More or less the belief that we are all equal with equal potential (it's more or less a consequence of egalitarianism). That if little Timmy just tries hard enough and is given enough support he'll be able to master differential equations.
Do you have an example of where this belief is expressed? Because the common trope afaik is "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs".
What would be the difference in public policy anyways if after-the-fact results differ?
Well, some public policy differences would be continuing to invest ever increasing amounts of money on the worst performers in schools in an attempt to get them up nearer the average.
Another might be seeing the lack of women plumbers (or whatever) and deciding that this is both bad and fixable and investing a bunch of money into advertising how awesome plumbing is to girls in school.
> Well, some public policy differences would be continuing to invest ever increasing amounts of money on the worst performers in schools in an attempt to get them up nearer the average.
I'm not sure I follow. Are you suggesting that we, as a society, should not invest in worst performers? How would we even know beforehand? And how would withdrawing such funding from "bad" schools not affect the opportunity of all of the children of that school?
What's your point about the gender ratios of certain occupations? That it's a waste of money to try to alter?
I'm not actually advocating for this here. Just pointing out potential policy differences that come from a non-equality worldview.
I don't have the time to give an in depth discussion on education etc the attention it would need.
Though to elaborate on the education policy difference, you can invest variable amounts into the bottom performers, even eventually giving up on them. As I understand it, schools currently have various legal obligations towards students that lead to them spending disproportionate resources on the least performant.
Even with accepting that rather cynical view, I don't understand how you could even accurately determine who is a "hopeless bottom performer" without at the same time removing peoples equal opportunity.
