LTTE "Many poor people have lower IQs" Birmingham News, Alabama

[jody]

QUOTE
David Brooks' Sept. 27 column "Equality of opportunity fails in U.S." was very interesting. I worked as a social worker in Alabama for seven years and have had extensive contact with the problems of the poor.

In order to more effectively work with my clients, I would send them for psychological evaluations and IQ tests. The results of the IQ tests were consistently low, around 75 to 80. This is the reason many of the poor are not attending college. They do not have the intelligence (an IQ of 110 or higher) to be able to do college-level work.

Brooks says 28 percent of the population has a college degree. This fits well with the fact that 25 percent of the population has an IQ above 110. Thus, our society is making efficient use of those individuals who are able to benefit from higher education. Brooks indicates society is discriminating against the poor. However, 25 percent of the population has an IQ below 90, something that correlates with the lower quadrant of society. He states only 8.6 percent of the poorest quarter of the population get a college degree. However, this would be expected, as so few of the poor have the ability to do college-level work. We must accept the fact that equality of opportunity produces the most unequal result.

My poor clients frequently told me they liked to work with their hands. They wanted good-paying, factory jobs. We need to accept the lower quadrant in society as they are and honor their desire for good-paying factory jobs by not outsourcing all the manufacturing jobs overseas. All work is honorable.

These people can contribute to society, but trying to send everyone to college is just setting up a lot of people for failure.
UNQUOTE

[Starbucks Anarchist]

1. I can think of one rich dumbass.

Hint: He lives in the White House.

[depakid]

2. Socioeconomic status certainly correlates with education

and education correllates with IQ.

However, poor nutrition and various kinds of toxic poisoning (which are more common among the poor) also cause IQ's to drop- sometimes substantially- as does poor primary education and secondary education.

I have no problem tracking kids into vocational training vs. college preparatory courses. I think it's the logical thing to do and for the majority, it probably works out for the best.

On the other hand, foreclosing educational opportunities to the poor- regadless of IQ, is poor policy for all of us and I don't think it's justified simply by saying that many may not be able (due to IQ) to do college level work.

[Child_Of_Isis]

11. as does poor primary education and secondary education.

Bingo!

[Hello_Kitty]

3. I agree with the good jobs part but the rest is just ridiculous

Some of the people she worked with might have been borderline retarded but she's extrapolating what she found in a few of her clients to poor people as a whole. How does she know that "so few of the poor have the ability to do college-level work"? Has she tested every poor person in the country?

I'm glad this idiot isn't a social worker anymore. She viewed her clients as the "lower quadrant in society". Yikes!

[The Backlash Cometh]

4. Those IQ tests are dangerous.

They start cheating kids in elementary school. If a child has a reading difficulty, they give him an IQ test. There's a forumla to determine if he'll get help. The child must have a high I.Q. compared to their reading I.Q. If there is a vast difference, then they assume the child will have the intelligence to overcome his difficulty, and he's allowed to take SLD classes.

The reason why I know this system is hokey and they're cheating a lot of kids of valuable early intervention, is because with the FCATs at the HIGH SCHOOL level this year, the kids who didn't pass the test were forced to go into reading preparation classes for the FCATs. What they're teaching the kids are the same SLD methods that they would have been exposed to in the elementary grades IF they had scored high in the IQ tests back when they were younger.

You want to know how stupid it is delaying it until High School? Kids are being taught to decipher words or passages by looking at picture clues IN HIGH SCHOOL. Does that sound like test preparation for a test which has no picture clues?

[acmejack]

14. Albert Einstein remarked that it all depended on who wrote the test!

He pointed out on a Australian Bushman's IQ test he would be a moron, he couldn't throw a spear or fashion a boomerang.

[JuniperLea]

18. my life was saved by such tests

perspective is everything.

[The Backlash Cometh]

19. Go ahead and explain.

If you're going to say that your high I.Q. allowed you into certain gifted classes, I'd have to say I'd join in celebrating your good fortune. But what I'm saying is that using these IQ tests to stop other kids from also enjoying certain attention, is the weakness in the process.

I don't think it would be difficult to find gifted teachers who feel the same.

[JuniperLea]

20. not everyone learns in the same manner

by being able to tell which students respond well to certain styles, we can better determine which classes would support them best. that's why there are private tutorial companies such as the sylvan learning centers. you cannot expect all students to excel at the same rate with the same teaching procedures. two children with equal iq's could have completely different learning styles. that being said, i think if all children were exposed to the kind of teaching style that best suits their own needs, regardless of iq, it very well could lead to putting more students on a more level playing field and more students being ready for college when the time comes. anyone who has had children in school most likely has had the experience of having a child respond quite differently to different teachers.

[The Backlash Cometh]

21. Couldn't agree with you more.

Which is why it's a shame that kids who score with average IQs are left to fend for themselves until they drop out, or are given crash courses late in high school where they have little chance for success.

[Missy M]

5. I think the poor may have a low IQ because they do not get the....

proper education in our school systems,I don't think it has to do with their level of intelligence. I do agree not all people are college material but that has nothing to do with their intelligence. Many college educated people are mediocre at best when it comes to the work place and much of success comes from opportunity, not IQ or college degrees. Good paying factory jobs are what created much of the middle class in America and this base is being eroded by the greed of big business not by IQ's.

[Richard Steele]

6. What a crock!

The author was a social worker?
Thank God that sentence is in the past tense.

As for the rest of the claims, I call "bullshit"!
That's all it is, lies told by someone who is
obviously NOT the brightest bulb on the tree.

[JHB]

7. "Intelligence" tests measure the ability to take "intellegence" tests...

...not actual intelligence, which isn't so easily quantifiable.

That said, the author is right about keeping good-paying jobs, those that don't require a college education (and increasingly those that do, too), and not outsourcing them.

[liberal N proud]

8. People with lower IQ should not be condemned to be poor!

They wanted good-paying, factory jobs... Then they should be allowed to work those jobs and it should be a moral responsibility for the whole of America to insure they get an opportunity to compete for such jobs.
The American Dream should include all Americans and IQ should play no part in the chances or what that dream means to people.

[demnan]

9. I spent my first year of college in a school in Appalachia

Many of the students were poor whose fathers were coal miners, or had died in the coal mines. When these kids hit college they showed a zeal for the work that a lot of we Northern Virginians did not. The reason many of them got to go to college was that back in the seventies we still had social services to help the poor. Instead of giving them IQ tests maybe we should improve on the social welfare system so poor people have a choice of what they want to do.

Also I resent the indication that lower IQ people "work with their hands". Many jobs involve a high level of skill which are "work with their hands" type of jobs. You need computer training these days to be a mechanic, for instance, because cars today are built with an increasingly more complex technology.

[sandnsea]

10. This is a dilemma to face, not poopoo

Whether it's nature or nurture, there are adults in our society who are not going to benefit from college. I didn't think that was true until I met some who flunked out - adults, not partying kids. We do have to recognize it and gear our helping programs accordingly. It's a shame that some folks could make a great living being a plumber and end up with a social worker trying to stick them into college, where they don't belong. It's also why every person is deserving of a living wage, no matter what they do.

[Crunchy Frog]

12. Of course, he probably hasn't considered the possibility

that economically deprived people didn't get proper prenatal care, were poorly nourished in childhood, often don't get adequate mental stimulation in their early years, don't learn how to take tests in school, and that all those factors can dramatically lower a person's measured IQ.

Then there are plenty of rich idiots who make it through college because of their family background, or they're rich enough to get someone else to take their tests for them.

Sounds like a modern day varient of social Darwinism.

[ET Awful]

13. Let's see . . . she equates poor with being less intelligent, she's from

Alabama (an area where there is a large black population, the majority of whom are below the poverty line) . . . I'd say it's a safe bet that this is very thinly veiled racism being displayed by a southern belle whose daddy is wealthy and owns a lot of land (most of which has probably been in the family for generations).

Why am I reminded of Malcolm X's story of his grade school teacher who spouted lines like "You can't be an attorney, you have to be realist. You're good with your hands, you could be a carpenter, Jesus was a carpenter."

edit: And no, I'm not suggesting all Alabamans are racists, just point out that this letter reads like rantings from racist groups I've seen, just replace the word "poor" with "black" and it sounds like something you'd see over at Stormfront.

[Gman]

15. The GOP and RW have a vested interested in keeping people stupid

and be it through poor nutrition, or otherwise, they want them that way so they can mold their minds into their model for a RW voter.

The irony has always been that the Democrats are the ones that want to provide them good nutrition and good education.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

16. Some of this is good

particularly about finding appropriate jobs for different ability levels.

But IQ is a human invention. And it is definitely affected by poverty. Children with inadequate nutrition, lack of mental stimulation, etc. are going to score lower on the test.

Take that same child and raise him/her differently and you have a whole different level of ability.

[JuniperLea]

17. bovine excrement!

you are genetically born with an iq somewhere between the levels of your parents. as a poor member of american mensa, i can attest to the fact that not all poor people have low iq scores. the cards life hands you have more to do with it than anything. the people i've met in mensa range from brain surgeons to janitors. a high iq does not guarantee ambition or opportunity.

iq tests do not measure what you know, but how good you are at figuring things out.

i think it's sleazy to try and equate poverty with iq. i think it's just another trick to try and get people to care less about the poor. it's just another means of dividing us into convenient little groups.

i don't generally tell people about my mensa membership, but this discussion really pisses me off. it reminds me of a discussion a few years ago where some members talked about lowering the requirements for membership in an effort to racially diversify the organization. bullshit! utter bullshit! there are good, bad, smart, stupid, beautiful and ugly in all groups, no matter how you want to draw the stupid lines.


edited to say: testing in school saved me from who knows what! i was so incredibly bored in school that i often failed for lack of attention and daydreaming. some teachers thought i was retarded until i was tested and given opportunity to attend other classes that challenged me. don't poo poo testing in schools. it could save a child's life.

[StopRoy]

22. LOL. My income is about $600 a month

And my IQ is 150. I'd be happy to discuss quantum mechanics or historical Continental philosophy with this writer. My mobile home door is open.

Oh, and as far as being "unable to do college level work," I scored a perfect 800 on the verbal section of the SAT. I was the only one to do so in the entire class that year - a class which I'm sure are almost all making more than $600 a month.

Things like this are just stupid.

[fasttense]

23. This is bull crap

My father lived through the dust bowl in Oklahoma. They were so poor they ate flour and water for breakfast. He showed me how to eat a candy bar so you wouldn't lose a single crumb because it was so rare. They were poorer than poor. They lived in a sod house for the first seven years of his life. But he went on to work at John Hopkins Physics Laboratory and NASA. He was one of ten satellite timing experts in the country. His IQ was 150.

If he had met this social worker, God knows what would have happened to him.

My friends son's IQ is 150 and he barely makes a living wage.

My older brother's IQ is about average, but that man can take apart and put together any piece of equipment you may have. He can repair any machine if given a chance. He works in maintenance and makes millions.

Sure these are anecdotes but the former social worker is using anecdotes too and doesn't allow for intelligence in other areas such as art, music, mechanics. This social worker wants to pigeon hole everyone, keep them in their place. Don't teach them because they are too dumb.

[misanthrope]

25. In terms of natural selection,...

...the poor should actually be more selected for fitness due to the greater abundance of environmental stresses they experience.

I dare say those on the lower end of the economic scale are forced to be more resourceful to survive.

[Debau2005]

24. I was a social worker

in the State of Alabama for six years, I NEVER sent my clients for IQ testing. I would like to know who he works for. I would also like to see that test, for people in the lower income brackets who might have had less exposure to quality education, and enrichment activities, of course they are going to score lower.

This is crap. I had an older gentlemen, he had been a sharecropper, could not read or write, but was smart as a whip. He could debate you on any topic. He would not have been able to complete an IQ test.