Hold up -- isn't one's income more a factor of their choice of field? For instance, if you take three identical liberal arts grads and one becomes a social worker and one becomes a professor and one becomes a management consultant, how is it that the management consultant apparently gets credit for being the smartest because he or she makes the most money? I happen to live in a wonderful neighborhood in Silver Spring filled with more of the human service type professions and fewer of the management consultants. This says nothing about the intelligence of the parents or (given your proclivity for eugenics) the inherited intelligence of the children.


This! And FYI those in the sciences on average make no where near what most people expect considering the difficulty of the schooling.

Higher SES is defined on the national scale not the DCUM world where anything below 500K a yr is considered poor. The engineers and researchers making 100K are in the higher SES bracket. Lower SES is making minimum wage or barely a living wage and not being able to make more because both parents barely have a high school education.

Liberal arts majors in general tend to have lower IQs than STEM majors.

Two more:

an interview with Joshua Starr: http://greatergreatereducation.org/post/19347/montgomery-schools-super-tries-closing-achievement-gap/

and possible solutions: http://greatergreatereducation.org/post/19361/integration-will-keep-moco-public-schools-competitive/

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The second part of what you say is also wrong. I don't think affluence = intelligence. Higher SES kids might score better on tests, but it is not because they are more intelligent. It is usually because they are exposed to more stuff that is relevant to the tests (i.e. their families use a larger vocabulary, et cetera). But that is not the same as intelligence.

Yes and no. You need to factor in the area employment market. In this area, the affluent are also competitive as the job market attracts people from all over the country. In order to be affluent (unless you are one of the few old money legacies in VA) you need to be able to perform at the top of your field. You have more parents with high IQs and multiple professional degrees in the affluent areas and therefore more genetically gifted kids.

The immigrant community also breaks down into two groups. You have the immigrants who came here through education. They had to be able to achieve at the highest level to immigrate through education, often in STEM fields. They also highly value education so you have kids with a combo of genetic high iQs and incredible work ethics.

Hold up -- isn't one's income more a factor of their choice of field? For instance, if you take three identical liberal arts grads and one becomes a social worker and one becomes a professor and one becomes a management consultant, how is it that the management consultant apparently gets credit for being the smartest because he or she makes the most money? I happen to live in a wonderful neighborhood in Silver Spring filled with more of the human service type professions and fewer of the management consultants. This says nothing about the intelligence of the parents or (given your proclivity for eugenics) the inherited intelligence of the children.

This! And FYI those in the sciences on average make no where near what most people expect considering the difficulty of the schooling.

Anonymous wrote:

The second part of what you say is also wrong. I don't think affluence = intelligence. Higher SES kids might score better on tests, but it is not because they are more intelligent. It is usually because they are exposed to more stuff that is relevant to the tests (i.e. their families use a larger vocabulary, et cetera). But that is not the same as intelligence.

Yes and no. You need to factor in the area employment market. In this area, the affluent are also competitive as the job market attracts people from all over the country. In order to be affluent (unless you are one of the few old money legacies in VA) you need to be able to perform at the top of your field. You have more parents with high IQs and multiple professional degrees in the affluent areas and therefore more genetically gifted kids.

The immigrant community also breaks down into two groups. You have the immigrants who came here through education. They had to be able to achieve at the highest level to immigrate through education, often in STEM fields. They also highly value education so you have kids with a combo of genetic high iQs and incredible work ethics.

Hold up -- isn't one's income more a factor of their choice of field? For instance, if you take three identical liberal arts grads and one becomes a social worker and one becomes a professor and one becomes a management consultant, how is it that the management consultant apparently gets credit for being the smartest because he or she makes the most money? I happen to live in a wonderful neighborhood in Silver Spring filled with more of the human service type professions and fewer of the management consultants. This says nothing about the intelligence of the parents or (given your proclivity for eugenics) the inherited intelligence of the children.

I'm not sure that socioeconomic serration is a bad thing if its handled to maximize offerings to students across the board but in different ways.

You can end up increasing rather than decreasing racism if a diverse socioeconomic school has trends where kids of one race perform better and have more financial resources than another. You see more segregation among the students and stereotypes form in their mind. If you have a racially diverse group but everyone is from similar socioeconomic backgrounds kids see equality between the groups and they form more racially diverse friendships.

The needs are different based on socioeconomic circumstances. Why not let affluent parents collect and raise large amounts of money to fund school facilities and resources. This is less money that the county would spend on those school and money that could be diverted to schools that don't have this advantage.

If there are problems at lower SES with kids being hungry or not having parents to help with homework why not offer free meals 3 times a day at these schools and evening tutoring services to actually bridge the gap? If there are problems at higher SES schools with kids being held back and not being given challenging curriculum why not offer acceleration and/or programs where these students can provide after school tutoring programs in lower SES schools?

Anonymous wrote:You have more parents with high IQs and multiple professional degrees in the affluent areas and therefore more genetically gifted kids.

I don't know about you, but I come from ancestors who, when they arrived in America, the people who were already here wailed about how their low IQs were going to forever ruin the gene pool for everybody. And yet here their descendants are, with advanced degrees.

"Genetically gifted" indeed. It doesn't work that way.

The second part of what you say is also wrong. I don't think affluence = intelligence. Higher SES kids might score better on tests, but it is not because they are more intelligent. It is usually because they are exposed to more stuff that is relevant to the tests (i.e. their families use a larger vocabulary, et cetera). But that is not the same as intelligence.

Yes and no. You need to factor in the area employment market. In this area, the affluent are also competitive as the job market attracts people from all over the country. In order to be affluent (unless you are one of the few old money legacies in VA) you need to be able to perform at the top of your field. You have more parents with high IQs and multiple professional degrees in the affluent areas and therefore more genetically gifted kids.

The immigrant community also breaks down into two groups. You have the immigrants who came here through education. They had to be able to achieve at the highest level to immigrate through education, often in STEM fields. They also highly value education so you have kids with a combo of genetic high iQs and incredible work ethics.

No, your friend OWNS a landscaping business. My guess is that he's a reasonably smart guy if he was able to build a successful business from scratch. Do you think all the guys he has mowing lawns at 10 bucks an hour are as smart as he is? I've worked construction, and I know that skilled tradesmen aren't stupid, that's why they can often make good salaries.

Anonymous wrote:My friend is a landscaper who lives in Potomac.

no college degree - straight from HS into a business he started IN high school

I really think you're limited in your experiences, PP, as there are PLENTY of people making quite a bit of money working the "trades." I know; I live among them in the outer burbs, moron.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:


Generally.... correlates.... we're not talking in absolutes here. Of course there are exceptions. But if asked to bet 1000 bucks on which person was smarter, someone making $150K as an engineer or someone making 20K as a landscaper would you flip a coin to choose? I wouldn't. I would probably be wrong sometimes, but I'd guess that much more often than not I'd be right. Higher IQ correlates positively with higher salary later in life. And "less lucrative careers" doesn't mean poor; neither of the jobs you mentioned are particularly low paying.