No redistributionist measure will have the same long-term effect as good early-childhood education and better community colleges, or increasing the share of men capable of joining the labor force.
Pointer from Tyler Cowen.
A cynical believer in the Null Hypothesis would argue that putting money into education is an exercise in redistribution. It will redistribute income toward teachers’ unions members, college professors, and administrators.
Also, what is the probability that Brooks is simply trolling Bryan Caplan?
Good, better, capable: a lot of true Scotsman words packed in there.
BTW, even without the null hypothesis assumption, this is redistribution. It is in-kind transfers, under assumptions such as parents wouldn’t be responsible and buy good education they need for their kids and such. I find it an odd assumption, in part considering that universal daycare will require hiring a lot of these mothers.
Right, David. What America really needs for its labor force is a few hundred thousand more community college graduates with associate’s degrees in gender studies, peace studies and social justice studies.
OTOH, maybe a better way to prepare people for the workforce would be to send them to training schools for plumbing, welding, carpentry, HVAC service, auto servicing, etc? I mean, we do need people to do those kind of things, right? Oh, I forgot, we’re importing half the population of Central America to do that sort of useful work.
Early childcare workers and community college adjunct professors aren’t unionized.
What we need to do, I think, is better encapsulate education, give kids more meaningful markers to work for. and stop bringing in competition.
As a nice bookend NYT piece to Brooks’, once we have verifiable credentials for online education, we can do it without so much redistribution.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/08/upshot/true-reform-in-higher-education-when-online-degrees-are-seen-as-official.html?src=me&abt=0002&abg=1
Honest question: does anyone know of any good data sets that measure the distribution of incomes for various education variables?
Ie, how does it break down according to major, university (perhaps by grouping them in tiers according to selectivity), IQ, etc.
This seems like it would go a long way towards settling the score.
Bechtel, Payscale has published on the topic you’re looking for:
http://www.payscale.com/college-salary-report-2014/majors-that-pay-you-back
http://www.payscale.com/college-salary-report-2014/full-list-of-schools
Your selectivity question raises the larger point: There is undoubtedly differences between the students that select certain majors, and it does not line up linearly with salaries as far as I can tell. http://www.businessinsider.com/heres-the-average-sat-score-for-every-college-major-2014-10
In most the the locales where David Brooks’ readership lives, not having rigged the real estate market (by limiting development) would have done a better, more reliable job of limiting the widening of the wealth/opportunity gap. The most unequal swatches of America are in his own backyard. There is still time.
Disappointed because I don’t usually find snark on this blog. I know you’re not a fan of David Brooks (and I do understand the concerns about money going to teachers unions), but I’d like to know what you think would help out these people if it isn’t education? Just better parenting?
Congratulations! Mr. Gregorich wins the prize for best parody of a leftist concern troll.
I was just going to ask, “where is the snark?” but I guess you provided it 😉
In certain situations, snark is appropriate. 😉
I sure as heck ain’t trolling! Seriously, how do we help these people out? Or are you of the opinion that most people can’t be helped?
I didn’t say you were a troll – I said you were a parody of a troll!