But let’s play along, and apply some wisdom…

If 1/2 of the kids are below average, then shouldn’t we be celebrating the other 1/2 that are above average, and whatever teaching successes realized? And then who does that leave in the “average” range?? No one. Hmm…. So from Mr. Murray’s suggestion, there are only “smart” kids and “dumb” kids.

Wow, if only I had Mr. Murray’s IQ, maybe I could write in WSJ too. High assperations.

Note to parents: Enlighten your kids – Homeschool!

based on WHAT EVIDENCE do you say this is “ridiculous” ????

you’re sure that 49th percentile is smart enough, but you can’t back it up. all you’ve got are impressions that you’ve met “average” kids who succeeded at actually learning that material. give some evidence that they were in the bottom half, please.

Murray makes it clear that habits of mind can more than make up for I.Q. One of his famous quotes is, “graduating from high school, getting and staying married, and taking a job-any job, is the best way to get out of poverty.” [best as I can remmeber his quote.]

When the data for representation in all occupations is crunched, the distribution within occupations by race matches the I.Q. spread. That is a very good fit.

I.Q. research and the replication of I.Q., studies is one of the most confirmed scientific findings in ALL of science. g exists.

Social planning by government that ignors the reality of I.Q. WILL result in massive failure and even MORE racial strife. Remember this: Nature always wins.

Suppose a girl in the 99th percentile of intelligence, corresponding to an IQ of 135, is getting a C in English. She is underachieving, and someone who sets out to raise her performance might be able to get a spectacular result. Now suppose the boy sitting behind her is getting a D, but his IQ is a bit below 100, at the 49th percentile.

We can hope to raise his grade. But teaching him more vocabulary words or drilling him on the parts of speech will not open up new vistas for him. It is not within his power to learn to follow an exposition written beyond a limited level of complexity, any more than it is within my power to follow a proof in the American Journal of Mathematics. In both cases, the problem is not that we have not been taught enough, but that we are not smart enough.

A boy with an IQ of 99 is “not smart enough” to do K-12 work? That’s ridiculous.

No they haven’t, not even close. The most successful academic interventions are installed in only about 3% of schools. Those interventions have been shown to areliably boost academic achievement by about a standard deviation on average in the K-8 level. That means that most kids who typically perform at the 20th percentile would perform like a student at the 50th percentile.

One could just as easily say half of all children are above average in intelligence. So what’s the excuse now?

Do you not know who Mr. Murray is? Of course he knows what the 36th percentile of IQ actually is. You are all quite sure that “very little different from average” indicates that the person is like you believe the “average” to be! But 5 IQ points is an enormouse difference in cognitive function, even between 100 and 106 or 95 and 100.

—The real question is whether the bottom 36% are inherently incapable of mastering the material in the eighth grade curriculum. I’ll confess neither I nor many people I know are in the 36th percentile, but I do expect they could master the material if properly prepared, motivated and instructed.

Based on WHAT data, precisely? Seriously–you don;t know such “slow” people, but you assume they are like you. WEll, let’s work on all of these assumptions. have you done the research? Obviously not, so stop assuming it must be doable. Instead, read Murray’s book, which makes it a bit more clear.

– I would think the percentile incapable of mastering the eighth grade curriculum is closer to the 10th. Does anyone really know?

You ask this like it’s impossible to know. The fact that no education dept has done the resarch again indicates what’s wrong with education departments.

Then there’s Ms. Jacobs’ strange error:

–Murray seems to think that children in the 49th percentile in intelligence are limited in intelligence in a significant way and children at the 36th percentile may be incapable of mastering basic skills. You’d think the Bell Curve co-author would look at the bell curve: Most students are neither so smart that they’ll excel on their own or so slow that they can’t learn the basics.

That’s because it’s a *bell curve* so most students are clustered near the 50th percentile. But Murray didn’t argue this. He argue that the 26th percentile–which is FAR from where “most” students are–means you might not handle basic skills. Why the straw man? RE: the 49th percentile: what makes you think they aren’t limited? Your own claims about what you think “average” is?

you act as if you’re upset because he’s arguing about the bottom half of the bell curve, and you jsut assume the center of it, and ignore the tails. For you, education is about the middle. How is the better than Murray, who admits the whole curve?

– There are certainly millions of kids who could be learning far more than they are learning now.

Again, this assumption. Based on what do you have this certainty? The data does not support your claim.

I can’t believe the number of assumptions made here by *educators*. It becomes clear that educators aren’t in a profession. if they were, they could perhaps answer questions like : how much can the best teaching improve IQ or cognitive ability, how much a year of education can improve someone’s skills, etc. But you all have no idea. You’re sure it must be more than is done now, but you dont’ even know that the data doesn’t support that finding–read the bibliography of the Bell Curve and you’ll see. The fact is, schools have done everything they can to be innovative in teaching, and yet, and yet, the results are not changing those at the low end of the spectrum.