

20/20: "Stupid in America" - ivankirigin
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfRUMmTs0ZA

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ivankirigin
In hopes to keep this on topic, I'll ask a question: what would a startup that
is disruptive to our education system look like?

Automated education sounds good. But in practice systems could be much, much
better. Most teaching programs I've seen are found in the bargain basement bin
at Staples.

Why?

~~~
palish
A system like YCombinator that starts at the K-12 level. Students would be
trained in programming, art, writing, and other methods of creation. When they
graduate they get $15,000 and one shot at starting a business. In return, the
school gets 2-10% of the company.

~~~
pg
This makes my brain explode.

~~~
rms
Ask Sequoia for ten million and try it as a charter high school?

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mynameishere
A school is good or bad because of the population of students, rather than the
teachers. And so, if you _choose_ a school, and if you choose the "best", it
happens to be the one with the best students. When everyone does this, it
quickly leads to a regression to the mean.

Depending on the geography, this isn't a problem. But in an area in which
there are wildly different populations of students near one another (as in
many cities, where the poor and rich neighborhoods exist close by) it won't
work. Parents in rich neighborhoods won't stand and watch the average IQ of
their public school drop 15 points as idiots are bused in.

~~~
felipe
1) "Best" is subjective. What you consider best for your kid most probably
will not fulfill the needs of all kids.

2) IQ has absolutely nothing to do with being rich or poor.

~~~
ivankirigin
"2) IQ has absolutely nothing to do with being rich or poor."

But being rich or poor can at least be correlated with IQ, right?

My intuition is that IQ is a greatly imperfect measure, but the correlation of
high IQ to positive things and low IQ to negative things is just too strong to
ignore.

Perhaps you've seen this figure:
[http://woodrow.typepad.com/the_ponderings_of_woodrow/images/...](http://woodrow.typepad.com/the_ponderings_of_woodrow/images/iq_table_1.gif)

~~~
chaostheory
Why are we even talking about IQ, like it's even important?

I could be wrong, but in my opinion the only thing that IQ has really proven
is its ability to predict how well a person will do in school. I doubt it
really does much for predicting titans of industry (or some other area) and
success in general.

I think its main flaw is that in general, life isn't constrained to a limited
set of multiple choice answers; it's a lot more open ended and chaotic. Not to
mention that some of the questions used to administer these tests are
biased... and o yeah, there are also different types of intelligence...

(Yes I have a high IQ, and high scores of other major ancient traditional
testing methods.)

IQ or the way it's currently administered is just too archaic, limited, and
just outdated. It needs to change.

~~~
felipe
I totally agree with you, chaostheory. IQ completely ignores social skills
(aka Emotional Intelligence), which is extremely important.

I brought up IQ simply because the previous commenter mentioned it.

~~~
chaostheory
Glad I'm not the only one to think that the idea of an IQ or how it's tested
needs to change - Good thing you reminded me of that book too hehe

