This post is an essay by Max Roser from the website Our World in Data. Here's a link to the original. Roser is the founder of that website, which I have found an invaluable source for valid data on all manner of subjects relevant in today's world. I check it out every day to check out … Continue reading Max Roser — The Limits of Personal Experience and the Value of Statistics
This post is a very recent piece by Larry Cuban, which he posted on his blog two days ago. I just love it. He asks, What's the problem with being an average student? How did average school achievement become redefined as mediocre? This piece picks up on a theme I've been working on in … Continue reading Larry Cuban — Success, Failure, and “Mediocrity” in U.S Schools
This is my first ever Pollyanna post. I wrote it last year in order to cheer myself about the world we live in. I think it still stands up. We Live in the Best of Times We seem to be in a world … Continue reading We Live in the Best of Times — Really
This post is an essay by Christopher Mims, which was published recently in the Wall Street Journal. Here's a link to the original. He's presenting an argument I find compelling about how artificial intelligence is not really thinking -- at least not in the way that humans actually think. Here's how he puts it: There’s something … Continue reading Christopher Mims — We Now Know How AI “Thinks” — And It’s Barely Thinking at All
This is a paper I published Educational Theory back in 2011 about the factors shaping the rise of quantification in education research. It still seems relevant to a lot of issues in the field educational policy. Here's an overview of the argument: In this paper I explore the historical and sociological elements that have made educational researchers … Continue reading The Lure of Statistics for Educational Researchers
This post is a classic paper by Peter Rossi from 1987 (Research in Social Problems and Public Policy, Volume 4, pages 3-20), which addresses a chronic problem in all policy efforts to change complex social systems. The social organizations of modern life are so large, so complex, so dependent on the cooperation of so many … Continue reading Peter Rossi: The Iron Law of Evaluation and Other Metallic Rules
This essay is a stunning recent opinion piece from the New York Times. Here's a link to the original. It draws on the authors' new book, Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment. The title tells the story. It's about how bias is not the only threat to making good judgments; there's also the problem of … Continue reading Kahneman et al — Bias Is a Big Problem. But So Is ‘Noise.’
David Labaree on Schooling, History, and Writing 