Middle-class parents' anxiety about choosing schools from the perspective of elite education in the United States
Harvard, Yale, Princeton ... How did American students climb from the Ivy League to the upper class? 2 1 century, with the return of "daddy capitalism" (that is, "heritage capitalism") in the United States, the education level has increasingly become the decisive factor of an individual's socio-economic status, and at the same time, the education level of children has increasingly depended on the education level of parents. American children's academic competition is not in high school or primary school, but after birth.
American parents may never have paid as much attention to education as they did in the past half century. A few years ago, the "Tiger Mother" incident caused a sensation. Many people have seen the success of education in Asia, but they have neglected the profound social changes that have caused a sensation in the United States: parents of upper-middle class and intellectual class in the United States are increasingly convinced that "reading can change their destiny" and are almost obsessed with their children's education.
"Wealth cannot be guaranteed, but the income of Ivy League education can reach infinity."
Education level is the decisive factor of social and economic status. In the United States in the 2nd/kloc-0th century, there has been a phenomenon of parallel inheritance of capital and knowledge, that is, the education level of children depends more and more on the education level of parents. He called it the return of "heritage capitalism".
Economists and sociologists point out that the polarization between the rich and the poor and the further solidification of social classes in the United States are the same reasons for the polarization of educational opportunities. According to The New York Times's analysis in 20 12 years, by 2009, 82% of the children in the richest quarter of American families had a college degree at the age of 24, while in the poorest quarter, the proportion was only 8%, a whole difference of 10 times.
Neubauer, a famous entrepreneur who once served as vice president of Pepsi and Chase Bank, concluded, "Unless you go to college, you will not embark on the upward curve of life; Education is the key to success in the United States today. "
Please note that education here refers to elite education. More and more upper-middle class families firmly believe that you have to go to Ivy League to go to school.
This competitive differentiation of American higher education is not unrelated to the "devaluation" of ordinary college graduates. In the United States, the quality of undergraduate education in ordinary universities is declining.
In contrast, the situation of the top famous schools represented by Ivy League is the opposite. In a campus full of national and international Olympic athletes, science prize winners, official newspapers and magazines and even scientific paper authors, the all-night library is a symbol of this highly competitive learning environment. He bluntly said that the most important result of educational differentiation is the social status of students after graduation.
Katz, an authority on labor issues at Harvard University, admitted to The New York Times that the employment prospects of American college graduates are getting worse and worse, and more and more graduates have to work at a higher level instead of a lower level, which has become a "worrying and troublesome trend". Autol, a labor economist at MIT, described this as a "downhill road" that the next generation of middle class must face.
Contrary to the situation of ordinary university graduates, American elite university graduates are still very beautiful in the workplace. According to the survey of Atlantic Monthly, even the graduates of the 25th-ranked famous university are almost 40% less than those of Harvard and Yale, not to mention the ordinary universities ranked after the 50th.
A series of data of educational differentiation has opened up the madness of school choice in the United States.
A few years ago, Chua Meier, a law professor at Yale University in the United States and a descendant of overseas Chinese in the Philippines, published her memoir "Battle Hymn of Tiger Mother" to raise her two daughters. "In the United States, the' Tiger Mother Controversy' is mainly confined to white-collar workers and intellectuals in the upper and middle classes of the United States. The Wall Street Journal, which first published book abstracts, and the New Yorker, which followed, are all newspapers that American elites and intellectuals pay attention to reading. " Battle Hymn of Tiger Mother is a modern American version of China's traditional parenting philosophy "A dutiful son is born under a stick". What deserves more attention behind this is the change of overseas social atmosphere. Why did Tiger Mother shock American upper class and intellectual elite? The feeling of "tiger mother" actually reflects the growing overall anxiety of the American elite.
In recent decades, social polarization and social competition in the United States have intensified rapidly, which has given birth to general anxiety about the decline of social and economic status. This evolution strengthens the old law of the continuation of American elite status: "Wealth is not guaranteed, but the income of Ivy League education can reach infinity." In other words, the premise of maintaining elite status and identity lies in elite education represented by Ivy League schools.
"Carpet Mouse Competition", an all-round competition from young children.
"It is no secret among American intellectuals that the educational competition started with young children, but' Tiger Mother' has raised this competition to an unprecedented height." He talked about it.
The "theoretical basis" of this educational competition comes from Heikman, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics at the University of Chicago, who put forward a curve about the relationship between the rate of return on educational investment and age. Heikman curve clearly shows that the biggest return of education investment is early and preschool intellectual development. This is the weakest link for poor parents who lack knowledge and money.
This curve also reflects the educational investment and the promotion of the "starting line" under the increasing social competition in the United States. Among the intellectual elite and upper class in the United States, educational competition actually began from the days of nurseries and kindergartens.
"Many aristocratic preparatory schools in big cities extend the academic system to aristocratic kindergartens, and the tuition fee is tens of thousands of yuan per year. In new york, where the American intellectual elite is the most concentrated, preschool classes of some famous private schools with high tuition fees have become the target of elite parents. " He found that the enrollment places of these famous kindergartens are limited, and the enrollment generally adopts an early intelligence screening test called "Education Archives Bureau". Seeing the business opportunities, the preparation industry actually provides training for toddlers on how to deal with the "Education Archives Bureau" exam.
Let's look at a message displayed by the Heikman curve: No amount of money can replace the care of parents and the knowledge environment of the family during the critical period of infants.
In 20 10, a pair of economists at the University of California published a research report entitled "Carpet Mouse Competition", which revealed an important immaterial aspect of the fierce educational competition in the United States. The title of this study borrows the "mouse competition" commonly used in economics, and describes the social trend of younger competition for admission to famous American schools.
This study shows the important behavior changes of American parents about their children's education: in 1975, there is little difference in the time spent by American mothers with different education levels in disciplining their children. After more than 30 years, mothers with low education (no college degree) spend about 4 hours a week disciplining their children, while mothers who graduated from college spend 8 hours, twice as much as the former.
Summers, the 27th president of Harvard University, especially mentioned when commenting on Picchetti's talk about class solidification caused by education. The polarization in the United States is not limited to money, but an equally important phenomenon is that "in the past two generations, the educational achievements of children of the rich and the poor have almost doubled".
Summers pointed out a discovery: from infancy to sixth grade, upper-middle-class children in the United States receive an average of 6000 hours more education and other intellectual development activities than poor children! This is a figure summarized by an educational institution in the United States based on more than a dozen related investigations and studies, including parents' accompanying reading, preschool education, extracurricular activities, summer education, study tour and so on. The huge gap on this "starting line" will accompany these children all their lives.
It is precisely because of this intensification of early competition that it has brought bad news to some people. Until the 1950s, Harvard University was still trying to maintain the policy of "the worst students are happy for a quarter" as a chic way for aristocratic children to continue their elite status. But now, from kindergarten to Ivy League, we compete all the way.
In high school, this kind of competition is the fiercest.
The history of famous private middle schools in the United States is earlier than that of public schools, especially in the northeast with developed education. Their initial main purpose was to send students to famous universities such as Harvard and Yale, so they were called "preparatory schools".
With the evolution of the enrollment policy of ivy league schools from favoring aristocratic children to "enrolling students according to their abilities", private aristocratic preschool education is also making corresponding changes, and the "Jianghu status" is still unshakable. According to a survey, from 1998 to 200 1, if all American high schools are ranked according to the proportion of graduates entering the top three Ivy League schools (Harvard, Yale and Princeton), 94 of the top 100 are private schools.
Education investment is unprecedented, and equality of educational opportunities has become empty talk.
The New York Times once quoted a freshman from Stuyvesant High School as saying that "it only takes a few minutes to decide whether you can enter an Ivy League school".
An American Chinese mother once told reporters that Americans are keen to let their children participate in sports events, on the one hand, because sports is the "standard configuration" of campus social interaction, and on the other hand, the tacit reason is to cultivate children's sense of competition. "A small track can make children have a sense of competition and tell them that sometimes life is not a few minutes, maybe a few minutes, and you will fall into Sun Shan." She said.
Yes, scores are the lifeblood of students, so we must be careful.
Although American university enrollment pays attention to comprehensive quality, the "College Entrance Examination" score, which represents academic performance, is still a key item. For example, PSAT score, as a SAT test, is the admission standard of the so-called national honorary scholarship and the symbol of top students. Another example is the Presidential Award for Middle School Students, in which the primary list of the academic part is the "first" and "second" of men and women in each SAT test state. The nomination of these awards has become an important weight for admission to prestigious schools.
This gave birth to a huge "high-tech industry" in the United States. Take Kaplan Education Group, which is headquartered in new york, as an example. In 1994, the income of/kloc-0 was only US$ 8 million. In 2004, it exceeded US$ 10/billion, with an annual growth of10/400%! Nine years later (20 13), the income doubled again, reaching $2.2 billion, making it an "American New Oriental".
With the younger age of the competition for admission to Ivy League schools, extracurricular tutoring and private tutoring have become important economic industries in areas where elite parents gather. The New York Times 20 13 reported that the tuition of high-end private tutors in new york is 600 dollars per hour, and the cost of half-day tutoring exceeds the salary of most wage earners for half a month.
In 2006, Associated Press reported that the tuition fees of pre-schools of famous brands in Greater new york had surpassed those of Harvard University, and there was still "trouble" and a long waiting list. Parents who are eager for children. Brooks, a columnist in The New York Times, once sarcastically pointed out that the third constituency in the northwest of Washington DC is a gathering place for senior executives of the federal government. Its characteristic is that although the administrative power is great and the salary is high, 60% of the disposable income is spent on sending children to private schools.
Carla Bell, a famous sociologist who graduated from Harvard University, commented on the The New York Times in 2007, describing that when children were toddlers, rich parents began to hire expensive educational consultants and set off early in the long "Ivy League Competition", and concluded:
"This is just the beginning of a long process in which wealthy but eager parents try to maximize their children's chances of entering famous universities such as Harvard, Yale and Princeton."
Perhaps it is precisely because of such cruel competition that those "elites" who have won the Ivy League tickets are reluctant to "breed outside the circle" on the issue of breeding the next generation. He found that class solidification is also manifested in the "selective marriage" of young people. The Ivy League, founded in Los Angeles in 2006, has been extended to the whole country. Its main function is to provide a platform for single Ivy League alumni to make friends, which is the best example of selective marriage.
All this makes education equality gradually become an empty talk in the United States, and the hidden worry of class solidification has aroused social concern.
The above is the American elite education that I reprinted from today's headlines. Look at the anxiety of middle-class parents on the other side of the ocean in choosing schools. Thank you for reading. Please continue to pay attention to other columns for more information.