The Truth About Education

As we all know, the left has a specific strategy to address educational inequality, which reached its peak of implementation during the Biden administration. They modified traditional primary education to incorporate downgrading and criticizing the role of white men in American history. By their telling, our founders were criminals.

In parallel, they added identity politics to the curriculum. Now, transgenderism is celebrated as a method of “rescuing” children who are confused about their gender. The successful implementation of these ideas required teachers to replace parents as mentors for their children.

Most of what the left seeks to accomplish with students and society in general doesn’t work because human nature is stronger than ideology. Over the course of 200,000 years, humans have developed the personality and behaviors that maximize their survival. We are what we are.

In this article, I will discuss Russell T. Warne’s 2025 essay, published in Quillette, “Education’s Elephant in the Room.” Dr. Warne is an educational psychologist who contends that while modern education systems spend immense resources striving to equalize student outcomes, those very efforts often reveal or even amplify natural disparities in achievement. The “elephant in the room” is the importance of intelligence (IQ) as a key variable in educational outcomes, a fact that educators and policymakers fail to acknowledge adequately.

Equalizing Conditions, Widening Gaps

Warne asserts that cognitive and educational psychology have traditionally focused on how changes in teaching conditions can produce average changes in student performance, while treating variation among individuals as “noise.” However, the variation among individuals, as measured by IQ, is not random. It’s fundamental to being human.

When educational environments are standardized and of high quality, the performance gaps between high- and low-ability students widen. The brightest students progress fastest, while lower-IQ students make progress but not as much. Even in the most uniform, distraction-free, and motivated learning environments, students exhibit a wide range of learning rates and progress. Warne implies that equality of opportunity cannot ensure equality of outcome.

The Primacy of Intelligence

At the core of these differences lies intelligence—commonly measured through IQ. Across decades of research, IQ has consistently proven to be the most reliable predictor of educational success, correlating with school performance and attainment at a range of 0.40 to 0.80 (1.0 = 100% correlation).

Factors such as teacher quality and curriculum do matter, but their influence is small compared to individual differences. Warne references the Coleman Report (1966) and later findings that roughly 90% of variance in learning outcomes is linked to personal characteristics rather than school-level factors. Thus, no teacher, however skilled, can eliminate the underlying cognitive disparities that separate students.

Despite this evidence, there is widespread ignorance among teachers regarding research on intelligence. Surveys reveal that most educators reject the validity of IQ testing, embrace Howard Gardner’s “multiple intelligences” theory, or believe “street smarts” outweigh intelligence—views that contradict empirical science.

Denial and Misconceptions in the Education System

Warne attributes teachers’ misconceptions to faulty training. Teacher-education programs often teach discredited theories while deliberately excluding research on IQ. He recounts a personal episode in which a university dean refused to let him teach a course on giftedness because “we don’t teach IQ in our program.” This aversion, he argues, stems from a moral discomfort with innate differences—an egalitarian impulse that blinds the field to reality. The rejection of IQ is fundamental to left ideology, which believes it can make everyone equal.

This denial is also reflected in policy. Gifted-education programs, for example, pay lip service to intellectual diversity but provide minimal differentiation, such as a weekly half-day enrichment class. Warne points out the absurdity: a child’s high ability does not switch on only on Wednesdays. Similarly, the rigid grade-per-year structure ignores variation in learning speed.

Some students require more than 13 years to master the curriculum, while others can finish in eleven. Yet grade skipping—one of the simplest accelerative measures—is exceedingly rare and often resisted by educators for trivial reasons, such as concerns about social maturity or prom dates. Warne dismisses these objections as irrational and unsupported by data, noting that research shows no academic or social harm from acceleration.

Genetic Roots of Educational Differences

Warne’s essay’s most controversial section addresses the genetic basis of intelligence. Drawing on behavioral-genetic research, Warne notes that IQ heritability in affluent nations approaches 0.80 in adults, indicating that most variation in intelligence is attributed to genetic differences. Educational achievement, surprisingly, exhibits even higher heritability because it reflects both cognitive and non-cognitive traits—such as motivation, self-discipline, and emotional stability—all of which are partly genetic in nature. These findings contradict the dominant belief among teachers that socioeconomic status and home environment are the chief determinants of academic success.

Warne concedes that environment matters, citing adoption studies showing modest IQ and attainment gains for adopted children. Yet, he stresses, these effects are smaller than genetic ones: adopted children’s cognitive profiles more closely resemble their biological parents than their adoptive ones. Genes and environment both contribute, but genetics plays the larger role after childhood. By the age of ten, genetic influences on school performance surpass those of environmental influences. For Warne, this evidence demolishes the assumption that schools can engineer equality through better teaching alone.

Confronting the Elephant

In Warne’s view, the refusal to confront individual differences stems partly from ideological fears. When he presented on genetics at an education conference, the audience reacted angrily to the idea that group differences might have a genetic component. Yet he insists that acknowledging biological diversity is not an endorsement of inequality but a prerequisite for designing fair and effective educational systems.

He adds an important caveat: genetic potential can only manifest in environments that meet basic standards of quality. In impoverished or unstable school systems—such as those in parts of Africa, where teachers are often absent—environmental deprivation overwhelms genetic advantages. An ideology-based educational system may account for the falling verbal and math scores we see today. Warne advocates a two-tiered approach: first, ensure adequate education for all, then tailor instruction to individual abilities.

Russell T. Warne’s “Education’s Elephant in the Room” challenges deeply held egalitarian assumptions by asserting that intelligence—and its genetic underpinnings—remains the primary driver of educational inequality. His argument does not deny the value of good teaching or supportive environments but insists that these factors operate within biological constraints.

For Warne, progress in education requires intellectual honesty: the courage to discuss uncomfortable truths about human variation. Only by accepting the reality of individual differences can educators design systems that are both fair and effective, helping every student, whether gifted or struggling, reach their full potential.

As long as the left controls the educational system in America, IQ will not be used to improve student performance. Money will continually be wasted on ideologically designed programs, even though their implementation cannot achieve the desired outcomes. Like DEI, rejecting IQ as a tool in education is just one more fanciful attempt to change human nature.

Wrong Speak is a free-expression platform that allows varying viewpoints. All views expressed in this article are the author’s own.