We hear a lot in the mainstream media about the correlation between family income and student achievement. The assumption is usually that it is the affluence itself that causes, by some unjust and remediable social mechanism, favorable outcomes for children of well-to-do families. But a more parsimonious explanation — one that will be obvious to denizens of this corner of the blogosphere — is that there is another factor that causes both the affluence and the achievement.
Charles Murray explains, here.
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Charles Murray is a smart guy. I bet he comes from an upper middle class family. Hence, he needs to check his privilege if he knows what’s good for him.
Also, the word “parsimonious”, which famously elicits association with Occam’s razor, which latter is known to be a deadly weapon. Also, this “P” word has other negative connotations, such as “stingy” and “niggardly”. The latter, of course, must not be spoken in “polite” company. Because racism.
If what Murray writes is allowed to become widely circulated, the social cultural tinkerers will experience “exploding head” syndrome. There is really a small gap in family income where test differences make any appreciable difference. This gap, mysteriously, encompasses so much of the middle class. The Left now sees itself as champion of the middle class and at the same time is responsible for its moral, ethical and economic demise.
The Federal social-economic gods will continue to push their phony solutions to make everyone in the bottom half of the population “equal” financially and then when it comes time to measure the results, only disappointment will be found. Solution? The tests will once again be “flawed”. Rinse repeat.
There will also be interpolated, between the “flawed” finding and the “rinse” steps, a skewing towards the lowest common denominator of the “testing” process.