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| Re: OP-ED: What the Education Establishment keep ignoring about Finland's school success (895717) | |||
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Re: OP-ED: What the Education Establishment keep ignoring about Finland's school success |
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Posted by Concourse Express on Thu Jan 5 14:44:44 2012, in response to Re: OP-ED: What the Education Establishment keep ignoring about Finland's school success, posted by JayMan on Thu Jan 5 10:08:16 2012. If I were to implement this sort of program, I wouldn't use an IQ cutoff per se, I'd use a success cutoff. Not all low-IQ people are unsuccessful nor are all high-IQ people successful (since there's more to success than IQ). If a person is a high-school dropout, has little record of decent employment, and has been a receiver of welfare for a long time (a few years say), I'd make them eligible for a one-time payment of $10,000 in exchange for undergoing sterilization. That doesn't sound exorbitantly expensive (less than a year's welfare payment) and reduces the number of future welfare recipients.The problem I have with sterilization as a solution is that it counts on a person's future children also inheriting the same low IQ/unmotivated/unsuccessful outlook as the person in question. Even if the probability that one's children will live a meager life is increased by the meager life of the potential parent, you still discount the possibility that such children may actually have a higher IQ and/or success in life. Moreover, your idea of success may vary from that of the lawmakers who'd be charged with implementing such a policy if it came to fruition; you say such should be voluntary, but what's to stop one from proposing mandatory sterilizations? Or for men with little job prospects or education but who owe tons of child support for armies of illegitimate children, I'd forgive his debt and offer say $5,000 for them to undergo sterilization. Or for any person with a criminal record, especially for violent crime, they could be offered $2,000 and a reduced sentence to undergo sterilization. This would apply to people of all races (even some races will be more represented than others as per IQ). These are interesting cases, which is why I'm addressing this part of your post separately even though it's still on the topic of sterilization. In case 1 (dude with "armies of illegitimate children"), sterilization may stop him from having kids but it won't stop him from being promiscuous; he and/or his sex partners could still catch STDs, which leads to health care costs either they and/or the taxpayers have to foot. Moreover, if he owes lots of child support, that $5,000 may not be enough of an incentive, which potentially eats away at any savings. I may sound prudish for saying this, but I'm gonna say it anyway: TEMPERANCE (i.e. abstinence, self-control) should be encouraged; this isn't to say that abstinence-only sex ed is the way to go, however. In a discourse on methods of contraception and their efficacy rates, both the rates in the lab and in the field should be discussed so that the true risks of sexual activity can be elucidated (and cement the FACT that abstinence remains the ONLY guaran-damn-teed way to avoid pregnancy; I would say STDs too, but people can be born with those). This might help abate the scenario in case 1, but ultimately such depends on one's ability to control his/her impulses. For case 2 (violent offenders), what if the offender has a high IQ? Will sterilization still be an option in a plea bargain? I still have reservations because choosing to sterilize may not motivate him to stop committing crimes if he's released - and you still have to contend with the possibility that the (future) children will not make the same mistakes the parent(s) did. Yes, I would do away with standardized tests and I would certainly end making teacher and school funding dependent on such tests, owing to IQ. I'd be in favor of making IQ testing used earlier to help identify gifted students in otherwise under-performing populations and get them out of there earlier. Kinda like Bronx Science and the like, but at the middle school level. You mean something like the WISC? I can agree with IQ testing being used as a way to screen for gifted students, though I'm not sure how much help they would be for one looking to enter a specialized arts/music program, for instance. my blog |
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