ON EDUCATION: Intelligence in the Classroom

opinionjournal.com ^ | Tuesday, January 16, 2007 | CHARLES MURRAY

[Pharmboy]

Half of all children are below average, and teachers can do only so much for them.

Education is becoming the preferred method for diagnosing and attacking a wide range problems in American life. The No Child Left Behind Act is one prominent example. Another is the recent volley of articles that blame rising income inequality on the increasing economic premium for advanced education. Crime, drugs, extramarital births, unemployment--you name the problem, and I will show you a stack of claims that education is to blame, or at least implicated. One word is missing from these discussions: intelligence. Hardly anyone will admit it, but education's role in causing or solving any problem cannot be evaluated without considering the underlying intellectual ability of the people being educated. Today and over the next two days, I will put the case for three simple truths about the mediating role of intelligence that should bear on the way we think about education and the nation's future.

Today's simple truth: Half of all children are below average in intelligence. We do not live in Lake Wobegon.

[dinoparty]

I think it describes the median, which I believe is the most common understanding of "average" when it comes to demographics. I'm no statistician, but my understanding is that, if you take for instance the following set: 2,6,7,11,19

1. "Median" would be 7, with 2 and 6 below median and 11 and 14 above median

2. "Mean" would be 9, which is the sum divided by 5.

All that being said, I think I understand better the objection to what Murray said, now that its been explained. The IQ test is not accurate enough to know exactly who is average as opposed to a little above or a little below.

Still, I don't think Murray's point was that the measuring tool is necessarily precise, but that hypothetically, regardless of whether we can ACTUALLY DETERMINE who is above or below median, some are below average and some are above IN REALITY.

[ntnychik]

Here are the other two articles in Murray's WSJ series.

What's Wrong with Vocational School http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110009535

Aztecs vs. Greeks http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110009541

[GSlob]

Thanks. I've seen both threads.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Link to

the second

and

the third and final installment

of this series by Murray.