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> There is no reason given to why they take per-student expense out of the picture, other than 'we just don't think it should count'. And that seems to be the e

by darawk 8y ago

> There is no reason given to why they take per-student expense out of the picture, other than 'we just don't think it should count'. And that seems to be the entire basis of their finding that rankings are riddled with flaws. What? Why should you count expenditure as a positive? The only thing that ought to matter is achievement. If you hold achievement constant, but spend more, that is objectively worse. Which is the whole point of the article. > There is much research (once you sort through the partisan fluff from research institutions with obvious bias) that supports the positive impact of revenue per student on academic achievement on standardized tests. It's actually funny this article popped up, I legit just read a paper from 2015 called "A Cost-Benefit Analysis for Per-Student Expenditures and Academic Achievement". I genuinely read that this morning. Weird. The authors found that "There was a significant correlation between revenues available per student and ACT scores as one outcome measure of achievement." And just to drive that point home, they replicated the findings from a 2002 study, further solidifying that sentiment. Yes, but did they adjust for the confounding factors the authors of this article point out? I'll bet they didn't.

thrmsforbfast 8y ago
> Why should you count expenditure as a positive? The only thing that ought to matter is achievement. Because achievement is hard to measure. > If you hold achievement constant, but spend more, that is objectively worse. Which again depends on what you mean by achievement. Consider e.g., Lakeside's teletype terminal in 1960s. If computer access didn't increase aggregate ACT scores (which, it probably didn't...) was it then "objectively a waste of money"? Having grown up in post-NCLB school system, I'm extremely skeptical of standardized tests as a measure of educational achievement. We're a couple decades into confusing the map for the territory on this one. It's Lockhart's Lament [1] on steroids and in every subject. Funding levels are at least positively correlated with paying people well, which -- in every field I've worked in at least -- is typically correlated with higher quality employees. [1] https://www.maa.org/external_archive/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf https://www.maa.org/external_archive/devlin/LockhartsLament....
- darawk 8y ago
  > Because achievement is hard to measure. Except that they already are measuring achievement. If you count expenditure as a positive, you assume your conclusion that spending is good. > Which again depends on what you mean by achievement. No, it does not. It is always worse to spend more for the same level of achievement. If your argument that achievement is mismeasured, that is a completely separate issue.
  - thrmsforbfast 8y ago
    > Except that they already are measuring achievement They are measuring performance on standardized tests. If by "achievement" you mean "does well on multiple choice exams", then sure. I don't trust standarized tests as a metric of achievement. Even without metric gaming they are pretty awful. And we've been solidly in systematic metric gaming land for least the past two decades. The entire K12 system is designed around increasing these test scores. > If you count expenditure as a positive, you assume your conclusion that spending is good. No, you assume there's a hidden function that you can't measure or explain but which is representative of reality and also positively correlates funding levels with performance. I know it's a radical proposal in STEM communities, but sometimes measuring things causes a lot more problems than it solves.
    - darawk 8y ago
      > Do you think those are good measurement of "achievement"? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. But spending is never a good measurement of achievement. > No. My assumption is that measuring achievement is inherently impossible in something as multi-faceted and large as universal education. You think it is impossible to measure educational performance at all? Surely you don't believe something that silly. You think it is measured imperfectly. And I agree with you. But i'm not sure what your point is here. Certainly imperfect measurements don't mean we should just measure random, unrelated variables like spending. I also don't see how it means we shouldn't try to measure, and improve our measurement standards. And it certainly doesn't mean, that the conclusion of this article is in any way incorrect (which is not that the measurements are good, but that the way other people were using these measurements were even less good than using them correctly).

by darawk 8y ago

thrmsforbfast 8y ago

> Why should you count expenditure as a positive? The only thing that ought to matter is achievement. Because achievement is hard to measure. > If you hold achievement constant, but spend more, that is objectively worse. Which again depends on what you mean by achievement. Consider e.g., Lakeside's teletype terminal in 1960s. If computer access didn't increase aggregate ACT scores (which, it probably didn't...) was it then "objectively a waste of money"? Having grown up in post-NCLB school system, I'm extremely skeptical of standardized tests as a measure of educational achievement. We're a couple decades into confusing the map for the territory on this one. It's Lockhart's Lament [1] on steroids and in every subject. Funding levels are at least positively correlated with paying people well, which -- in every field I've worked in at least -- is typically correlated with higher quality employees. [1] https://www.maa.org/external_archive/devlin/LockhartsLament.pdf https://www.maa.org/external_archive/devlin/LockhartsLament....

darawk 8y ago
> Because achievement is hard to measure. Except that they already are measuring achievement. If you count expenditure as a positive, you assume your conclusion that spending is good. > Which again depends on what you mean by achievement. No, it does not. It is always worse to spend more for the same level of achievement. If your argument that achievement is mismeasured, that is a completely separate issue.
- thrmsforbfast 8y ago
  > Except that they already are measuring achievement They are measuring performance on standardized tests. If by "achievement" you mean "does well on multiple choice exams", then sure. I don't trust standarized tests as a metric of achievement. Even without metric gaming they are pretty awful. And we've been solidly in systematic metric gaming land for least the past two decades. The entire K12 system is designed around increasing these test scores. > If you count expenditure as a positive, you assume your conclusion that spending is good. No, you assume there's a hidden function that you can't measure or explain but which is representative of reality and also positively correlates funding levels with performance. I know it's a radical proposal in STEM communities, but sometimes measuring things causes a lot more problems than it solves.
  - darawk 8y ago
    > Do you think those are good measurement of "achievement"? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. But spending is never a good measurement of achievement. > No. My assumption is that measuring achievement is inherently impossible in something as multi-faceted and large as universal education. You think it is impossible to measure educational performance at all? Surely you don't believe something that silly. You think it is measured imperfectly. And I agree with you. But i'm not sure what your point is here. Certainly imperfect measurements don't mean we should just measure random, unrelated variables like spending. I also don't see how it means we shouldn't try to measure, and improve our measurement standards. And it certainly doesn't mean, that the conclusion of this article is in any way incorrect (which is not that the measurements are good, but that the way other people were using these measurements were even less good than using them correctly).