Category: Learning, Education, & Training

This week, Robert Plomin, professor of behavioral genetics at King’s College London, published a paper showing that a child’s educational success can be predicted by their genes. Genetic data from 20,000 DNA variants across several genes collectively account for 10% of the differences in children’s educational achievement age 16. At the most extreme ends of this genetic variation is an entire exam grade difference—from A to B grade for those with the highest polygenic score, to B to C grade for those with the lowest.

Source: Behavioral genetics, one of the fastest growing fields in science, still makes a lot of people very uncomfortable — Quartz

Source: MacroMania: How old were the inventors of major inventions?

Source: How the Average Triumphed Over the Median

The average has triumphed as the primary statistic of our time. We explore how the average came to dominate how we talk about data, and whether we would be better off using the median.

The supremacy of the average over the median has had profound consequences about how we understand data. In many cases, it has led us astray.

Recognize the huge impact a small number of extreme values – or a skewed distribution – can have on the average.

Source: Universities Are Becoming Billion-Dollar Hedge Funds With Schools Attached | The Nation

Have you heard the latest wisecrack about Harvard? People are calling it a hedge fund with a university attached. They have a point—Harvard stands at the troubling intersection between higher education and high finance, with over 15 percent of its massive $38 billion endowment invested in hedge funds. That intersection is getting crowded. Yale’s comparatively modest $26 billion endowment, for example, made hedge fund managers $480 million in 2014, while only $170 million was spent on things like tuition assistance and fellowships for students.
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The problems with hedge funds managing college endowments are manifold, going well beyond the exorbitant—some would say extortionate—fees they charge for their services.

Residents of Baldwin, Michigan, pooled together their money to provide scholarships for everyone, and it changed the town profoundly.

nearly everybody who graduated from the high school here in June is off to a four-year college, a community college, or a technical school.

The story of Baldwin begins to answer the question: What does it look like if everyone in a community goes to college?

Source: Baldwin, Michigan, Decided to Send Every Kid to College With Scholarships – The Atlantic

 

I think the kids are more aware of their opportunities now. Before, they didn’t know what to expect after high school. Now they know.

— Sue Moore, a second-grade teacher at Baldwin’s elementary schools for 43 years before retiring in June