(Guest post by Greg Forster)
Still catching up on a travel backlog – in case you missed it, here’s my latest pod-type casting module over the inter-net system of tubes via Heartland. Main topic: the delicate balance between truth and power, and how the late unpleasantness shows the dangers to which some education reformers are already succumbing as they displace the minions of the blob as gatekeepers to the center of the conversation. Our old friend Jack Jennings, aka the human torch, also makes an appearance!
Jay P. Greene's Blog 
You make a number of outstanding points Greg. It is no accident that the hybrid schooling model has emerged from the charter school primordial soup. Districts, as you note, lack any need or incentive to innovate. Private schools typically operate as non-profit niche players. They are receiving a much bigger pinch from charter schools than the districts, but many are obviously set in their ways.
Well done, Greg. A vivid clarification of what you mean by truth vs. power crystallized for me while listening. I’m now seeing it as sober, humble, and disciplined accuracy vs. inebriated ambition. Of course, that’s not nearly as concise.
Nice interview. Many solid points. For those of us who are closely following developments, can you elaborate on which “reform” entities have been reluctant to acknowledge errors in published material?
Oops. I meant for those of us who are NOT closely following developments.
See here, here, here and here for backfill.
Also special bonus humor value here (part of this series).
Greg,
Thanks very much. Did the LATImes do any followup? Did Dillon respond at all to the independent experts you enlisted to confirm your view? Has GATES backtracked?
George
The LA Times did issue a correction but neither the New York Times nor the Gates Foundation ever issued a correction.
As Tevye says in Fiddler on the Roof: “When you’re rich they think you really know.”
The NYTimes has a Sunday columnist who is something of an ombudsman. You have assembled enough information to call Dillon’s actions into question. Columbia Journalism Review used to look into such issues; not sure they still do. You have Dillon cold and should try to exploit your excellent analysis of his (and Gates’) errors. How powerful was the LATimes correction?
I’ve given up on the NYT and don’t think appealing to their ombudsman is worth my time. Besides, the error is really by Gates. DIllon just repeated the false thing he was told. Of course, even when reporters provide false information through no fault of their own, they are usually interested in setting the record straight. Dillon does not appear to be burdened by this concern.
The correction in the LA Times was not too strong. They bought the Gates fall-back falsehood that drill and kill has a lower correlation and is therefore less helpful, even if it is not harmful. The reality is that it is not appropriate to compare the magnitude of a series of pairwise correlations to decide the relative impact of each variable. That has to be done in a multivariate analysis. Any decent researcher knows this and the Gates researchers are excellent and certainly know that it is wrong to compare correlations.
But as you can imagine reading the last paragraph, the issue is too technical-sounding for most journalists and they are reluctant to call-out the Gates researchers on this. Since the Gates researchers certainly know that their comparison was inappropriate, one can guess that the whole thing is part of an extremely cynical strategy to make the “scientific” claims they wish even though they don’t have the evidence to back them up.