Ok, the first thing I want to share is a few premises. These are determined by a lot of different books, articles and statistical analyses and from this point forward I am considering them facts. If you want to disagree or argue with these premises I completely understand, but it is based on these that my ideas come from. Most of them are correlations rather than causations, so if you want to provide an alternative theory as to what actually causes the correlation, I am open to that as well. Also, most of these are looking backwards on a large society wide scale. They may or may not be the case moving forward, but they have actually already happened and I believe/agree with the interpretations.
Also, for the purposes of this discussion I am going to use the word 'success' a lot and for now we are going to assume that means something on the scale of being admitted to a four year college, graduating from a four year college, adult salary and/or lifetime earnings, not committing crimes or going to jail. Something on that scale that has the data for long term studies. It may or may not look at standardized test scores, but overall, those are not a great indicator of success of the student, teacher, or system. We are not looking at happiness or contentedness with life, getting married, having kids, etc. According to this definition becoming a plumber who provides for a family is actually a failure of the education system if he did not go to college.
Last preface, my mom teaches first grade, so while I understand her situation on an individual basis (time she spends on tasks, what she pays for out of pocket, how difficult parents are), there is a good chance I would disagree with her on large scale changes.
