Author Topic: How important is schooling in future success  (Read 5217 times)

whywork

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How important is schooling in future success
« on: July 09, 2021, 12:37:52 PM »
Hello all,

We are currently in Silicon Valley area. Our kids go to public schools here (middle and elementary). The education quality and rigor / workload is great here. The kids also start on coding early on (middle school).

If we have to buy a house here and then retire then it will take us long time. I am thinking about moving to LCOL cities (Bentonville / Fayetteville Arkansas, Bloomington Indiana etc). The cities in LCOL areas have good school ratings but we are wondering if we will be compromising on kids education by moving there. Silicon Valley schools are great and fellow kids here have better awareness of technology and job scene. Not sure if schools in Arkansas will be as good

How can this move affect kids future prospects? Part of me says intelligence is given at birth and no matter what school they study, their success in life will mostly depend on their intelligence (and motivation) and very less on the schooling. But I don't know. Appreciate your thoughts

- Sam
« Last Edit: July 09, 2021, 12:53:31 PM by whywork »

ixtap

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Re: Is kids education better in HCOL schools?
« Reply #1 on: July 09, 2021, 12:43:48 PM »
COL itself is not a very good indicator of school quality.

herbgeek

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Re: How important is schooling in future success
« Reply #2 on: July 09, 2021, 01:05:50 PM »
Your children aren't limited to what is taught in their local school.  You can find additional resources, both on line and in person to supplement their education.

GuitarStv

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Re: How important is schooling in future success
« Reply #3 on: July 09, 2021, 01:22:38 PM »
A decent school will help to develop good habits and motivation to learn.  A bad school can squash that.  That said, I don't believe that school ratings often give much valid information about the quality of the teachers or education given in a particular school.

The input, help, and extra-curricular education that a child gets is also very important to how they develop.

MaybeBabyMustache

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Re: How important is schooling in future success
« Reply #4 on: July 09, 2021, 01:48:13 PM »
Fellow bay area parent, so I'll chime in. Not sure where you are in the bay area, but I personally feel that the academics are a bit over the top. My kids are in high school, and we avoided a few areas, because the level of intensity was just completely over the line, IMO. We want our kids to be academically prepared for life, but I feel like you can accomplish that in lots of ways.

I'm not familiar with the area you're considering, but I'd be more than open in dialing back our kids learning a bit. We haven't opted to do that, as we are both employed here, & have now committed to staying until the kids finish high school.

FWIW, I went to schools that were rated a "5", in a very small town. My parents both were in education, and I was very self motivated. I took advantage of as many enrichment opportunities as possible. I now have a successful career, a masters degree, etc.

goldenboy

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Re: How important is schooling in future success
« Reply #5 on: July 09, 2021, 01:50:40 PM »
To answer your question directly, I agree that the variation in schooling quality between Silicon Valley and other decent schools probably has a fairly minimal impact on life success. I'm guessing that if you define 'success in life' as wealth and power, there would be more of a correlation than if you define 'success in life' as broader and more tied to happiness. A rigorous education with coding starting in middle school and awareness of job opportunities in technology is probably more impactful on your future earnings than it is on your future happiness.

That being said... I live in Bloomington Indiana and moved here from the DC area partially because I thought it was a better place to raise children in terms of lower stress levels, more nature, and educational opportunities. I don't have any children in the school system at the moment but everything I hear is that it is very good. There are also many extracurricular activities and opportunities here that I would speculate most children anywhere in the US don't have easy access to. And by access I mean both the existence of the activities, the affordability, and the ease to get to transportation-wise... I'm sure there are great programs in the NYC or San Francisco areas that theoretically children can go to but if takes an hour to get there and costs a large amount, then the opportunity to participate would be much lower. Here in Bloomington nothing takes more than 15 minutes' drive to get to, and many activities are free or very low-cost, including coding camps for middle schoolers. I'm not sure if it is a regular part of the curriculum for that age or not, but I know there are way more activities and educational opportunities than there were when I was growing up.

I also would note that Bloomington is not a LCOL area... definitely lower than Silicon Valley, but one of the most expensive places to live in the Midwest. I can't comment intelligently on Bentonville or Fayetteville cost of living, but I'm guessing it is much lower than Bloomington.

joe189man

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Re: How important is schooling in future success
« Reply #6 on: July 09, 2021, 02:03:13 PM »
DW and i went to small town (sub 5,000 people) midwest public schools of little to no significance in different states. we went to regional tiny private colleges or D-3 state colleges. Our household income, if that is your success metric, is in the 95+% percentile. i would say our primary and secondary schools were safe, adequate and offered extracurriculars, they were not extraordinary or "ranked" well on school digger. com or niche.com. The fact that they were safe, looking back on my years there, was probably the most important thing, classrooms were orderly and kids listened, things felt safe. I think that matters a lot.

Parent support and expectations drove me to college and down my career path, not my high school or classmates.

TLDR; i think it matters to a degree, but not as much as having loving and supportive parents involved in their kids lives.

Schools in the chicago metro area are some of the best in the country with homes much cheaper than silicon valley

ETA: we are not in computer science related fields

« Last Edit: July 09, 2021, 03:43:41 PM by joe189man »

nedwin

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Re: How important is schooling in future success
« Reply #7 on: July 09, 2021, 02:51:24 PM »
My first reaction to your post is that it was a bit off-putting.  It's not like Silicon Valley schools are the only with academic rigor or that teach coding starting in middle school (my kids started in 2nd grade).  But, I don't believe you meant anything demeaning about LCOL schools or the success prospects of kids that are educated there.

My experience is 100% the same as joeman's, the only difference is that my spouse grew up in much larger urban/suburban areas than I did.  I believe a kids' success (income, not happiness) is more directly correlated with their parents income, home stability, and their parents involvement in their lives.  So, if your family is high income and you provide a loving and supportive environment for your kids to grow up in, your kids will likely be just fine whether you're in Cupertino or Fayetteville/Bentonville or Bloomington.

kite

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Re: How important is schooling in future success
« Reply #8 on: July 09, 2021, 03:03:51 PM »
There are good and crappy schools everywhere.
Biggest thing that will derail your kid's future is substance abuse.  You need to be as concerned with their peer group as you are with the quality of the schools.  To reduce the likelihood of your kid trashing it all with an opioid or meth habit, don't abuse alcohol or drugs yourself.  And maintain an excellent relationship with their other parent.

Part of me says intelligence is given at birth and no matter what school they study, their success in life will mostly depend on their intelligence (and motivation) and very less on the schooling.

Intelligence matters. So does hard work. And these are possible anywhere.  Even where schools suck, as a parent you can enrich or supplement and disciplined, hard-working kids will do fine. But their success in life depends on a few things.  One of those is avoiding the bad influences that drag them down, ie.... drinking, drugs, sexual abuse, gangs, mischief, parental neglect, bad nutrition, lead exposure. 

MrThatsDifferent

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Re: How important is schooling in future success
« Reply #9 on: July 09, 2021, 03:20:57 PM »
I think the difference is schools is mitigated by how good of students the kids are and how much they want to learn and engage. If your kids are excelling and still not being challenged, then you can supplement their education with community college, or private tutoring. Anything they’re currently enjoying, you can replicate. If the new school doesn’t have coding, find them something that does or send them to a coding camp. What I’d be more concerned about is the cultural environment. Will they be attending a multicultural school that is open to a variety of different students? I’d be more careful of going from an open minded and accepting community to a more close-minded one, so I’d put the energy into finding LCOL places that are good places to live for the whole family. They exist, you just have to make effort to finding them.

PDXTabs

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Re: How important is schooling in future success
« Reply #10 on: July 09, 2021, 04:05:35 PM »
I think that education is very important, but I don't think that COL correlates very well. In fact I have seen it negatively correlated at times.

MayDay

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Re: How important is schooling in future success
« Reply #11 on: July 10, 2021, 06:18:13 AM »
I think an average school will give you 95% of the benefits that a great school will..... But a terrible school is definitely not good.

I'm an engineer so my examples are all for math/science.... I went to a medium town school in the Midwest, and a Midwest state school. I did awesome (and by financial metrics continue to do awesome). My classmates from truly SMALL towns, where the teachers probably cared a lot but there just weren't opportunities, largely failed out because they didn't have the academic rigor in high school.

I tend to think 90% as good + 10x better for mental health and happiness is probably better than 100% great academics.

Metalcat

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Re: How important is schooling in future success
« Reply #12 on: July 10, 2021, 08:23:35 AM »
It entirely depends on the kid.

Be an involved parent and you will be able to pivot if whatever choices you've made aren't working for your particular, individual child.

"Great" schools tend to have kids with better outcomes, but that has more to do with the fact that kids from wealthier families have better outcomes, and kids from wealthier families go to "great" schools.

Don't overthink it, you can't engineer your kid's outcomes. One kid might thrive in a "great" school and another kid might flounder. As I said, be engaged with your particular, unique little human, and be attentive to what their particular needs and their particular responses are to whatever environment you put them in.

I personally went through a lot of different school experiences and the seemingly "bad" ones had as much positive impact on my success as the good ones.

In fact, my mom and I were reflecting not long ago about how a turning point in my life path was actually related to a period where I was doing the worst in school.

ender

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Re: How important is schooling in future success
« Reply #13 on: July 10, 2021, 08:42:06 AM »
What are you optimizing for?

I interact with a lot of early career/college age folks in tech as a result of my volunteering.

I find that a lot of the bay area folks are absolutely brilliant but are incredibly unhappy because they are comparing themselves to other people who are equally as talented/academically minded and so even though in an "objective" sense they are more educated, they seem much less fulfilled than folks who end up "less educated" but are much happier.

So if you're optimizing for objective learning you might be better off living in the Bay area. But if you're aiming for happiness, it might not be the same.

Runrooster

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Re: How important is schooling in future success
« Reply #14 on: July 10, 2021, 09:29:56 AM »
I would also say that so much depends on the kid.  I don't know how old yours are, but by 5th or so I would say you have some idea of how academically curious they are.  My brother sacrificed a lot for some great schools, but one kid is slightly driven and the other one is floundering/ getting into drugs.

And, no one has said, but I think it depends on the parents.  There are a lot of enrichment opportunities if you have the time to seek them out.  Being an involved parent, reading and discussing current events and attending cultural events...  Again, my brother made the decision that he and his wife were not themselves motivated enough to do that. They take the kids to karaoke parties every weekend (pre-covid), skiing, board games, cooking, nothing academic.  Good schools can make up that gap to some extent.  If a LCOL would enable you to be a better parent with the extra time, then go for it.

fuzzy math

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Re: How important is schooling in future success
« Reply #15 on: July 10, 2021, 10:16:17 AM »
http://www.city-data.com/city/Bloomington-Indiana.html

Bloomington appears to be a liberal college town. With most of the economy focused on academics, and many of the local parents being in academia I am almost certain that the schools will be community focused and rigorous. I say this having spent the last 4 yrs in a college town.
The most helpful metric I look at when evaluating a city is the educational attainment of their citizens.

whywork

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Re: How important is schooling in future success
« Reply #16 on: July 10, 2021, 05:33:02 PM »
Thank you all for your replies. Great advice everyone.

It seems kids success depends mainly on their ability & drive and also on parental involvement & expectations. Leveraging online options for coding and extra enrichment seems to be the way to go.

I just wanted to ensure our decision to retire doesn't affect the kids future negatively. Struggling in the silicon valley longer doesn't seem to be worth the returns.

Metalcat

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Re: How important is schooling in future success
« Reply #17 on: July 10, 2021, 05:37:53 PM »
Thank you all for your replies. Great advice everyone.

It seems kids success depends mainly on their ability & drive and also on parental involvement & expectations. Leveraging online options for coding and extra enrichment seems to be the way to go.

I just wanted to ensure our decision to retire doesn't affect the kids future negatively. Struggling in the silicon valley longer doesn't seem to be worth the returns.

Do whatever gives you the best mental health.
That's what your kid needs, a model of excellent mental health. Too many kids have parents who model that being burned out and miserable is what normal adulthood looks like.

If you want your kid to thrive, thrive yourself. It will make a world of difference, well beyond the school you send your kid to.

Fish Sweet

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Re: How important is schooling in future success
« Reply #18 on: July 10, 2021, 06:16:00 PM »
My POV is as someone who grew up in the Silicon Valley and attended Silicon Valley public schools (and recently enough to feel that this is relevant.)

There are a lot of factors at play, but I guess what I would consider most important is: are your kids happy?  Are they flourishing in the culture of their current school?  Do they have friends, are they participating in extracurricular activities, do they like their cohort, do they like their teachers?  Is this school environment enabling them excel, or not?  Does their school environment feel like they're being crushed to fit a specific mold, or is it giving them the tools to achieve their own dreams and best selves?

Back in the day, I did flourish in that environment - the sense of competition didn't bother me, academic challenges energized me, I liked my fellow students, and I felt like the high expectations ("of COURSE you'll go to a top tier college, of course you'll take 98497324 AP courses, of course you'll get straight A's) were natural results of my environment.  Many of my peers felt the same way.  I was friends with the children of lawyers, doctors, government officials, tech company CEO's and CFOs.  If I was so inclined, I probably could've leveraged that as a network for my future career success.

This was not the case for my sibling, who felt that the same schools and same environment and same culture was stifling, pretentious, and ultimately worthless.  They rebelled against the expectation of excellence, they felt that their best was not rewarded, they felt that they were being cast into a mold against their will, and struggled against that with all their might.  Many of their peers, I'm sure, felt the same way.

The Silicon Valley schooling environment can feel like a pressure cooker - is enables some kids to shine like diamonds, but many children aren't well suited to that.

RedmondStash

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Re: How important is schooling in future success
« Reply #19 on: July 10, 2021, 08:08:24 PM »
Thank you all for your replies. Great advice everyone.

It seems kids success depends mainly on their ability & drive and also on parental involvement & expectations. Leveraging online options for coding and extra enrichment seems to be the way to go.

I just wanted to ensure our decision to retire doesn't affect the kids future negatively. Struggling in the silicon valley longer doesn't seem to be worth the returns.

Do whatever gives you the best mental health.
That's what your kid needs, a model of excellent mental health. Too many kids have parents who model that being burned out and miserable is what normal adulthood looks like.

If you want your kid to thrive, thrive yourself. It will make a world of difference, well beyond the school you send your kid to.

^^ This. Modeling good choices and a healthy & happy lifestyle is so important. Success is about more than $$; it's about a good, contented life.

Kids are sponges; they absorb constantly, whether or not you intend to teach them. So by moving them to a LCOL area, you'd be teaching them that money isn't everything, that parents can put kids' needs at the top of their priorities, and that adults can walk away from higher salaries in search of higher happiness. Pretty good things to model, even beyond the schools they end up in.

ChpBstrd

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Re: How important is schooling in future success
« Reply #20 on: July 10, 2021, 09:03:56 PM »
A kid in a school with a mediocre “score” with parents who are engaged and involved in their school work is likely to do better than a kid in a “highly rated” school whose parents work 60 hour weeks to keep up with the Joneses and consider their kids’ education to be a service that is outsourced to a school, which is just another vendor.

FIRE is desirable in part because it frees up those evenings to help with homework or read the optional material together. A love of learning can be cultivated by spending time, not by expectations. If you can walk away from an all-consuming job in Silicon Valley and FIRE in a LCOL area, you’ll have that time and you’ll teach your kids to make that time too, rather than devoting their lives to corporate dronehood. “Top-tier” colleges are factories for unidimensional workaholics.

The “scores” assigned to schools are 90% demographics. Everyone should know that by now. That said, don’t expect to raise a high achiever in an environment where that’s just not the culture. If not being a druggie or getting over a 2.0 GPA puts a kid in the top 95% of their class, they’ll be satisfied that they’re doing well at that level. I recommend neither the poverty culture nor the workaholism culture.

soccerluvof4

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Re: How important is schooling in future success
« Reply #21 on: July 11, 2021, 03:30:32 AM »
Kids might be born with different levels of intelligence but how they are molded imo plays a bigger factor. And it all starts with parenting. While you can do all the right things and a Child can end up still messed up the odds are a lot higher of success if you attempt to do just that. I personally believe having raised 4 myself that being involved in all aspects of their lives, leading by example, exposing them and teaching them to all sorts of experiences in life and being supportive but holding them accountable is a good place to start. And this can be accomplished at most schools but obviously would take more effort on ones part at a better school than a lesser one. A big part is really who they choose to hang around with and that goes back to how they are molded making the right decisions in life.

As far as Bloomington, IN or almost any small town with a large College most are Liberal and so much of the town works or is involved with the school. Right up the road and again in my opinion a better town and school would be West Lafayette/ Lafayette and Purdue. Problem with the State of Indiana is they don't have the Jobs to retain there college grads though they are focuses on improving that and I know that first hand.

Stay where your going to be happy so your children see a happy parent and make the rest work. 


namasteyall

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Re: How important is schooling in future success
« Reply #22 on: July 12, 2021, 01:11:08 AM »
Also success depends on top quality, organically grown, home made food, and eating with at least one parent or similar daily. POV: If the US went organic  steadily, it would result in good health and less depression/rude public behavior/crime, etc. If organic food is grown with subsides like other crops get, it will be cheaper.




he price would be lower

Part of me says intelligence is given at birth and no matter what school they study, their success in life will mostly depend on their intelligence (and motivation) and very less on the schooling.

Intelligence matters. So does hard work. And these are possible anywhere.  Even where schools suck, as a parent you can enrich or supplement and disciplined, hard-working kids will do fine. But their success in life depends on a few things.  One of those is avoiding the bad influences that drag them down, ie.... drinking, drugs, sexual abuse, gangs, mischief, parental neglect, bad nutrition, lead exposure.
[/quote]

Dicey

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Re: How important is schooling in future success
« Reply #23 on: July 12, 2021, 07:41:33 AM »
Also success depends on top quality, organically grown, home made food, and eating with at least one parent or similar daily. POV: If the US went organic  steadily, it would result in good health and less depression/rude public behavior/crime, etc. If organic food is grown with subsides like other crops get, it will be cheaper.
Good thing you specified "POV", as opposed to, you know, factual data.

GuitarStv

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Re: How important is schooling in future success
« Reply #24 on: July 12, 2021, 08:09:18 AM »
Also success depends on top quality, organically grown, home made food, and eating with at least one parent or similar daily. POV: If the US went organic  steadily, it would result in good health and less depression/rude public behavior/crime, etc. If organic food is grown with subsides like other crops get, it will be cheaper.
Good thing you specified "POV", as opposed to, you know, factual data.

There is some evidence that supports certain diets being linked to a better mental emotional state.   Fruit, vegetables, whole grain, fish, olive oil, low-fat dairy and antioxidants seem to help this.

I've never read anything showing that an organic diet is better though.

tipster350

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Re: How important is schooling in future success
« Reply #25 on: July 12, 2021, 08:15:32 AM »
IMO you would do well to go to another area to learn a different, more balanced view of education and life in general. Only in SV is coding considered a top priority for education, and a reason to discount the likelihood of obtaining a good education in other areas of the country. It speaks to a whacked-out view of what is important in life, and what it means to be a successful person. I say this as a person who lived in the Bay Area for many years.

Dicey

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Re: How important is schooling in future success
« Reply #26 on: July 12, 2021, 08:35:31 AM »
IMO you would do well to go to another area to learn a different, more balanced view of education and life in general. Only in SV is coding considered a top priority for education, and a reason to discount the likelihood of obtaining a good education in other areas of the country. It speaks to a whacked-out view of what is important in life, and what it means to be a successful person. I say this as a person who lived in the Bay Area for many years.
Hard to believe, but it's entirely possible to live a successful, happy life in the Bay Area without being in tech.

tipster350

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Re: How important is schooling in future success
« Reply #27 on: July 12, 2021, 08:38:57 AM »
IMO you would do well to go to another area to learn a different, more balanced view of education and life in general. Only in SV is coding considered a top priority for education, and a reason to discount the likelihood of obtaining a good education in other areas of the country. It speaks to a whacked-out view of what is important in life, and what it means to be a successful person. I say this as a person who lived in the Bay Area for many years.
Hard to believe, but it's entirely possible to live a successful, happy life in the Bay Area without being in tech.

Exactly!

ChpBstrd

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Re: How important is schooling in future success
« Reply #28 on: July 12, 2021, 08:40:07 AM »
IMO you would do well to go to another area to learn a different, more balanced view of education and life in general. Only in SV is coding considered a top priority for education, and a reason to discount the likelihood of obtaining a good education in other areas of the country. It speaks to a whacked-out view of what is important in life, and what it means to be a successful person. I say this as a person who lived in the Bay Area for many years.
Hard to believe, but it's entirely possible to live a successful, happy life in the Bay Area without being in tech.

You mean like working a 40 hour week and 15 minute commute, having time away from work to spend with the kids, owning one’s own home, and saving 40% of one’s income?

ender

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Re: How important is schooling in future success
« Reply #29 on: July 12, 2021, 08:48:42 AM »
IMO you would do well to go to another area to learn a different, more balanced view of education and life in general. Only in SV is coding considered a top priority for education, and a reason to discount the likelihood of obtaining a good education in other areas of the country. It speaks to a whacked-out view of what is important in life, and what it means to be a successful person. I say this as a person who lived in the Bay Area for many years.
Hard to believe, but it's entirely possible to live a successful, happy life in the Bay Area without being in tech.


You mean like working a 40 hour week and 15 minute commute, having time away from work to spend with the kids, owning one’s own home, and saving 40% of one’s income?

Impossible! Heresy!


begood

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Re: How important is schooling in future success
« Reply #30 on: July 12, 2021, 09:36:28 AM »
I'll say upfront that I'm totally biased, having grown up in Chapel Hill, NC, home to UNC. The public school system there is always among the top in the state, and there are opportunities for gifted kids to progress at their own pace because of the university resources close at hand.

So my advice is if you want to leave Silicon Valley but want strong public schools, look at college towns. Bloomington is a good example. Even Austin TX would be comparatively cheaper than the Bay Area, despite being HCOL for Texas. There's also Tallahassee and Gainesville FL, the whole Triangle area in NC, Norman OK, Corvallis, OR, the list goes on!

Some kids can definitely handle academic intensity and competition. Some kids do better with a more well-rounded approach.

Edubb20

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Re: How important is schooling in future success
« Reply #31 on: July 12, 2021, 09:47:35 AM »
Unfortunately, schooling, particularly higher education, is currently of huge importance for future opportunity. Not having a 4 year degree is a fairly large barrier to entry for many non-trade related fields or opportunities for promotion.  I hope to see this change in the coming decades as people realize how big of a scam it is for many fields and how having arbitrary degree requirements perpetuates inequality and helps prop up a broken higher ed system(in the US).




Chris Pascale

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Re: How important is schooling in future success
« Reply #32 on: July 12, 2021, 09:58:35 AM »
I think an average school will give you 95% of the benefits that a great school will..... But a terrible school is definitely not good.

I'm an engineer so my examples are all for math/science.... I went to a medium town school in the Midwest, and a Midwest state school. I did awesome (and by financial metrics continue to do awesome). My classmates from truly SMALL towns, where the teachers probably cared a lot but there just weren't opportunities, largely failed out because they didn't have the academic rigor in high school.

I tend to think 90% as good + 10x better for mental health and happiness is probably better than 100% great academics.

I agree and liken it to comparing a $100 shirt to a $20 one. The $100 one is better at least in some ways, but not 5x better.

Chris Pascale

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Re: How important is schooling in future success
« Reply #33 on: July 12, 2021, 10:12:38 AM »
Anecdotes:
A dept chair I know is from Oklahoma and began his career in Kansas. When the position opened up, he was hired ahead of his now-subordinates who went to Harvard, Yale, etc.

My old boss at the community college where I teach went to a local college. His subordinates went to law school and are CPAs.

A client of the accounting firm I went to graduated U of New Mexico. He hired some people from better universities and they made a good team, but one guy from an Ivy League school was let go after a couple years.

A successful CPA I know went to a very mediocre college, but was a true expert in his field. At 60 he sold his firm and was made president of a very big company staffed with pedigreed people from great schools.

Charles Curtis only went to school for a few years after his career as a jockey ended, and became Vice President of the USA.

mizzourah2006

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Re: How important is schooling in future success
« Reply #34 on: July 14, 2021, 01:44:49 PM »
Hello all,

We are currently in Silicon Valley area. Our kids go to public schools here (middle and elementary). The education quality and rigor / workload is great here. The kids also start on coding early on (middle school).

If we have to buy a house here and then retire then it will take us long time. I am thinking about moving to LCOL cities (Bentonville / Fayetteville Arkansas, Bloomington Indiana etc). The cities in LCOL areas have good school ratings but we are wondering if we will be compromising on kids education by moving there. Silicon Valley schools are great and fellow kids here have better awareness of technology and job scene. Not sure if schools in Arkansas will be as good

How can this move affect kids future prospects? Part of me says intelligence is given at birth and no matter what school they study, their success in life will mostly depend on their intelligence (and motivation) and very less on the schooling. But I don't know. Appreciate your thoughts

- Sam

I'm in Bentonville/Fayetteville area and well educated (Ph.D). Happy to answer any questions about the area. The mountain biking is top notch :)

From what I've seen and heard the schools here are largely very good. It's in Arkansas, but it's a pocket of very well educated working professionals. Almost everyone I know either has a PhD or an MA/MS/MBA here. I think it's less about the quality of instruction and more about the cohort they are going to school with. You can always provide additional resources. My daughter has been doing Khan Academy for kids since preschool. They also have public schools solely focused on academics which I've heard great things about: https://www.haashall.org/
« Last Edit: July 14, 2021, 01:49:11 PM by mizzourah2006 »

utaca

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Re: How important is schooling in future success
« Reply #35 on: July 14, 2021, 02:20:19 PM »
You might want to read How to Raise an Adult by Julie Lythcott-Haims. She's an insanely accomplished Silicon Valley mom who writes about the negative impacts of academically-focused, pressure-cooker achievement culture on the development of children and young adults. I believe that childhood and adolescence is time for people to enjoy their lives, discover who they are, work a crappy minimum wage job, make bad decisions and fail repeatedly. School is important - but not to the exclusion of everything else that plays a role in successful adulting.

ChpBstrd

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Re: How important is schooling in future success
« Reply #36 on: July 14, 2021, 03:43:40 PM »
One more thing to add:

The quality of education (not to mention the prestige of the education) will have a varying effect on your kiddo based on their personality.

If they are a creative, artistic type, it might not matter how good the trigonometry teacher is.  They'll become an artist or musician rather than a PhD mathematician, and those math efforts will generally be wasted. 

If they are very people-oriented, the top-notch coding classes will seem a bore. They'll grow up to become a middle manager and enjoy riding the politics between upper management and subordinates, and never write a program.

If they have a directive personality, they will find a prestigious school's "rigorous" detailed task work and fire-hose lecturing/reading to be a bore, and they'll seek leadership opportunities somewhere.

A one-size-fits-all educational expectation, backed by one-size-fits-all scoring systems for complex school districts, is why we have so many waiters and delivery drivers with bachelor's degrees. It's also why there are so many befuddled parents paying sky-high mortgages in fancy neighborhoods and wondering why the kid is making TikTok videos, spending all their time socializing, or pursuing restaurant management instead of becoming the next tech company founder or investment firm partner. 

gracewil8

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Re: How important is schooling in future success
« Reply #37 on: March 28, 2022, 11:56:03 PM »
Yeah, I totally agree with you, as I also didn't study at the best school, but I didn't limit myself to the knowledge given in school and I have learned a lot by myself. Plus, I have developed a lot of techniques to finish all my assignments quickly, especially the writing ones. So, before starting writing I read a lot of examples from this site https://writix.co.uk/essay-examples/business because it boosts my creativity and I can express myself more freely which saves me a lot of time.
« Last Edit: March 30, 2022, 04:29:37 AM by gracewil8 »

jrhampt

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Re: How important is schooling in future success
« Reply #38 on: March 29, 2022, 07:18:25 PM »
I’ll just say that having lived in Oklahoma and having had family in Arkansas and Indiana…sometimes you get what you pay for.  You don’t have to get competitive with the academics and go to extremes, but I tutored writing at the college level in OK and it was abysmal.  People didn’t know what paragraphs were or how to identify a subject and verb.  Plus, outdoor activities in those states are somewhat limited.  Yes, you can compensate somewhat with good parenting, but be aware that you may end up in a school system where they don’t teach things like evolution.  Or even writing, really. 

Longwaytogo

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Re: How important is schooling in future success
« Reply #39 on: March 29, 2022, 08:23:15 PM »
You might want to read How to Raise an Adult by Julie Lythcott-Haims. She's an insanely accomplished Silicon Valley mom who writes about the negative impacts of academically-focused, pressure-cooker achievement culture on the development of children and young adults. I believe that childhood and adolescence is time for people to enjoy their lives, discover who they are, work a crappy minimum wage job, make bad decisions and fail repeatedly. School is important - but not to the exclusion of everything else that plays a role in successful adulting.

Hear hear!! Couldn't agree more, might have to check that book out myself :)

kenner

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Re: How important is schooling in future success
« Reply #40 on: April 09, 2022, 06:57:12 PM »
I’ll just say that having lived in Oklahoma and having had family in Arkansas and Indiana…sometimes you get what you pay for.  You don’t have to get competitive with the academics and go to extremes, but I tutored writing at the college level in OK and it was abysmal.  People didn’t know what paragraphs were or how to identify a subject and verb.  Plus, outdoor activities in those states are somewhat limited.  Yes, you can compensate somewhat with good parenting, but be aware that you may end up in a school system where they don’t teach things like evolution.  Or even writing, really.

States aren't quite that monolithic.  Thanks to a lot of moving I lived in multiple towns in both Oklahoma and Indiana (and a lot of other places) growing up, and assuming that the quality of education is similar just because you're in the same state doesn't really pan out.  If you'd looked at the first place I lived in Oklahoma your 'unable to write' comment would look reasonable...and if you looked at the second place (still in OK, 6mo later) you'd have multiple students winning national-level writing awards.  If you looked at the first place I lived in Indiana you'd see students taking algebra and geometry in elementary as part of a standard math track...and if you looked at the second place you'd see kids of the same age still struggling with fractions (and also on a standard track and ~4mo later--this was literally the highest math they could put me in at that school).  State-level might be worth looking at as far as laws regarding education, but individual schools are going to vary so massively that assumptions made without looking at actual districts are going to be pretty worthless.