Sampler from Jencks' Inequality

IT seems quite shocking that white workers earn 50% more than black workers. But we are even more disturbed by the fact that the best paid fifth of all white workers earns 600% more than the worst paid fifth. From this viewpoint, racial inequality looks almost insignificant.

Poverty is not primarily hereditary. While children born into poverty have a higher than average chance of ending up poor, there is still an enormous amount of economic mobility from one generation to the next. Indeed, there is nearly as much economic inequality among brothers raised in the same homes as in the general population. This means that inequality is re-created anew in each generation, even among people who start life in essentially identical circumstances.

There is almost as much economic inequality among those who score high on standardized tests as in the general population.

All school surveys show that children with affluent parents want more education than children with poor parents, even when we compare individuals with the same test scores and grades. This is apparent as early as the ninth grade.

If tracking [placing slow learners in slow classes, fast learners in fast] affects test scores at all, the effect is too small to be pedagogically significant...Nobody knows when tracking will produce one effect and when it will produce another.

If America were suddenly to create a system in which new recruits to the upper middle class were selected entirely on the basis of test scores, one upper-middle-class child in three would be able to maintain his or her parents' privileges...The idea that tests serve mainly to maintain the privileges of the economic elite is exaggerated.

If people do not want to attend school or college, an egalitarian society ought to accept this as a legitimate decision and give these people subsidized job training, subsidized housing, or perhaps simply a lower tax rate.

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