Title Your Study with Care

Today's New York Times features an article on a new study on residential segregation by Edward Glaeser of Harvard, and Jacob Vigdor of Duke University.  I'd like to draw your attention to what the study actually finds, and how it's being pitched to the national audience.

The study is produced by the Manhattan Institute's Center for State and Local Leadership. The Institute is widely recognized as a conservative research organization. 

The title of the report, as written by its authors, reads: "The End of the Segregated Century."


The NYT's headline reads: "Segregation Curtailed in U.S. Cities, Study Finds."


The NYT's tweet reads: "Nation's Cities Almost Free of Segregation"


So it seems, the study must tell us that segregation has ended, or is about to-- right?


Nope.  What it tells us, points out Doug Massey of Princeton University, a nationally recognized expert on the topic, is that segregation has declined substantially in metropolitan areas with few black residents.   I wish I could say more, but this study-- despite being covered in the New York Times-- does not currently seem to appear anywhere on the Web!


So why not title the study "Shifting Patterns of Segregation"and the headline "Segregation Declines in Some U.S. Cities, Study Finds?"


Hmmm.  Think it'd get as much attention?  Fuel as much conservative fire? Yeah, that's what I thought.


PS. Want a more nuanced take on the changing face of segregation? I recommend this study.

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Things That Make Me Go Hmm....(Part 1)

Sincerest apologies for the silence on our blog. The summer has wound down, school is starting, federal grant deadlines are approaching--and most importantly, our son just started 4-year-old kindergarten! All in all, it's a very busy time of year. So with that, I'm beginning a new series, intended to highlight and raise a few questions about news that intrigues me. Perhaps Liam will pick up on this too, and we'll make a series of it.

(1) Why am I so cranky/ out of shape/ exhausted / or otherwise morose? Sometimes I wonder. And the day I read the New York Times Magazine's brilliant piece on the perils of too-much decision-making I felt a tad bit better--and then a whole lot worse. Because it seems that people who are asked all day long to pick or choose, often on high-stakes tasks, tend to put decisions about themselves last. So when the question is: what will I eat tonight? the answer is often "who cares? just feed me." Where's the solution, New York Times? I really don't see one.

(2) As I send our kid off to the phenomenal Madison Waldorf School each day, I feel a pending twinge of hypocrisy. What will we do next year, when there are public school options? Will we continue to invest in private school, even though we--the Education Optimists--are deep believers in public education? Then I read an article like today's New York Times cover story on the uninhibited spending on technology in classrooms that is eating up money we could otherwise spend supporting teachers-- and without a shred of evidence to support it. I hear tales that here in Stoughton, Wisconsin my kid's kindergarten will have a Smartboard and plenty of laptops, for his focused "reading time"...and I want to run screaming in the other direction. The last thing I want to raise is a glazed-eye kid who stares at screens all day (like I do), who develops back and posture problems from the classic "slump" and who would rather listen to someone say something cool than say it himself. I suppose this makes me a Luddite. My iPhone, iPad, and Mac might say otherwise. But what I want most is for schools to invest in what we know pays off-- and that's child-human contact. Give my kid teachers who feel appreciated and well-supported, please. Forget the laptops.

(3) On a somewhat related note, that "esteemed" publication Newsweek/Daily Beast just named UW-Madison the third least rigorous university in the nation among those serving students with average test scores of 1250 or higher (SAT). While I've written about my concerns regarding the institutional focus on teaching and whether we deliver everything we're capable of, let me be the first to say: THESE RANKINGS SUCK. Look at their "methodology"--Are you kidding me? Using "College Prowler" and "rate my professor" to develop metrics? Did the writers have NOTHING better to do with their time than to craft this worthless drivel? Puhleeese.

(4) Can Scott Walker read? Survey says: No. In a recent press release, Walker claimed that the new Wisconsin-Minnesota tuition reciprocity deal, which ended some of the subsidy provided to Wisconsin students who chose to attend college out-of-state, "make college more affordable." Um...no... this kinda reminds me of someone else's recent claim that privatizing the university and jacking up tuition would make UW more affordable. Listen, I served on the legislative committee that developed this reciprocity change last summer, and the purpose was to save Wisconsin some money, and perhaps provide a little disincentive for Wisconsin students to leave the state for college. Nothing to do with affordability. My question is this--how much are you paying those staffers of yours, Governor?

That's it for today. Stay tuned for a busy year, as UW-Madison searches for a new chancellor and Wisconsin works to recall Scott Walker...and of course now that I'm tenured, I'll tell ya what I REALLY think!

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A View from the Right in a Left-Leaning Tower

What follows is a GUEST POST by University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate student Robert Kelchen. I have had the privilege of working with Robert since 2008; we have co-authored two articles, including this one on the effects of financial aid. Upon reading John Tierney's take on the dominance of liberals in academe, I asked Robert for his thoughts-- and here they are. SGR

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My name is Robert Kelchen, but many students and faculty who know me at the University of Wisconsin-Madison often introduce me as "the conservative guy" or "my Republican friend." I am used to this sort of introduction after being in Madison for four years; after all, I can count the number of conservative or libertarian doctoral students who I know on two hands. I have been told several times in the past by fellow students that I am the first right-leaning person with whom they have ever interacted on a regular basis. Prior to the passage of Act 10 (the law that restricted collective bargaining), I was one of the few students at the university to request a refund of the portion of the Teaching Assistants' Association dues that went toward political or ideological activities. This also meant that I had to give up my right to vote on issues germane to collective bargaining (the primary purpose of the union), but it was a sacrifice that I was willing to make. During the protests at the Capitol throughout the spring semester, I did my best to stay out of the fray and keep very quiet about my personal opinions.

Sara asked me for my thoughts on the recent New York Times article about why there are so few conservative students in graduate school. I had to consider the offer for a while, as making this post would make my political leanings more publicly known and could potentially affect my chances of getting a job in two years. However, I just could not pass up the opportunity to comment on this article in the newspaper of record for American liberals--and the same paper that ran a front-page article about Sara being one of a new generation of less politically-oriented professors.

My initial reaction to the article was to try to think of a conservative or libertarian professor in the School of Education at UW-Madison. To the best of my knowledge, there are no professors in the entire school, let alone my home department (Educational Policy Studies) who publicly identify as being right of center. However, this does not mean that there are no conservative faculty. A likely explanation is that faculty (and students) who do not identify with the liberal majority stay quiet about their political beliefs. The reaction of the majority of the faculty and graduate students during recent political events makes speaking out as a conservative a lonely proposition. It also means that there must exist other "elite" institutions that have a higher proportion of conservative faculty.

I do not put any stock in the Gross et al experiment mentioned in the article, which sent out letters asking for information about top graduate schools and included whether a fictional student worked for the Obama or McCain campaigns. Working on a presidential campaign does tell something about a student's political beliefs, but a student's GRE score and college performance (in addition to ability to pay) matter much more than that information. Additionally, the study only used male "prospective" applicants, a potentially serious limitation. (Not to mention that John McCain is a fairly liberal Republican who partnered with ex-Senator--and Madison hero--Russ Feingold on campaign finance reform. He is much more palatable to the left than someone like Michelle Bachmann.)

This leaves several possible explanations for why conservative students are less likely to go to graduate school and stay in academia later in life than liberals. A potential explanation mentioned in the article (and is echoed by several of the comments on the article) is that conservatives do not have the mental abilities to go to graduate school. That is entirely bogus, as noted in the article. I do not put much stock into the hypothesis that conservatives are less likely to be in academia due to discrimination on the acceptance (graduate students) or hiring (faculty) side, although this very well may be true in isolated institutions and departments.

The argument of self-selection, in which conservatives choose not to pursue a career in higher education, is the likely culprit for why I know only one other conservative graduate student in the entire School of Education. Much self-selection occurs because of how attending graduate school delays one's ability to make a reasonable salary. In "red" states, adults are more likely to get married at a younger age than those in "blue" states; the need to support a family can detract both women and men from spending an additional six or more years in school. The claim made by Peter Wood from the conservative National Association of Scholars, that conservatives choose not to pursue a graduate degree because of the perception of liberal bias, is likely responsible for part of the attendance gap. I would say that, holding all other factors constant, it is easier to be a majority liberal than a minority conservative. However, the common perception that conservatives know all other Republicans in the area or that we're always expected to engage in political discussions at the drop of a hat (or that we agree with everything that Sarah Palin says) probably do not cause many students to shun away from graduate school. The perception of liberal bias likely drives away many more students than the actual amount of liberal bias.

In closing, I would like to thank Sara again for the opportunity to post my thoughts. Next time you talk with a conservative, please realize that we are not bad people because we have different political viewpoints. Most of us, regardless of ideology or partisan affiliation, believe in the importance of public education even though we disagree on the best ways to improve the current system.

Robert

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A Must Read

A huge public thank you to Paul Krugman for his outstanding defense of academic freedom in Monday's New York Times. As an untenured professor and regular blogger, I am eternally grateful that he -- at least -- gets it.

He is absolutely right about the risks of letting this kind of behavior go by--

"... less eminent and established researchers won’t just become reluctant to act as concerned citizens, weighing in on current debates; they’ll be deterred from even doing research on topics that might get them in trouble.

What’s at stake here, in other words, is whether we’re going to have an open national discourse in which scholars feel free to go wherever the evidence takes them, and to contribute to public understanding. Republicans, in Wisconsin and elsewhere, are trying to shut that kind of discourse down. It’s up to the rest of us to see that they don’t succeed."

Now if only UW-Madison Administration would take such a stance.

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Unintended, Unforeseen Consequences

The challenges surrounding the U.S. Department of Education's (ED) plan to replace principals at underperforming schools across the nation (New York Times: "U.S. Plan to Replace Principals Hits Snag: Who Will Step In?") reminds me of the unintended consequences of California's class size reduction policies during the 1990s.

As the New York Times reported yesterday about the ED's $4 billion plan to radically transform the country’s worst schools by installing new principals to overhaul most of the failing schools, "[T]here simply were not enough qualified principals-in-waiting to take over."

California experienced a similar human capital problem when it reduced class sizes statewide in grades k-3. An unintended consequence of its state policy was the hiring of more emergency-credentialed and unqualified educators as a result of the additional teaching positions needed to enable smaller class sizes. As this Center for the Future of Teaching and Learning report noted, "[T]he implementation of class size reduction ... dramatically increased the shortage" of fully qualified teachers. In addition, the Public Policy Institute of California reports that it exacerbated educational inequality and disproportionately affected schools that served low-income and minority students:

CSR led to a dramatic increase in the percentages of inexperienced and uncertified teachers. In 1990, there were few differences in these characteristics by racial/ethnic and income groups. Even as late as 1995–1996, the year before CSR, schools with high percentages of nonwhite and low-income students were only slightly more likely
than other schools to have inexperienced teachers who lacked full certification and postgraduate schooling. By 1999, large gaps in teacher qualifications had emerged between schools attended by nonwhite and low-income students and other schools. For black students in schools with more than 75 percent of the students enrolled in subsidized lunch programs, nearly 25 percent had a first- or second-year teacher; almost 30 percent had a teacher who was not fully certified. At the other extreme, for white students attending schools with 25 percent or fewer of the students enrolled in subsidized lunch programs, only 12 percent had a first- or second-year teacher, and only 5 percent had a teacher who was not fully credentialed. These differences reflect the varying levels of difficulty that many schools experienced in attempting to attract and retain teachers following the implementation of CSR.

With all the current hullabaloo about wanting to fire more underperforming teachers as a chief reform strategy, the critical question is: "Who will replace them?" The belief that 'we can do better' does not necessarily make it so. We've got to attend to and recognize such human capital challenges before we put forth such policies, however well intended.

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Don't Let The Door Hit You On The Way Out

Gail Collins' (New York Times) political obituary of -- now lame duck -- U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut is well worth reading. She nails it with this line: "If you’re continually admiring yourself as you walk away from your group, eventually people are going to feel an irresistible desire to trip you."

Yep. I've always thought of 'sanctimonious' as the word I would choose if the name 'Joe Lieberman' came up in a word association game. Not one of my favorites, that's for sure.

Given his role in watering down health care reform and opposing a public option, I wouldn't be surprised if a cushy job in the insurance industry is in Lieberman's future. To his credit, he did actually vote for the final health care bill, however.

You can view Lieberman's version of his record on education policy here.

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Democrats, Poverty, and Schools

Renewing the War on Poverty clearly needs to be one of President Barack Obama's main objectives during the coming years. As Barbara Ehrenreich and so many others are documenting, the deteriorated safety net is failing poor people during this recession, leaving them in dire straits.

So when Nick Kristof decided to pen a column for the New York Times urging the Democrats to again lead a fight against poverty, his heart was in the right place. But his aim was way off. On Thursday, he wrote that the Dems must focus on public schools, since they "constitute a far more potent weapon against poverty than welfare, food stamps or housing subsidies. " Huh?

Social science researchers across the nation are scratching their heads. Where in the world did Kristof get this one? For decades, solid analyses have demonstrated that while aspects of schooling can be important in improving student outcomes and alleviating the effects of poverty, the effects of factors schools cannot and do not control are much greater (for a place to start, read Doug Downey's work). Kristof emphasizes teachers and improving teacher quality by taking on the teachers' unions because he reads the data to mean that "research has underscored that what matters most in education - more than class size or spending or anything - is access to good teachers." Simply put, wrong. Access to good teachers is the most important factor affecting student achievement that is under schools' control (or as many put it, the most important school-level factor). What matters most in educational outcomes is the poverty felt by students' families. And to my knowledge, no study has ever rigorously compared the effectiveness of interventions based on cash transfers, housing subsidies, and teacher quality improvement-- what's needed to reach the kind of conclusion with which Kristof drives his argument. At the same time, a simple glance at the relative effects of programs like Moving to Opportunity, New Hope, etc which target poverty itself rather than how adults interact with children from poverty (the aim of improving teacher quality), should convince anyone than his target is misplaced.

Experts who think daily about how to end poverty could, and undoubtedly will, inform the next steps taken by Democrats. Dems should listen to them, and not to Kristof. With that approach they will undoubtedly begin not with teachers' unions but rather by connecting job seekers to work that pays, installing strategies to promote stable families, making quality housing affordable and safe, and of course guaranteeing access to good health care.

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Where Have You Been?

A spate of recent articles, including those covering Bill Bowen and Mike McPherson's new book (which I promise to review just as soon as my copy arrives), have left me a bit perplexed-- wondering aloud "where have you all been?" The punchline each time is that a fair proportion of adults starting college are not finishing. Yes, and duh. This is not new, and if it's news well I guess it's only because we've deliberately kept our heads in the sand.

But there's no way that folks like New York Times reporter David Leonhardt have been deliberately oblivious, and yet he's writing about low college completion rates as if they've just been unearthed. In a recent blog post, Kevin Carey implied the same-- just as he did in a recent American Enterprise Institute report. But this has been a prominent topic of discussion for years--maybe a decade plus! Just look at Kevin's own 2004 report A Matter of Degrees (which received plenty of media coverage), or the Spellings Commission report, or Claudia Goldin and Larry Katz's book. I know I could go back several more years and find plenty more evidence.

I think it's one thing to imply something is new when it isn't (because again, maybe you just didn't know, or you feel the issue still is widely known enough and want to beat the drum more), and it's another thing entirely to claim that policymakers still aren't paying attention. In Leonhardt's case, he's simply wrong when he says the current Administration isn't focused on college completion. Um, how about that $2.5 billion Access and Completion Fund, part of Obama's original budget proposal? What about the performance (outcomes)-based components of the new community college monies contained in HR 3221? Foundations like Lumina and Gates have been beating this drum for years, and those in the Administration are well aware. No one in DC is saying institutions should continue to be judged solely based on enrollment (even enrollment of disadvantaged groups). There is plenty of ado about completion rates. The question is now, what exactly are the best solutions? That's a debate that needs to be richer and more visible, since the answers are far from clear-- and we'd be terribly wrong to simply resort to NCLB-style responses that remind me of my toddler: "Institutions bad. Do wrong. I punish you and you do better. Now." Let's direct our energies toward really identifying the sources of the problems, and developing a sense of how reforms can be most effective. When I get a chance to read the new Bowen and McPherson book, I'm hoping I come away with new ideas on how to do that.

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