CHAUTAUQUA–What’s the greatest indicator of children’s upward mobility?

Think about that. What do you suppose the answer is?

American Enterprise Institute fellow Naomi Schaefer Riley raised that question during her presentation to Advocates for Balance at Chautauqua, or ABC, on July 6.

Riley’s answer may–or may not–surprise you.

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It has nothing to with

– the family’s financial assets,

– the number of children in the family,

– whether the family owns its home,

– the neighbors around the family’s home,

– the neighborhood around the family’s home,

– whether the parents are married,

– whether the children were born in wedlock,

– whether children pay for their school lunch or bring their own lunch to school,

– whether the family avoids public assistance in whatever form,

– children’s grades in school,

– children’s activities in school,

– children’s extracurricular activities,

– whether the family regularly attends a house of worship,

– the wealth of the school or the school district,

– how much money the local public school or the local public school district collects in real-property taxes,

– how much money the children’s school or school district receives from government,

– the quality of the school’s curriculum,

– the quality of the school administrators or school teachers,

– the salaries of the school administrators or school teachers,

– the extent to which the school avoids political or cultural indoctrination,

– the extent to which the school involves parents,

– the extent to which the school welcomes or respects parents’, or

– to pick a current example, whether the school informs parents of boys presenting themselves as girls, or vice versa.

Also not first on the list, according to Riley, is any demographic characteristic.

Does that mean none of the foregoing matters? No, it means they’re not first on Riley’s list.

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So what was first on Riley’s list?

What’s the greatest indicator of children’s upward mobility?

Here’s a hint: It pertains not to school but to their homes.

With that in mind, let’s pick up where we left off 139 weeks ago: By the time pupils are 18 years old, they’ve spent about 10 percent of their time in a classroom and about 90 percent elsewhere.

The 10 percent figure sounds too low, doesn’t it? But it’s not. Please run the numbers. Children who go to half-day pre-Kindergarten and full-day school from Kindergarten through 12th grade in effect spend 13½ of those 18 years in school. They do so on about half of the days in a year. And they’re in a classroom for however many hours per day.

Younger pupils don’t exactly have a leg up if, for example, their primary “activity” from birth until their school years was sitting in front of a television with no one hardly ever pulling them away from the television and reading to them; teaching them letters, numbers, colors, shapes, days, months, seasons, or how to tell time; taking them to interesting places, such as a local library or a local park; or having them play with other children.

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So what was first on Riley’s list?

What’s the greatest indicator of children’s upward mobility?

According to Riley, it’s the frequency of visits to the home by Child Protective Services: Children’s upward mobility is inversely proportional to the frequency of visits to the home by Child Protective Services.

Hmmmm.

Now there’s something to consider.

You didn’t think of that one, did you?

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On its website, https://www.abcatchq.com, ABC posts videos of most of its speakers.

ABC was formed in 2018. Its mission is “to achieve a balance of speakers in a mutually civil and respectful environment consistent with the historic mission of Chautauqua Institution”. ABC is its own Section 501(c)(3) organization, legally separate from the institution.

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Dr. Randy Elf’s Aug. 20, 2020, ABC presentation, on “How Political Speech Law Benefits Politicians and the Rich,” is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3ebymA7xOo.

COPYRIGHT © 2026 BY RANDY ELF