teedubbya wrote:Oh there are many (some not necessarily school related, some are) but you would discount them. However I wasn’t talking about getting a high school diploma, and not all high school diplomas are equal. In some areas you can get your high school diploma without knowing how to read.
A diploma from my kids high school means more and opens more doors with employers and particularly universities than the one we moved from. And to top it off they learned more which sort of helps too.
I don’t think I’m being particularly controversial. Anyone with kids that doesn’t look in to the school districts when moving is either foolish or lying. That means there is at least a tacit recognition of variation. That variation is drastic in many areas.
though overall I didn't care for the book Hillbilly Elegy, J.D. Vance makes a good point about the gap in America.
Not race, he says, but the poor or lower class is at a huge disadvantage in achieving upward mobility in American socio-economic status due to a 98.2% lack of "social equity".
Even among those that have the inner fire, the smarts, and the teachers very few "make it" in America.
As for himself, a variety of circumstances landed him in law school, and even being that smart and stuff, he figures he would have been another one room attorney going nowhere had he not been invited to a cocktail reception one evening in law school. All his classmates knew what it really was, a chance to shmooze with head honchos from big legal firms...the sort of social equity his social class had been shut out from...perhaps not intentionally, but effectively.
the old expression, it's who you know, works in reverse when you don't know anyone.
tw is correct, not all schools and degrees are created equal.