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12:39:00 AM EST
Feeling Happy
Hearing XM Chill
Darwin Says What?
Turns out, Darwin might have been onto something. If government studies are to be trusted ...dramatic pause for effect ... then all you proponents of child-enrichments like bedtime stories have been wasting your breath. Ditto you stay-at-home moms who sacrifice good salaries and decent conversation in order to ensure the nurturing enrichment of your kid.
Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, the duo behind 'Freakonomics,' have sifted through a massive government database ominously titled the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study. Since the late 1990s, 20,000 children have been followed and observed and the factors that most clearly influence standardized test performance are as follows:
* Lots of books sitting on shelves
* Being a mom over the age of 30
* Highly educated parents who speak English and are involved with the PTA
What does NOT seem to matter, for yielding superior exam-taking skills:
* Leaving a job or school in order to stay home with kids between kindergarten and first grade
* Reading bedtime (or any other kind of) stories
* Intact family unit (no divorces, etc.)
* If you spank your kid or let them watch lots of TV
It may seem strange to some that simply having books on the shelf is more influential than actually reading them to your kids. Not to me. As Levitt and Dubner point out, if you have a lot of books you probably like to read and, ergo, your kids were born into parentage smarter than your average wabbit. So throw your kids in front of the TV, spank them at commercial breaks, divorce from your spouse, refuse to read bedtime stories and get a 'real' job.
Who cares about quality of life issues? It's all about those test scores.
Written by editorandchief2 Blog about this entry |
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LOLOLOL...Amen!
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That was ugly. Nothing like reducing huma lives into test scores. Meet Jesus!!!
3/31/06 7:21 PM