Originally Posted by HowlerKarma
It's really about Maslow's Hierarchy in my opinion. When you spend the first years of your life on the most basic levels, is it ANY surprise that you don't get to "learning" until you reach school, which is (mostly) safer, more pleasant, etc. than "home" is?
When desperately poor Jewish immigrants came to this country, with incomes below $15K in today's dollars, do you think they neglected teaching their kids before they entered school? What about poor Asian immigrants today?

Here is an article on how much poor Chinese value education:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/17/business/in-china-families-bet-it-all-on-a-child-in-college.html
In China, Families Bet It All on College for Their Children
By KEITH BRADSHER
New York Times
February 16, 2013
HANJING, China — Wu Yiebing has been going down coal shafts practically every workday of his life, wrestling an electric drill for $500 a month in the choking dust of claustrophobic tunnels, with one goal in mind: paying for his daughter’s education.

His wife, Cao Weiping, toils from dawn to sunset in orchards every day during apple season in May and June. She earns $12 a day tying little plastic bags one at a time around 3,000 young apples on trees, to protect them from insects. The rest of the year she works as a substitute store clerk, earning several dollars a day, all going toward their daughter’s education.

Many families in the West sacrifice to put their children through school, saving for college educations that they hope will lead to a better life. Few efforts can compare with the heavy financial burden that millions of lower-income Chinese parents now endure as they push their children to obtain as much education as possible.