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From: carnes@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP (Richard Carnes)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: AA/Quota's, etc, why I don't like them...
Message-ID: <513@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 1-Jul-85 21:32:17 EDT
Article-I.D.: gargoyle.513
Posted: Mon Jul  1 21:32:17 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 3-Jul-85 07:20:18 EDT
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Organization: U. Chicago - Computer Science
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>> Projections based on collected data indicate that improving education
>> will not affect racial differences in life career paths AT ALL.  Chris
>> Jencks' book, "Who Gets Ahead", refines and fixes these statements some
>> more, taking into account new data, but the predictions remain the same:
>> improving education will have no effect on the US's racially unequal
>> distribution of careers.  Noting the strong effects of father's
>> occupations through all this research, overwhelming any school effects,
>> Jencks says that the way to redistribute careers is to redistribute
>> careers.  Makes sense.  If father's occupation is most of what matters,
>> then changing father's occupation will help the children.
   [T. WUERSCH]
>
>So, education has no effect on career achievements.  We sure could save 
>a lot of money if we just closed all the schools.-)  We could hold a
>lottery to see who gets what job.  What could be more unbiased than that!
>Seriously, I would be curious if anyone on the net besides Mr. Wuersch
>believes this drivel.  [B. TANENBAUM]

Let's beware of setting up straw men in this very complex area.
First, what did the Coleman Report (1965) conclude?  (quoting C.
Jencks):

     -- The physical facilities, the formal curriculums, and most of
	the measurable characteristics of teachers in black and white
	schools were quite similar.

     -- Measured differences in schools' physical facilities, formal
	curriculums, and teacher characteristics had very little
	effect on either black or white students' performance on
	standardized tests.

     -- The one school characteristic that showed a consistent
	relationship to test performance was the one school
	characteristic to which most poor black children had been
	denied access:  classmates from affluent homes.

In effect, the report supported the Supreme Court's judgment in
*Brown* (1954) against "separate but equal":  separate is inherently
unequal.  

What do Jencks et al. conclude in *Who Gets Ahead?*?  Among other
findings:

"Our results suggest that the apparent advantages enjoyed by high
school graduates derive to a significant extent from their prior
characteristics, not from their schooling.  Unless high school
attendance is followed by a college education, its economic value
appears quite modest.  [p. 189]

"We initially asked "Who gets the most desirable jobs?"  Our first
answer was that background exerts a larger influence on economic
outcomes than past research had suggested, accounting for something
like 48% of the variance in occupational status and 15 - 30% of the
variance in annual earnings.  This is as strong an association as
that between education and economic success.  If our aim is to reduce
the impact of being born to one set of parents rather than another,
we still have a long way to go....

"The best readily observable predictor of a young man's eventual
status or earnings is the amount of schooling he has had....  We did
find, however, that the first and last years of high school and
college are usually worth more than intervening years.  This fact,
along with the substantial reduction in the apparent effect of
schooling when we control causally prior traits, suggests that only
part of the association between schooling and success can be due to
what students actually learn from year to year in school.  
[pp. 229-30]

"*Inequality* [by Jencks] argued that trying to equalize men's
personal characteristics was an unpromising way of equalizing their
incomes.  This argument had two parts.  *Inequality* first argued
that even if personal characteristics were equalized, this would have
very marginal effects on the distribution of income.... *Inequality*
also argued that past efforts at equalizing the personal
characteristics known to affect income had been relatively
ineffective.  This assertion, sad to say, remains as true as ever.
Thus, if we want to redistribute income [i.e., change the statistical
distribution], the most effective strategy is probably still to
redistribute income."  [p. 311]

Let me remind Bill that if one wishes to call someone's conclusions
"drivel," whether Tony's or those of a distinguished researcher like
Jencks, it's good form to provide some arguments in rebuttal.

Not-terribly-relevant digression on Jencks vs. social myths:  An
article of faith of conservatives these days, that government
spending on welfare has largely hurt the poor, has received support
from Charles Murray's recent book *Losing Ground*.  Jencks's review
in the *New York Review* (5/9/85) is a good deal more than a book
review:  it is a first-rate essay on the pitfalls of antipoverty
programs.  Jencks argues that the evidence does not support Murray's
claim that the programs have done more harm than good to the poor,
but he praises the book for focusing on important questions that are
mostly neglected; Jencks's essay isn't by any means a knee-jerk
liberal reaction to Murray.  Well worth looking up, if your library
gets the NYR.

Richard Carnes, ihnp4!gargoyle!carnes