Most made the list for the usual reasons, namely, hurting someone’s feelings. But the amazing story is Modesto Junior College, where a student was targeted simply because he tried to hand out copies of the Constitution on Constitution Day! It gets worse: when a faculty member sent out an email supporting the student’s free speech rights, the administration retaliated against him. Here...
Workshop on quasi-experimental methods with Cook and Shadish
A workshop on better quasi-experimental design and analysis will take place at Northwestern University from Monday, August 3rd to Friday, August 14th. The workshop is for faculty from all disciplines who have an interest in causal research in education, though some advanced graduate students working with quasi-experimental data are also welcome. This two-week workshop will expose attendees to the...
Data on U.S. military deserters
Between 2003 and 2006, more than 20,000 American soldiers and Marines abandoned their posts. […] American military commanders rarely seek out deserters and even more rarely punish them. At the height of the Iraq War, fewer than 5 percent of deserters received a court-martial, and fewer than one percent served prison time. […] From that number, the only deserters who have consistently...
ATMs did not displace bank tellers: a cautionary tale
Cautionary in the sense that people often think statically, instead of understanding the dynamics of human interaction: In a June 14, 2011, interview, President Obama used ATMs a an example of technology displacing labor. He said (I’ve added punctuation to the raw transcript): There are some structural issues with our economy where a lot of businesses have learned to become much more...
America’s high-risk, high-reward higher education system
But for too many others, it’s a risky investment. Many who start higher education never finish a credential. Just 31 percent of those students from the bottom income quartile who start college finish a bachelor’s degree. Recent data suggests that the returns to “some college” have essentially fallen to zero. Even among those who do finish, there’s a risk that the investment won’t pay off. One...
Do colleges ignore sexual assault claims? Of course not
From the always great Emily Yoffe: The Hunting Ground asserts that even when a victim pushes past the roadblocks and makes a formal report to administrators, it will do no good. Lawyer and activist Colby Bruno says, “The message is clear: It’s don’t proceed through these disciplinary hearings. No matter what you do, you’re not going to win.” The film follows this quote with a graphic showing a...
Pell Institute lacks basic mathematics skills, but their reports look slick
I wish I had discovered this; hat tip to an RTI colleague for pointing this out. Go to page 33 of this report (Equity Indicator 5b: Bachelor’s attainment rates by age 24 for dependent family members who entered college by income quartile: 1970 to 2013): The graduation rate for the top income quartile in 99%! That’s correct, the graduation rate for one-quarter of 18-24 year olds is almost...
Asians turn against affirmative action
“Let’s talk about Asians,” she says. Lee’s next slide shows three columns of numbers from a Princeton University study that tried to measure how race and ethnicity affect admissions by using SAT scores as a benchmark. It uses the term “bonus” to describe how many extra SAT points an applicant’s race is worth. She points to the first column. African Americans received a “bonus”...
My AEFP paper on use of FAFSA data mentioned in Inside Higher Ed
Psychology journal bans null hypothesis testing
Prior to publication, authors will have to remove all p-values, t-statistics, F-statistics, etc.!
If this continues, I will be out of a job.