An editorial in the Strib Nov. 2 swallowed whole the correlation-proves-causation premise:
A recent Alliance for Excellent Education study documented the state-by-state economic impact of high school dropouts. Researchers at the Washington-based school change advocacy group determined that if all Minnesota 2003 freshmen had received their diplomas in 2007, the state would have an additional $3.9 billion to work with over the students’ lifetimes. Nationally, $330 billion in wages would be added to the economy, the group’s study estimated.
Right. And since married men are healthier than single men, we could save billions on health care if we just mandated stadium-scale mass marriages.
No, the reality is that students who do graduate from high school are different in significant ways from students who do not, and those differences, on average over an adult lifetime, translate into higher earnings. Awarding high school diplomas to people who otherwise resemble high schoool dropouts — as the GED program has amply demonstrated — does essentially nothing to change their lifetime income.
Yes, it’s true that if students learn in high school how to perform at the top of their abilities, whatever that happens to be, they are more likely to graduate and also to earn more than if they drop out after a well-established record of ditching. But graduation is an effect, not a cause.
You want anecdote? I have anecdote. My son Peter didn’t graduate from high school, and it didn’t hurt him a bit.
Well, to be more informative, he started taking college courses the summer after ninth grade (Intensive Chinese at the University of Minnesota) and then we dragged him off to Shanghai for a sabbatical year, and when we came back he enrolled in college, and graduated in three years. He shoulda spent three years in high school instead?
Dear Ms. Seebach — I apologize for exploiting the comment feature at your blogsite for a purpose not wholly appropriate. I just learned of your retirement from Rocky Mountain News after my email note to you was returned as undliverable. I am copying (below) that email note, and I appreciate any forwarding or replying that you may be motivated to supply. Best Wishes, Phil Ardery
Date: Sun, 11 Nov 2007 07:34:41 -0500 [07:34:41 EST]
From: ard@thepoint.net
To: seebach@rockymountainnews.com
Subject: Follow-up on your article 2+ years ago
Headers: Show All Headers
Dear Ms. Seebach –
In September 2005, you wrote an article about a Shell Oil process for extracting oil from underground shale that “should be commercially feasible with world oil prices at $30 a barrel. The energy balance is favorable; under a conservative life-cycle analysis, it should yield 3.5 units of energy for every 1 unit used in production.”
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/news_columnists/article/0,1299,DRMN_86_4051709,00.html
I’ll be grateful to learn what you may know today about that process. Is Shell still keeping it under wraps? Did the 3.5 favorable energy multiplier take a nose dive when Shell processed on a larger scale? Did the underground heating produce undesirable side effects, not anticipated at the time you wrote the article? Etc.
Thanks and regards,
Phil Ardery
Louisville, KY
daytime phone: 502.456.2802
And watch me do the same. Now why did you have to go and retire?
I have a story for you all the same: if you’re interested, email me at gccochran9@comcast.net
Gregory Cochran
Hi Linda,
This seems to be a trend with people trying to contact you…Back in February of 2007, you reviewed Siegfried “Zig” Engelmann’s latest book The Outrage of Project Follow Through. Well, the book DID get published and Zig would like to send you a copy. Please call or email at your convenience with an appropriate address.
Best Regards,
Amy Johnston
Director of Evaluation and School Relations
National Institute for Direct Instruction
Phone 541-485-1973
ajohnston@nifdi.org
Linda, you’re in Denver?!? Hi, neighbor.
Then you have another great example: Just recently, the news (sorry, I don’t watch TV news – ugh! – so I’m repeating from what friends have said) reported that when Colorado has a below-average snowfall, the Avalanche (the hockey team, for non-local readers) does better. The worse the drought, the better they do.
The original report had the “causation” in that direction: If we can’t water our lawns next summer, the Avalanche will go to the play-offs.
Even better, later in the newscast the weather lady reversed it and said, “we have better ways of predicting the weather than Avalanche games.”
O would that she were correct.