Social Benefits of Education

Shatner · Post by **Shatner** » Thu Oct 22, 2009 4:14 pm

During a late night conversation with my wife, she mentioned coming across an organization that sought to determine what affected a person's health in a holistic fashion (checking environmental factors not generally related with one's health but seem to show a correlation). One of their findings was that people who have a college degree are, in general, healthier than those who do not have a college degree. This can generally be attributed to those people having a larger income/better jobs which improves their access to health care.

However, many sociological studies have been performed comparing the college educated population to the non-college educated population and found that the former group commits fewer crimes, lives longer, is less religious, more politically active and so on. While most of this can be attributed to the better money/jobs, it seems like there is something powerful and fundamental here.

Speaking broadly, does more education really improve so many social problems (health, crime, political involvement, religiosity, etc.)? If that one fulcrum could be used to leverage society up, it seems like it would be everyone's goal to offer free, quality education to everyone else. In other words, if pumping a lot of money and expertise into one place can have such far-reaching benefits it seems too great an opportunity to pass up.

So, does a quality education really offer the benefits I mention? Is universal, quality education something the U.S. could offer its citizenry? If so, why aren't we already doing it? Is any one else already offering this?

mean_liar · Post by **mean_liar** » Thu Oct 22, 2009 4:32 pm

Likely there are three cohorts: the motivated that will succeed, those that are profoundly influenced by their environment, and those that are unmotivated that will not succeed. Motivated people with significant self-concern will pursue education and self-care with greater efficiency and results than others, leading to better outcomes across the board. Therefore, even with a universal quality education available there's no guarantee that it would be taken up universally as that third cohort is going to fail regardless.

They are stupid and/or unmotivated. You're not going to reach them and place them in with the other two cohorts with an education system.

As to why it hasn't been undertaken to reach the other two cohorts, well... who knows. "More money" would presumably improve on most of the problems the US education system has, but the degree of that improvement relative to the money spent is where the trouble is since its difficult to pin down the size of that middle cohort as well as generate any curriculum that can reach them through all their varying educational needs.

All that aside, yes the US could offer this to its citizenry as a money matter and I cannot imagine it not being well worth the investment. Seriously, if a private primary school exists that can charge $27k a year from kindergarten onward then this is a market were demand clearly is outstripping supply. The larger, unresolved matter is that you'd need a massive influx of qualified teachers (class size being a huge determinant of education outcomes) and an overhaul of how teachers acquire and retain their positions - and that's a tangled, disgusting mass of local, state, and federal regulations and agreements. You'd probably need a Gordian solution that cut through all of it, but to implement that in the US would be a VERY difficult prospect.

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Thu Oct 22, 2009 4:42 pm

Yeah, I've seen people offered a free ride to college who ended up dropping out quite early. It's a combination of college just not being their thing and/or them not being invested in it. They don't gain anything, but they don't lose anything.

I think Mean_Liar has a point in that you have to want to succeed. Given that drive, you will (all other things being equal) likely do better than those without that drive. I've seen a lot of smart people fail because they didn't apply themselves. I'm sure education helps, but I think it's more a matter of proper motivation, and sometimes the ability to put off immediate game for a greater gain later.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Thu Oct 22, 2009 5:07 pm

Countries that have free higher education for more of their people do have less religion and less crime. The Scandinavian miracle and all that.

-Username17

Gelare · Post by **Gelare** » Thu Oct 22, 2009 7:13 pm

I am all for promoting and subsidizing quality education and higher education. Of the many things I'm bitter about being taxed for, that's not one of them. Of course, even though the U.S. government does offer fully subsidized, public education, many people still choose to pay tens of thousands of dollars to get their children privately educated. When people won't buy your product even when it's free, you probably have a seriously flawed product. Really, the U.S. pumps a whole lot of money into the public school system, and that alone clearly isn't doing the trick, made more clear when you compare student outcomes vs. dollars spent per student. The whole system needs substantial changes.

violence in the media · Thu Oct 22, 2009 7:30 pm

Gelare wrote:I am all for promoting and subsidizing quality education and higher education. Of the many things I'm bitter about being taxed for, that's not one of them. Of course, even though the U.S. government does offer fully subsidized, public education, many people still choose to pay tens of thousands of dollars to get their children privately educated. When people won't buy your product even when it's free, you probably have a seriously flawed product. Really, the U.S. pumps a whole lot of money into the public school system, and that alone clearly isn't doing the trick, made more clear when you compare student outcomes vs. dollars spent per student. The whole system needs substantial changes.

I don't know that that is entirely a function of the quality of public education. I'm thinking that ideological issues and the desire to purchase comparative advantages play a big role in that decision. I think the notion that public education is bad is often a simplified stand in for the various real reasons parents want to send their kids to private schools.

mean_liar · Post by **mean_liar** » Thu Oct 22, 2009 7:33 pm

I know that I'm considering it because the local schools stink and the wife would like to use her advanced degrees in some capacity rather than in home schooling. In my case, it is definitely the quality of public education that has me concerned.

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Thu Oct 22, 2009 7:56 pm

Shatner wrote:Speaking broadly, does more education really improve so many social problems (health, crime, political involvement, religiosity, etc.)?

Simply put, no.

Education does not solve the problem, because the problem still exists. Society uses a caste system to classify all people's into many different groups. Those with a GED are looked down upon over those that have a full high school degree. 4 year degrees are looked at as better than 2 year degrees, etc from colleges.

The problem isn't a lack of education making people more socially inept, but society trying to...for lack of a better word...oppress those without education due to lack of money or other reasons that would prevent them from getting one.

While being more highly educated can give some benefits to dealing with and handling with people in society that act this way, it does not really change that society is this way, even those who are downtrodden even perpetuate it.

What the problem is is society's perspective of the value of people.

When you think about it, that doctor in the hospital goes around with his 7+ years of higher education from degrees and does his job, but so does that plumber that keeps indoor plumbing working with his small on the job training and 1 year maybe of education to get his license.

Both can be drunks, wife beaters, child abusers, thieves, etc; so in no way does the amount of education really curb the problem, but just on how society treats the person in general.

Higher paid people usually come from better educations, and can afford those drugs to use for escapism to "relax" better, than lower paid people that may require indulging in beer or low end liquors that aren't as "relaxing", but can actually incite even more stress or anger to day to day life.

So no matter whether you have a higher education or not, it doesn't really do anything to prevent those social "problems", it is just the perception society has based on their caste system and how those people without the luck of having the higher education are treated less well than those with an education.

Shatner · Post by **Shatner** » Thu Oct 22, 2009 7:57 pm

First off, here is the report my wife was talking about. Though I mention the education section specifically, there is a lot there to look over if you are so inclined.

Now, it is widely considered a good thing that everyone is forced to attend school in some capacity until they complete the 12th grade or can legally drop out after a specific age. It is true that some people (because of a number of internal and external factors including, but not limited to, the idiosyncratic and the socio-economic) go through the process kicking and screaming and emerge from the other side with nothing to show but a bunch of misspent tax dollars. However, some people rise to the occasion and benefit from the experience. While the public school system can be criticized about efficiency, the net-gain to society from the people who won at the game of school so far outweighs the cost of those that lost that public education through high school is considered a given for a modernized country. You know, like electricity, medicine and airports.

My question is, would it be a good thing if the rails were extended (polished and the ticket price heavily subsidized) beyond 12th grade and into four years of undergraduate studies? Would such a thing be practical on such a large scale?

Frank: Clearly the US doesn't have Western Europe's school system. Why do they have it and we don't? Is it simply because those countries are smaller and more homogeneous?

A Hammer · Post by **A Hammer** » Thu Oct 22, 2009 8:26 pm

Shatner wrote:Clearly the US doesn't have Western Europe's school system. Why do they have it and we don't? Is it simply because those countries are smaller and more homogeneous?

There isn't really any such thing as a unified European educational system. There has been some EU-led efforts to create one, but nothing of substance has come out of that as of yet.

In other words, Frank will probably have an easier time answering your question if you narrow it down to a country or set of countries.

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Thu Oct 22, 2009 8:31 pm

The US isn't uniform. It might as well be 50 smaller countries trying to act as one for protection.

If the US ever gets its act together and works as one nation, for all its people, then and only then will decent education become available.

The idea of having to pay for education always bothered me. You should want to have more educated people in your country so that you can keep up with the rest of the world.

The problem in the US is that it views so many people simply as expendable. It is ok that only 10% or so have decent educations, because there are so many people.

It does need full free education with the same curriculum across the entire country do that people aren't so disconnected form other parts of the country.

Also there needs to be education reform. Every year of PE is wasting time that could better be used learning, for those that can, all the time wasted on history that could go to real world things to be taught in the event people aren't able to learn it at home. How many people actually become historians?

Refining the system so that when you come out of high school level you have been already trained in part for your career or whatever would work better than the current system of just being well rounded and unfocused on any subject area.

Also they need to teach people HOW to think, not WHAT to think. Teach the way Romeo and Juliet is written, but not your personal interpretation, or the state's interpretation of the story. You are trying to teach art while in the guise of literature. People view art differently, so teach them how to think for themselves and make their own opinions, and they can be better ready to lead society when their time comes, rather than sticking to old and possibly misguided ways.

Could you imagine if you were alive and being taught one way all your life, and then being told the world wan't flat but really round?

They also need to make sure that education at all levels keeps up with the latest technology, and people like Appl, and Microsoft, need to slow it down with the greed of OS's so that people CAN learn, rather than being afraid someone is going to come along and usurp your business with Linux, or Ubuuntu, or whatever.

If they got rid of needless courses, they could probably get a 2 year degree level of education into the same span as exists with K-12 right now, and not need year-round schools even. If they could someone fund more free education by reducing college costs and teacher pay, etc; then by all means give more there as well.

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Thu Oct 22, 2009 9:13 pm

Although I hated PE, including it in education is correlated with better test scores and overall health of students. But this can be things like recess for younger students or weight training or martial arts for older students.

Mass schooling will always depend upon having motivated parents, students, and generally fail for edge case students. That's what charter and magnate schools should be for.

Hard-line Libertarians and Republicans are willing to throw out a number of students be they poor or otherwise deemed less deserving. That's the opposite of a progressive stance on education.

I also might point out that geographic public schools are necessary to make sure all students have access and that public schools produce many very good students. There's very little evidence that after correcting for demographics that any other system does as well. Lastly, my sister went to public school, and she is now at Vassar on a scholarship.

-Crissa

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Thu Oct 22, 2009 9:15 pm

Shatner wrote:Speaking broadly, does more education really improve so many social problems (health, crime, political involvement, religiosity, etc.)?

I think it's a level of exposure. When it comes to health and eating, it's exposure to a wide variety of foods and flavors. They're exposed to a wider variety of activities to participate in. And people who go to college tend to have broader experiences dealing with different types of people. When you're thrown into an environment where you don't get as much of a choice about who you're co-existing with, it breeds tolerance.

I think that's also a lot of the reason why people in cities tend to be Democrats more than Republicans.

Shatner wrote:If that one fulcrum could be used to leverage society up, it seems like it would be everyone's goal to offer free, quality education to everyone else.

The problem with offering free education is that the minute you make sure it's everywhere, you lose the diversity needed to expand a person's world-view. I think it would be more effective to require that every high school student spend a year abroad - maybe even spending it in two or three different places.

Gelare wrote:Of course, even though the U.S. government does offer fully subsidized, public education, many people still choose to pay tens of thousands of dollars to get their children privately educated.

My brother, sister, and I all went out of state for college, and all of us went to private schools. With all our scholarships and money-scrounging efforts, the cost of going was cheaper than if we attended a state school as a resident. The problem with state schools is that it's hard to be a big fish - you're a small fish in a big pond, so it's often more difficult to get assistance to go. If you're a big fish in a small pond, though, the school will often go out of its way to help you pay the money.

mean_liar wrote:In my case, it is definitely the quality of public education that has me concerned.

When talking about the basic education system, public education varies widely, and sucks often.

Due to being a pest in class, my mom punished my brother by pulling him out of public school and dropping him in a private Christian school (different peer group led to different behavior). When he went back to public school a year later, he was so far ahead of the class that he got bored.

In seventh grade, my sister's science teacher asked me to come to class twice a week to teach because he didn't have a grasp on the subject matter (and from correcting my sister's homework, it was obvious that whoever was "tutoring" her did).

It's that kind of thing that makes people lose faith in public education.

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Thu Oct 22, 2009 9:31 pm

Crissa, PE doesn't teach anything. That stupid Arnold program and crap doesn't do anything. While exercise and energy burn-off is good, they need to have a bit of free form in the schools.

I mean everyone doesn't like redneck sports, and the dodgeball shit has got to go, unless they allow some people to use hammers. It only serves as PE to add to harassment of people not physically well endowed.

When you focus on teaching PE so much you are pretty much putting into it that many people will need the strong back because they have a weak mind and won't be able to get further education anyway.

Granted some get sports scholarships, but that doesn't eman everyone will, so again you need to focus on the eneded things for life.

How about teaching how to do your own taxes in school. That is more useful for everyone rather than teaching the girl in the wheelchair how to play American football by NFL standards. She isn't ever going to be allowed to play in the NFL anyway even if she could get out of the wheelchair.

So just have recess for all grades, to get out and absorb the info learned during the day and relax while you do it rather than trying to cram so much in that much of it gets forgotten by the masses.

Shiritai · Post by **Shiritai** » Thu Oct 22, 2009 9:53 pm

shadzar wrote:Also there needs to be education reform. Every year of PE is wasting time that could better be used learning, for those that can, all the time wasted on history that could go to real world things to be taught in the event people aren't able to learn it at home. How many people actually become historians?

Yeah, history's just not practical. Things like the 1918 flu pandemic and the McCarthy era have nothing to do with the events of today. And it's not like we depend on the average US citizen to make informed decisions, right?

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Thu Oct 22, 2009 10:06 pm

How often do you use the Magna Carta in everyday life? How about the war of 1812? The Shadow Proclamation?

two weeks right there wasted that could be used on something else. Like how about an economics class. It only takes 2 weeks at most to teach economics.

Economics 101~:

If you have money you can spend it, if you don't you can't.

Repeat it until you have it down pat, and here's your degree!

tzor · Post by **tzor** » Thu Oct 22, 2009 10:06 pm

shadzar wrote:How about teaching how to do your own taxes in school. That is more useful for everyone rather than teaching the girl in the wheelchair how to play American football by NFL standards. She isn't ever going to be allowed to play in the NFL anyway even if she could get out of the wheelchair.

Perhaps not, but hockey at the college level is certainly doable. (BAH few people who play sports in high school are ever going to play sports professionally, especially football which has no minor leagues and certainly no independent leagues whatsoever!)

The Wheelchair Hockey League (WCHL) of Michigan

The U.S. Electric Wheelchair Hockey Association

Ohio Sled Hockey

RPI to Host Sled Hockey Game

Sled Warriors debut on ice against RPI

Sled hockey is an international Paralympic sport which allows people with limited or no use of their lower body to compete in a hockey game. They propel themselves using custom hockey sticks that are shortened with picks placed on the end.

P.S. According to NPR, teaching how to do your taxes, figure out how to navigate 401K options, health benefit plants, etc should be a first year college course, just as sex education is a high school course.

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Thu Oct 22, 2009 10:08 pm

But people that do NOT go to college still have to pay taxes, so it should be a course for everyone going through the minimum requirements of the system.

There is also a wheelchair basketball league. That shit is pretty competitive and fierce, and elbows ARE allowed!

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Thu Oct 22, 2009 10:53 pm

I'm not going to get into an argument of varying PE requirements. We know that many of them just suck. But when they are removed - like art - they reduce the overall health and success of the students.

Just like when science classes don't teach science, students do worse. Duh.

-Crissa

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Thu Oct 22, 2009 11:06 pm

I had to take band, art, AND chorus in school. I can't draw a straight line, sing worse than Milli Vanillli, and can only make music after eating beans!

Waste of fucking time!

Thankfully during those classes is when I was called out to go fix the schools computers that the teacher/staff messed up the settings of on the TRS-80, and screwed up the dip switches.

They need to evaluate the classes taken based on the individual not some over-generalization.

ubernoob · Post by **ubernoob** » Fri Oct 23, 2009 12:41 am

Getting students to focus on *any* subject in school means they are more likely to come to school and behave well enough and get enough grades not to get kicked out. PE is stupid because it is generalized, but something physical period reduces stress and keeps the students healthier.

So yeah, I didn't personally like PE either. Fuck you for saying it should go away though. Just because it isn't fun for you doesn't mean it doesn't serve a point.

About history: History and math are the two subjects that regardless of what type of job you will have, you should have a couple years of study in them. They both teach you to think logically and follow the chain of possible events forward. In essence, history and math both teach you not to be retarded.

Yeah, fuck your "I was bored in school" argument. What matters is not what worked for you individually, but what works for the fucking WORLD best, and fundamentally both History and some sort of physical exercise have their place in schools.

But yeah, we need more specialized subjects in school that get kids excited about learning. Anything that keeps kids excited about learning and coming to school is something we should try to fit in the budget because it is the will to learn that is the most important thing for schools to impart.

PS: I believe that mandated english curriculum really needs to die in a fire. English teachers should get more leeway in how to get students to appreciate the language.

Crissa · Post by **Crissa** » Fri Oct 23, 2009 1:39 am

Mandated English works for the first couple years - get kids to know a common vocabulary and grammar tools. The problem is that we don't generally seem to grow from that.

Some kids will find that difficult and want to just ditch it, and at that point, you need to have a system which is adaptable to the group of students which are being taught.

We have agile businesses, in theory. We should also have agile schools.

-Crissa

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Fri Oct 23, 2009 2:18 am

Fuck you for being a retard and thinking everyone needs to learn to play redneck games like baseball, and shit that many people could give a fuck less about, or forced fucking exercise. Like I said the class needs to go away, and just let people have some time to blow off steam and energy during school. More lying telling people "you can be anything when you grow up shit", and what maybe 1 in 1,000 schools can get a job in professional sports?

The problem with English classes also is the language keeps fucking "evolving" and adding shit to it for no reason. They don't teach it. They need to teach English classes like other languages. You can only speak English in English classes. No Spanish or other crap.

On Spanish...they need to get rid of the extra language classes. Not everyone needs to learn Spanish. That was the only choice of other language I had in school. Too bad they have so little teacher, if they cannot offer a proper spectrum of courses, then they need to drop the subject line. It will be good enough if every American learns to speak English.

You learn more about other cultures in school here than American culture...the main reason is America has no culture other than greed. It was lost long ago.

So they need to just teach what actually helps people. Then move form general education to specific BEFORE you leave high school. That way you are more prepared for work (if there is any jobs available), or life in general. Also you have already begun working towards whatever you might take in college for those lucky enough to get to go.

PE does little to nothing except energy release. There is no job that PE will help the majority of people in schools with, so you do not need a structured class for exercise. It must not even be working anyway with the rate of morbidly obese people, so fucking fix it.

@Crissa: Exactly. Course need to be based on the individual and the direction they want to go in. We might end up with a lot smarter class of people in the country that way.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Fri Oct 23, 2009 2:50 am

shadzar wrote:The problem with English classes also is the language keeps fucking "evolving" and adding shit to it for no reason. They don't teach it. They need to teach English classes like other languages. You can only speak English in English classes. No Spanish or other crap.

On Spanish...they need to get rid of the extra language classes. Not everyone needs to learn Spanish. That was the only choice of other language I had in school. Too bad they have so little teacher, if they cannot offer a proper spectrum of courses, then they need to drop the subject line. It will be good enough if every American learns to speak English.

I don't know about anyone else here, but my English classes were actually Literature classes, and I ended up learning more English in my foreign languages classes than I did anywhere else.

As much as I'm a fan of great Literature, that's a class that I think really sucked for me in high school - very few of the books were anything most students considered worth reading, and very little of it has been relevant to anything in the rest of the world. We didn't even study Lit in conjuntion with anything like culture, so it literally seemed like a flood of "read this totally ass book and write a report on it."

shadzar wrote:So they need to just teach what actually helps people.

They used to call it Home Economics, but by the time that I was forced to take it, it was "How to make a cupcake out of felt" and "the colors on the color-wheel." It should have been basic shopping techniques, balancing a checkbook, boiling water, and sewing on a button.

violence in the media · Fri Oct 23, 2009 2:50 am

shadzar wrote:Fuck you for being a retard and thinking everyone needs to learn to play redneck games like baseball, and shit that many people could give a fuck less about, or forced fucking exercise. Like I said the class needs to go away, and just let people have some time to blow off steam and energy during school. More lying telling people "you can be anything when you grow up shit", and what maybe 1 in 1,000 schools can get a job in professional sports?

The problem with English classes also is the language keeps fucking "evolving" and adding shit to it for no reason. They don't teach it. They need to teach English classes like other languages. You can only speak English in English classes. No Spanish or other crap.

On Spanish...they need to get rid of the extra language classes. Not everyone needs to learn Spanish. That was the only choice of other language I had in school. Too bad they have so little teacher, if they cannot offer a proper spectrum of courses, then they need to drop the subject line. It will be good enough if every American learns to speak English.

You learn more about other cultures in school here than American culture...the main reason is America has no culture other than greed. It was lost long ago.

So they need to just teach what actually helps people. Then move form general education to specific BEFORE you leave high school. That way you are more prepared for work (if there is any jobs available), or life in general. Also you have already begun working towards whatever you might take in college for those lucky enough to get to go.

PE does little to nothing except energy release. There is no job that PE will help the majority of people in schools with, so you do not need a structured class for exercise. It must not even be working anyway with the rate of morbidly obese people, so fucking fix it.

@Crissa: Exactly. Course need to be based on the individual and the direction they want to go in. We might end up with a lot smarter class of people in the country that way.

I'm sorry your PE classes sucked, shadzar, mine were pretty awesome. I could have taken baseball or soccer for PE, if I had wanted, but I took archery, swimming, and badminton instead.

We had a half-dozen language classes offered at my HS: Spanish, French, Latin, German, Russian, and American Sign. For art classes we had pottery, painting, drawing, woodshop, and jewelry.

As far as job training classes went, you had OJT classes which just involved you leaving school early to go work at whatever crappy job you already had. You had tradesman classes for construction, plumbing, electrical wiring, and auto repair.

And this isn't getting into all the options for Literature, Science, Math, History, Music, and Theatre.

I guess I don't really know what you're complaining about? Everything you've said you wanted was already available for me, and it was up to the student to select what they wanted to study, provided they adhered to the graduation requirements. Where did you go to school, anyway? I went to a public HS in a metropolitan area with around 3000+ other students, so that probably contributed to the breath and depth of our course selections.

The Gaming Den

Social Benefits of Education

Social Benefits of Education

Re: Social Benefits of Education