Educational Goods Reconsidered: A Response

We gratefully reply to our five commentators, responding to their criticisms and comments under the following headings: parochialism and curriculum; rationality and truth; production and distribution; perfectionism, decision‐making and disagreement; adultism and parents' interests; non‐consequential educational goods; and self‐education

Educational Goods: Values, Evidence, and Decision-Making-A Summary

This is a brief summary of the book Educational Goods: Values, Evidence, and Decision‐Making by Harry Brighouse, Helen F. Ladd, Susanna Loeb and Adam Swift. It provides the introduction to the present symposium on this book, which includes the ensuing contributions from Carey Bagelman, Randall Curren, Michael Hand, John Tillson and Winston Thompson, followed by a response from the authors

Good education policy making: data-informed but values-driven

In this article, based on their book Educational Goods: Values, Evidence and Decision Making, Harry Brighouse, Helen Ladd, Susanna Loeb, and Adam Swift encourage education decision makers to give careful thought to the values that underlie the data they collect and use to inform policy. Rather than basing decisions entirely on what improves academic achievement, the authors call for attention to a wider array of values, which they call educational goods. These include the capacities to function in the labor market, to participate effectively in the democratic process, to make autonomous judgments about key life decisions such as occupation or religion, to develop healthy interpersonal relationships, to seek personal fulfilment, and to treat others with respect and dignity. Thinking in terms of these values can broaden the conversation about education priorities and bring clarity to decisions involving trade-offs and conflicting aims

Adding control to arbitrary unknown quantum operations

While quantum computers promise significant advantages, the complexity of quantum algorithms remains a major technological obstacle. We have developed and demonstrated an architecture-independent technique that simplifies adding control qubits to arbitrary quantum operations-a requirement in many quantum algorithms, simulations and metrology. The technique is independent of how the operation is done, does not require knowledge of what the operation is, and largely separates the problems of how to implement a quantum operation in the laboratory and how to add a control. We demonstrate an entanglement-based version in a photonic system, realizing a range of different two-qubit gates with high fidelity.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figure

Solving Quantum Ground-State Problems with Nuclear Magnetic Resonance

Quantum ground-state problems are computationally hard problems; for general many-body Hamiltonians, there is no classical or quantum algorithm known to be able to solve them efficiently. Nevertheless, if a trial wavefunction approximating the ground state is available, as often happens for many problems in physics and chemistry, a quantum computer could employ this trial wavefunction to project the ground state by means of the phase estimation algorithm (PEA). We performed an experimental realization of this idea by implementing a variational-wavefunction approach to solve the ground-state problem of the Heisenberg spin model with an NMR quantum simulator. Our iterative phase estimation procedure yields a high accuracy for the eigenenergies (to the 10^-5 decimal digit). The ground-state fidelity was distilled to be more than 80%, and the singlet-to-triplet switching near the critical field is reliably captured. This result shows that quantum simulators can better leverage classical trial wavefunctions than classical computers.Comment: 11 pages, 13 figure

Experimental realisation of Shor's quantum factoring algorithm using qubit recycling

Quantum computational algorithms exploit quantum mechanics to solve problems exponentially faster than the best classical algorithms. Shor's quantum algorithm for fast number factoring is a key example and the prime motivator in the international effort to realise a quantum computer. However, due to the substantial resource requirement, to date, there have been only four small-scale demonstrations. Here we address this resource demand and demonstrate a scalable version of Shor's algorithm in which the n qubit control register is replaced by a single qubit that is recycled n times: the total number of qubits is one third of that required in the standard protocol. Encoding the work register in higher-dimensional states, we implement a two-photon compiled algorithm to factor N=21. The algorithmic output is distinguishable from noise, in contrast to previous demonstrations. These results point to larger-scale implementations of Shor's algorithm by harnessing scalable resource reductions applicable to all physical architectures.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figure

Integrated photonic quantum gates for polarization qubits

Integrated photonic circuits have a strong potential to perform quantum information processing. Indeed, the ability to manipulate quantum states of light by integrated devices may open new perspectives both for fundamental tests of quantum mechanics and for novel technological applications. However, the technology for handling polarization encoded qubits, the most commonly adopted approach, is still missing in quantum optical circuits. Here we demonstrate the first integrated photonic Controlled-NOT (CNOT) gate for polarization encoded qubits. This result has been enabled by the integration, based on femtosecond laser waveguide writing, of partially polarizing beam splitters on a glass chip. We characterize the logical truth table of the quantum gate demonstrating its high fidelity to the expected one. In addition, we show the ability of this gate to transform separable states into entangled ones and vice versa. Finally, the full accessibility of our device is exploited to carry out a complete characterization of the CNOT gate through a quantum process tomography.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure

Added Value Measures in Education Show Genetic as Well as Environmental Influence

Does achievement independent of ability or previous attainment provide a purer measure of the added value of school? In a study of 4000 pairs of 12-year-old twins in the UK, we measured achievement with year-long teacher assessments as well as tests. Raw achievement shows moderate heritability (about 50%) and modest shared environmental influences (25%). Unexpectedly, we show that for indices of the added value of school, genetic influences remain moderate (around 50%), and the shared (school) environment is less important (about 12%). The pervasiveness of genetic influence in how and how much children learn is compatible with an active view of learning in which children create their own educational experiences in part on the basis of their genetic propensities

Neonatal Handling Affects Durably Bonding and Social Development

The neonatal period in humans and in most mammals is characterized by intense mother-young interactions favoring pair bonding and the adaptation of neonates to their new environment. However, in many post-delivery procedures, human babies commonly experience combined maternal separation and intense handling for about one hour post-birth. Currently, the effects of such disturbances on later attachment and on the development of newborns are still debated: clearly, further investigations are required. As animals present good models for controlled experimentation, we chose domestic horses to investigate this issue. Horses, like humans, are characterized by single births, long lactating periods and selective mother-infant bonds. Routine postnatal procedures for foals, as for human babies, also involve intense handling and maternal separation. In the present study, we monitored the behavior of foals from early stages of development to “adolescence”, in a normal ecological context (social groups with adults and peers). Experimental foals, separated from their mothers and handled for only 1 hour post-birth, were compared to control foals, left undisturbed after birth. Our results revealed short- and long-term effects of this unique neonatal experience on attachment and subsequent social competences. Thus, experimental foals presented patterns of insecure attachment to their mothers (strong dependence on their mothers, little play) and impaired social competences (social withdrawal, aggressiveness) at all ages. We discuss these results in terms of mother-young interactions, timing of interactions and relationships between bonding and subsequent social competences. Our results indicate that this ungulate species could become an interesting animal model. To our knowledge, this is the first clear demonstration that intervention just after birth affects bonding and subsequent social competences (at least until “adolescence”). It opens new research directions for studies on both humans and other animals