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Selection bias is the most powerful force in education

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Re: Selection bias is the most powerful force in education

#31

Post by frgtpsswrdlame »

devinhelton wrote: post #28
frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Integrated schools help to reduce racial achievement gaps. In fact, the racial achievement gap in K–12 education closed more rapidly during the peak years of school desegregation in the 1970s and 1980s than it has overall in the decades that followed—when many desegregation policies were dismantled. More recently, black and Latino students had smaller achievement gaps with white students on the 2007 and 2009 NAEP whe…

Integrated schools help to reduce racial achievement gaps. In fact, the racial achievement gap in K–12 education closed more rapidly during the peak years of school desegregation in the 1970s and 1980s than it has overall in the decades that followed—when many desegregation policies were dismantled. Why I don't find that evidence convincing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13904403

Care to summarize? It's a wall of quotes.

Re: Selection bias is the most powerful force in education

#32

Post by gnicholas »

> People involved with the private high schools liked to brag about the high scores their students scored on standardized tests – without bothering to mention that you had to score well on such a test to get into them in the first place. This is, as I’ve said before, akin to having a height requirement for your school and then bragging about how tall your student body is.

Not quite — kids don't get shorter over time, but they can easily get worse grades/scores. It's true that having a screening test makes it more likely that your students will score well on other tests, but it's not a guarantee (as it is with the height example).

Re: Selection bias is the most powerful force in education

#33

Post by sololipsist »

bluGill wrote: post #7

Sending a troubled kid to a great private school probably will cause the kid to do better: because all the other students are doing well the bad students peers are working hard so the bad student sees that example and is likely to succumb to peer pressure and do better. For this to work the troubled kid needs to be kept out of the gangs and whatever else outside of school will lead to bad examples. However selection…

> Sending a troubled kid to a great private school probably will cause the kid to do better ... However selection bias already does this

Funny thing, though. We've done a bunch of studies on this and it doesn't actually help. The people who care about their kids more getting them into better schools, yes - but placing the kids of parents who don't care into better schools, no.

This has been shown time and time again. The best results to the contrary managed this by ... drumroll ... designing selection bias into the study.

Re: Selection bias is the most powerful force in education

#34

Post by aidenn0 »

gnicholas wrote: post #32

> People involved with the private high schools liked to brag about the high scores their students scored on standardized tests – without bothering to mention that you had to score well on such a test to get into them in the first place. This is, as I’ve said before, akin to having a height requirement for your school and then bragging about how tall your student body is. Not quite — kids don't get shorter over time,…

Yes quite; for example, kids who are in the 95th percentile of height at 9th grade might be only in the 60th percentile of height at 12th grade.

Re: Selection bias is the most powerful force in education

#36

Post by throwaway613834 »

sololipsist wrote: post #33
bluGill wrote: post #7

Sending a troubled kid to a great private school probably will cause the kid to do better: because all the other students are doing well the bad students peers are working hard so the bad student sees that example and is likely to succumb to peer pressure and do better. For this to work the troubled kid needs to be kept out of the gangs and whatever else outside of school will lead to bad examples. However selection…

> Sending a troubled kid to a great private school probably will cause the kid to do better ... However selection bias already does this Funny thing, though. We've done a bunch of studies on this and it doesn't actually help. The people who care about their kids more getting them into better schools, yes - but placing the kids of parents who don't care into better schools, no. This has been shown time and time again.…

> Funny thing, though. We've done a bunch of studies on this and it doesn't actually help.

> This has been shown time and time again.

One would think a link to at least one study would be appropriate here?

Re: Selection bias is the most powerful force in education

#37

Post by simonh »

throwaway613834 wrote: post #36
sololipsist wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sending a troubled kid to a great private school probably will cause the kid to do better ... However selection bias already does this Funny thing, though. We've done a bunch of studies on this and it doesn't actually help. The people who care about their kids more getting them into better schools, yes - but placing the kids of parents who don't care into better schools, no. This has been shown time and time again.…

> Funny thing, though. We've done a bunch of studies on this and it doesn't actually help. > This has been shown time and time again. One would think a link to at least one study would be appropriate here?

The original article already provided evidence, based on analysis of the performance of similar students who do and do not get into a selective school. As it says...

"Except that attending those high schools simply doesn’t matter in terms of conventional educational outcomes. When you look at the edge cases – when you restrict your analysis to those students who are among the last let into such schools and those who are among the last left out – you find no statistically meaningful differences between them."

So unless you're calling out the original article, how about offering counter-evidence?

Re: Selection bias is the most powerful force in education

#38

Post by goialoq »

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #31
devinhelton wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Integrated schools help to reduce racial achievement gaps. In fact, the racial achievement gap in K–12 education closed more rapidly during the peak years of school desegregation in the 1970s and 1980s than it has overall in the decades that followed—when many desegregation policies were dismantled. Why I don't find that evidence convincing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13904403

Care to summarize? It's a wall of quotes.

Summary from the post: "My take is that if desegregation has any impact on achievement, it is small and drowned out by other factors."

Re: Selection bias is the most powerful force in education

#39

Post by Nelkins »

A professor at the University of Rochester (my alma mater) has begun a project to better evaluate the value of a liberal arts education, and to try and quantify what impact it truly has on the career trajectories and future earnings of graduates[1].

[1] https://www.rochester.edu/pr/Review/V79N6/0304_lennie.html

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