What's Your FQ?

You might recall the recent backlash and embarrassment over Watson’s (of Watson and Crick) comments on genetics and race. I found his remarks, as you probably did, to be undeniably offensive, racist and wholly irresponsible for an expert of Watson’s fame. More disappointing, however, was the immediate characterization of the whole debacle as yet another example of how bigoted our society is. An opportunity to engage in an honest and open discussion about the consequences of genetics and race was presented, but passed-over in everyone’s rush to appear PC. (Note: To this group's credit, the topic made a brief appearance on the Tombs’ agenda.)

That, in part, explains why I find this article by Arnold Kling of GMU to be so interesting. In addressing cognitive ability and race, Kling calls for “individualism” to replace the current “denialism” and “compensationism” that dominates education policy. The definitions of these terms are pretty straightforward and I’m not going to try to summarize the article here. Suffice it to say, I think Kling gets it mostly right, but that actual policy prescriptions are far more elusive and incompatible with the politics of education than the article might suggest.

“Overall, I think that to do education properly, we need to take into account individual differences of ability. I do not think we should pay attention to race. Too much of our education policy seems to be driven by the opposite--we focus on outcomes in terms of race and leave the individual children behind.”

Also, check out this earlier article from Kling. He has some interesting observations about the overemphasis on college attendance. He suggests that the marginal benefit of your degree alone is very small.