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The issue with this study is that they can’t control for changes in society over time because the two groups of students evaluated did not attend school at the

by rp1 5y ago

The issue with this study is that they can’t control for changes in society over time because the two groups of students evaluated did not attend school at the same time. For instance, maybe the issue is much more mundane. Access to TV increased after 1994, leading to less time spent studying. Or perhaps students spend more time indoors now, leading to less mental development. There are literally countless causes that are impossible to evaluate. Trying to argue that male teachers bring some type of indescribable quality to the school atmosphere seems crazy.

igor47 5y ago
this seems false from my reading of TFA, though I didn't read the paper: > Identification is facilitated by variations across municipalities in the age distribution of teachers at the time of quota removal, coupled with mandatory retirement at age 60. This means that students were differentially exposed to the newer post-quota cohorts, which had a different gender composition (fewer males) and a different distribution of scores on the matriculation exam (higher scores on average). the two groups were compared at the same time, but had different exposure to the post quota teacher cohort. this sounds like a great natural experiment. I'm also curious why you're so strongly a priori dismissing the benefits of male teachers.
bsder 5y ago
> Trying to argue that male teachers bring some type of indescribable quality to the school atmosphere seems crazy. Except that the quality wasn't indescribable. "So a quota that favored rural applicants or those who had not moved from their municipality of birth could have had similar effects. In fact, this helps explain the mechanism—if rural applicants have fewer resources on average, they will have higher ability conditional on any given score than applicants from more resource-rich urban environments." What is pointed out is that being male had correlated traits that are what should actually be what we are selecting for rather than simply being male.

by rp1 5y ago

igor47 5y ago

this seems false from my reading of TFA, though I didn't read the paper: > Identification is facilitated by variations across municipalities in the age distribution of teachers at the time of quota removal, coupled with mandatory retirement at age 60. This means that students were differentially exposed to the newer post-quota cohorts, which had a different gender composition (fewer males) and a different distribution of scores on the matriculation exam (higher scores on average). the two groups were compared at the same time, but had different exposure to the post quota teacher cohort. this sounds like a great natural experiment. I'm also curious why you're so strongly a priori dismissing the benefits of male teachers.

bsder 5y ago

> Trying to argue that male teachers bring some type of indescribable quality to the school atmosphere seems crazy. Except that the quality wasn't indescribable. "So a quota that favored rural applicants or those who had not moved from their municipality of birth could have had similar effects. In fact, this helps explain the mechanism—if rural applicants have fewer resources on average, they will have higher ability conditional on any given score than applicants from more resource-rich urban environments." What is pointed out is that being male had correlated traits that are what should actually be what we are selecting for rather than simply being male.