Sorry, I don't agree. In fact, I think I'm quite objectively estimating the effects of our institutions. I think you're the one stating drastic estimations.

I would say that our education system is helping to free people to move across class and wealth lines far more than keeping people where they are. The amount of social mobility in the US ranks with the best of many countries.

Of course, tons of studies show this (mobility) has been slowly decreasing over time since the 1950s, etc. But you make it sound like the system is rigged in the exact opposite way, which is the problem with the many popular positions on the topic. But popular does not mean objectively correct.

The problem with what you want (I don't know you, I'm using your stated words as example of a certain position right now) is that you want a small number of bad overall outcome cases (or increasing number of cases) to justify any steps towards any institution even tangentially related to the perceived problem.

Even if the institution contributes only a small part of the outcome's determinants. Even if by dismantling the institution, you wouldn't be sure whether the outcome would be different. But you want to try, right? Just to see if it does something? Without proof.

I don't want you to have that nuclear option. I'm willing to work towards solutions to make things better, but I don't believe in the extent of systemwide conspiratorial reinforcement of class/racial boundaries that you believe causes these outcomes.

If I did, I'd be out protesting right along side you. But I'm willing to have my mind changed by better information.

Study after study has shown that the US actually has some of the lowest social mobility in the developed world, and its poor educational systems and strictly rationed access to high quality learning environments are a direct contributor to that.

Part of the reason is because education is a political football. From school boards up to the presidency, everyone has an axe to grind.

Ironically - because there's so little awareness among the public of how empirical research works, and in some quarters there's a strong bias against facts and evidence - almost no one knows how to make it sharp and effective again.

It's only relatively lower if you look at relative rank, and of course if all of Scandinavia is at the top of the list, we appear low. But on actual score, the difference is not as large as it seems.

And aside from that, are we willing to go the route of Scandinavia to achieve what they have? I doubt even a simple majority of us want that.

The countries higher up the list did not rejected schools nor institutions. In fact, they have less homeschooling then us have (not that it has relation to anything).

> Even if the institution contributes only a small part of the outcome's determinants. Even if by dismantling the institution, you wouldn't be sure whether the outcome would be different. But you want to try, right? Just to see if it does something? Without proof.

> I don't want you to have that nuclear option. I'm willing to work towards solutions to make things better, but I don't believe in the extent of systemwide conspiratorial reinforcement of class/racial boundaries that you believe causes these outcomes.

You don't need to give someone the nuclear option, but it's important to recognize that there are clear race/class biases (not conspiracies), in the educational system in order to, as you say, work toward solutions to make things better:

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2019/02/14/no-room-a...