[spindritf]

We don't want to know what Chomsky or Einstein thought about the educational system, that's irrelevant. What we really want to know is how their parents treated them. Actually, we want something more general -- commonalities in Jewish upbringing, especially of those who went on to be successful.

[guard-of-terra]

But that's the cargo cult way. You end up replicating a lot of unrelated random things and may still lose the essense of it.

[calibraxis]

I'm not sure who "we" are, and why "we don't want to know" things despite wanting to be smarter. In any case, Chomsky certainly wasn't secretive about his education and parenting. Did you look it up?

"My father was, professionally, a Hebrew scholar, and worked with Hebrew grammar. And my mother was a Hebrew teacher. My father sort of ran the Hebrew school system in the city of Philadelphia, and my mother taught in it. He taught in Hebrew College later. There's a Graduate University of Jewish Studies, Dropsie College, which he taught in."

"Actually, I happen to have been very lucky myself and gone to an experimental-progresive Deweyite school, from about the time I was age one-and-a-half to twelve [John Dewey was an American philosopher and educational reformer]. And there it was done routinely: children were encouraged to challenge everything, and you sort of worked on your own, you were supposed to think things through for yourself -- it was a real experience. And it was quite a striking change when it ended and I had to go to the city high school, which was the pride of the city school system. It was the school for academically-oriented kids in Philadelphia -- and it was the dumbest, most ridiculous place I've ever been, it was like falling into a black hole or something. For one thing, it was extremely competitive -- because that's one of the best ways of controlling people. So everybody was ranked, and you always knew exactly where you were: are you third in the class, or maybe did you move down to fourth? All this stuff is put into people's heads in various ways in the schools -- that you've got to beat down the person next to you, and just look out for yourself."

Ok, raised by teachers/scholars who even ran a school system, and went to a school which cultivated critical thinking. Surprising that he turned out to be such a successful academic...

No need to turn to racist theories, or cultural mysticism. Answers are quite simple, but not everyone wants to hear them.