Equality is a sore topic with me. It's one I don't like discussing because I often get told to check my privilege, and rightly so. I was born in Spain in the 90s, to teacher parents, who weren't rich, but had enough to live on. I am a single child, and so I've been spoilt rotten my whole life. I look white (even though racially I cannot be described as Caucasian). I am a girl, but as I've discussed before, I don't really feel like I've been discriminated against for this yet. I am not the prettiest girl around, but I'm not the ugliest either. And I may not be the smartest person around, but I think I can say that I am not stupid. All this adds up to me being extremely privileged. All my life I've been told I could do whatever I wanted, and it's true. I've never felt there was anything I couldn't achieve if I tried hard enough. All this has led me to have a problem when I discuss equality. Specifically, when I discuss equal rights as pertaining to education.
I believe in equal opportunities. Problem is, equal opportunities aren't the same as equality. Equal opportunities mean that two people born with the exact same mental and physical characteristics should have the same chance of doing anything regardless of their socioeconomic background. I agree with this. I don't think who your parents are (other than the fact that you'll inherit traits from them), or where you are born, or your gender, or your sexual orientation, or your race, or your social class should affect what you can achieve, especially in an education background. But I don't believe in equality.
Recently, the Spanish minister for education confirmed that in order to be granted a bursary for studying at University, students would need to have an average grade of 6.5 over 10 and have passed 90% of their credits on the previous year. This is a change from the previous rules, according to which students only needed an average of a 5 over 10 (that is the pass grade in Spain) and to have passed 85% of their credits. The rules are somewhat more lenient for engineering degrees because they are considered more difficult (statistically, less people finish engineering degrees in the programmed time than any other qualification in Spain). A lot of people have complained that these measures ensure that education will only be for the rich or for the excellent. And the only thing I can think of is: why not?
Education has always been for the rich: whatever happens bursary-wise won't really affect them because there will always be private universities willing to take students whose parents can pay the fee. The excellent (if you can call someone with an average grade of 6.5 over 10 "excellent": please remember that I'm speaking of the Spanish education system, a 6.5 in Spain is not equivalent to a 65% in the UK, not because the system is worse, let me make this clear, but simply because the system is different) have not always had access to education, although it was easier for them to access education than it was for someone who happened to be both poor and "non-excellent". In the past century, perhaps in the past two centuries, education has been made more and more accessible for the excellent, but in fact, it has been made more accessible to everyone, and this is a good thing and something that should be kept up. The creation of a public (state) education system is a great advance and a step forward in the path to equal opportunities.
Now, why do I say that why not education only for the rich and excellent? Well, here's the thing: I think everyone has the right to a quality, free primary school education. In fact, I will go further than that. I think everyone has the right to a quality, free primary school education and a quality free secondary school education. In my opinion, the cut-off age for secondary school should be 15 years old, but currently in Spain it's 16. I'm not going to go into this matter now. In any case, I believe every person born into a modern state should have the right to a quality education until a certain age. After a certain age things change. If we accept equal opportunities, we should accept that in a country with a free quality education until the time people are (for example) 16, all people who are 16 have had access to an education, they have had equal opportunity to take advantage of this education.
After this, equal opportunity loses a bit of meaning to me. If they've had access to approximately the same resources (and this is what a quality education should ensure), two people with the same qualities should be able to gain approximately the same grades on the same standardised national exam. And if this is true, then rules saying that you can only get a bursary if you get a certain grade aren't discriminatory against social background, they are discriminatory against intelligence and hard work.
And here I admit my own experience comes in. I was a straight-A student for pretty much all of my secondary school years. The subjects I was bad at were (quite typically for a nerd) art and physical education. You needed talent for these. Everything else I was pretty good at.
I never understood why I couldn't go to the Olympic Games (based on the fact that I wasn't good enough at sport) but someone who wasn't good enough at studying could go to University anyway. And get paid to go. Now hear me out: I'm not against loans. If the system in Spain was loan-based, the way it is in the UK, I'd be OK with. And I'm not even against bursaries, as long as they are achievement based. What I am against is the whole idea that "we are all equal so we all deserve to go to University" culture. And what I am most definitely against is the whole idea that "oh, but I work really hard, I made a huge effort, shouldn't I get a bursary too?" No. You shouldn't. I can work my ass off running, it won't make me an Olympic champion. You can work your ass off doing maths, if you can't understand the Bolzano theorem, you're never going to understand derivability theory, and I'm sorry, but you shouldn't be studying maths (or probably any other science, now that I come to think of it) at University.
It's important to emphasise one thing when speaking about this sort of matter: it's not about being better or worse. It's about qualities, about what you are good at. And if someone says to me "what about if that's what I want to do, the only thing I ever dreamed of doing?", what I'll answer is, hard luck. And I don't believe you. I've met very, very few students who really like their subject and were bad at it. In fact, I can say I've met none. People tend to excel at what they're good at. So if you're not good at studying, find something else. Something that you find interesting, fascinating, important, and do it. You'll probably be happier than pursuing a University degree that you will have a hard time finishing and an even harder time enjoying.
ReplyDelete"Equal opportunity" means that the rules are applied the same to everyone. It doesn't define what people are entitled to receive (or say who pays for that).
It's hard to convince someone to educate you on merit if you've had no time to show any talent. In this scenario people with wealthier families have a clear advantage in that they don't have to convince anybody; they can go out to the market and purchase education. Poorer people can't do this, which is a problem for society.
So to solve this problem the state coerces money out of people to provide a basic level of education for all children. Problem solved? Wealthier families still have an advantage when they can outbid the state for better quality teaching. But now everyone (in theory) has a 'good enough' starting point to earn anything further on a by-merit basis. Sadly solving this problem created another.
"Desirable or not, any end that can be attained only by the use of bad means must give way to the more basic end of the use of acceptable means." - Milton Friedman
In providing this basic level of education two mistakes were made:
1) People grow up with this ingrained as a entitlement ('right' even) with zero gratitude towards the people that funded it. If it's such a fundamental thing, why stop at 18? Why not 21, or 30?
2) Those who funded it did so with a gun pointed at their head.
So we end up with a bunch of people who dogmatically persue ever greater 'free' education and a bunch of unhappy people who fund it.
It's for these reasons (+others) that I'm one of the few people I know who doesn't believe in state funded education. Instead we should decentralise it, allowing companies/individuals/communities to set them up as trusts/charities if they like. Any contributions should be voluntary. Why?
1) The public sector tends to be run by people who love the public sector. It oftens contains people who are happy with the 'gun to the head' situation. These people aren't likely to instill an ethos of 'gratitude to society'. The opposite in fact, which is what we're seeing.
2) People like giving to causes that they find important. If contributions are voluntary then we replace the negative effect with a positive one.
3) The accepted answer to 'why don't we have free education above X?' becomes 'because people aren't willing to donate money for it' instead of 'we want to but the rich aren't paying enough taxes".
Would some people not contribute? Yes but most people recognise this as important, so they'll contribute (probably more than they do now). Would I implement this overnight? No, but we can gradually move in that direction.
Well, clearly that depends on your definition of equal opportunity. In a welfare state, equal opportunity means that everyone has at least the same base level start independent of their socioeconomic background. The same rules being applied to everyone blindly wouldn't result in any sort of equality.
DeleteAgreed with the second paragraph, but this is why a quality education system from the state is needed (in my opinion).
Wealthier families still can have a better education, but in the end, we are all taking the same exams, so a good enough education from a state school should guarantee that everyone with the abilities to get a 100% in their A-levels (for example) does.
I don't understand your Milton Friedman quote. Firstly, what are the "bad means" here? I assume you are speaking of coercing money out of people? I guess this idea stems from the fact that we have fundamentally different notions of how society should work, I believe in paying taxes (in the sense that I believe the tax system is a valid and fair way of making everyone more equal socioeconomically).
As to your two mistakes:
1) I agree, it's difficult to set out an age where compulsory (free) education should stop, but it's not impossible. 15 or even 16 sounds like a good age to me because it's not so young (12, 13 even 14) that people would drop out out of sheer laziness (in my experience) but it's young enough to guarantee that people who really don't want to study don't get stuck in the system, frustrated with the fact that they just want to leave and work and even more frustrated by the fact that they are told they are failures for not being good at academic education.
2) I still don't see this as a necessary problem. I don't see taxation as a bad thing. I'm going to go into a bit more detail here: I am (by utopian beliefs) an anarchist. I don't believe in an interventionist state, I think human beings should be smart enough to govern themselves and not need to be shepherded. However, I also believe that this is a) not feasible (especially not for every person) and b) not useful if we want to function as a society. If we accept that the state is the best possible way to ensure that basic needs of all of society are met, then taxation must be accepted. Your argument that people like giving to causes they like believes on the intrinsic goodness of people. If it were that easy, excellent "trust-funded" schools would have appeared in the US (one of the education systems I have a relatively good knowledge about: state education is absolutely terrible, and it's almost impossible to get funded for private education if your parents aren't rich). A charity based approach would only allow the education of very, very few people. And while I sort of agree with this, I don't believe this is the way it should be in principle because it discriminates against people when they are very young (if at three years old your parents don't think of applying for schooling for you using a trust, what then?). Unless you are suggesting a trust that covers every single student, and then I go back to my previous argument: I don't believe in the intrinsic goodness of people. I don't have numbers to back it up, but I suspect people (in general) give a lot less to charity than they pay in taxes, and I am not convinced if they didn't have taxes they would give more.
I don't agree with your conclusion that "we end up with a bunch of people who dogmatically pursue ever greater 'free' education and a bunch of unhappy people who fund it". It's not true. You end up with some people, who usually haven't though it through, who believe education should be for everyone at all costs, and most people who you can actually reason with and understand that education should be merits based after a certain leveling (in my experience at least). As to the "bunch of unhappy people that fund it", I go back to the point I made before, I think it's the lesser of two evils. I'd rather make those who don't believe in the welfare state pay taxes than trust the intrinsic goodness of people.
DeleteI don't understand why you conclude that loving the public sector means that they aren't likely to instill an ethos "gratitude to society". I work in the public sector (currently) and both my parents work in the public sector, and despite the fact that I've never received a single penny to fund my studies (even though technically I am the child of a single mother, and she doesn't really make that much) I'm still extremely grateful for the fact that I was able to access a quality state funded education that allowed me in due time to apply to any University I might have wanted to attend. I am extremely grateful to all those who paid taxes so i could go, and I really dislike the people who lie to Hacienda (the Spanish equivalent of the HMRC) to not pay taxes. I honestly don't see what you see about the public sector at all.
"People like giving to causes that they find important. If contributions are voluntary we replace the negative effect with a positive one". I don't know if this is true (we'd need a trial run to prove it), all I know is causes that are supported by charities (for example ending poverty or world hunger) haven't been solved and don't look like they're going to be solved any time soon. I don't want education to become one of these causes. And I certainly don't want education to depend on people thinking "this is a worthy cause". In my opinion education is a right. In fact, scratch that, education IS a right. It levels us and it gives us the tools to survive. I refuse to accept that it should be a system whereby a few lucky people get access from the start. Everyone should get access from the start, and those with the capabilities and willingness to put in the work should progress further.
"Most people recognize this as important"... I don't really believe this is true. Most people don't think education is important. They think a) a free ride is important and b) they believe (at least in Spain, but I'm getting that feeling with the UK too) that it's a path to a good job. They don't believe in education for the sake of education.
It's not a direction I would want to move in. It guarantees inequality depending on what region you're born and even more horribly, whether or not your parents care enough to make the effort to get you into a school.
I don't agree with your conclusion that "we end up with a bunch of people who dogmatically pursue ever greater 'free' education and a bunch of unhappy people who fund it". It's not true. You end up with some people, who usually haven't though it through, who believe education should be for everyone at all costs, and most people who you can actually reason with and understand that education should be merits based after a certain leveling (in my experience at least). As to the "bunch of unhappy people that fund it", I go back to the point I made before, I think it's the lesser of two evils. I'd rather make those who don't believe in the welfare state pay taxes than trust the intrinsic goodness of people.
DeleteI don't understand why you conclude that loving the public sector means that they aren't likely to instill an ethos "gratitude to society". I work in the public sector (currently) and both my parents work in the public sector, and despite the fact that I've never received a single penny to fund my studies (even though technically I am the child of a single mother, and she doesn't really make that much) I'm still extremely grateful for the fact that I was able to access a quality state funded education that allowed me in due time to apply to any University I might have wanted to attend. I am extremely grateful to all those who paid taxes so i could go, and I really dislike the people who lie to Hacienda (the Spanish equivalent of the HMRC) to not pay taxes. I honestly don't see what you see about the public sector at all.
"People like giving to causes that they find important. If contributions are voluntary we replace the negative effect with a positive one". I don't know if this is true (we'd need a trial run to prove it), all I know is causes that are supported by charities (for example ending poverty or world hunger) haven't been solved and don't look like they're going to be solved any time soon. I don't want education to become one of these causes. And I certainly don't want education to depend on people thinking "this is a worthy cause". In my opinion education is a right. In fact, scratch that, education IS a right. It levels us and it gives us the tools to survive. I refuse to accept that it should be a system whereby a few lucky people get access from the start. Everyone should get access from the start, and those with the capabilities and willingness to put in the work should progress further.
"Most people recognize this as important"... I don't really believe this is true. Most people don't think education is important. They think a) a free ride is important and b) they believe (at least in Spain, but I'm getting that feeling with the UK too) that it's a path to a good job. They don't believe in education for the sake of education.
It's not a direction I would want to move in. It guarantees inequality depending on what region you're born and even more horribly, whether or not your parents care enough to make the effort to get you into a school.
(Sorry for the double reply, but I can't post more than 4096 characters at once, trust Google to put a limit on data uploads for comments...)
DeleteThe only thing I disagree with is:
ReplyDelete"If they've had access to approximately the same resources (and this is what a quality education should ensure), two people with the same qualities should be able to gain approximately the same grades on the same standardised national exam."
Otherwise, I agree with your reasoning.
I don't know about how France hands out its bursaries, but I do know it lets anyone into unis as long as they have the BAC. No specific requirements otherwise, which means you can technically have a go at medical studies with a litterature baccalaureat.
You invariably hear those stories of students who were bad in high school and "revealed" themselves in Medecine.
It's an interesting question though, since the state pays for higher education in France (free tuition but no loans), so you could argue that it should be more demanding of the people it lets into its universities. I'll admit I don't really know what to think of it (I am however sure that I don't agree with Mike above!).
Why do you disagree with that sentence? Do you mean that two people could have different reactions to the same exam situation, or that people will be better at different types of assessment? If this is the case, I agree with you, but it doesn't have to do with the preparation you have received or your intrinsic characteristics, it still holds that two people who are identical except for their socioeconomic background would perform equally.
DeleteIf what you are saying is that someone with money will always outperform someone without money, all other things being equal, because they have access to more resources I disagree. Exams (especially standardized national exams) should be designed in such a way that they are testing minimums, this is, that they are testing at the maximum level something that could be learnt by someone who was excellent in the minimal system (I don't know if that sentence makes any sense to anyone other than me). This would mean that even if someone rich had a better education, both that person and someone poor with the same qualities should still be able to get the same 100% in a well designed exam.
If the reason you disagree with me is something else please tell me, I'm curious.
Here's the funny thing: I'm OK with higher education being free for everyone who completes a minimum. I'm also OK with loans. What I don't agree with is with bursaries that only depend on how much money your parents make and don't even require you to pass all your credits. It's ridiculous. In Spain it's created a culture of people who attend University to do the least work possible, be paid to do the least work possible (if you're leaving far enough from home and meet the right circumstances you are entitled to free tuition plus up to 6000 euros, which outside of Madrid or Barcelona is a lot more than you need to live on) and just spend all your money on partying, scraping at the end of the year to just get enough credits to keep getting a bursary. I think this is frankly laughable. This is why I like the loans system, whereby you pay for your own education if that education provides what it promises (i.e. a better salary), even though I don't really agree with education being training for a career... I don't know. It's a subject that I could talk about for hours and hours and hours, because there's so many gray areas.
I think there is one fundamental thing and it's whether or not you believe that the welfare state should exist or not, and quite honestly, even though I see it as a clear yes, some people see it as a clear no, and I haven't been able to find arguments to convince me otherwise (and they haven't found arguments yet to convince me otherwise, other than anarchism, but that's a different matter). As I say at the beginning, it's a sore topic for me: I never in my life got a penny even though I was the best in my class (except for my first year of uni) just because my mum made enough. And I'd be OK with it if I hadn't seen money going to people who didn't give a shit about studying.
I was thinking about people who'd have the same preparation at school (like you said), but a different life at home. I was thinking of this since Dinh told me of a friend in high school who's only parent was an alcoholic.
DeleteThere are millions of other situations where you could imagine a setting where the teen goes home and doesn't have time to do homework, has to get a job to get more money, gets less sleep, etc.
In that case, the person could have the same abilities and would have the same school preparation as someone else, but if the someone else has a comfortable family life when they get home, the 2 people won't be equal on exam day.