The Case against Education: Why the Education System Is a Waste of Time and Money

by Bryan Caplan

Summer vacation, intermittent attendance, delayed school entry, and dropping out all measurably depress IQ.71 Some experimental early childhood programs have increased IQ by over 30 points—moving kids’ performance from roughly the 2nd percentile to the 50th percentile of their age group.72 Extra years of education usually seem to boost IQ.73 Studies that carefully measure students’ time show IQ rises more on school days than non–school days.74 Isn’t this conclusive evidence that education makes us smarter? Not really. While the facts are secure, the interpretation is shaky. The first major worry: people can sharply improve on virtually any test by practicing—and a little practice goes a long way. A major review pulled together fifty relevant studies of practice on cognitive tests. On average, “a candidate who scored at the 50th percentile on the first test could be expected to score at the 60th percentile on the second test and at the 71st percentile on the third test.”75 Explicit coaching—“teaching to the test”—works even better.76 A cockeyed optimist might rejoice that mankind is only a few hours of practice away from massive intelligence gains. This optimism, however, leads to absurdity: Can you transform average students into geniuses by handing them the answer key before their IQ test? Most researchers draw the sobering conclusion that test preparation yields only “hollow gains.”77 Preparation inflates measured intelligence without raising genuine intelligence.