Hello,

MynameisPedroDeBruyckere!(@thebandb)

Ico-wrote this book:

Myblog:TheEconomyOfMeaning.com

This session:

HigherEducation?

Longtraditions versus evolutions?

LongtraditionsEvolutionsInclusive?

LongtraditionsEvolutionsInclusive?

Examplesoflongstandingtraditions:

Adominantlanguage:Latin(now English)

Well,kindof…

Initiation rites

International students:inmedievaltimesevenmorethantoday.

Butmoreimportant, imho:

Independence

A.k.a.:Academic freedom(and integrity too)

Butalso very typical for universities:

Being exclusive

Oops?

And yes, that wasalso inbold ;)

Actually: romanversus anglo

Anelitebased onmoney oronintelligence?

Hardthing to beat:Masterbecame PhD,became 1PhD+ MBA,

2PhD’s…

LongtraditionsEvolutionsInclusive?

TheObvious, part2:

Less obvious:

Schooltelevision?

Still?

Orisit:MassiveOnlineOpen

Colonialism?

The clock isticking…

The clockisticking

…

Closerto home:

Did Imention Oops?

And don’t forget the “Hagwons”.

Oops,Idid it again

Solutions?

PeterThielDropout Fund

Solution?Not really!

Solution?Really not!

Good reasons to be inclusive.

Another issue:

It’s hardbeing an expert…

Butsometimesscientists reallydon’thelp

thegoodcause.

Oftenscienceitselfreallydoesn’thelp,becauseofscience.

Lastbutnot least:

Safezones& safespaces.

Longtraditions versus evolutions?

Thepowerofindependence versus inclusion?

LongtraditionsevolutionsInclusive?

Universal Design?

UniversalDesignforlearning?

Greatphilosophy!

Butwait, holdyourhorses: theMentos problem.

Greatif you arethirsty!

Greatweaponagainstbadbreath!

Butcombined?

Didactical example ofthe Mentos-problem?

Dual channeltheory

Remember: Mentos-problem?

Butwheredoesinclusionstart?

Primaryeducation?

Goodthinking, butthinkagain?

“being born=biggest source

ofinequality”

vironments are powerful predictors of adult failureon a number of social and economic measures.

Many major economic and social problemscan be traced to low levels of skill and ability in thepopulation. The U.S. will add many fewer collegegraduates to its workforce in the next 20 years thanit did in the past 20 years (6, 7). The high schooldropout rate, properly measured with inclusion ofindividuals who have received general educationaldevelopment (GED) degrees, is increasing at atime when the economic return of schooling hasincreased (8). It is not solely a phenomenon ofunskilled immigrants. Over 20% of the U.S.workforce is functionally illiterate, compared withabout 10% in Germany and Sweden (9). Violentcrime and property crime levels remain high,despite large declines in recent years. It isestimated that the net cost of crimein American society is $1.3 trillionper year, with a per capita cost of$4818 per year (10). Recent researchdocuments the importance of deficitsin cognitive and noncognitive skillsin explaining these and other socialpathologies (11).

Noncognitive Skills and Examplesof Successful Early Interventions

Cognitive skills are important, butnoncognitive skills such as motiva-tion, perseverance, and tenacity arealso important for success in life.Much public policy, such as the NoChild Left Behind Act, focuses oncognitive test score outcomes tomeasure the success of interventionsin spite of the evidence on the im-portance of noncognitive skills insocial success.HeadStartwasdeemeda failure in the 1960s because it didnot raise the intelligence quotients(IQs) of its participants (12). Suchjudgments are common but miss thelarger picture. Consider the PerryPreschool Program (13), a 2-yearexperimental intervention for disad-vantaged African-American childreninitially ages 3 to 4 that involved morning pro-grams at school and afternoon visits by the teacherto the child’s home. The Perry intervention grouphad IQ scores no higher than the control group byage 10. Yet, the Perry treatment children had higherachievement test scores than the control childrenbecause they were more motivated to learn. Infollowups to age 40, the treated group had higherrates of high school graduation, higher salaries,higher percentages of home ownership, lowerrates of receipt of welfare assistance as adults,fewer out-of-wedlock births, and fewer arreststhan the controls (13). The economic benefits ofthe Perry Program are substantial (Table 1). Ratesof return are 15 to 17% (14). (The rate of return isthe increment in earnings and other outcomes,

suitably valued, per year for each dollar investedin the child). The benefit-cost ratio (the ratio ofthe aggregate program benefits over the life ofthe child to the input costs) is over eight to one.

Perry intervened relatively late. The Abecedar-ian program, also targeted toward disadvantagedchildren, started when participants were 4 monthsof age. Children in the treatment group receivedchild care for 6 to 8 hours per day, 5 days perweek,through kindergarten entry; nutritional supple-ments, social work services, and medical carewere provided to control group families. Theprogram was found to permanently raise the IQand the noncognitive skills of the treatment groupover the control group. However, the Abecedarianprogram was intensive, and it is not knownwhether it is the age of intervention or its inten-

sity that contributed to its success in raising IQ(15–17).

Reynolds et al. present a comprehensivereview of early childhood programs directedtoward disadvantaged children and their impact(18). Similar returns are obtained for other earlyintervention programs (19, 20), although morespeculation is involved in these calculations be-cause the program participants are in the earlystages of their life cycles and do not have longearnings histories.

Schools and Skill Gaps

Many societies look to the schools to reduce skillsgaps across socioeconomic groups. Because of thedynamics of human skill formation, the abilities

and motivations that children bring to school playa far greater role in promoting their performancein school than do the traditional inputs that receiveso much attention in public policy debates. TheColeman Report (21) as well as recent work(22, 23) show that families and not schools are themajor sources of inequality in student performance.By the third grade, gaps in test scores across socio-economic groups are stable by age, suggesting thatlater schooling and variations in schooling qualityhave little effect in reducing or widening the gapsthat appear before students enter school (4, 24).Figure 1 plots gaps inmath test scores by age acrossfamily income levels. Themajority of the gap at age12 appears at the age of school enrollment. Carneiroand Heckman performed a cost-benefit analysis ofclassroom size reduction on adult earnings (3).

Although smaller classes raise theadult earnings of students, the earn-ings gains received by students do notoffset the costs of hiring additionalteachers. The student-teacher achieve-ment ratio (STAR) randomized trialof classroom size in Tennessee showssome effect of reduced classroom sizeon test scores and adult perform-ance, but most of the effect occurs inthe earliest grades (25, 26). Schoolsand school quality at current levelsof funding contribute little to theemergence of test score gaps amongchildren or to the development ofthe gaps.

Second Chance Programs

America is a second chance society.Our educational policy is based on afundamental optimism about thepossibility of human change. Thedynamics of human skill formationreveal that later compensation for de-ficient early family environments isvery costly (4). If society waits toolong to compensate, it is economical-ly inefficient to invest in the skills ofthe disadvantaged. A serious trade-offexists between equity and efficiency

for adolescent and young adult skill policies.There is no such trade-off for policies targetedtoward disadvantaged young children (28).

The findings of a large literature are captured inFig. 2. This figure plots the rate of return, which isthe dollar flow from a unit of investment at eachage for a marginal investment in a disadvantagedyoung child at current levels of expenditure. Theeconomic return from early interventions is high,and the return from later interventions is lower.Remedial programs in the adolescent and youngadult years are much more costly in producing thesame level of skill attainment in adulthood. Mostare economically inefficient. This is reflected inFig. 2 by the fact that a segment of the curve liesbelow the opportunity cost of funds (the horizon-

Fig. 2. Rates of return to human capital investment in disadvantaged children.Thedeclining figure plots the payout per year per dollar invested in human capitalprograms at different stages of the life cycle for the marginal participant at currentlevels of spending. The opportunity cost of funds (r) is the payout per year if thedollar is invested in financial assets (e.g., passbook savings) instead. An optimalinvestment program from the point of view of economic efficiency equates returnsacross all stages of the life cycle to the opportunity cost. The figure shows that, atcurrent levels of funding, we overinvest in most schooling and post-schoolingprograms and underinvest in preschool programs for disadvantaged persons.Adapted from (3) with permission from MIT Press.

SPECIALSECTION

www.sciencemag.org SCIENCE VOL 312 30 JUNE 2006 1901

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Carneiro&Heckman,2003

Yeah, butwhatcanwe do?

Heckmanrevisited:

Howto sustain?

Which priorknowledge isneeded?

Which “jargon” isneeded?

Monitor!

Scaffold!

Mostimportantelement?

Theeffectofgreat teacherexperts!

Differences between expertsand teacherexperts?

“There isnosimple linear correlation betweentopical knowledge and learning effect”

DanielMuijs,ResearchED 2016

Differences inimpactonlearners from differentbackgrounds.

Loweringthe bar?Never!Scaffold?Yes!

Mutualinspiration?Yes!

Thelatter: Innovation and openness

All (?!) Inclusive (?!)and Learning(?!)

Thank you?Yes!