what was that stat again?

August 30, 2007 12:23 PM

can you help me find this half-remembered education statistic?

in the recent past i read about a study that (perhaps only in part) showed something like the following: "for ever year in school, [math proficiency? critical thinking skills? something else?] drops [a certain amount].

i've searched for the last two hours, and am having no luck whatsoever. anyone remember this?

posted by RedEmma to Education (4 answers total)

This probably isn't what you're looking for, but

"Various studies show that for every year of schooling a woman gets her fertility drops because more-educated women have options outside the home, marry later, practice contraception, and thus have fewer, healthier children."

Business Week
Environment The Baby Boom That Has To End
Emily T. Smith
April 11, 1994


Are you remembering it as something negative or positive, ultimately?
posted by cashman at 1:01 PM on August 30, 2007

Response by poster: negative against schooling. like it contributes somehow to the deadening of the brain.
posted by RedEmma at 2:44 PM on August 30, 2007

It sounds like an argument against institutionalized schooling rather than education per se. Could it be John Taylor Gatto, author of Dumbing Us Down?
posted by aeschenkarnos at 4:10 PM on August 30, 2007

Response by poster: no, but thanks anyway. (Gatto's pretty cool, though a wee bit strident.) i'll try the homeschooling folks i know--some of them collect these stats obsessively.
posted by RedEmma at 7:15 AM on August 31, 2007