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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][b]Right, but it's pretty obvious from all the academic research that performance in school tracks very closely to socioeconomic status, and kids from lower socioeconomic classes have to work harder to catch up. [/b] In the US, we recognize it.  In other countries, it is purely exams and academic performance.  Which is more of a meritocracy?  I don't know.  But coming from a privileged background myself, married to someone who grew up in a working class family, I realize just how easy it is to take these cumulative advantages for granted.[/quote]

this research comes from the USA. working class families in europe are in a different position. in my country of origin, for example, there is no such thing as "bad school" - everyone can go to elementary school they wish (wherever it is) and they are all state funded. this is not the end of it all, of course, but it is one of the great equalizers. my parents were highly educated upper middle class and i we lived in the same building with policemen and truck drivers (as well as doctors and lawyers) and i shared school desk with a roma.[/quote]

I don't envy your education. You should know that a single anecdote (about a Roma sharing your desk one year) doesn't make a dataset.

Sorry, but a system that tracks kids from middle or high school into college, or not, is not going to be very equal. We all know that the arab immigrants in the Paris banlieues cannot compete on the national tests against the upper middle class kids in the best arrondissements. What do you think the riots were about?[/quote]

The riots were about criminal elements defending their territory from the police. The were certainly not about entrance exams being too hard.

Yes, Arab immigrants as a group are not equally competitive, but as individuals they are. There are many examples of Arab immigrants having great success in France. You are espousing a twisted American idea that every arbitrarily defined group is supposed to be "represented" at every institution in direct proportion to its presence in the population. If they are not, the someone is to blame and something needs to be "fixed".

And as a matter fact, systems that track kids do in fact result in more equal societies. Not because of tracking itself, but because they are more equal, period. They might not be as equal in terms of distributing worthless diplomas but that's because they allocate their resources more prudently. A vast majority of people have no use of college education, none. The time of those who do not beong to college is better spent learning jobs they will actually perform.[/quote]

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