In other 'duh' news...

[Watser?]

A new report from the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) finds that social mobility between generations is dramatically lower in the U.S. than in many other developed countries.

So if you want your children to climb the socioeconomic ladder higher than you did, move to Canada.

The report finds the U.S. ranking well below Denmark, Australia, Norway, Finland, Canada, Sweden, Germany and Spain in terms of how freely citizens move up or down the social ladder. Only in Italy and Great Britain is the intensity of the relationship between individual and parental earnings even greater.

Social Immobility: Climbing The Economic Ladder Is Harder In The U.S. Than In Most European Countries

Omgreallywhodathunkit

Must be all that there socialism (except in the UK and Italy where they managed to kill it )

[Crumb]

Well that's the American dream: Work hard, become rich and powerful, use your wealth and power to hold everyone else down.

[Dingfod]

Sometimes no matter how hard you try to scratch your way to the top of the heap, the heap keeps getting higher.

[BracesForImpact]

Originally Posted by Dingfod

Sometimes no matter how hard you try to scratch your way to the top of the heap, the heap keeps getting higher.

I'd just settle for a handhold at the moment.

[Qingdai]

Don't forget to complain about how you had it much harder, as you struggle to keep them down.

[JoeP]

Originally Posted by Dingfod

Sometimes no matter how hard you try to scratch your way to the top of the heap, the heap keeps getting higher.

Is this one of those 'pile of dead babies' jokes?

[Jug Pilot]

According to the OECD report, the main cause of social immobility is educational opportunity. It turns out that America's public school system, rather than lifting children up, is instead holding them down.

As for the report's conclusions about the value of social mixing in schools, Orfield, a long time foe of school segregation, notes: "There has been such a relentless conservative attack on desegregation strategies, even those focusing on class,... that I think there has been very little discussion of peer group effects (except in college) for a long time. During that void, however, the research evidence has become much more powerful.

"People need to understand that schools are basically students and teachers interacting together and that if you have classmates who know very little, you won't learn from them, you may be distracted by them. And teachers teaching entire classes and schools with students who are not ready to learn at their grade level and require all kinds of individual tutoring will often leave as soon [as] they can so these schools get the least experienced and qualified teachers, which perpetuates the inequality."

Just last month, Orfield's center issued a report urging President Obama, a supporter of charter schools, to take into account the extreme segregation of black students in those schools and to devise policies that encourage diversity.

What I’m trying to understand is how the current push for “For Profit” Charter Schools will make this better.