The post discusses comments on DC's low graduation rates, focusing on strict attendance policies, challenging teaching environments, and systemic issues in the school district. Longer summary

This post highlights comments on DC's low graduation rates, focusing on the strict attendance policy and its effects on students. The main issues discussed are the '80-20' rule, how it disproportionately affects poor and single-parent households, and how it contributes to failing grades. Other comments describe the challenging teaching environment in DC schools, including student misbehavior, lack of administrative support, and systemic corruption. The post also touches on comparisons with other school districts and questions about centralized vs. localized control of education systems. Shorter summary

Scott analyzes the projected drop in DC's high school graduation rates, exploring various explanations and comparing DC to other states, ultimately suggesting widespread inflation of graduation rates elsewhere. Longer summary

This post discusses the projected drop in high school graduation rates in Washington DC from 73% to 42%. Scott examines possible explanations, including incompetent administration, unique challenges due to demographics, and overcorrection from previous fraud. He analyzes test scores and compares DC to other states, finding that DC's scores, while low, don't justify such a low graduation rate. Scott suggests that many other cities might be using fraud and low standards to inflate their graduation rates, and that DC's projected rate might be an overcorrection that unfairly penalizes students. He hopes DC will find ways to graduate more students to align with national norms. Shorter summary

Scott Alexander argues that a New York Times article misrepresented economists' views on school vouchers, offering evidence and proposing a bet to prove the article was misleading. Longer summary

Scott Alexander critiques a New York Times article that claimed economists generally don't support school vouchers. He argues the article misrepresented survey data and gave a misleading impression. Scott points out that the data could be interpreted to support the opposite conclusion, that the article's phrasing likely led readers to an incorrect understanding of economists' views, and that a follow-up survey showed much stronger economist support for vouchers. He offers to bet that most readers would get a false impression from the article, initially agreeing to a bet with Noah Smith, though this later fell through. Shorter summary

Scott Alexander criticizes a New York Times article for misrepresenting economists' views on education vouchers, showing the data actually indicates more support than opposition among economists. Longer summary

Scott Alexander critiques a New York Times article about economists' views on education vouchers. The article claims economists generally don't support free market approaches to education, but Scott points out that the survey data cited actually shows more economists support vouchers than oppose them. He argues this misrepresentation is poor journalistic practice and hopes for a correction. Shorter summary

Scott summarizes diverse perspectives from comments on his school choice article, covering topics like education costs, charter schools, and potential market failures in education. Longer summary

This post summarizes key points from the comment thread on Scott's previous article about school choice. It covers various perspectives on for-profit vs. nonprofit schools, cost increases in education, food deserts, charter schools, and potential market failures in education. Scott notes some arguments that made him more pessimistic about charter schools, but maintains that careful experimentation is needed. The post concludes by acknowledging that Betsy DeVos' policies don't qualify as careful experimentation. Shorter summary

Scott Alexander critiques psychological studies claiming large effects from simple interventions, suggesting their impressive results may be due to flawed research rather than genuinely effective treatments. Longer summary

Scott Alexander examines three psychological studies that claim significant improvements in academic performance and behavior from simple interventions. He contrasts these with a large, expensive early intervention program for troubled youth that showed only modest effects. This leads him to question whether psychological research is flawed or if other interventions are ineffective. After closer examination, he finds potential issues with each study's methodology or reporting, suggesting that the impressive results may be due to poor research standards rather than genuinely effective interventions. He concludes by comparing this situation to an XKCD comic about economic theories, implying that if these psychological interventions truly worked as claimed, we would see much more significant improvements in education, rehabilitation, and mental health. Shorter summary