Links – 01/23/2017

  • The Obama administration spent billions of dollars to overhaul the nation’s worst schools and, according to a study produced by the federal government, it didn’t produce any significant results. As the author of the article notes, this will no doubt help DeVos make the case for vouchers, as well it should.
  • Speaking of vouchers, Scott Alexander has recently written a few interesting posts on that issue, which you should read if you haven’t already. I plan to chime in on the issue of vouchers eventually, but I need to read more of the literature first and I don’t know when I will have time.
  • Seth Ackerman wrote a great piece in Jacobin a few years ago on the debate between capitalism and socialism. It’s well researched, carefully argued and, on top of that, extremely well written. It will give you something to think about regardless of whether you think that you’re a socialist or a proponent of capitalism.
  • Andrew Gelman has a nice post where he debunks that ridiculous study which made the rounds not so long ago, according to which North Carolina is no longer a democracy. I’m always amazed that American liberals are so convinced that voter ID laws and that kind of stuff make it very difficult to vote. It’s much easier to vote in the US than in France, yet turnout at presidential elections in France is typically around 80% compared to 60% in a good year in the US…
  • Jesse Singal wrote a great piece about implicit bias and the IAT in New York Magazine. I have read most of the studies he talks about, so I can say that he doesn’t distort their results. Again, most people who read the literature on implicit bias have known for a long time that many claims about that phenomenon are completely extravagant and totally unsupported by the evidence, but it’s nice to see a publication with a large audience point that out. I plan to post something about implicit bias at some point.

2 thoughts

  1. Thanks for the link on the implicit association test. I had heard some questions raised, but nothing like this synthesis.
    Also liked your post on slavery. I’ll try to read some of the work you cited.

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