Learning from Really Bad Graphs & Ill-informed Conclusions: Thoughts on the New PEPG “Catching Up” Report
A new policy paper from Eric Hanushek, Paul Peterson & Ludger Woessmann has been receiving considerable attention. This despite numerous completely outlandish assertions drawn from junk charts that fill the pages of this reformy manifesto.
Look, I’ve said it before and will say it again. Eric Hanusek has contributed a great deal of high quality research to the fields of education policy and economics of education over the years and I have in the past and continue to this day to rely heavily on much of it to inform my own analyses and thinking in education policy. But this kind of stuff is really just infuriating. Rather than spend too much time venting, let’s try to use this new report for instructive purposes – to instruct the casual reader how to debunk and distill complete and utter BS when presented with pretty scatterplots and glossy formatting.
First, for your reading pleasure, the complete brief may be found here:
Look, I’ve said it before and will say it again. Eric Hanusek has contributed a great deal of high quality research to the fields of education policy and economics of education over the years and I have in the past and continue to this day to rely heavily on much of it to inform my own analyses and thinking in education policy. But this kind of stuff is really just infuriating. Rather than spend too much time venting, let’s try to use this new report for instructive purposes – to instruct the casual reader how to debunk and distill complete and utter BS when presented with pretty scatterplots and glossy formatting.
First, for your reading pleasure, the complete brief may be found here: