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We like to think that schools can make all students equal. Decades of research, however, show that as learning conditions improve, gaps between the most able and the least able students widen rather than shrink - and that well-meaning efforts to equalize outcomes often only mask differences rather than eliminate them. IQ remains the strongest predictor of educational success, yet many teachers misunderstand it, underestimate the role of genetics, and embrace widely debunked ideas like Gardner’s “multiple intelligences.”
These topics were the focus of an excellent recent Quillette article by psychologist Russell Warne, titled “Education’s Elephant in the Room.” Warne exposes the uncomfortable truth: Ability gaps can’t simply be erased, and ignoring them ultimately does more harm than good.
Below are some excerpts from the piece, but the whole thing is well worth your time.
We devote a lot of resources to trying to equalise student outcomes. However, when schools have a good curriculum and experienced teachers, individual differences in student achievement widen. Yes, struggling students do perform slightly better—but the most able students show greater gains...
After the communist revolution, the Soviet education system was reformed to equalise school environments as much as possible throughout the Soviet Union. During the 1920s and early 1930s, educational achievement tests showed that some children were still learning more than others. So, in 1936, the USSR banned standardised testing altogether. It was much easier to ban the tests and hide individual differences than it was to actually eliminate them…
One of the most consistent findings in psychology is that intelligence—as measured by IQ—is the best predictor of educational outcomes…
[I]n industrialised nations, about ninety percent of differences in learning outcomes are associated with individual differences among students. This means that only about ten percent of differences in learning outcomes are related to school- and classroom-level characteristics...
One of my students and I surveyed a sample that included 200 American teachers to learn about their knowledge and opinions about intelligence. The results showed that teachers sometimes had an appalling lack of understanding about intelligence. Over 85 percent believed that it was too simplistic to measure someone’s intelligence with just one score, like an IQ. Almost 85 percent endorsed Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences. Almost forty percent thought that “street smarts” were more important for life success than intelligence. All of these beliefs are completely incorrect, yet large numbers of teachers—sometimes the majority—hold them. In contrast, only a third thought that students who perform better on intelligence tests would also perform better in school.
This is as if engineers had basic misunderstandings about the laws of physics...
How could teachers—who see intelligence differences every day in their classrooms—be so badly informed? A major reason is that they were never exposed to accurate information in their training. Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences—despite having little support from psychologists—is widely taught in American teacher training programs. My wife was a middle school drama teacher, and while we were dating, she told me that she learned Gardner’s theory in her teacher training program and thought it was true. She had no reason to question this received wisdom because the theory sounded good, and her education professors believed it. She knows better now, but a teacher shouldn’t have to marry a psychologist in order to learn that Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences is wrong.
Sometimes, teacher training programs even work to keep information about intelligence and IQ from their students…
[T]here is no evidence that grade skipping creates any harms—academically, socially, or otherwise—for children... Most educators are shocked when I tell them that up to a quarter of American students could skip their final year of high school…
The differences among students’ educational achievement start early and increase as children grow. By 5th grade, the average American classroom has children whose achievement in mathematics and reading ranges from the 2nd grade level to the 8th grade level or higher. It is simply impossible for a single teacher to prepare lessons in every subject that allow every student to learn new information. Some sort of ability grouping, in which students at similar levels of achievement are taught together, is necessary...
What causes these individual differences in intelligence and achievement that educators are so determined to deny, downplay, or ignore? …
This is where educators get really nervous, because the major cause of individual differences in intelligence seems to be genetics. The heritability of IQ varies, but in wealthy, industrialised countries, it approaches .80 in adults, which indicates that eighty percent of individual differences in IQ are associated with individual genetic differences. In young children, heritability of IQ is lower, but it hits .50 at about age ten and continues to increase into adulthood before levelling off…
In a British survey, only 29 percent of teachers thought that genes were one of the top three factors affecting student achievement. In other words, the scientific research shows that genes are usually more important than every environmental cause combined, and yet most teachers don’t even believe that genes rank in the top three causes of educational achievement…
Individual differences existed in the education system long before standardised tests could objectively measure them. They will always continue to exist because these differences are partially genetic in origin, and they manifest themselves when the educational environment meets basic standards. For decades, politicians and educators have tried to eradicate these differences, but they have always failed because they can’t equalise students genetically. As psychologist Arthur Jensen stated over fifty years ago, “A philosophy of equalization, however laudable its ideals, cannot work if it is based on false premises, and no amount of propaganda can make it appear to work. Its failures will be forced upon everyone.”
You can access the full article here.
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Coming Soon to The Nature-Nurture-Nietzsche Newsletter…
12 Things Everyone Should Know About the Dark Triad. (Check out the rest of the “12 Things Everyone Should Know” series here)
The Problem of Free Will, Part 3: Does Determinism Make Us Bad? (Check out the rest of the series here)
New Research on the Evolutionary Psychology of Love and Romance.
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Related Reading From the Archive
12 Things Everyone Should Know About IQ
This is the first post in my “12 Things Everyone Should Know” series. You can access the complete collection here.
One of the practical reasons not to skip students based purely on ability is that, as long as have mass schooling, age is the most efficient way to sort students of of similar social maturity. This is entirely a personal anecdotal, but I attended high school with a student who had been skipped several grades. He was extremely socially immature for a high school freshman (I would say he was about as socially mature for a 14 year old and as a 5 year old would be compared to a 10 year old). Probably as a result, he didn’t do very well academically, even though he was obviously very intelligent. I do wonder if he ever found his way, as his academic future didn’t look very auspicious.
The elite used to hire private tutors and governesses for their kids. Obviously we can’t do this at scale, but we should throw every technological resource, including AI, into figuring out how to make individualized learning work, and grant degrees based on attainment.