If it’s that easy, can you explain precisely how you would do it?
If the problem is that children of poor parents have a financial problem getting education, create an organization that will search for talented poor children, and give them money and other support.
If the problem is that children of uneducated parents can’t get knowledge from their parents, create good educational DVDs and distribute them freely to poor people.
If the problem is that poor people have a culture where education is low-status, apply some propaganda (e.g. try to associate education with something they already consider high-status).
If the problem is poor children not having enough iodine in salt, put more iodine in salt, and give it freely to poor people.
Etc. Find the specific cause of the problem, apply solution to the specific cause of the problem. Measure the outcomes.
If the problem is that children of poor parents have a financial problem getting education, create an organization that will search for talented poor children, and give them money and other support.
Vague. How do you find the talent among poor people? This is made more difficult by the fact that the cultural influences of their environment may be steering them away from attempting to demonstrate such talents of their own initiative.
If the problem is that children of uneducated parents can’t get knowledge from their parents, create good educational DVDs and distribute them freely to poor people.
What if (as is probable,) educational DVDs are strictly inferior to receiving qualified hands-on assistance? A DVD can’t correct you if you misunderstand an explanation, or notice when your attention is lagging, or recognize your learning style and focus its efforts on addressing it. Also, the parents of disadvantaged children are a lot less likely to sit down and help them with their homework. A DVD cannot sit down with a student and help them do their homework.
There’s a point where people are liable to say “This is just too much effort for the government to go to to assist disadvantaged students, we can’t hold their hands the entire way,” but the effort that more advantaged families frequently put into their own childrens’ education is extensive and not easy to replicate on a mass scale.
If the problem is that poor people have a culture where education is low-status, apply some propaganda (e.g. try to associate education with something they already consider high-status).
Vague again. What sort of propaganda do you think would work well enough to meaningfully address the culture gap? “Apply some propaganda” is about as helpful advice as “use rationality.”
It’s easy to say “Find the specific causes and address them.” It’s much harder to say exactly how to find out in the first place exactly what the significant causes are, let alone how to resolve them.
Note: There are people who spent a lot of their time thinking and experimenting in this area. Refutation of my solutions does not mean that they could not come up with a better solution.
I don’t doubt that better solutions than what we have in place are possible, I’m sure that they are. Unfortunately, in politics, coming up with a viable plan tends to be a lot easier than implementing it.
If the problem is that children of poor parents have a financial problem getting education, create an organization that will search for talented poor children, and give them money and other support.
If the problem is that children of uneducated parents can’t get knowledge from their parents, create good educational DVDs and distribute them freely to poor people.
If the problem is that poor people have a culture where education is low-status, apply some propaganda (e.g. try to associate education with something they already consider high-status).
If the problem is poor children not having enough iodine in salt, put more iodine in salt, and give it freely to poor people.
Etc. Find the specific cause of the problem, apply solution to the specific cause of the problem. Measure the outcomes.
Vague. How do you find the talent among poor people? This is made more difficult by the fact that the cultural influences of their environment may be steering them away from attempting to demonstrate such talents of their own initiative.
What if (as is probable,) educational DVDs are strictly inferior to receiving qualified hands-on assistance? A DVD can’t correct you if you misunderstand an explanation, or notice when your attention is lagging, or recognize your learning style and focus its efforts on addressing it. Also, the parents of disadvantaged children are a lot less likely to sit down and help them with their homework. A DVD cannot sit down with a student and help them do their homework.
There’s a point where people are liable to say “This is just too much effort for the government to go to to assist disadvantaged students, we can’t hold their hands the entire way,” but the effort that more advantaged families frequently put into their own childrens’ education is extensive and not easy to replicate on a mass scale.
Vague again. What sort of propaganda do you think would work well enough to meaningfully address the culture gap? “Apply some propaganda” is about as helpful advice as “use rationality.”
It’s easy to say “Find the specific causes and address them.” It’s much harder to say exactly how to find out in the first place exactly what the significant causes are, let alone how to resolve them.
I accept the criticism for my quick solutions.
Note: There are people who spent a lot of their time thinking and experimenting in this area. Refutation of my solutions does not mean that they could not come up with a better solution.
I don’t doubt that better solutions than what we have in place are possible, I’m sure that they are. Unfortunately, in politics, coming up with a viable plan tends to be a lot easier than implementing it.