Wouldn't any educational effort disproportionately benefit those who have the means, the background and the drive to learn?
No. New Zealand's Reading Recovery program is one example that springs to mind. Since it focuses on providing one-on-one tutoring to children who are severly behind in their reading (e.g. 10 year olds who read like 5 year olds), those who ebenefit defintely tend to have problems with the means, background, and drive.
Awesome example. But that's a targeted intervention. Any treatment/course that's provided universally will tend to help most those best able to use it, i.e. the best prepared, most privileged, etc.
This is part of why equality of opportunity can't lead to opportunity of outcome: Differences in ability and character exist and the better the background environment the more they matter. It's like height. When there's substantial variation in nutrition a lot of variation in height can be explained by that but once more or less everyone has adequate nutrition there's still a hell of a lot of variation in height, and it's due to genes and randomness. Environmental influence has been reduced to close to zero by equalization.
You are correct, in that if you are talking about remedial programs, they would benefit those who have already failed (by the virtue of being remedial programs) to achieve something that is considered normal to achieve. However, if you're talking at general education programs, not specifically targeted and limited as remedial ones, I think my point still stands. I'm not saying remedial education is not important, but I think it's a different field - like a gym and a hospital, both aim for people to be healthy, but they address different populations by different means.
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No. New Zealand's Reading Recovery program is one example that springs to mind. Since it focuses on providing one-on-one tutoring to children who are severly behind in their reading (e.g. 10 year olds who read like 5 year olds), those who ebenefit defintely tend to have problems with the means, background, and drive.
Awesome example. But that's a targeted intervention. Any treatment/course that's provided universally will tend to help most those best able to use it, i.e. the best prepared, most privileged, etc.
This is part of why equality of opportunity can't lead to opportunity of outcome: Differences in ability and character exist and the better the background environment the more they matter. It's like height. When there's substantial variation in nutrition a lot of variation in height can be explained by that but once more or less everyone has adequate nutrition there's still a hell of a lot of variation in height, and it's due to genes and randomness. Environmental influence has been reduced to close to zero by equalization.
You are correct, in that if you are talking about remedial programs, they would benefit those who have already failed (by the virtue of being remedial programs) to achieve something that is considered normal to achieve. However, if you're talking at general education programs, not specifically targeted and limited as remedial ones, I think my point still stands. I'm not saying remedial education is not important, but I think it's a different field - like a gym and a hospital, both aim for people to be healthy, but they address different populations by different means.