Teaching Tolerance?

It would be nice to think that niceness is improved by education; ignorant people are less nice, e.g. less tolerant, than the educated. But maybe that's not what matters. Does economic freedom lead to greater tolerance?

...the data shows that when a society has impressive scores on property rights security and low inflation ... these characteristics are strongly and positively correlated with tolerance of gays. It’s possible that low inflation, and the behavior of a central bank, are stand-ins for the general trustworthiness of a nation’s government and broader institutions, and such trustworthiness helps foster tolerance....

We are often told that education is an important remedy, yet it does not register as a meaningful factor in the cross-country data in this paper. Higher levels of education simply have not correlated significantly with higher levels of tolerance across countries.

I suppose that "I have a post-secondary degree" ... "I have a PhuD" might translate as "I have learned to absorb, echo and elaborate on whatever my culture/government wanted." That might be it. Sigh.

Khan Academy in Idaho -- and in the movies

Slashdot reported last week that Khan Academy Will Be Ready For Its Close-Up In Idaho

Education officials ... say they are arranging to have Khan Academy classes tested in about two dozen public schools next fall in Idaho, where state law now requires high school students to take online courses for two of their 47 graduation credits. 'This is the first time Khan Academy is partnering to tackle the math education of an entire state,' ... film director and producer Davis Guggenheim (Waiting for Superman, An Inconvenient Truth), who will be in Idaho in January filming The Great Teacher Project, a documentary which will highlight positives of education, like the Khan Academy pilot in Idaho.

One of the Slashdot commenters adds

My brother is a math teacher who convinced the board of his school system to let him try it in two of his classes. Now the entire school system is moving to Khan for the math program.
The major change in his teaching format is that learning a new concept is now homework (through Khan Academy), rather than him droning on about it in class. Then every morning he gets a report for each student and can see who did well and who didn't. That allows him to concentrate on the students that didn't get the concept in class. Overall he has seen a major improvement in the class as a whole since fewer kids get left without a good understanding of the fundamental concepts.

Davis Guggenheim is

the only filmmaker to release three different documentaries that were ranked within the top 100 highest-grossing documentaries of all time (An Inconvenient Truth, It Might Get Loud, and Waiting for 'Superman').

In the origin of Davis Guggenheim: "Waiting for Superman" to Save Our Public Schools

I actually said "no." I thought that the subject of education was too complicated. The next morning I was packing my kids up in my minivan and taking them to school with juice boxes and backpacks. Out of the corner of my eye, I started to see the local public schools that I was driving by. And it started to haunt me that my kids whom I send to private school were having a great education, but the kids in my own neighborhood were not. I said, "Well, maybe that is the approach that I should make for this movie....

And now he's working on Khan Academy, and presumably related trends. Could be helpful.
Or then again, maybe not.

Gallup on Schools

Gallup says public schools have a credibility problem. Americans look down on public schools:

Only 32 percent of Americans believe public schools deliver a good education, and just five percent of people surveyed believe students at public schools will receive an excellent education. Sixty-one percent of Americans think public schools will give only a fair education at best, including 18 percent who rate the education as poor.
The public school system’s disapproval rating is higher than the approval rating of charter school systems. Sixty percent of Americans think charter schools will provide at least a good (43 percent) or excellent (17 percent)....