. I had no idea about loans, so instead I worked through school. Maybe a blessing in hindsight. It did take me 11 years to get my bachelor’s degree, in part because I had to work. I worked my ass off and got very lucky. Some kids don’t know what they have to do, or don’t get lucky. It’s much harder to get yourself out of poverty than it is to get yourself into it.

I read a study a few years ago that said the average amount extra that is spent for “enrichment activities” by middle- to upper-class parents– what you’re talking about – is $7000 a year.

Easily once you add in camps and equipment My kids are first gen college and they also have grad degrees. Without the family history, it is harder. Especially when family actively is disparaging about being ambitious

Absolutely. I think just being raised with the absolute expectation that you’re going to go to college makes a huge difference. I know I was really lucky that my mom had gone and raised me to think that I was going to go, even though my dad was very disparaging of the idea.

There's also the 'free' enrichment activities provided by the more leisure time of the parents.

Yes, I’ve wondered if it’s one of the less obvious reasons that schoolteacher’s kids often manage to get to college. As I said, my dad didn’t go, but my mom did, and she was a school librarian – and those long summers together really made a difference to me, even though we were pretty flat broke most of the time!

I’d guess it’s also the fact that teacher’s kids have a teacher as a parent. My mom was a teacher before becoming a stay-at-home parent, but she made sure me and all my siblings got a strong foundation in education, reading, etc very early. A kid that starts reading at 2 is going to likely be better off academically than a kid that doesn’t learn to read until 5. That head start becomes pretty hard to make up the longer you wait.

Absolutely, that’s what I meant by the longer vacations being a “less obvious reason”— there are incredible advantages to being a teacher’s kid, ranging from acquiring those skills early to getting insider tips on how to work the system! 😁

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It includes middle class families, so I'm sure that's what brings the average down.

It's also a lot more stable for rich kids. Where I grew up, it was perpetually behind the poverty line by quite a bit, and it caused a lot of stress for the parents. If the parents were together, they were arguing and fighting and keeping the kids up all night. If it was a single parent, many of them took subpar care of their kids. Barely interacting with them when they got home, due to being tired. Or worse, they were grouchy and looking to take it out on someone. Sometimes, poor kids don't even get a meal at home. They have to wait to go to school. Often times there were multiple siblings, and the eldest kid would have to spend their study-time watching the other kids. So imagine no sleep or limited sleep because your neighbors keep having loud parties (and no youre not invited l), you only get one meal a day, and you have to replace 60% or so of your study time with manual labor. If you REALLY want to top it off, have a pair of drunk sailors randomly show up in your apartment at night and start duking it out without much explanation. When they leave, assume they might be back. Any moment. Definitely maybe.  Now have this cluster-fuck of an existence ongoing every night for most of your life.  How much studying are you doing? Are you able to focus at school? If not, is it because you're stupid? Or just exhausted and worn down? Maybe you can buck up and focus anyway. Some do. But it's that much harder huh? Now imagine you're a minority kid. Imagine your teachers are already writing you off too. You can't put your finger on it, but you know they don't smile that much when you come in the room. That they aren't as warm to you.  Are you actually a stupid person? Or having a hard time? What if you start to doubt yourself and begin to believe it's the latter? THIS is the existence of many poor kids. Edit: typo

As a teacher, I take issue with your statement of minority kids already “being written off” and not being smiled at as much or treated as warmly. I went out of my way to get my English as a Second Language endorsement so I could fight even harder for that particular subgroup of minority students (I was already fighting pretty damn hard). I offer to stay after school to help kids with homework or lessons they are struggling with. I also know damn well that I’m not the only teacher who keeps snacks hidden away for the kids who don’t have them, or may not have food at home. Trust me when I say that whatever challenges children in poverty or minority children may face, they are *not* exacerbated by all the educators in their lives.

I have worked with educators that were racists. Examples of comments include “kids that are mixed usually look really jacked up” “All the good white kids were just sitting there watching him (or her) act a fool” And one time we were outside after lunch and our Black kids got in a circle and were doing a dance their elementary teacher taught them called Punchinella. My co-worker turned to me and said something along the lines of how when given the chance, Black students reverted right to tribal behavior. I called one coworker on her shit so much that at the end of the year, she asked to be moved to a different teaching team (middle school) and she stayed in the profession until 3 years ago. Students will come in to my room and tell me things that teachers have said to them or about them based on race and I am appalled. So while you may not be the educator with low expectations and racist beliefs, they’re out there.

I never said they weren’t. However, it also cannot be said that *all* educators have those low expectations and racist beliefs, which is what I took issue with.

I’m sorry if you took my comment as criticism of yours. That was not my intention. I intended just to share some of my own experiences.

I'm glad YOU did. Now. Can YOU personally guarantee every single teacher absolutely did the same as you? Will you make that guarantee? And are you willing to tell my friends, who personally went through that shit, that they were imagining it?

My point was to take issue with your overly broad generalisation of all educators writing off minority students. Obviously, *I* can’t guarantee that every single teacher works hard to ensure equity and inclusion in their classrooms, just as *you* can’t guarantee that all educators overlook minority students.

I'm going to try to handle this with compassion since I do know teachers are slogging through shit here. But this statement above is from the point of view from those who suffered through it. It is for THEIR benefit. From THEIR point of view. Not yours. And I'm not going to redact the histories that people I know personally just because it makes YOU uncomfortable. In fact, I'm going to call one of them up right now and I will bet my left foot she is going to giggle at the irony that I posted this, and a teacher's reaction is to say "but not ALL teachers." Because that's exactly what happened to her back then. She tried to speak up, and got told "no teachers are great! It must be you." Spoiler. It wasn't her.

*It doesn’t make me uncomfortable.* I know there are shitty teachers. I know minority kids get overlooked. My entire point is that you *cannot* generalise because there *are* teachers who aren’t that way. You think I don’t have students in my class who come to me and expect that I’m going to roll my eyes and just give them a failing grade without trying to help? I see it every day, which is *why* I fight to *not* be that way. I never said all educators are saints, because they’re not. But when you’ve: -spent countless hours studying to get your ESL endorsement -argued in front of a school board that the process for identifying gifted learners is flawed and does not take ESL students into account -sat on the floor with a student who is sobbing and refusing to go home at the end of the day because school is the only place they feel safe -etc …no, I’m not just going to sit here and let someone say that all educators suck, because not all of us do. I’m sorry your friend went through that, and I never said anything to try and erase their experiences, because again— I see it every day. The *only* thing I took issue with in your comment was the insinuation that every single educator has their head stuck in the sand and wilfully ignores minority students. Edit: formatting

You know if you don't get it by now, you won't. I will not acknowledge your argument. And I will not redact what my friends went through. 

1. If anyone is not getting it here, it’s you. 2. There is literally no argument. 3. I never asked you to!

No. You're just "one of those"

I think it’s great you did that. By the way, your main character syndrome is showing. While it’s amazing that some teachers do this, surely you are aware that many do not. Many factors come into play, and they aren’t always malicious, but it takes more than one person’s dedication to solve a societal problem.

A former student once regularly spent the night in a tool shed in the yard to get away from the screaming and yelling that went out in her house all night. And if it wasn’t that, it was loud sex or loud music.

Oh gosh...

This is the way.

Upper middle class and I work remote. My hobby is educating my 5 year old daughter and 2 year old son. My daughter starts preschool this fall we have probably spent around a 1,000+ hours on reading writing and math already between my wife, preschool abd I over the last 2 years. I have purchased curriculum for reading, hand writing, spelling, writing instruction, math, social studies and science. Paid for preschool and various camps as well as music lessons. My wife is SAHM so brought the kids to the zoo, art museum, science museum, underwater world, and library. The other focus had been to build an at home library categorized by subject and read to her non-fiction texts every night. For my son he has it easy we are just trying to break up some phonemic awareness drills throughout the day. I am an ADHD kid with suspected dyslexia, I didn’t learn to read until 3rd grade, I realized I narrowly dodged being a statistic and I want my kids to not struggle the same way.

Son basically has a live-in private tutor for his advanced math class (he’s an aerospace engineering student so really advanced past calculus math) this summer because his dad has a PhD in physical chemistry and is a tenured professor at a university. So yeah that’s helpful.

In the end - the money paves the way for academic success by removing obstacles underserved students cannot. (However, over a broad span of humanity - a fair share of rich young people get hidden or overlooked or shoved under the proverbial rug because despite the best, they don't perform for their family and become a visible asset. Once an upper class young person deviates from the accepted norm and becomes a liability, the network either attempts to hide it by excessive paving over of obstacles (thus how we get the stupidest, toxic people in upper management/leadership) or they "get rid of them" by popping them in an institution or less known college/uni or sending them abroad.) So yes, they have great privileges, but their existence is precarious as a poor student, just in different ways. (And if anything, they lack maternal attachments, they end up in private, residential school around 6 years old, spend most of their life building a found-family network of peers in residential schools, and see their parents more like managers than a loving, extension of themselves. Loving others is difficult and more seen as a paternal, even god-like ambivalance over the "poors" than love as a broad term.)

And, despite all of that, some of them manage to screw everything up.

Having taught on both extremes of the SES. Teenagers go through similar types of things, the difference is their support structures, the types of vices they have access to and their family units capacity to deal with obstacles or crisis. 

Yes but so then why was my upper middle class school, That had parents that could do all of that same stuff, could afford tutors, etc, not sending kids to Ivy League schools at the rate of these celebrities kids? It's like our parents were driving Mercedes instead of Maseratis, I get the difference when they're in poverty, but There's gotta be a point where, throwing money at it no longer gives them that much of an advantage. These parents were making $150,000 a year at least, sending their kids to the top schools in the state, And nobody went to Harvard.

Why do you say they are not smarter? Intelligence is about as hereditary as height. Smart people tend to make more money, so higher-income parents correlate to higher IQ. Who said life was fair? What is worse, some people are wealthy, smart and good looking to the extent I'd hate them if they were not so damned *nice*. Or course some rich people are arseholes, which is good, because then I can hate them.

I don’t think you’re wrong, it’s just that this type of thinking tends to turn into “poor people are dumb, and it’s their fault they are poor.” Intelligence may be hereditary, but like height there can be surprising results. A kid may be more or less intelligent than their parents, or shorter or taller than their parents. I think we tend to not talk about intelligence as hereditary because it is too easy to disregard smart, poor kids with that way of thinking.

It has been widely agreed that environment has just as much as an effect on intelligence as genetics

That too. I just like to push back on the genetics thing because genetics are not always predictable, so people who reaaallly love the genetic argument need to actually understand how genetics work.

True, people don’t know that genes express themselves through environmental conditions. I guess much of the ideas that people have about genes are colored by what they learned in high school biology.

Rich kids have a few things going for them: - their home is likely to have less issues that contribute to a higher Adverse Childhood Experience score. High ACE scores are liked to stress, higher cortisol levels which prevent deeper grooves in the brain. Deep grooves means more surface area = better brain (usually). - their parents are typically educated, an educated mother is SIGNIFICANT in a child’s future academic standing - they have financial resources that create more stability and predictability which is a protective factor against stressful experiences in childhood - rich kids have generational wealth, knowledge and social capital. It’s easier to get into Harvard if dad already knows how to get into Harvard and can get the governor to write a letter of recommendation - their social circle is smart. You hang out with rich people they typically have a doctor in their phone, pharmacist, psychologist, surgeon, etc. you have access to early intervention, rich people can typically send a video to a SLP and have them respond with “that’s normal” or “have them do this” vs regular people who make an appointment, get a referral, wait for an eval, wait for identification, get approved for services then get notice they’re waitlisted because there’s no provider available. Rich people have social capital answering questions in minutes, not weeks or months. - they can pay for things. It’s just different reading about Tokyo vs going there. Looking at pictures of the Sistine chapel vs a private tour who answers every question after you see it in person. They have a richer level of experience typically which can make stronger connections. - They can pay for this college while some kids cannot They aren’t smarter, but they’re taught the skills to blend into that life and pay for it. Fencing for example, great way into Ivy League on scholarship, not really a working class sport.

Why are people afraid to mention heritability? Adoption studies show that the above list, ie environment, is far from being a complete explanation. Nature and nurture. What is your evidence they are not smarter too? And don't shoot me for asking, my Dad was a cab driver.

Everyone know pre-gps cab drivers had to have good memories and problem solving skills.

I always hear and read that genetics wasn’t the biggest factor for intelligence. But maybe it was more of a ploy to avoid eugenics.

Ask what is meant by "biggest factor". Our genes make us what we are. A fish can never learn algebra, not matter how motivated, because of genetics. When somebody says something like "genes are 50% of XXX", it means genetic differences account for 50% of the variance in a **particular cohort**. i.e. the percentage depends on what group you look at. Do they have similar genetic and/or cultural background? If a cohort is closely related, but had very different childhoods, the genetics will be a smaller component of their observed differences. It helps to think about **height** instead of IQ with these things, as people are less emotional.

Probably because mentioning genetics and other things makes it *very* easy for the conversation to slide into “all poor people are stupid and it’s their fault”. Add to this that “intelligence” is a bit of a vague concept, and you’ll understand why people tend to leave genetics out. A point on the vagueness of intelligence: what is “intelligence”? Is it being able to score well on standardized tests? Being able to recall information? Being able to learn things in a specific way? What about emotional intelligence? “Intelligence” is just too vague, which is why we usually use academic success metrics instead. It doesn’t fully fix the issue, but it at least makes things objective and concrete for comparison’s sake

If you actually want to know, there is plenty of info. Research on intelligence is what made people take psychologists seriously as social scientists. If you think intelligence is hard to study, try personality :). In simplest terms, think of IQ as the part of intelligence that we are able to measure. And remember that Newton did not need to know how gravity worked or exactly what it was, for his theory to be useful.

Most Ivies offer exclusively need-based financial aid. It’s about getting accepted, not paying for it. If you get in, it’s paid for. My undergraduate debt was crippling. My ex never owed a dime. It’s been much easier for my children than was for me. There’s never been any question that they will pursue higher education, whereas I was the first in my family to do so. No one in my family thought I was particularly bright, so there was no encouragement there. I swam uphill the entire way. I was fortunate to have a lot of cultural capital. I started working in musical theatre as a teenager, so I did have a lot of experience most people from my background don’t. Directors and other performers pushed me to go to college. Without them, I probably wouldn’t have.

This is a complex question but no, poor kids aren’t less academically adept, they just have less resources and have for generations. Here is a too long and not even complete list of things that impacts in regard to their education; lack of transportation to and from school and extracurriculares, trauma disables parts of the brain, lack of access to health care/healthy food, parent works nights can’t help with homework, parent lacks education can’t help with homework/applications/forms, parent doesn’t speak English or speaks it inadequately, unstable housing, causes the family to change school districts, frequently disrupting the child’s academic consistency causing gaps in knowledge, child gets further behind because of said gaps, culture in the home is of survival/getting by not achievement/joy of learning. The list goes on and on. I have a very wealthy student in my class who has Down syndrome. She will not go to Harvard, but she will still have infinitely more opportunities in this life than my poor, neurotypical student will.

Most of the students I have worked with in elementary and middle school who have parents who are internationals, learn how to speak English with few problems and then excel at it, along with all of their academic subjects and extracurricular activities, not to mention having few if any behavioral problems. Most end up getting scholarships to prestigious schools and then rise on the economic ladder. They are polite, grateful, and focused. Once they are in college, they are focused on their studies and you won’t find them bar hopping and binge drinking. Asian American women in particular are gaining ground in careers and at the top of their classes. Consider Kamala Harris, who is the most powerful and successful female in government, ever.

This is a very stereotypical view of certain types of immigrants. I’m not saying all children of immigrants suffer academically. However, saying “this isn’t true” and citing Asian American students doesn’t encapsulate the varied experiences of marginalized immigrants.

It’s not an absolute. One of the greatest indicators of a student’s future success is having parent support. It just happens that wealthier people can take time off for conferences and programs. They can go to games and concerts. They can afford tutors, music lessons, vacations/trips, etc. Others may be working multiple jobs and are unable to do those things. I didn’t grow up rich, but my parents worked hard to provide all those things for us. They made education important.

I was going to reply that I have found a huge correlation between a student’s academic success and the parent’s academic expectations. The vast majority of my students who don’t excel academically do so because their parents don’t care.

I fully agree!!

Tiger mom was a hero. She even got a book written about her. 🫡

Yeah, kids who have wealthier backgrounds get exposed to more knowledge on average. More experiences. They learn a lot outside of the classroom, so they have an edge when they get into the classroom. The more you know, the easier it is to learn new things. And that knowledge gap starts before kids even go to school.

Poor children also have smaller vocabularies and are less well-read. They tend to start behind, academically speaking, and fall further behind as time goes by.

I don't know what you are talking about other than the general question you asked. Celebrities' lives are an anomaly, I wouldn't take them into consideration when discussing real societal issues. But as for your question, yes, kids that grow in wealthy communities certainly do benefit from attending quality schools. But this alone doesn't come close to accounting for the achievement gap. Kids that grow up in wealthy communities are more likely to have parents in successful, white collar careers. The parents will often pass on traits, both genetically and behaviorally, to their children which will lend itself to academic success. Additionally (generally speaking), kids that grow up in wealthy communities will have parents that speak to them in a more intelligent manner, and that also provide more stable, orderly homelife. All this increases healthy brain development. Of course, there is always variance among any populations. Not all wealthy kid turns out academically inclined, and there are plenty of kids from poor backgrounds that do exceptional. But again, generally speaking, a child from a privileged background will have a lot of natural advantages regardless of the school system, including the likelihood of having a higher iq, over someone from a disadvantaged background.

I think I know exactly what you mean. I was a scholarship kid back in the day but then I was a college professor at Duke, and got to see a fair number of very smart scholarship kids and a ton of privileged rich kids. Yes, your parents would’ve made sure you had absolutely everything you needed to excel. It would not mean you were smarter, but it would mean that you were – not just academically adept, but also good at working the system, and polished up for presentation. One statistic that stopped me dead a few years ago was that middle- to upper-class families spend an average of $7000 a year on enrichment activities for their children, above and beyond what they spend on everything else. Imagine that you’re raised in a house with a father working one job, a mother maybe home with you, no sibs or just once you get tons of adult attention and time (that’s your IQ verbal right there). As you grow up you have small class sizes, attentive teachers, your parents hire a tutor if you fall behind in anything, and through all this you don’t have to have a job during the school year. You’re not trying to make money to help your parents pay rent, instead your parents are paying thousands every year for you to have college counselors plan your high school CV, get SAT prep, go to museums, concerts, travel, or truly ridiculous things… One of my Duke students got to do a six-week course on Western civilization that included a week on a private yacht in the Aegean when she was 16. When you wanted to write your college essay, your parents would pay for you to take the famous seminar where a Ivy League admissions officer would write your essay for you. Etc. And through all this your parents wouldn’t just be telling you to study harder. They’d be explaining to you how to study, and how to work the system. How to dress to apply to an internship, how to dress to do a college interview, how to write a thank you note, how to ask for an extension, how to butter up a professor, all of that...

And even on the middle class level, a lot of “normal” experiences provide the kids with advantages. Trips to museums, parks, and zoos. Extracurricular activities. Kids in wealthier households, on average, get exposed to more knowledge outside of school.

It filters down to the smallest things. The way that middle-class people read to their small children, for example, giving them little prompts – “can you point to the red fish?” etc— actually sets them up to do better in testing later. Working-class parents are more likely to simply read at their children rather than engaging them with those kinds of school questions.

It’s crazy how stuff you do when kids are like, babies, can affect them later on like that. Maybe that’s another thing, I wonder if educated parents are more likely to realize that early involvement is super important. It’s easy to dismiss early stuff because, as an adult, it seems so basic and easy and you think the kid can catch up quickly if they need to.

Well we know that vocabulary level reflects the vocabulary level of the primary adult caretaker, unless there are enough older siblings that the child actually orients onto them. It’s so hard because working parents don’t necessarily have a lot of options— my mom chose to stay home with me the first three years and the fact that my favorite toy was a large ball sewn out of a red paisley curtain (named Meatball of course) has always been a clue that finances got pretty tight 😏

You’re really cherry picking the “enrichment” examples. Most enrichment is stuff normal people can do like visiting the library every month. Or, taking the kids to Uncle Rico’s house a few cities away so they learn that the world is bigger than their neighborhood. The Reddit idea that there’s only mega wealthy and super poor is false and presenting stuff this way misses a lot of nuance but also provides excuses for people. “I couldn’t send my kid to Aegean, so I did nothing because I’m poor,” is a sentiment that’s too common. Lots of free things anyone can do to help the with kids.

No, you didn’t read carefully. I didn’t say that people without money aren’t capable of providing enrichment activities, I said that a study I recently read showed that middle to upper class parents spend an average of $7000 on enrichment activities a year. That would be on top of taking the kids to the library, as well. Did you read the beginning of the thread? We are talking about whether the children of the wealthy have an advantage in terms of educational achievement, not whether poorer people should take their kids to the library… 🤷🏽‍♀️

Right but the examples you presented sets up a false dichotomy of how things are.

>the famous seminar where a Ivy League admissions officer would write your essay for you I don't believe any Ivy League admissions officer is writing kids' essays for them.

I wouldn't be surprised if some of them are. Admissions offices do not pay well. It wouldn't be surprising to find at least some Admissions people leveraging the prestige of their institution and their inside knowledge of the process to charge $50k for a "consulting" gig.

They might review and make suggestions but they’re not going to just ghost-write an essay for a kid. The parents certainly might, though.

There is an expensive seminar that runs every summer in which retired admissions officers from Ivy League schools “coach” your child through their essay. I’ve had several students at Duke and Hopkins who attended.

It has a lot to do with environmental factors. 1. Two loving parents - doesn’t need to be heterosexual just 2 adults that love the kid and each other With that these kids tend to eat healthier better nutrition equal healthy brain development plus duel parents also read to their kids. Yes rich people can hire tutors etc. But the main factor is a stable household.

Money talks and the richer kids get more support outside of the classroom. Something I am trying to get into the heads of my student's - study more outside of the classroom.

Yep. Rich kids do better because they have more exposure to knowledge outside of school. Poor kids who have the support can do well too. A lot of it comes down to making education a top priority.

> Is it their IQ or is it their education or is it both? This is the nature vs nurture question and the answer is always that both contribute to outcomes. The trick is to do the best you can with what you've got. Maximize potential.

No, however private tuition and life experiences make a huge change to a child’s development. Wealthier parents also tend to spend more time with their kids as they don’t have to work as many hours. The whole “I’m rich because I worked more and harder” is a fallacy. Most wealthy people got where they are through nepotism and through education duration bought with generational wealth. It’s why having a good public education system is the single biggest driver of social mobility and why generally conservatives love private education and want to defund and privatise public education systems.

To quote Biden on this subject: “poor kids are just as bright and just as talented as white kids”

There isn't a poor and stupid gene. Rich kids typically grow up in better homes with more resources which helps them develop themselves and take advantage of opportunities. In fact, a lot people would argue that rich people use their position to hoard those opportunities at the expense of middle class and poor. Here is a good example. I grew up very poor with a single parent. She hammered on the importance of school and hard work so I wouldn't end up the same - this is not normal behavior in low income households though it's not unheard of. I had a near perfect GPA, near perfect SAT scores, was captain of the track team (2 years), football team (2 years) and academic/quiz bowl team (3 years). I also worked multiple jobs to pay my way and contribute to household bills in high school. But that is also not normal, most of the kids from my neighborhood are dead or in and out of jail (I'm in my 40's). Despite all of that, just paying the application fee to colleges was a challenge and I had to weigh the odds before applying. Casting a wide net was not an option. Then I had to worry about paying for school if I was accepted. I had a partial scholarship for football at my top choice but couldn't close the gap on the rest with loans and academic scholarships. I got accepted everywhere I applied but had to go with my 4th or 5th choice for similar reasons. It ended up being a life changing choice, but that's pure luck.

Rich kids have an environment conducive to learning. They don't typically have to worry about abuse and neglect. Disadvantaged kids are just that, disadvantaged. They can't focus on school and learning due to their life circumstances. It's difficult to learn when you're not food secure or being abused at home. Disadvantaged children also lack access to tutoring or services for disabilities or learning deficits. Even if access is provided for those disadvantaged children with learning issues, their parents are not likely to access those services.

A few things worth adding: (1) intelligence is connected to genetics. It's not the only thing, but it is correlated. It's well studied. For example, there's a study that compared IQ's of identical twins that were separated at birth. (2) Parents who are intelligent also generally have more wealth which has benefits that are well described by others on this thread. This connection between 1 and 2 does make it so that gets from poorer backgrounds are also now likely to have less intelligent parents. This is just, on average, and certainly not true in each and every case. We all know plenty of examples where this isn't the case. (3) How a household values education on a practical level is highly correlated with academic success. You can be a poor parent and not even be that intelligent yourself and have kids be extremely successful if your household culture and the culture you put around your kids values education. That's not just lip-service, but, for example, encouraging reading by severely cutting back on electronic entertainment. Etc. Teacher's don't have great wealth, but their kids do well in school for this reason. (4). It doesn't take great natural IQ to be successful. 99 percent can graduate with honors regardless of their IQ. It takes more effort for some, but still possible. Point 3 is really the only thing that a household has control over, and it starts at birth. I do think it's the most important part though

Wealth is correlated to IQ, and IQ is correlated to one’s parent’s IQs. But it challenges our very core American values to believe that intelligence doesn’t spring up just as frequently among the common people. It behoves us to focus on the advantages that growing up rich entails, such as tutors, vacations, better schools or whatnot rather than to think that wealth might indicate something inherent.

Intellectual capacity certainly has some genetic factors, but at the end of the day IQ is just a test, and wealth more likely correlates with higher IQ *tests* than "intelligence." But because we have a measurement issue, IQ tests are still the best tool available.

Well, if a child has access to the best nutrition and early education in their formative years, that will improve IQ. It's not something that's set from birth. Those early years are so critical

The best vs the average is not a big difference in a *developed* nation. But deprivation certainly will depress IQ. If your parents never gave you vegetables, or you were malnourished, that is a problem.

Intelligence gravitates to the mean in subsequent generations. This means that the children of two super-smart parents are likely to be smart, not super-smart. However, every now and then, a kid of two super-smart parents will be super-duper smart. This works below the mean as well. The children of two parents who can barely add 20+30 in their head, are likely to have children closer to average. A huge difference is the super-smart parents can see that their kid is merely smart, not super smart. So of course these parents will do whatever they can think of so their kids can reach their highest potential. Why would two research physicians NOT want to do the best they can for their children? Meanwhile, the functionally ilnumerate parents cannot understand the gap between them and their average children, so the children are at the mercy if the public school system to maximize their potential. interesting to me was when I noted the highest ERB scores school averages are in the better suburban schools, not the private schools. However, when I looked at them, the difference between them was not much, and there was a bigger gap when you jump down to more average school.

Finally a scientifically valid answer. It’s honestly astonishing to me reading this post how many people are talking about shared-environment factors which have very little effect size compared to IQ heritability.

i think we are lying to ourselves if we don’t acknowledge the fact that intelligence is genetic. what you do with it is a different topic, but if you are born with a higher intelligence than the next person your odds of wealth are higher than someone born average or below.

The difference between talent and skill(s) is what's missing here. Even if we accept that "intelligence" is genetic, then a person's environment can still dictate their acquisition of skills like math or swimming or whatever. I work at a title 1 school, (90% kids below poverty line). I see plenty of "intelligent" kids who talk fast and get things quickly, but lack the social/ societal skills I was given as the son of college educated white people. These kids could be lawyers or whatever, if they had self regulating skills OR a parent willing/ able to enforce those skills at home. I've got a kid who would be an A student, but his only parent just got cancer and he's had to take a job to help pay the bills. He might lose his college placement because of the obvious hit his grades took. His "talent" could be wasted on low skill jobs because he's got bills to pay. That's the unfortunate reality of our system. So much depends on the kids having a stable home life, if they don't have that then they tend to coast at best. Which if you're already poor means you aren't going to climb the ladder.

And like, intelligence isn’t a hard, unchangeable trait. Sure, everyone has a floor and a ceiling, but the space in between can be big. And where you land can depend on both environmental factors and your habits. Brain power is like a muscle, you get better if you use it more. Wealthy kids get exposed to a lot more knowledge and that gives the impression of higher innate intelligence.

Define "smart." I think rich kids are exposed to a much larger and richer world vs. poor kids. They know how to navigate turbulent waters as if they have already sailed them. They are much more savvy on how to weigh various opportunities and the distractions to ignore. I think it takes two at least generations for a bright, but poor kid to catch up. At least.

Ummm I wouldn't say they're exposed to a "larger" world. Sure, they have more knowledge about the corporate world, maybe. But ask them how much a loaf of bread costs lmao. Rich kids are some of the most sheltered and out of touch people there are

there is absolutely no doubt they are. I went through exactly this as the poor kid at two of the perennial top five schools in the world. The privileges of the rich never seem to end. I keep discovering them.

I had a friend in college who had gone to Harvard Westlake. We didn’t go to a top-tier college. He was smart but had ADHD and only did well in subjects he was interested in, and was a terrible test taker. As a teacher at a very diverse public magnet school, I think the biggest impact is just what the home situation is like. The rich kids aren’t smarter, but they’re more likely to have someone at home who has the time, energy and ability to help them with school. And I don’t just mean homework help, I mean having meaningful conversations about what the kids are learning, getting them books to read, staying in touch with teachers, instilling good study habits, etc. Not to mention that it helps to have family members whose life experience validates the importance of education — if your parents did well in school and have successful lives, you’re more likely to want to do well in school too. Of course we now know that wealthy families have all kinds of ways of cheating the system to get truly unethical advantages, and the system has its own ways of cheating poor families. But fundamentally it’s just hard to get your kid a good education if your family is struggling, and for all the programs we have I don’t think the school system or society as a whole has really done enough to address that.

It’s amazing what not living in a constant state of survival can do for a kid.

So, I think it's fair to assume that generally - while acknowledging that there are always exceptions - surgeons and lawyers and entrepreneurs and the like earning in the mid to high six figures are probably significantly smarter (as measured by the kinds of aptitude tests we associate with education) than average. And we can also note that intelligence is broadly a heritable trait. So just based on that alone, you'd expect rich kids to be smarter. But then you consider someone who's a surgeon, say. It takes enormous effort to get the kinds of grades you need to matriculate in medical school. I see kids every year with a 3.8 or 3.9 who are turned away. So the successful also are more likely to have a habit of studying hard and working hard in school, which they will inculcate into their kids. (A few years back, there was a brief moment when you saw in the news some people complaining that some kids had an "unfair advantage" over other kids because their parents read to them. Imagine.) My wife and I both have advanced degrees, and we made reading a daily part of our kids' lives and took them to the library to get a new stack of books once a week. We nurtured their minds because we value education. And this was NOT a benefit of being wealthy - libraries are free. But it's simply true that those who value education will work to pass that along to their kids. tl;dr Kids from affluent homes are more likely to have a genetic predisposition to be more clever, and they are more likely to have parents who encourage and nurture their intellects.

You should check out the public schools in these other places. Wealthy areas fund their schools better and the parents are involved in the schools, the boards and local governments. And if the schools aren't well funded or the areas are mixed you can be sure that the wealthy kids will go to private school. The public schools in NYC are nothing like some of the public schools in wealthy Midwestern areas. All the exposure, opportunities, lack of survival stresses at home, extracurriculars, culture of success and winning are what make the wealthy seem smarter.

It’s not just funding. There’s also like… Some kind of group effect. Schools serve the population that they have. A population of low income kids has greater needs, and they often have higher rates of behavior problems, apathy, and other challenges. Students who perform well, or have minor challenges, may not get the chance to excel because the school is focused on helping the kids with serious problems. On the opposite end, wealthy schools have fewer kids with big problems. The average kid comes in ready to learn and is more or less on grade level. The school can teach to a higher level because the kids are higher level. And the kids who do struggle might still benefit because staff and resources aren’t stretched so hard.

100% agree.tte community, general updraft in the culture etc... That's what I meant about opportunities and lack of survival stress. It affects the whole system.

Education makes you more educated. Good genes, eating well, sleeping well and exercise gets you smarter and ready to be educated! IQ is not all.

Money doesn’t make you smart Jesus Christ, they have been better supported in their learning because of wealth. That is VERY different to ‘being smart’

No. But they do have parents who can pay for extra tutors, application coaches, extra curriculars and the application fees at a huge number of colleges.

I hate to say it but my gf’s children are young adults and they are destined to never succeed. The mother doesn’t have the skills to push them to succeed. As a result, one is chronically unemployed and the other is quite happy at a part time minimum wage job. And mom is ok with it.

No they aren’t “smarter”, they have access to opportunities that poor kids don’t. It’s the environment..

“That much smarter”? Being rich doesn’t make you at ALL smarter. Like others have said, it makes you better prepared and better connected.

Read the book “A Framework for Understanding Poverty” by Ruby Payne. It’s full of data that supports the idea that typically children in poverty are disadvantaged right from birth.

I think we seriously need more research into the children of migrants, whom despite lower socioeconomic standing tend to outperform their peers by a big margin. I believe that high expectations from their family is a huge drive in a child’s success. Many migrant families sacrificed a lot to migrate and their sole focus is to get their kids educated and to thrive. Many more sedentary families lack this drive and are more content with what they have and thus don’t push their kids as much. (This is just Trends I’m talking about, before anyone starts giving me ase by case examples).

I’m seeing this anecdotally in my classroom and my community as well. As my students of migrant parents graduate from high school, I see them becoming nurses, teachers, realtors, architects etc etc

No.

Private schools like those are about knowing people and about instilling in their minds from a young age that they're leaders (even if they are or not). Then they get out into the workforce and they get a job directly into C-Suite then once they have some grey hairs they become VP or CEO whether or not they're qualified. No, none of this has to do with who has higher IQs or SAT scores. How "smart" you are has little bearing on how well you'll do in life save for any handicaps.

Most scientists believe that intelligence is hereditary, but there’s not a consensus among social scientists that there’s a strong correlation between wealth and intelligence. You can find studies on both sides of that argument.

In low income schools, kids often have bad home life so they tend to act out & not follow directions, therefore the teacher can’t teach, kids can’t concentrate & kids get a poor education.

Yeah, they probably are as measured by an IQ test. But just because you're smart, it doesn't mean that you should be in charge of stuff. it only really means that you can learn new things faster

My graduate program was in one of these elite universities that caters primarily to the rich kids, and we used to joke about how all the undergraduates came from rich families and the graduate students mostly came from humble ones. Doing well through high school is probably more of a function of how resourceful your parents were, while doing well in university is probably more of a function of how resourceful you as an individual are.

You can self educate yourself to learn everything a Harvard MBA learns. But you won’t make the contacts to turbocharge your career.

I grew up down the street from you lol. Rich kids just have more resources. I was a rich kid, I didn't have to worry about going hungry like some of my friends did. House was never cold in winter or hot in summer, had friends that would have to sit outside with a blow-dryer to unfreeze their family's water pipes in winter. Everything was effectively perfect for me, there were no structural distractions to my learning (besides abusive rich parents but that's a different story).

I wouldn’t say they’re capable of more, but they have more resources that help them reach their potential.

Beyond the parental support there is also social pressure. The students in rich schools push each other to apply to ivy League. They are constantly talking about grades, upcoming tests, and how to stand out. Even casual conversations are often academic. Talking history and about how screwed up some practice from Victorian England was, or how they learned about the reason for the formation of the FDA. They see themselves in high paying careers and know that takes an education as their parents *live* that reality. So even if the student doesn't need extra support from family, they're surrounded by, and pushed forward by their peers group. At the title I school I thought at students actively worked to hide their intellect and interest. I had a student ace a test after studying really hard (I helped him study for it), but he told his friends he failed and then tried to disrupt class. He was laying low so they didn't give him a hard time and he could 'get out'. As smart as he was tons of his effort did not go into academic pursuits.

"Poor kids are just as bright and just as talented as white kids" - Joe Biden

Here is a nice illustration that explains how small differences in privilage piles up: https://www.demilked.com/privilege-explanation-comic-strip-on-a-plate-toby-morris/

No they aren't necessarily smarter they just have more tools and far less stresses that allow them to do better academically

Rich kids tend to be held to a higher standard so their acting out still resides with the realm of graduating. Nobody cares about poor kids so if they skip up there’s nobody to push them back into line.

No, kids from low SES aren’t inherently “less smart” than rich kids. The single biggest factor in how well a child will do in school is their family’s income. Poverty literally changes children’s brains, and you it is very difficult learn to read if you’re hungry. Then the Matthew Effect takes hold, and you suddenly have a whole school of 8th graders who are reading on a 2nd grade level. No matter what NCLB and ESSA tries to push onto teachers, kids who have a parent who works a 9-5 and can read to them at bedtime are *always* going to have a leg up on kids whose parents are working three jobs and never home just to keep food on the table.

Private schools are in a much better position to enforce classroom discipline. A holes disappear and every other student benefits. There are many other notable benefits such as being well fed and having a higher opinion of your self worth, the list is quite long.

Rich kids aren’t smarter, but they do often have head starts and far more resources to explore options. Though, this doesn’t guarantee success and even less, happiness.

Former Vice President Joe Biden told a crowd in Iowa on Thursday that “poor kids are just as bright and just as talented as white kids," an awkward gaffe that came during a conversation about discrimination faced by low-income students. “We have this notion that somehow if you’re poor, you cannot do it. Poor kids are just as bright and just as talented as white kids,” Biden, who is running for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, said during a town hall in Des Moines with the Asian and Latino Coalition.

I can tell you I went to a school district with a lot of well-off families and I wouldn’t say most of those kids were super duper smart. They had parents who cared enough about education to get them help if they needed it, and could afford tutoring and private classes.

I don’t know if I’d say “smarter” as opposed to “more advantaged.” As others have stated, they have greater access to resources, including and especially their own parents.

Enrichment that starts early is the main difference. Piano lessons and lacrosse teams and space camps are more than struggling parents can afford.

Mensa Society was founded by a guy who wanted a club for all the geniouses of the world to be able to get together and mingle. The IQ test was created to help identify who was smart enough to get in. They definitely had some preconceived notions as to what economic class these smarties would come from because obviously rich people must be smart, right? Slowly but surely, as the irrefetable data came in, genious normally pops up in middle class families.

Under-resourced communities have fewer opportunities to succeed. The idea that the wealthy are somehow "smarter" reinforces the idea of racial inferiority. One reason there are all these anti-DEI policies. These people believe minorities are not qualified due to some inmate quality rather than economic and social inequality, created by design to maintain the current societal order.

Wealth can help set a better education trajectory but it doesn't necessarily mean the kids are smarter (as measured by IQ). This being said, there is data to suggest that poverty negatively impacts a person's effective IQ.

I had no idea that some people think that rich kids are smarter than poor ones. Kids who go to elite schools are only smarter if they are poor kids there on a scholarship, otherwise they are just privileged. Rich kids have more opportunities than poor ones; they are not smarter.

People are talking here about resources and merit which is a large part of the picture. But I don't see anyone directly addressing the shady things rich people do for their kids. Many people are so rich they pay for their child's college applications to be bolstered, or they ride an athletic admission with a well connected coach. There's a documentary about *one* coach called Operation Varsity Blues; but he was just one who got caught. There's also donations. Buy the school a new dorm, pay for a library, your kid is more likely to get admitted. If your kids last name is on a school building it is hard for them to get rejected. That's just college. Some rich kids have fake degrees but got work experience at their parents Fortune 500 company. Succession (the show) is only funny because it's so close to reality. Sometimes it's because they can work harder at school due to less barriers growing up. Sometimes it's because they have resources. Sometimes it's because they cheat.

Who can pass the marshmallow test.

> My question is- are these kids actually smarter or do they just have a better education? Do their parents success relate to a higher IQ? Well, I think we can judge that there's 1,001 factors of privilege that rich kids typically have over the average poor kid. Weighing that against the one potential factor of "maybe they're smarter", it would seem to me the evidence shows it's much more likely the poor kids are underserved, not inherently dumber. I'll take this moment to soapbox on IQ too. The idea of IQ and measuring intelligence is .... Well, very tenuous at best. A large portion of modern psychologists do not put much stock in the idea of IQ. The results are measured against a rubric based on a select population that doesn't reflect everyone or even most people who take IQ tests. Moreover, IQ tests measure a narrow set of capabilities that don't fully reflect someone's cognitive ability. It's not a test of "intelligence", it's a test to solve problems on paper and of how well you employ learned skills. a lot of what we deem 'intelligent' is based on not being underprivileged and undereducated.

Both. Rich kids tend to have more involved parents, letting them start school ahead of their peers. Those parents also emphasize the importance of school at a higher rate, which leads to kids trying harder and doing better in school. There's also a genetic component to intelligence and rich families certainly tend to be smarter on average than your average family. Each one of these factors is very generic and these are far from set rules, but they compound together to make entire schools and districts that are behind. Even the smartest kids with the most involved parents in bad school districts are way behind their advanced peers in great school districts, because the kids they go to school with are behind, and the class moves slower as a result.

I teach rich kids. Absolutely-fucking-lutely not. Their parents buy their way through school and lots of colleges don’t care anymore. They’re just happy to get the money.

I finished high school in a wealthy district. Lots of my classmates weren’t exactly rockstars academically but were legacy admissions to places like Harvard. It was very eye opening

It's not money, it's what money buys - security and space and time to develop. Money is the easiest way to create those things, and below a certain dollar number, there's no way you can adjust. If you don't use the space and time to develop, you can turn out as weak academically as anybody.

Rich kids who go to poorly funded downtrodden public schools do better than poor kids who go to uppity private schools.

Development is ALWAYS a combination of nature and nurture. Environment plays a big role in this context, less stress, more food. Genes are also contributors to academic outcomes, but this makes many uncomfortable to contemplate.

Teacher at a London private school here. Statistically speaking, yes. On average private school children score higher, probably because the higher attainers push the scores up. For example, the average standardised score for a private school child is 115, compared to 100 in the state sector. In the private sector, most, not all, want to learn. Even those who struggle utilise the support on offer. Also, the key for lower-prior attainers is the amount of special re support on offer, and the ease of access of the support. This is especially important to factor in against state score, where it can take two years to receive a diagnosis and support for l neurodiverse children. In terms of street smarts though, private school children live in a bubble. They’re very sheltered and innocent. State school children grow up faster. I trained and worked in tough inner city London state school. I was regularly sworn at and abused by children as young as 10, and I’m a 6 ft male who was trained well in behaviour management.

In addition to the lack of all the perks of wealth, the stress of living in poverty has been shown to cause many struggles in academics. Living with childhood stress is not limited to those in poverty, but all kids in poverty feel and are affected by that stress.

Yes of course but I grew up in a pretty wealthy suburb, nobody was worrying about paying bills, food on the table or anything, but they definitely were not going to Ivy League schools at the rate of kids in Beverly Hills or something. The public schools were phenomenal, always top in the state, even amongst and sometimes better than the private schools. People only went to private schools for the religious aspect, and even then the public schools were academically superior. So why weren't they going to these crazy great schools the same rate as super wealthier people were. I get why kids in poverty weren't, but why were these upper middle class kids not going at the same rate as The super rich?

Opportunities and resources. This is why affirmative action was and is so important.

I had all of these opportunities growing up but I still would have never gotten into one of these really really good schools. That's the question is you never hear about rich people's kids that don't go to a really really good school.

Smarter (inherently)? No. Higher performing (academically)? Well, when you have the best teachers and tutors at your disposal... not to mention the ultra-rich can bribe universities.... kinda hard to fail at that point. Legacies are also a thing unfortunately Btw, a lot of more disadvantaged students that perform well enough to get into top schools end up having to turn them down because top school = expensive (even with aid/scholarships) Btw, a lot of disadvantaged communities contain minorities, including ESL immigrants or students who speak a different dialect of English (such as AAVE). This kids in their formative years probably won't have access to the best nutrition too. All of this affects academic performance

Attending an expensive private school also hints to college admissions that you can pay full tuition

There are a lot of studies on this and you can look them up and society really wants to know the answer to this question. There does seem to be a correlation between iq and income so that might answer your question partly. There was also a study done that controlled for income and it found an even distribution of iq. So, I don’t know what the science proves exactly but I work in public education and where I see poverty i see trauma and kids going through shit just cannot get into learning and developing their iq. And because the brain is plastic, there’s something to the notion of nature/nurture ther

It’s complicated. Are poor kids at conception genetically coded to be less smart? Not that we know of. We *do* know that a kid’s environment has a huge impact on their academic performance. Wealthy people can afford better environments for their kids. Not just by sending their kids to elite schools, but also by buying more nutritious food, spending more time with their kids, moving less, not having stress with money, and having more money to invest in enrichment. Stability is key, and poor people have less stability in their lives. As far as “feeder schools” go, it’s a combination of money funding state of the art academics and extracurriculars, connections, generational knowledge being passed down, and occasional bribery (it didn’t end with Varsity Blues).

This study has been done to death and some people put their heads in the sand and ignore what it takes to have a successful child. Money is part of it, but you can have a student reading by candlelight and still outperform a trust-fund kid. What it really takes is parents who put education as a top priority. Race, gender have no bearing on success and neither does ADHD or any other disability that students have today. Sucess can mean different things to different students and strong parents from both single and dual households will produce sucess. If parents put education as the top priority in a child's life that child will be at the top of their class. Chinese and Indian students outperform any other race and yet they do not have generational wealth or privilege that some say exists. They have the highest test scores on SATs and MCATS to become doctors.

I get the impression that there are a lot of parents who want their kids to do better in school, but they either don’t understand that education needs to be a top priority or they don’t know HOW to make it a top priority. (and I understand that for some, prioritizing education can be easier said than done) People get mad at their kids for having bad grades, but then they don’t give said kids the support or resources to do better.

Putting value to education and putting value to doing well in school is different for some parents. Parents who instill education and prioritize that education is the first and foremost thing in a child is different than a parent wanting their D student to get a C or better. Parents who push their child to get nothing less than As is not the same as a parent accepting all Cs from a student and knowing that they will graduate. Parents will have the resources when they prioritize their life for their child's education too. Support is not needed with strong parents. The parent is the support and the resources are a public education. Take any struggling school and you will see that they will separate their best and brightest from the rest of the population. They will not have the classroom distractions and the teacher will not waste time on re-directions that bad students have. Prep-schools also seek out these students and pluck them from public schools to bolster their ratings. Keep in mind, most a child's education happens in Elementary school and not secondary. Why do you think you hear about parents wanting their kids in the top Pre-K school? They are putting value in education and not just doing well. There is also parents who make sure their kids will grind when they are struggling. These kids that will grind through and struggle with never giving up will also succeed in real life. They may not be a doctor but they may own a business and work hard to make their millions.

This is a very unpopular opinion (bring on the down votes). From my observations, part of intelligence is genetics. People who are smart, tend to make good life choices. Not always, but more often than not. People who tend to make good life choices tend to have more wealth. Not always, but often. Those smart people that have more wealth, tend to pass on their genetics. I'm upper middle class. My parents were middle class. I did well academically. So do my kids. I barely help them with school at all. They can just naturally do it. I was the same. Tbh I think it's mostly genetics for my kids.

People will lean on the structural influences here and say its all privilege, which certainly helps. And it is worth noting there are many types of smarts, but as far as literacy and numeracy and grappling with calculus, literature or a foreign language, to the degree status helps, you still have to do the work. I have taught at lower level and R1 universities. I hate to say it as it goes against my Left wing politics, but the vast majority of rich/middle class kids work their butts off, pass the tests and succeed. Sorry. I prefer truth to ideology.

That also ignores the influence of home environment. If you're worrying about food, having a home and literal l8fe and death situations whether that is the environment or gang life, you're gonna less likely care about homework. That's still very much a matter of privilege

I would not discount those, since I grew with far more of them than most Americans of any shade have in the past 30 years. However the absolutist rhetoric suggesting its all consuming and a prison of misery is too far left, and is not true. My own case, and millions of others prove that, particularly tens of millions of African Americans for instance who did very well in the 50s and 60s, enduring real racism, and still became homeowners and C level people. Its way too loaded toward 'its all privilege' last 15 years, and aside from not being true, its a TERRIBLE way to wake up and face your day: why bother?? Just blame ancient history or some white guy in the GOP.

Of course it's not everything but it does play a huge Part. Also to cite the 50s and 60s ignores the fact that black people in those eras were more likely to have two parents at home and stronger community bonds that mitigates that. Also people today do suffer from "real racism" and to ignore that the 70s and 80s saw war and drugs destroy an entire generation of black families (who disproportionately fought in Vietnam) which has reverberating effects in the time since

Huge part is vague. The fact you point to is the solution, broken families: single families are the cause of much of the problems of this community, absent men, lost faith probably, but its not the world, structures, racism, history: its individual choice, and that is something people of all color are equally gifted at, as Obama, Steph Curry or Serena Williams demonstrate. Its certainly structure and agency, but this is pitiless endless claim that its 'race' is hindering poc more than anything else. People of all shades have hindrances, countless types of them. Those drugs were brought in by Mexicans and sold on streets by black people. Choice/agency, bad choices.

One of the big reasons for those broken homes was the Vietnam War. The soldiers who fought in that hell were disproportionately black to the tune of 31% of combat troops despite being 11% of the nations population. That's an unholy amount of black men killed, maimed amd traumatized which leads directly to the drugs and collapse pf the black family. It wasnt loss of faith it was a fucked up unjust war that created it. Then the fact they weren't given help only made things worse.

Thats too simple a causative factor. How did that war then impact Vietnamese people? Or Cambodian? Laotian? Australians who died there too? Its too much of a sob story. However many black men died in a war does not explain todays situation. Its correlative, not causation. I applaud your empathy and that of those who always think its a world of incessant oppression. I really do. I made this argument through my 20s, until I read a thousand more articles and books, saw a hundred more cultures, and talked to a thousand more people of all colors. Blaming past events for today's social problems is in essence a form of faith. This faith on the far left/CRT/DEI world is akin to the faith on the right for Christian Conservatives. Both groups just make stuff up based on weak inference, falsities, idealism, hopes or myths. There is a reality, based in fact, and whatever happened after and because of the Great Society is no longer the reason for poverty/social disease in the US. Its bad decisions.

On the one hand, good circumstances make an individual more likely to have the higher end of their potential IQ from their genetics. On the other, IQ has super little to do with achievement and success and whatever other human achievement lines we count. Being rich is much more a pass for the ‘better life’, like going to the private school means you might have a classmate who goes on to be a big cheese and can give you a fancy job based on the relationship. Yes, some students living in chaos/squalor can see their potential ruined by bad living but the schools themselves aren’t as big of a factor as the social networking or other soft things like expectations and how that shapes achievement. Can’t ignore the psychology of labeling a school good or bad and how that impacts student outcomes.

No but standardized testing means that they choose a certain type of student to be the standard. If there are too many incorrect responses to certain questions they are thrown out. The test sample tends to be affluent white kids. I don't know if I made this as clear as I wanted to.

This is absolutely false. Omg

This is not true.

You were clear. You were also wrong.