The Odd Couple

Kudos to Jay Greene for rebutting the dead-wrong, defeatist nonsense of Charles Murray and Richard Rothstein.  My many critiques of the former are here <http://edreform.blogspot.com/2007/01/intelligence-in-classroom.html> , here <http://edreform.blogspot.com/2007/01/whats-wrong-with-vocational-school.html> , here <http://edreform.blogspot.com/2007/01/aztecs-vs-greeks.html>  and here <http://edreform.blogspot.com/2007/03/how-thinking-can-change-brain-self.html> , and of the latter, here: http://edreform.blogspot.com/2007/03/why-proficiency-for-all-is-oxymoron.html.  Also worth reading is Checker Finn's Fie on Fatalism: http://edreform.blogspot.com/2007/02/fie-on-fatalism.html

Welfare critic and American Enterprise Institute fellow Charles Murray and former union organizer and New York Times  columnist Richard Rothstein don’t usually have much in common. But one  thing on which they agree is that there is little that schools can do to  improve educational achievement, particularly for poor and minority students.  Both Murray and Rothstein contend that schools face severe constraints that  hinder their ability to alter student outcomes. The net effect of their  arguments is to provide aid and comfort to those who would resign themselves  to the educational status quo and explain away the school system’s  shortcomings.
-------------------------------------

CHECK THE FACTS:
The Odd Couple

By Jay P. Greene

Murray and Rothstein find some unexpected common ground
http://www.hoover.org/publications/ednext/9223746.html


Welfare critic and American Enterprise Institute fellow Charles Murray and former union organizer and New York Times columnist Richard Rothstein don’t usually have much in common. But one thing on which they agree is that there is little that schools can do to improve educational achievement, particularly for poor and minority students. Both Murray and Rothstein contend that schools face severe constraints that hinder their ability to alter student outcomes. The net effect of their arguments is to provide aid and comfort to those who would resign themselves to the educational status quo and explain away the school system’s shortcomings.