This person is a name-caller for no good reason. Calling someone that few people these days would have heard of (Enoch Powell) "egregious" in the first line of what he pretends is about educating children is irrelevant and the mark of just another tired old lefty academic not worth reading.

People such as Schwartz should be required to earn their living like most of us, by their merit.
That'd expose their real value/importance to society. See how many buyers line up for their services & expertise.

Excellent essay on the parlous state of much which is now called "education".

This essay could just as well be featured in the Australian "news"-paper, Quadrant magazine and the Policy magazine published by the CIS the Center for "Independent" Studies all of which are very much concerned about the state of education in the now-time of 2021.

I would agree with Steven Schwartz with qualifications.

Cognitive metricians are adamant that intelligence, which is measurable, is the primary factor in future success. People with low IQ's always do poorly in life (unless they win lotto), while people with above average or high intelligence, usually do very well. I say "usually" because I can appreciate how some people with high intelligence may have low emotional intelligence, which is another way of saying that they never grew up.

Personality traits such as impulsiveness, risk taking behaviour, and the need for immediate gratification, are personality traits much more centred on people with low IQ's than with people with high IQ's. While traits such as persistence, endurance, planning ahead, the intelligent consideration of risk, and the sublimation of immediate gratification in the pursuit of goal centred behaviour, is much more the personality traits of people with high IQ.

The idea within education departments today that nobody should fail, I think comes about because of the high number of low IQ ethnic students in western countries today. Since teachers are inevitably lefties, and since lefties are totally obsessed with the idea of racial equality, then the fact that some ethnicities are self evidently academic failures has to be addressed without admitting the obvious. That is, that some races are smarter than others.

The result in the western world has not only been the denigration of exams, but (incredibly) the idea that mathematics itself is racist.

Universities need to attract quality students. Since they can no longer rely on final (year 12) examinations or glowing references from politically partisan teachers, some universities are now doing their own entrance examinations to weed out the chaff. Ivy League universities in the USA once relied entirely upon SAT IQ scores for their university entrance for the very same reason. But they got into trouble with the woke crowd of bourgeois socialists because the SAT scores effectively prevented most students from certain dysfunctional ethnicities from entering. Stung by the woke criticism, I understand that they now use SAT scores combined with racial quotas.

Excellent article. It explains much about the people I have known in my life and what they have done with their lives. For example, a classmate 'Hood' was not academically talented, probably dyslexic and I tutored him a couple of times in year 12. When I caught up with him 30 years later and asked how he was doing, he replied 'I'm president of the East Kimberley Shire and own my own trucking company'. True grit

Conversely, I've seen so many high achievers at school and university disappear into the void of our modern humanity and, while they led happy lives, they never achieved their full potential.

Smart people follow their dream: That is real IQ and true freedom.

Dan