Helicopters can improve minority college attendance & other misguided policy implications: Comments on the Brookings “Voucher” Study
Here’s my quick response to the Brookings report released yesterday on the long term effects of vouchers on a randomized pool of participants in New York City.
Let’s say I conducted a study in which I rented a fleet of helicopters and used those helicopters to, on a daily basis, transport a group of randomly selected students from Camden, NJ to elite private day schools around NJ and Philadelphia. I then compared the college attendance patterns of the kids participating in the helicopter program to 100 other kids from Camden who also signed up for the program but were not selected and stayed in Camden public schools. It turns out that I find that the helicopter kids were more likely to attend college – therefore I conclude logically that “helicopters improve college attendance among poor, minority kids.” The simple policy solution then is to rent more helicopters and use them to send kids, well, wherever. After all, it’s the helicopters that matter????? Clearly, that would be a ridiculous assertion.
Similarly, the “major” findings of the new Brookings study were that, in particular, black participants in the
Let’s say I conducted a study in which I rented a fleet of helicopters and used those helicopters to, on a daily basis, transport a group of randomly selected students from Camden, NJ to elite private day schools around NJ and Philadelphia. I then compared the college attendance patterns of the kids participating in the helicopter program to 100 other kids from Camden who also signed up for the program but were not selected and stayed in Camden public schools. It turns out that I find that the helicopter kids were more likely to attend college – therefore I conclude logically that “helicopters improve college attendance among poor, minority kids.” The simple policy solution then is to rent more helicopters and use them to send kids, well, wherever. After all, it’s the helicopters that matter????? Clearly, that would be a ridiculous assertion.
Similarly, the “major” findings of the new Brookings study were that, in particular, black participants in the
