That’s true, but in the actual case society(1) wants to maximize equality of outcomes among its members, and we’ve spent decades looking for a method that will provide that outcome, and nothing we’ve come up with works(2). You might think we “ought” to be doing that, but the judgement is now between “we should continue to pursue this value, knowing that it’s never worked before and we have no reason to believe that it will start working any time soon” and “we should pursue other values that seem to be achievable”—which is a very different judgement.
(1) or the segment thereof that controls education policy
(2) There are a lot of marginal claims of questionable statistical and practical significance that never seem to scale up, but “nothing works” is a reasonable summary.
That’s true, but in the actual case society(1) wants to maximize equality of outcomes among its members, and we’ve spent decades looking for a method that will provide that outcome, and nothing we’ve come up with works(2). You might think we “ought” to be doing that, but the judgement is now between “we should continue to pursue this value, knowing that it’s never worked before and we have no reason to believe that it will start working any time soon” and “we should pursue other values that seem to be achievable”—which is a very different judgement.
(1) or the segment thereof that controls education policy
(2) There are a lot of marginal claims of questionable statistical and practical significance that never seem to scale up, but “nothing works” is a reasonable summary.