Beauty School Dropout!

According to this article in the Washington Post, the two reports from these guys on the reality of school drop-out rates has taken the education policy community by storm. Am I so out of the loop that I didn't notice? I really have to stop being cheap and just subscribe to a couple publications. I'm a little myopic - if it doesn't pertain to language issues or higher ed, I'm really not as interested.

Apparently, however we determine school dropout rates, it's wrong. According to one guy with experience in the corporate world, only 12% of people don't have a college degree or its equivalent; according to the other guy, inner city schools underestimate their dropout rates by as much as 20%. Maybe it's "New Math."

At the AERA conference this year (American Educational Research Association, for the uninitiated and still breathing - probably the most boring conference I've been to in my life), some of my colleagues from school were getting very hot and bothered about statistical research methods. At the time I thought, Oh God, Save Me (I don't even like qualitative research - I like to look at symbols and narratives and all that English major gone wild stuff). However, when you read an article like this, it demonstrates how we need people to be honest with their data. If you take data from every year regarding a certain variable, for instance, high school dropout rates of African-Americans, you will have different data than if you take it every five years.

The conclusion of the article is, of course, that more money needs to be put into studying this. Right. So you people can get paid. Their argument is that millions of dollars are poured into determining the unemployment rate each month. I guess it's a fair comparison... the problem is that demanding money time and time again gets old. If they can't even agree on how we should measure this statistic, they why should we feel confident forking over a bunch of money to them? Show why you deserve money for this project - demonstrate how it's useful to our society, our economy, our government, and then we can give you money. Again, I've said I'm a Democrat, but I come from a staunch Republican family and it definitely influences my thinking. My dad says that Democrats are all about entitlement - my feeling is, if these guys can prove they deserve the money, then they should get it. But prove yourselves first. I'm not giving you crap until you seem to have earned it.

I might be singing a different tune when I'm working on a research project...

Dropout Data Raise Questions on 2 Fronts: One Side Says Problem Isn't as Dire as Thought, but Others Doubt Research
(Washington Post, May 23, 2006 Page A08)