"Before you've put in your ten thousand hours (or before your child has done so), it makes sense to focus intently on the preconditions for success, rather than assuming that with enough hard work and talent you or your offspring can overcome any obstacle thrown in your way," writes Ross Douthat. "But many of those preconditions are set, by definition, early in the life cycle, and the experience of actually succeeding takes place over the course of years of often-grinding work, in which a given meritocrat's work ethic makes a significant difference in how well you do relative to your peer group." That sounds about right. It's also an argument for fairly intense investment in young children, both on grounds of justice and on grounds of impact. Changing the life course of a 20-year-old is nearly impossible, but changing the life course of a two-year-old is simply very hard. Universal Pre-K, or at least universal access to pre-k, has been proven an incredibly effective intervention that more than pays for itself. That we don't have anything even close to it is one of our political system's more acute and depressing failures. Stripping lead from the walls and water has tremendous impacts on a child's cognitive development. It's weird that in this day and age, we still have to read op-eds exhorting us to end lead poisoning among children. Similarly, many folks would be shocked to realize how many American kids are nutritionally deficient, and how sharply the resulting developmental impacts limit their eventual achievement. In theory, this should all enter into consensus territory. There are a variety of clashing perspectives on how meritocratic society is, and how much help an impoverished adult "deserves." But few argue that children are responsible for their socioeconomic situation, or suggest that it shouldn't be a public priority to ensure that disadvantaged kids have the opportunity to succeed. But then you get into the basic political problem which is that Good Things that benefit non-voting constituencies rarely make it to the front of the political agenda....
