
Lost Einsteins: The Innovations We’re Missing - prostoalex
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/03/opinion/lost-einsteins-innovation-inequality.html?_r=0
======
indubitable
The fact they chose to reference Einstein as somebody who, implicitly,
succeeded in part because of privilege is peculiar. He was a Jew born in
Germany who ended up renouncing his citizenship when he was 17 to avoid
compulsory military service - leaving him stateless at a time of growing
across the world antisemitism. He also chose to drop out of high school,
finding the curriculum restrictive and contrary to his views of education. He
would then apply to university - and was rejected for poor score on the
language section of the university's entrance examination - though he scored
phenomenally on math/science. Back to high school.

After improving his language skills he was admitted to a university. Following
graduation he was unable to find any teaching post at any university after
searching for 2 years, leaving him working as an assistant patent examiner --
where he was passed over for promotions for perceived lack of competence.
Interestingly enough his 'miracle year', where he would publish four
groundbreaking papers, happened while he was still working at the patent
office! And even then it would still be years before things really started to
rapidly progress for him, turning him into the namesake that he is today.

Something else I find trite in these articles is the constant assumption that
people have to be precisely demographically matched to function as role
models. In a survey recently carried out in Russia on role models, Putin
actually lost out to Elon Musk [1]. A soft spoken South African man who
immigrated to American is now one of the biggest role models for Russians. And
this article is talking about matching not only demographics, but down to the
precise state somebody lives in!

And one final critique. The article basically says _" stop giving tax breaks
to the wealthy, reinvest the money where it's needed."_ So where is it needed?
Well, of course that's not at all discussed. There is 0 reason to think the
failure of the American education system has anything whatsoever to do with
money. We already spend vastly more per child than nearly anywhere in the
world, yet our quantifiable educational performance continue to deteriorate by
nearly all metrics compared to the rest of the world. [2]

[1] - [http://www.newsweek.com/putin-beaten-jesus-elon-musk-and-
par...](http://www.newsweek.com/putin-beaten-jesus-elon-musk-and-parents-
young-russians-top-role-model-702357)

[2] - [https://rossieronline.usc.edu/blog/u-s-education-versus-
the-...](https://rossieronline.usc.edu/blog/u-s-education-versus-the-world-
infographic/)

