6 ms·

"After correcting for demographics..." I didn't read the article, but isn't that just a fancy way of saying "certain people are smart and certain people aren't

"After correcting for demographics..." I didn't read the article, but isn't that just a fancy way of saying "certain people are smart and certain people aren't. We just have a lot of stupid people." I exaggerate, of course, but that's how it looks from a cursory glance. Correcting for demographics is the one thing we cannot do in measuring education's effectiveness, as the purpose of an education is for folks to gain habits and be able to do things in the real world -- a world that does not care which demographic you belong to.

btilly 16y ago
You should read the article. Because that is really not what it says. One of the major demographic things corrected for is the fraction of the country that is made up of immigrants. First and second generation immigrants perform significantly worse in school, and this relation holds across most countries. (The significant exceptions are Australia and Canada, which have a skill-based immigration system that selects immigrants who are likely to perform better in school.) It is worth noting that the author was an immigrant from Iran to Sweden. (I don't know whether the author has since moved elsewhere.) Furthermore the author in the comments very strongly comes out against the notion that any race is naturally less intelligent than any other.
- DanielBMarkham 16y ago
  I think you've got race on the brain and are missing the point. You can't externally label and measure groups of people -- by race, by income, by percentage of immigrants -- as part of an effort to improve education outcomes. This is management by statistical measurement, and it's fraught with problems, the basic one is that it confuses measurement with meaning, correlation with causation. Externally-defined statistical measurements are attractive, as they claim to give understanding. But in reality they provide very murky value at best.
  - btilly 16y ago
    Take a look at http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_-EMpadQx4hM/TRKZ5kB-49I/AAAAAAAAAY8/c_2n4vdbkPk/s1600/immigrant.jpg http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_-EMpadQx4hM/TRKZ5kB-49I/AAAAAAAAAY... and tell me again that it is appropriate to ignore immigration levels in judging how effectively the education system is doing its job of educating students. (Note that the exceptions of Australia and Canada are discussed in the article.) When factors that big are out of the control of the education system, a proper analysis of the performance of the education system itself should not ignore them. The resulting outcomes may not be what is wanted, but that is not necessarily the fault of the schools.
    - DanielBMarkham 16y ago
      I looked at the link, and I also read the article. Full analysis here: http://bit.ly/i8WTbA http://bit.ly/i8WTbA
      - btilly 16y ago
        My summary of your analysis. People aren't statistics so you shouldn't form your opinions about anything involving people using statistical data. I'm sorry, but that trips my BS detector. It lets you believe anything you want to believe, and makes those beliefs impervious to any data you might be presented with. If you don't believe me, then ask yourself these questions. What experiment can you imagine setting up that would convince you that immigrants truly are at a disadvantage of school, even when the school tries? What experiment can you imagine that could convince you that significant academic gaps between ethnic groups are not within the realistic ability of the school system to fix? I suspect the answer is that nothing could ever convince you. In which case your belief is a position of religious faith, and is impervious to any form of data. By contrast I accept that student performance is affected by many factors, some of which are out of the ability of schools to control. Schools can't readily fix what language you were raised with, your family's attitude towards education, various other possible problems at home, the effects the stereotypes have on self-image, and cultural differences around things like what age it is appropriate to start having children. Yet those things are strongly tied to your ethnicity, and have a significant impact on your academic performance. How big a factor is this? How difficult to control? I don't know. But when presented with data that suggests that it is enough to explain the educational differences between the US and other industrialized countries, I'm not going to throw it out out of hand. And conversely if presented with different data that says it is not enough, I'm not going to throw that out either. I'm going to read both analysis, and form the most educated opinion that I can.

btilly 16y ago

You should read the article. Because that is really not what it says. One of the major demographic things corrected for is the fraction of the country that is made up of immigrants. First and second generation immigrants perform significantly worse in school, and this relation holds across most countries. (The significant exceptions are Australia and Canada, which have a skill-based immigration system that selects immigrants who are likely to perform better in school.) It is worth noting that the author was an immigrant from Iran to Sweden. (I don't know whether the author has since moved elsewhere.) Furthermore the author in the comments very strongly comes out against the notion that any race is naturally less intelligent than any other.

DanielBMarkham 16y ago
I think you've got race on the brain and are missing the point. You can't externally label and measure groups of people -- by race, by income, by percentage of immigrants -- as part of an effort to improve education outcomes. This is management by statistical measurement, and it's fraught with problems, the basic one is that it confuses measurement with meaning, correlation with causation. Externally-defined statistical measurements are attractive, as they claim to give understanding. But in reality they provide very murky value at best.
- btilly 16y ago
  Take a look at http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_-EMpadQx4hM/TRKZ5kB-49I/AAAAAAAAAY8/c_2n4vdbkPk/s1600/immigrant.jpg http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_-EMpadQx4hM/TRKZ5kB-49I/AAAAAAAAAY... and tell me again that it is appropriate to ignore immigration levels in judging how effectively the education system is doing its job of educating students. (Note that the exceptions of Australia and Canada are discussed in the article.) When factors that big are out of the control of the education system, a proper analysis of the performance of the education system itself should not ignore them. The resulting outcomes may not be what is wanted, but that is not necessarily the fault of the schools.
  - DanielBMarkham 16y ago
    I looked at the link, and I also read the article. Full analysis here: http://bit.ly/i8WTbA http://bit.ly/i8WTbA
    - btilly 16y ago
      My summary of your analysis. People aren't statistics so you shouldn't form your opinions about anything involving people using statistical data. I'm sorry, but that trips my BS detector. It lets you believe anything you want to believe, and makes those beliefs impervious to any data you might be presented with. If you don't believe me, then ask yourself these questions. What experiment can you imagine setting up that would convince you that immigrants truly are at a disadvantage of school, even when the school tries? What experiment can you imagine that could convince you that significant academic gaps between ethnic groups are not within the realistic ability of the school system to fix? I suspect the answer is that nothing could ever convince you. In which case your belief is a position of religious faith, and is impervious to any form of data. By contrast I accept that student performance is affected by many factors, some of which are out of the ability of schools to control. Schools can't readily fix what language you were raised with, your family's attitude towards education, various other possible problems at home, the effects the stereotypes have on self-image, and cultural differences around things like what age it is appropriate to start having children. Yet those things are strongly tied to your ethnicity, and have a significant impact on your academic performance. How big a factor is this? How difficult to control? I don't know. But when presented with data that suggests that it is enough to explain the educational differences between the US and other industrialized countries, I'm not going to throw it out out of hand. And conversely if presented with different data that says it is not enough, I'm not going to throw that out either. I'm going to read both analysis, and form the most educated opinion that I can.