From the NYT, courtesy a facebook-friend share, “No Rich Child Left Behind.”
If scientists discovered a magic pill which, when given to toddlers, inceased their future IQ by 10 points, should every family have a “right” to this pill? What if it cost so much only the wealthy could afford it? Would the government have the obligation to provide it to everyone, cost be damned, for fairness’s sake?
This article claims that the “rich” (the top 10th percentile) have discovered the secret to high academic achievement for their children, and their test scores are zooming ahead of not just the poor but the middle-class, too. Not that these other groups are doing worse, it’s just that they’re not seeing the same gains. This author proposes a mix of solutions: maternity leave so that poor and middle-class mothers can spend more time with their children, more generous childcare subsidies to fund more-educated and more-intelligent employees as well as all the nice extra enrichment activities, plus more government actions to teach parents how to do a better job parenting.
But do we need to intervene at all?
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