44159249

What Does Behavioral Genetics Offer for Improving Educaton? Author(s): AARON PANOFSKY Source: The Hastings Center Report, Vol. 45, No. 5, SPECIAL REPORT: THE GENETICS OF INTELLIGENCE: Ethics and the Conduct of Trustworthy Research (September-October 2015), pp. S43-S49 Published by: The Hastings Center Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/44159249 Accessed: 13-03-2020 09:46 UTC REFERENCES Linked references are available on JSTOR for this article: https://www.jstor.org/stable/44159249?seq=1&cid=pdf-reference#references_tab_contents You may need to log in to JSTOR to access the linked references. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms The Hastings Center is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Hastings Center Report This content downloaded from 180.235.121.50 on Fri, 13 Mar 2020 09:46:21 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

What Does Behavioral Genetics Offer for Improving Educaton? BY AARON PANOFSKY search into the influence genetics has on human malleability of traits should not be seen as a \"sugarcoat- For search behavbieohra,vimoru,chasinbteoenofashsoacsiathede iwtisthbeaenpehssismtoisrtyic, influence associated behavioral genetics with genetics, has a pessimistic on human or re- ing about how biological traits are not really determined view of educational reforms' potential to make much .. If environmental interventions are to succeed, they difference in improving educational outcomes or reduc- must be truly novel ones, representing kinds of treat- ing inequality. Recently, however, some behavioral ge- ments that will be new to most populations.\"3 Sandra neticists have begun to speak in more optimistic terms Scarr puts the point plainly: neglectful and abusive situ- about the promise of genetically informed education to ations certainly harm child development, but \"average improve learning for all children, especially those who expectable environments\" and \"good-enough parent- are socially or economically disadvantaged (see Kathryn ing\" will allow children to reach their genetic potential.4 Asbury s contribution in this special report1). This shift in emphasis should be welcome news for everyone in- This perspective, widely characteristic of think- terested in promoting educational improvement who ing among behavioral geneticists into at least the early worried that behavioral genetics offered support for the 2000s, might be thought of as pragmatic fatalism. Sure, status quo. However, I think it amounts to little more radical changes might affect educational outcomes, but than a shift in tone. Behavioral genetics, I will argue, they would be expensive, and they might just reorganize does not advance educational reform: its proposed solu- rather than eliminate inequality since individuals (with tions are rooted in the limits, not the strength, of be- different genetic endowments) will respond to the new havioral genetics knowledge; repeat the ideas of earlier environments differently. We might not live in the best U.S. educational reform efforts; and rely on a naive op- possible educational world, but perhaps we have the timism about the power of choice and personalization. best feasible given the costs and uncertainties of \"truly The starting point of traditional behavioral genet- novel\" radical reform. ics pessimism about the power of education is the raft of studies that show the heritability of IQ to be in the In their book G Is for Genes , Kathryn Asbury and 60 to 70 percent range.2 This means that genetic dif- Robert Plomin seek to build on behavioral genetics ferences have a greater impact on IQ differences in the findings to advocate for genetically informed educa- population than environmental différences. Behavioral tional reform.5 Although they fall very much within geneticists are quick to point out that IQ is not fixed by the tradition of behavioral genetics inhabited by Scarr genes - heritability estimates are specific to population and Rowe, which aims to identify the genetic and envi- and environment. However, as David Rowe argues, the ronmental sources of individual differences in behavior, Aaron Panofsky, \"What Does Behavioral Genetics Offer for Improving Asbury and Plomin come at educational policy from a Education?,\" The Genetics of Intelligence: Ethics and the Conduct of very different direction, arguing, Trustworthy Research, special report, Hastings Center Report 45, no. 5 (2015): S43-S49. DOI: 10.1002/hast.498 Our evidence makes it crystal clear that treating chil- dren as blank slates or empty vessels, using a factory model of schooling, and arbitrarily imposing the same targets for everyone are approaches that work against, rather than with, natural child development. Our SPECIAL REPORT: The Genetics of Intelligence: Ethics and the Conduct of Trustworthy Research S43 This content downloaded from 180.235.121.50 on Fri, 13 Mar 2020 09:46:21 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

schools and our educational policies will be improved if rebrand as \"precision medicine.\" The idea of personalized they are designed to respond to naturally occurring indi- medicine is that doctors currently differentiate individuals vidual differences in ability and development.6 crudely and ineffectively, but that they could use genetic and biomarker information to divide individuals into dis- Thus, Asbury and Plomin claim that, rather than be- ing \"good enough,\" schools are actually harming students tinct diagnosis and treatment categories. The argument is by failing to incorporate genetic insights about human dif- just like Asbury and Plomin's; \"one size fits all\" medicine ference, being insensitive to children's unique needs and doesn't heed the lesson of individual differences and so de- capacities, and indiscriminately imposing a crude set of livers inefficient and ineffective care. But critics contend standard treatments and expectations. that personalized medicine represents an approach to health Why this change of tone? Why do behavioral geneticists and healing very much in line with our neoliberal political argue that their science is the key to educational reform times. Ethicist Donna Dickenson has labeled it part of the when a generation earlier they interpreted it as signaling social movement toward \"me medicine\" that seeks to im- the hard limits of reform? One might imagine that new findings of molecular genetics, or what Sarah Richardson prove health through high-tech, expensive, privatized, in- (another contributor to this special report) calls \"postge- dividualized, and decontextualized intervention and away nomics,\" have forced the reinterpretation. Indeed, it has from \"we medicine\" that aims to improve health and illness long been behavioral geneticists' aspiration to move beyond in the broad public through focusing on widely available heritability estimates, which tell us generally that \"genes interventions and targeting healths social determinants.9 matter,\" to identifying how specific genes affect children's Thus, we should see the appeal of Asbury and Plomin's vi- learning in particular circumstances. In 1992 Australian be- sion as the same as the appeal for personalized medicine havioral geneticist Nick Martin told a Science reporter, \"In and worry that, while genetically personalized education is perhaps 30 years' time teachers could be designing class- represented as a tool to help educate everyone, it represents es for individual children based on their genetic makeup more of a \"me\" approach than a \"we\" approach. It will be a .... The really interesting thing is going to be looking at challenge to make such interventions available to the disad- the effect of a single gene against the background.\"7 Have vantaged in ways that reduce rather than exacerbate social we arrived at this future? Well, no; Asbury and Plomin re- inequality. peat this prediction almost identically (though they decline to guess at a date): \"The technology will soon be available, Critics have also charged that \"personalized medicine\" for example, to use DNA chips' to predict strengths and is more of a motto to justify decades of spending on ge- weaknesses for individual pupils and to use this informa- netics research than a realistic medical vision.10 Likewise, tion to put personalized strategies in place for them.\"8 two decades of disappointing results in molecular research To understand this idea, I find it helpful to return to in behavioral genetics of intelligence have challenged be- the concept of the norm of reaction. Norms of reaction havioral geneticists' vision of direct educational person- chart an outcome (like educational achievement) against alization. For example, in one of the largest studies of its environmental variability (like curricular differences), with type, Gail Davies and colleagues looked at 550,000 single each line representing how a given genotype is associated nucleotide polymorphism variants in the DNA sequence with different phenotypes in a series of different environ- of 3,500 people and found that those SNPs explain about ments. See Figure 1 for a hypothetical example. 1 percent of the population variance in IQ.11 Studies like Twenty years ago, researchers like Martin were optimis- this - which are the rule, not the exception - suggest that it tic that a small number of genetic variants affecting edu- will be difficult to identify specific genotypes that relate to cational achievement would be identified, children with any intellectual outcomes, let alone the kinds of clear dif- different genotypes could be randomized into educational ferences that would be required to direct students to differ- treatments, and we could reconstruct the norms of reac- ent educational programs with any confidence. Asbury and tion. With this information in hand educators could do di- Plomin still hold out hope that this will one day be pos- sible, even if the results would at best present a much more rected personalization, assigning each student to the most complicated picture of many genetic variants working in likely beneficial educational program. Thus, in the hypo- an extremely byzantine system of interactions. But behav- thetical example above, students with genotype A would ioral geneticist Eric Turkheimer (also a contributor to this be given curriculum 2, students with genotype B would be special report) makes a very strong argument that it will given curriculum 3, and students with genotype C would never be possible to usefully link individuals' genotypes to be given curriculum 5. their specific intellectual or educational potential. Whether genetic pessimists like Turkheimer or optimists like Asbury The educational vision here is analogous to \"personal- and Plomin will be right in the end, both would agree that ized medicine,\" which President Obama recently helped today scientists cannot construct reaction norms for edu- cational success and that directed genetic personalization S44 September-October 2015/ HASTINGS CENTER REPORT This content downloaded from 180.235.121.50 on Fri, 13 Mar 2020 09:46:21 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Directed genetic personalization of education is impossible, certainly now, perhaps forever. of education is thus impossible, certainly now, perhaps for- the status quo is that a school gives every student curric ever. lum 3. The result is a range of performance. Say the sch Asbury and Plomins optimism, therefore, isexnpoatnddsuethteo range of choices, adding the other four curr a technological advance in behavioral geneticsc.uRlaa.tNhoerw,itthise principal and teachers don't have the norm due to a reinterpretation of the same kinds ofoffinrdeainctgisonth, adton't know which kids are which genotype o a generation ago made behavioral geneticists liwkheicRhowcuerarnicdulum works with each. But they have offere Scarr pessimistic about the potential of educattihoen.nSeowwohpattions and can encourage kids to cycle throug is the basis of this reinterpretation? them. What should happen is that they'll discover th As Matt McGue and Irving Gottesmasnomane dkidtshdeon best in curriculum 2, some best in curriculu Turkheimer explain in their contributions,12 b5e,haanvdiotrhalatges-ome were best off where they started in cu neticists have derived their estimates of heritabriliictuylutmhro3u. gBhy offering choices, the school has exploited t different kinds of family studies: comparingstbruehctauvrioeroafl the norms of reaction without knowing wh traits among twins, adoptees, and other famtilhyatmstermucbteurrse actually is. in different kinds of family structures. BehavioIrnaltgheins eftiicctsi'tious example, expanding the range of choic \"classical\" approaches used what was known aebsoauntddceygrcleiensg kids through them has greatly improved t of genetic and environmental \"relatedness\"13 tsochdoiosle'ns tsaintugalteion. The three \"types\" of kids have each fou the sources of difference in the traits - typicatlhlyeiirntboestthocsuerriculum. The average performance of t due to three factors: genetic differences; \"shasrcehdooelnvhiarsonri-sen dramatically, and the differences amon ment,\" or everything in the environment thasttumdeaknets hsiabv-e narrowed greatly. Furthermore, with enou lings similar; and \"nonshared environmente,x\" ptehreieunnceiqwue might eliminate curriculum 1, which pro and differentiating experiences and influenceds upceeospleequfaalceb.ut awful outcomes, and possibly curriculum The basic pattern that behavioral geneticists4,hwavheicfhouisndbest for nobody and disastrous for some. Mor time and again is that genetic differences accocuhnoticfeo, rbeatbtoeurt outcomes, greater efficiency! half of the trait differences, shared environmenTthfisorscjuesntara io, putting aside its idealized character,1 little bit, and nonshared environment for mossetemofstthoe been-a powerful argument in support of the rel- vironmental effect. The pessimistic interpretaetviaoncoefoefdub-ehavioral genetics to education, but I thin cation and other environmental interventionstihseboaspepdoosnite is true. The emphasis on choice by Asbu the idea that you can't do anything about genanesd aPnldomyoinu is an accommodation to behavioral geneti cant do anything about nonshared environlmimeinttat, iownhsicanhd weakness. Behavioral geneticists' preferre behavioral geneticists have interpreted as randoinmtesrtvufefnttihoant would be through direct personalizatio just happens beyond direct control. Shared enGveinreotnicmkenotwledge to assign children directly would mak (mainly seen as parenting strategy) has little ecfhfeocict.e Ocvoemrpallle,tely unnecessary. In fact, the logic of per it seems, little can be done. sonalization - directed assignment by experts who know Asbury and Plomin don't contest this frambeewstor-ki,s btuhte exact opposite of choice - giving options an they think the pessimism is wrong. \"Everythfrineeg awgenhcaievse to individuals so they can find what's best f learnt about individual differences, about gthenemotsyeplvee-es.nC- hoice is how Asbury and Plomin deal wi vironment interplay and about nonshared entvhireofnamctenthtalt the state of science does not allow knowled influence points,\" they argue, \"to choice as anofinnteogrmrasl eolfe-reaction and true personalization. Choice is t ment in offering equal environmental opporbtuesntittiheseytocaanllcome up with when all they have is heritab natures.\"14 And choice within schools is their iptyartscicourleasrtfhoa-t tell them genes and environments matter bu cus: \"By introducing more choice into educationnotwwehbieclhiegvenes or which environments for whom. Dire we can create schools in which more natures pcearnsobnealfiuzalltyion would be an authentically distinctive con nurtured,\" they write (p. 146). But this is putzrzilbinugti.oWn hofy behavioral genetics to education, but choice should choice matter? Why should it invert thane abcacsoicmfmatoadla-tion to its lack of anything specific to say.1 ism that has accompanied behavioral genetics forI'vseo elxonplga?ined why choice is the centerpiece of Asbury We can make sense of this if we think again oafntdhPe lnoomrminss genetically informed education policy, b of reaction in Figure 1 . The dream option - dIirsehcotupldermsoenn-tion some aspects of their specific program alization though genetic tests and curricular aIsnsigthnemirentthsir-teenth chapter, Asbury and Plomin make a s is impossible. But consider this thought expeorfimreecnotm: Smayendations for school reform that I think can SPECIAL REPORT: The Genetics of Intelligence: Ethics and the Conduct of Trustworthy Research S45 This content downloaded from 180.235.121.50 on Fri, 13 Mar 2020 09:46:21 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

fairly grouped as follows. First, education should be di- ten upon by families, schools, and society.\"19 This \"blank rected at teaching basic skills and dispositions instead of slate\" charge has been a longstanding trope behavioral ge- substantive, topical knowledge: reading and writing, quan- neticists have deployed to discredit and ignore intellectual titative reasoning, and critical thinking - not the capital of rivals.20 The so-called blank slate tradition of Rousseau, Bolivia or lists of cell organelles. Second, schooling should start at a younger age and should target total human devel- Locke, and other Enlightenment philosophers is the source opment with emphases on physical education and vouch- of Dewey's progressive educational idea, not that children ers offered for extracurricular activities. Third, educational can be molded into any form, but that every child has the initiatives should be research based, and teachers should be capacity for robust development under the proper con- ditions. This is an insight Asbury and Plomin present as trained in genetics. This means not biological or lab-based linked uniquely to an understanding of behavioral genet- training, but that each education course should contain a ics. They suggest further that only by having training in module on statistical behavioral genetics research on ability genetics will teachers regard their pupils with the proper and individual differences.17 \"growth mindset.\"21 This is a bit rich, considering that for most of the hundred years that progressive educators have Fourth, and most importantly for Asbury and Plomin, been talking about each child's developmental potential, schooling should be designed to maximize student choices behavioral geneticists and their forbears have been claim- and personalization. Teachers should work with students to develop individualized educational plans, and students ing that intellect is largely genetically fixed. should be given many curricular and technology choices \"Choice,\" \"personalization,\" \"growth mindset,\" \"indi- so that they can best seek out their own interests, learning style, and life goals. Having a sufficient number of cur- vidualization\" - these are the watchwords of Asbury and ricular, extracurricular, and physical education choices to Plomin's educational proposal. They claim these to be the satisfy all children's genetic propensities would be costly. Asbury and Plomin propose to partly offset these costs by distinctive implications of behavioral genetics research. But I have shown that these elements are not as Asbury and gathering students into very large campuses where a radical Plomin describe them: true genetic personalization is an expansion of choice could be made feasible with economies aspiration but not a reality, choice is an accommodation of scale and educational technology. In these educational to behavioral genetics' limits and lack of specificity, and cities, children will be able to cycle among many possibili- individualization and a growth mindset are most directly a ties and identify the unique menu of options that seems to legacy of behavioral genetics' rivals. To my mind, this lan- best suit them individually. guage is less about describing anything intellectually dis- tinctive about behavioral genetics' contributions to policy Asbury and Plomin describe their educational ideas as and more about securing a voice in policy debates.22 The radical and new, made possible only by several decades old fatalistic language of \"good enough\" education does of dramatic discoveries of behavioral genetics. But to my not exactly open up to policy thinking, but Asbury and eye, their recommendations bear more than a passing re- Plomin's proposal is steeped in the buzzwords of contem- semblance to John Dewey s turn-of-the-twentieth-century vision of progressive education. Their claim that schools porary reform. box children into rigid molds echoes Deweys charge that \"[t]he source of whatever is dead, mechanical, and formal Just as Asbury and Plomin's language of personalization invokes the promise of personalized medicine (although in schools is found precisely in the subordination of the life the actual personalization proposed is nongenetic), their and experience of the child to the curriculum.\"18 Asbury language of choice serves to align their proposals with a and Plomin's radical personalization of education based long and contentious tradition of educational reform. In on the child's genetic individuality echoes Dewey's rous- the years following the 1954 Brown v Board of Education ing call: \"[W]e must take our stand with the child and our decision, \"choice\" animated the language of segregationists, departure from him. It is he and not the subject-matter who stated their opposition to integration as an imposition which determines both quality and quantity of learning\" on the choices of white families. \"Freedom of choice\" then (p. 8). Like Dewey, Asbury and Plomin call for educational interventions to be science based, and they call for them to became the description of early desegregation plans, which put the burden on black families to ask to be transferred to be in dialog with societal needs (so that vocational training (previously) white schools. should link youth with an affinity for the trades to appro- priate jobs). More recently, \"choice\" has been the great refrain of those advocating for a wide variety of reforms to the U.S. But rather than trying to build on this educational tradi- educational system, especially vouchers that parents could tion, Asbury and Plomin's book opens by caricaturing and use to purchase public or private education and the move- ridiculing it. Their first chapter claims that contemporary ment to open charter schools paid for publicly but not education assumes children to be \"blank slates to be writ- subject to the same controls (especially union contracts) as public schools. Advocates tout choice as a benefit to S46 September-October 20 1 5/ HASTINGS CENTER REPORT This content downloaded from 180.235.121.50 on Fri, 13 Mar 2020 09:46:21 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Behavioral geneticists' championing of choice as a solution to student performance problems comes at a curious moment because the \"choice paradigm\" in the behavioral and social sciences is waning. families who can find schools that better suit their needs problem. If kids are poor choosers on their own, then partner them with teachers. However, sociologist Jessica and as a means to improve the system by forcing schools Calarco has shown that the student-teacher interactions to compete for enrollments rather than complacently serv- ing a captive population. Critics see choice as a strategy upon which choosing and personalization would depend to get states to subsidize parochial schools and to privatize are deeply affected by class. Calarco shows that parents ac- the public school system. Asbury and Plomin dont situate tively transmit class-based dispositions to schoolchildren. themselves in the privatization or unionization debates, but Middle-class parents teach their kids to be active in de- their invocation of choice is in many ways more serious manding intervention and attention from teachers when than the technocratic reformers that speak similarly. For facing learning problems. The middle-class style is to enroll those reformers, choice is the means to attack what they teachers as problem solvers. Working-class parents, in con- see as the institutional complacency of schools. But choice trast, teach their kids to respect teachers' authority, to wait for Asbury and Plomin is more directly the way to improve student performance. for intervention, not to make excuses, and to interpret their difficulties as lapses in self-discipline, not as insufficiencies Behavioral geneticists' championing of choice as a solu- of the teaching program. Calarco shows that one result is tion to student performance problems comes at a curious a major difference in the attention and energy given to moment because what might be thought of as the \"choice students from different class backgrounds. According to paradigm\" in the behavioral and social sciences is waning. Calarco, this difference is due to the interaction of class- For one, social psychologists have emphasized the cogni- tive drains of a proliferation of choices.23 Too many choices room practices with class-based familial dispositions, not lead to uncertainty, stress, and unhappiness. They result in other factors like discrimination or genetics. more time spent choosing and dont necessarily produce better outcomes. Better, these scholars suggest, that peo- Asbury and Plomins genetically informed educational ple be given fewer high-quality options upon which they program is dependent on people s making personally ben- might focus their efforts. Second, behavioral economists eficial choices or, that failing, on teachers' guiding such (among others) have roundly criticized the \"rational actor\" choices through individual education plans. Work like assumptions of the neoclassical tradition and have shown, Calarco's shows that both choosing and the capacity to basically, that people are poor choosers even when the pa- form supportive relationships and solicit effective advice rameters of relative trade-offs are clearly stated.24 In other from teachers are mediated by class-based cultural dispo- sitions. This line of research raises serious concerns that words, even when the best choice is fairly clear, people very choice and personalization, which Asbury and Plomin pro- frequently miss it. mote at least in part to help disadvantaged children over- come their limited opportunities, may actually exacerbate Both these problems loom large for Asbury and Plomin's inequality. proposals. If people have trouble deciding on a pair of shoes to buy, think how much more complicated is deciding on The discussion thus far has considered Asbury and a course of study. One problem is that substantial time in- Plomin's genetically designed school in abstract terms. This vestment is required to figure out if each one accords with is in part because such schools don't currently exist. But a purported genetic predisposition. A second problem is if the essence of their proposal is a school with a tremen- the multiple endpoints that might be pursued. If a student dous range of choices (to support different genetic learning performs poorly in science, should she keep trying different predispositions) and a program for the personalized steer- curricular approaches to science or switch to another topic ing of students through these choices, then what they pro- area? A major expansion of choices makes such dilemmas pose bears more than a passing resemblance to the strategy acute, and we should not expect primary and secondary currently pursued by large urban school districts like Los school children to navigate them particularly effectively. Angeles Unified, where I live. Here's an example: University High, the public secondary school nearest the University Asbury and Plomin's suggestion that schools feature of California, Los Angeles, serves the tony neighborhoods (nongenetic) personalization through teacher-directed of Brentwood, Bel-Air, Westwood, and West Los Angeles. individual educational plans is a possible response to this Its twenty-four-acre campus has an enrollment of 1,700 SPECIAL REPORT: The Genetics of Intelligence: Ethics and the Conduct of Trustworthy Research S47 This content downloaded from 180.235.121.50 on Fri, 13 Mar 2020 09:46:21 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

secondary education students. It claims to emphasize criti- ing so will not solve our educational problems. The sources cal thinking, communication skills, and other basics, as of these educational problems are many: underfunding and Asbury and Plomin advocate. It offers fifteen varsity sports a lack of resources, workforce quality and labor relations and twenty-two advanced-placement courses in addition problems, punitive and sclerotic bureaucracy, policy insta- to well over a hundred other classes. It houses a number bility driven by interest groups and rapid changes in fash- of smaller subject-area schools (engineering, business andion, and, above all, poverty and inequality among families. finance, communication, health and environmental scTi-he argument that a behavioral genetics mindset can cut ence, digital media) and a school for advanced studies forthrough this Gordian knot is wholly unconvincing. \"gifted\" students. There are efforts to integrate technology It is heartening that behavioral genetics is today being across the curriculum. University High also touts a districtu-sed to argue for greater investment in education rather wide effort in Los Angeles to implement \"individual graduth- an that the status quo is \"good enough.\" And, if an infu- ation plans\" for all middle and high school students wheresion of genetics language is what it takes to deliver politi- dedicated counselors \"[incorporate] data-driven decisiocnally a huge financial investment in public education, then making, the mastery of content standards and individuaIl'm all for it. But I fear what's more likely is that the results, goal setting . . . [for] academic, personal and career plan-which will inevitably be highly unequal and beneath our ning.\"25 Talk about choices and personalization! performance expectations, will then be viewed as close to University High, arguably the crown jewel of the LA the best we can do, since they will be based on a perception school system, is also a school that most of the uppert-hat we have done what we can to cultivate each individu- middle-class parents of the area are desperate to keep theiarl's true genetic potential. kids from attending. Why? First, Cnaaltiifoonr.2n6iaJ'susptero-vsetruhdaelnAftcknowledgments school funding is forty-ninth in the of University High students are proficient or advanced in Thanks to Erik Parens, Paul Appelbaum, and Sarah English, and only about one in five in math. About 1 5 perR-ichardson for comments on an earlier draft of this essay. cent are below or far below basic attainment in English, as are over half in math. Only about 40 percent pass with a 1 . K. Asbury, \"Can Genetics Research Benefit Educational gtoraadeUnofivCerosirtybeotfteCra-liftohrenriaeqourirCeamliefnotrnfioarSetlaitgeibUilnitivyertsoitgIRCynooetnperodvruetcnt4to5iof,nnTs rofu.os5rtwA(2ol0lr?1t,5\"h)y:ThSR3ee9Gs-eSean4r2ect.hic,s of Intelligence: Ethics and the special report, Hastings Center campus. Despite the wealthy surrounding neighborhood, 2. See, for example, U. Neisser, et al., \"Intelligence: Knowns and 70 percent of University High students are economicallyUnknowns,\" American Psychologist 51 (1 996) : 77- 1 0 1 . disadvantaged. The upper-middle-class flight from this3. D. C. Rowe, The Limits of Family Influence: Genes , Experience, aonfd4. Behavior (New York: Guilford, 1994), 222-23. school, and the system more broadly, helps generate a set S. Scarr, \"Developmental Theories for the 1990s: Development self-perpetuating dynamics of poor performance. and Individual Differences,\" Child Development 63 (1992): 1-19. Whatever University High is lacking, it isn't lacking in 5. K. Asbury and R. Plomin, G is for Genes: The Impact of Genetics choices for students. Whatever ways it may be mishandlinogn Education and Achievement (Chichester, UK: John Wiley & Sons, students, the problem isn't that it treats all students in2a014). 6. Asbury and Plomin, G is for Genes , 11-12. cookie-cutter fashion. University High is most certainly 7. P. Aldhous, \"The Promise and Pitfalls of Molecular Genetics,\" not organized on principles identified by behavioral genetS-cience 257 (1992): 164-65. ics, but neither does it flout those principles. There is a 8. Asbury and Plomin, G is for Genes , 12. strong case to be made that University High is very close 9. D. Dickenson, \"In Me We Trust: Public Health, Personalized to what Asbury and Plomin envision. But, with all due re-Medicine, and the Common Good,\" Hedgehog Review 16, no. 1 stophuetincctokmtvoeestrhyoermhwaaonrudyldwpesoeorepklteohfairsietlsehvtaeeplapcoyhfewsrtsiutahdnedtnhtsetauocdhveeienrvatelslm, sIetnduotdeannsSP(o2tpat0srt1i1,n0\".g4S_S)oeD,ceiih,catklRte.SpncT:i/sueo/ntnwtc.opewnhaw,pn..PdiaesrMcs-eocdnuialcltiiunzireneg7.o5rM,gne/doTi.Hc1iRn0/e(:T2FH0u1R2t_u):ar1re7tsi2cP1lr-e2e_s82e.0nt1 4_ and a worthy goal for radical reform. 1 1. G. Davies, et al., \"Genome- wide Association Studies Establish My overall critique here is that Asbury and Plomin andThat Human Intelligence Is Highly Heritable and Polygenic,\" theMol1e2c.ulMar. Psychiatry 16, no. 10 (2011): 996-1005. behavioral genetics more broadly incorrectly specify McGue and I. I. Gottesman, \"Classical and Molecular problem of education. The problem is not that contemG-enetic Research on General Cognitive Ability,\" The Genetics of porary education conceives of children as blank slates anIdntelligence: Ethics and the Conduct of Trustworthy Research , spe- treats them all the same. The solution to problems in edu-cial report, Hastings Center Report 45, no. 5 (2015): S25-S31; E. cation is not choice and personalization. To be clear, I agreTeurkheimer, \"Genetic Prediction,\" The Genetics of Intelligence: Ethics bBeugt odoodaCn-e.dnttehre Conduct of Trustworthy Research, special report, Hastings that more educational options for poor kids would Report 45, no. 5 (2015): S32-S38. I agree that schools should serve kids' individuality. S48 September-October 20 1 5/ HASTINGS CENTER REPORT This content downloaded from 180.235.121.50 on Fri, 13 Mar 2020 09:46:21 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

13. Environmental relatedness is typically understood in terms of Genetics and Estimates of Family Environmental Effects on IQ,\" Intelligence 2A, no. 1 (1997): 133-58. growing up in the same or different households. 23. B. Schwartz, The Paradox of Choice: Why Less Is More (New 14. Asbury and Plomin, G is for Genes , 1 77, emphasis added. York: Harper Perennial, 2004). 15. A major idealization, which I do not address in this essay, is 24. R. Thaler, Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics that the norms of reaction as modeled here assume that genotype and (New York: Norton, 2015). curriculum are the only relevant factors when, in actuality, there are many others - particularly families' socioeconomic status - that we 25. See Los Angeles Unified School District, \"Individual should expect to matter greatly. Graduation Plan,\" accessed August 10, 2015, http://notebook.kusd. 16. Note that direct personalization would have its own issues net/portal/page?_pageid=33, 1 0241 80&_dad=ptl. and I don't want to be saying it would be good. See. A. L. Panofsky, 26. In 2013 California spent $8,482 per child. The U.S. aver- \"Behavior Genetics and the Prospect of 'Personalized Social Policy,\"' age was $11,824. See J. Fensterwald, \"California Drops to 49th in Policy and Society 28 (2009): 327-40. School Spending in Annual Ed Week Report,\" EdSource , January 14, 20 1 3, http://edsource.org/201 3/california-drops-to-49th-in-school- 17. Asbury and Plomin, G is for Genes , 175-76. spending-in-annual-ed-week-report-2/63654. At smaller, more lo- cal elementary schools, well-to-do parents often band together to 18. J. Dewey, The Child and the Curriculum (Chicago: University backfill this deficit through donations. Such donations often support of Chicago Press, 1902), 8-9. art, music, physical education, computer labs, libraries, and teach- ers' aides. But the larger scale of middle and high schools and the 19. Asbury and Plomin, G is for Genes , 5. 20. S . Pinker, The Blank Slate (New York: Viking, 2002). increased economic diversity of students make backfilling efforts less feasible and less appealing to wealthier families. 21. Asbury and Plomin, G is for Genes , 153-58, 164-65. 22. Rowe complained that policy-makers ignore behavioral genet- ics because they don't care about individual differences, the field's bailiwick. See D. C. Rowe, \"A Place at the Policy Table? Behavior SPECIAL REPORT: The Genetics of Intelligence: Ethics and the Conduct of Trustworthy Research S49 This content downloaded from 180.235.121.50 on Fri, 13 Mar 2020 09:46:21 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms