Paul1405 said

"It is my belief that education is the real determinate of success in society given equality of opportunity, which involves far more than the class room facility, and dollars spent on the provision of education. The starting point for success begins at birth, parental influence in a positive way towards education, certainly in the formative years of a child's development is more important than anything else in determining future success. Based on opportunity a person will succeed or fail regardless of race".

Very true Paul.

I would add a funding system that ensures that all successful students get their chance to go all the way.

Hi Chris,

Agree, a couple of points, my older brother a retired school teacher, and a Liberal voter, not all teachers are radical lefties. He said many times to me; "At parent teach night the parents you see are the ones you don't really need to see". I'm sure many a bright student from a disadvantage background missed out because of that lack of family support. My wife came from a family of good parents, but very much disadvantaged. The wife left school at 15, not because she or her parents thought education was un-necessary, they just couldn't afford it, she need to work. Later my wife obtained an advanced education at nigh schooling.

Our "Son" in Fiji 22, has just started a career in an architects office, as a graphics designer. Its fair to say without our support through school, including secondary boarding school and collage, he would have never made it to where he is now.

Chris just to continue,

Imagine if our son had not received an opportunity in life, and I took LEGO to a certain village garden and I know through some magical gift of what could have been. Should I take LEGO up to this 22 year old man hoeing the vegetable patch, and I say to LEGO; "This man is too bright to be working here, he should be in an architects office in Suva doing graphic design. LEGO would say to him; "Boy, what's one plus one," The man might answer; "I don't know"...and LEGO might say; "You think he should be a graphics designer, you have rocks in your head, he's just a dumb black fella!"

BTW; The kindy's and primary schools in Fiji, are great, having visited several over the years. Teachers, and teacher aids, are very devoted people, as are headmasters, still called headmasters, very strict in the "Methodist Tradition" (The native Fijians are predominantly Wesleyan Methodist, and the Indian population Hindu, all are religious) but very good with the children. What the schools lack sometimes is basic resources, even to the point of not having writing materials. The wife is now involving herself in a book program, where appropriate for age, reading books are collected in Australia and shipped to Fiji for distribution to kindy's and primary schools. How many Aussies have books that were their kids, and with the kids getting older, now sit in boxes gathering dust.

Thanks for the posts Paul.

I agree with you 100%, all children and adults should have a right to flourish in a decent education system, and I hope most can benefit from guiding parents who wish their kids to do well.

Yes, there are many talented kids in every corner of the world.

If only they could get better education skills, and not be held back by poverty which makes it so much harder.

To paul1405.

Congratulations for having more guts in defending your conviction than CL.

For decades, civil rights activists have claimed that anyone who says that races are not equal is a racist. They are therefore claiming that all races are equal. This seems to be based upon the US Constitution in which Slave owners claimed that "all men are created equal." If you do not think that races are equal, then tell me that, right now. Don't do what other posters have done on OLO, and oppose the concept that races are unequal, without defending the opposing position, which can only be that races are equal.

IQ testing is a serious science. It is used in education, industry, the military, and in scientific research. If it was inaccurate or just black magic nobody would take any notice of it. Measured IQ is the most reliable indicator of future success. People with high measured IQ's usually do very well in life. People with very low IQ's always do badly in life.

The smartest race by IQ is the Jews. Next come the Asians. Next the whites. Then the Hispanics and then the Africans. That fact pretty well explains university admissions in the USA, where university admissions into the most prestigious universities were once done solely by the SAT IQ score. That this meant that Africans and Hispanics were very under represented and Asians and Jews were very over represented.

I recently read a report that high SAT scores are now no longer the sole determinant for ivy league university admission. "Affirmative Action" has reared it's ugly head and minority identity is being given preference over merit for university admission. I presume that few of these minorities are doing STEM courses because most are just not smart enough. Hence the latest activist idiot claim by minority activists that mathematics is racist. Most of them would be studying rubbish like Gender Studies or Political Science, coming out with all sorts of idiotic theories, and making complete idiots of themselves.

No amount of education can make a basically dumb person into a genius.

HI LEGO,

Always puzzled me why the so called "founding fathers" of America came up with the line; "All mem are created equal", and then went out and enslaved the blacks and shot the Indians. A mystery to this day, maybe it just sounded good, I don't know. There was a thing about a Pope and blank men being human, but lacking a soul, and you couldn't enslave a soul, but you could enslave a body, providing it didn't have a soul, crazy but convenient, since it was Catholics doing a lot of the enslaving.

Are Jews really the smartest people in the world, or are some just good in the business world, many a Jew has died in poverty. I don't equate making money with smartness, I did give the Trump/Obama example but you didn't comment. I agree some people are intelligent and some are not, but its not all reflected in ones station in life. I think we both agree Einstein was very intelligent, but he didn't make a lot of money, in that regard he lacked opportunity. On the other hand Al Capone by any measure was not as intelligent as Einstein, but did make a lot of money. For the two men, lets say environmental factors was the determinate and not intelligence when it came to money making success in life.

cont