Intelligence vs. Eductation

My mother has been an educator for over a decade (high school ESL, among other things). Lately she has been lamenting the terrible attitude among her students, contrasting it to idealized ideas she has about the past. In yesterday’s Opinion section of the Wall Street Journal there was an excellent article (the first of three) by Charles Murray. The quote that stood out for me:

The widely held image of a golden age of American education when teachers brooked no nonsense and all children learned their three Rs is a myth.

The article went on to describe one of the fundamental flaws in evaluating today’s educational system:

Half of all children are below average in intelligence

Mr. Murray goes on to lament the general hubris of the educational establishment, that any child, if given a proper chance, can excel (or at least improve) their academic performance. We see this idea codified in the No Child Left Behind Act, as well as Clinton’s procalmation during his presidency in his desire for all children to ultimately attend college.

… a century of psychometric evidence has been augmented over the last decade by a growing body of neuroscientific evidence. Like it or not, g_ [innate intelligence] exists, is grounded in the architecture and neural functioning of the brain, and is the raw material for academic performance. If you do not have a lot of _g when you enter kindergarten, you are never going to have a lot of it. No change in the educational system will change that hard fact.

This topic interests me a great deal (much like health care) because we, as American, obsess with the idea that we can cure all ills with enough money. While we can always get our hands on more money (taxes or borrowing), fresh ideas are much harder to come by. It is refreshing when someone like Mr. Murray comes along and states the obvious when so much inertia and social pressure conspire to stifle it.