The Denominator Law

September 16, 2008

Education policy debates should have a law.  No one should be allowed to highlight numerators without also presenting denominators.  That is, it is often misleading to describe a big number without putting that number in perspective.  In almost every education policy issue we see debates distorted by large numbers (the numerators) without the benefit of perspective that comes from also mentioning the denominator.

For example, the placement of disabled students in private schools is a regular sore spot for school districts and the topic of numerous alarming articles in the media.  New York City complained as part of its lawsuit in the Tom F. case that private placements initiated by parent request were costing NYC schools $49.3 million in a single school year.

Wow, that sounds like a huge burden — it’s millions of dollars!  But that is just the numerator.  If we add the denominator to the discussion, private placements no longer seem like a large financial burden.  NYC has a total annual budget of about $17 billion.  Once we add the denominator we see that private placement consists of about .3% of the NYC budget.  And if we consider that disabled students would have to be educated in the public schools if they were not placed in private schools, the additional cost of private placement is less than .1% of the total NYC budget.  See what a difference a denominator can make?

Articles in the New York Times, Time Magazine, the San Francisco Chronicle, Boston Globe, etc… lament the crushing burden of private placements.  One would think from all of these articles that private placements happen all of the time.  In fact, there are 57,708 disabled students using public funds to be educated in private schools at parental request.

Wow, that’s tens of thousands of students.  But wait.  There are more than 6 million disabled students and almost 49 million total students in K-12 education.  So privately placed students represent less than 1% of all disabled students and about one-tenth of one percent of all students.  Enforcing the denominator law would have a huge effect on news coverage of this issue.

The presentation of numerators without denominators also distorts the “boy crisis” debate.  In a recent report issued by the American Association of University Women, they argue that boys are doing fine since the number of men graduating college has increased over time: “More men are earning college degrees today in the United States than at any time in history. During the past 35 years, the college educated population has greatly expanded: The number of bachelor’s degrees awarded annually rose 82 percent, from 792,316 in 1969–70 to 1,439,264 in 2004–05.” It’s true that the number of women enrolled in college has increased even faster, they claim, but as long as college enrollment is rising for both men and women, there is no cause for alarm.

But there are also more people in the United States over time.  How do things look when we add a denominator to the discussion?  In 2006 25.3% of men between the ages of 25 and 29 had a BA or higher.  If we look at the cohort of men three decades earlier (ages 55-59) 34.7% have a BA or higher.  Educational attainment is declining for men once we add the denominator.  The same comparisons for women show an increase from 27.4% holding a BA or higher among those ages 55-59, rising to 31.6% among women ages 25-29.

The Denominator Law is important because the number of people and dollars involved in education is so huge that everything seems big without the benefit of the perspective that denominators bring.

2 Comments | journalism, special ed | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Jay P. Greene

Strawman — er, I mean — Strawperson

May 22, 2008

The American Association of University Women released a report this week attempting to debunk concerns that have been raised about educational outcomes for boys.  The AAUW report received significant press coverage, including articles in the WSJ and NYT. 

But the AAUW report simply debunks a strawman — er, I mean — strawperson.  The report defines its opponents in this way: “many people remain uncomfortable with the educational and professional advances of girls and women, especially when they threaten to outdistance their male peers.”  Really?  What experts or policymakers have articulated that view?  The report never identifies or quotes its opponents, so we left with only the Scarecrow as our imaginary adversary.

Once this stawperson is built, it’s easy for the report to knock it down.  The authors argue that there’s no “boy crisis” because boys have not declined or have made gradual gains in educational outcomes over the last few decades.  And the gap between outcomes for girls and boys has not grown significantly larger. 

This is all true, as far as it goes, but it does not address the actual claims that are made about problems with the education of boys.  For example, Christina Hoff Sommers’ The War Against Boys claims: “It’s a bad time to be a boy in America… Girls are outperforming boys academically, and girls’ self-esteem is no different from boys’. Boys lag behind girls in reading and writing ability, and they are less likely to go to college.”  Sommers doesn’t say that boys are getting worse or that the gap with girls is growing.  She only says that boys are under-performing and deserve greater attention. 

Nothing in the new AAUW report refutes those claims.  In fact, the evidence in the report clearly supports Sommers’ thesis.  If we look at 17-year-olds, who are the end-product of our K-12 system, we find that boys trail girls by 14 points on the most recent administration of the Long-Term NAEP in 2004 (See Figure 1 in AAUW).  In 1971 boys trailed by 12 points.  And in 2004 boys were 1 point lower than they were in 1971. 

In math the historic advantage that boys have had is disappearing.  In 1978 17-year-old boys led girls by 7 points on the math NAEP, while in 2004 they led by 3 points.  (See Figure 2 in AAUW)  Both boys and girls made small improvements since 1978, but none since 1973.

Boys also clearly lag girls in high school graduation rates.  According to a study I did with Marcus Winters, 65% of the boys in the class of 2003 graduated with a regular diploma versus 72% of girls.  Boys also lag girls in the rate at which they attend and graduate from college.  While boys exceed girls in going to prison, suicide, and violent deaths.

It takes extraordinary effort by the AAUW authors to spin all of this as refuting a boy crisis.  They focus on how the gap is not always growing larger and that boys are sometimes making gains along with girls.  They also try to divert attention by saying that the gaps by race/ethnicity and income are more severe.  But no amount of spinning can obscure the basic fact that boys are doing quite poorly in our educational system and deserve some extra attention.

To check out what other bloggers are saying on this report see Joanne Jacobs, and just this morning, Carrie Lukas in National Review Online.

3 Comments | methodology, research reports | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Jay P. Greene