Chetty Et Al…Are “Et” It “Al” Again!
As per a recent post about Raj Chetty, the fantabulous study he and his colleagues (i.e., Chetty, Friedman, and Rockoff) “Keep on Giving…,” and a recent set of emails exchanged among Raj, Diane, and me about their (implied) nobel-worthy work in this area, given said fantabulous study, it seems Chetty et al are “et” it “al” again!
Excuse my snarkiness here as I am still in shock that they took it upon themselves to “take on” the American Statistical Association.” Yes, the ASA as critqued by Chetty et al. If that’s not a sign of how Chetty et al feel about their work in this area, then I don’t know what is.”
Given my already close proximity to this debate, I thought it wise to consult a colleague of mine–one who, in fact, is an economist (like Chetty et al) and who is also an expert in this area–to write a response to their newly released “take” on the ASA’s recently released “Statement on Using Value-Added Models for Educational Assessment.” Margarita Pivovarova is also an economist conducting research in this area, and I value her perspective more than many other potential reviewers out there, as she is both smart and wise when it comes to the careful use and interpretation of data and methods like those at the focus of these papers. Here’s what she wrote:
What an odd set of opponents in the interpretation of ASA statement, this one apparently being a set of scholars who self-selected themselves to answer what they seemingly believed others were asking; that is, “What say Chetty et al on this?”
That being said, the overall tone of this response reminds of a “response to the editor” as if, in a more customary manner, ASA would have reviewed [the aforementioned] Chetty et al paper and Chetty et al were invited to respond to the ASA. Interestingly here, though, Chetty et al seemed compelled to take a self-assigned “expert” stance on the ASA’s statement, regardless of the fact that this statement represents the expertise and collective stance of a whole set of highly regarded and highly deserving scholars in this area, who quite honestly would NOT have asked for Chetty et al’s advice on the matter.
This is the ASA, and these are the ASA experts Chetty et al also explicitly marginalize in the reference section of their critique. [Note for yourselves the major lack of alignment between Chetty et al.'s references versus the 70 articles linked to here on this website]. This should cause others pause in terms of why Chetty et al are so extremely selective in their choices of relevant literature – the literature on which they rely “to prove” some of Chetty Et Al…Are “Et” It “Al” Again! |: