[1] http://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2015/apr/21/jeb...

I recently visited a school with one of these in every classroom. Every student has a laptop. Every classroom has an unused commercial "curriculum" product in the corner.

And given how much administrators make, and presumably embezzle, I'm not even sure these are bad investments, in a relative sense.

The overwhelming majority of kids (including me) received poor educations. I learned this in college when I was shocked by the difficulty of the courses. The majority of the kids passed high school because the standards were lowered.

I think lowering the standards in college is failing to target the source of the problem. I believe the further you get from hard skills (e.g., math or cs) the more relevant your soft skills become (e.g., cultural fit)[0]. The fact of the matter is that poor people have a distinct culture and it involves many elements that are not normative. I don't know if it is objectively more difficult to assimilate culturally or learn hard skills. On the other hand, I found it so difficult to assimilate to my PhD program in a social science that I didn't finish. I found programming to be much easier, albeit still a difficult mid-career change, than assimilating culturally. If it is the case that acquiring hard skills offers better opportunities for the poor to rise, then that is exactly what teachers and parents should be telling their kids. That is exactly what those with "sympathy for the poor" should be funding.

[0]Brendan Eich & the Googler who wrote about diversity are counter examples. I can (but I won't) argue the case they have better chances financially due to their hard skills compared to a person in a occupation lacking said skills.