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Why Pay House Premium "for Schools" Instead of Private Schooling?
invite response
2011 Jul 31, 3:24pm 34,234 views 147 comments
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You clearly haven't read my other comments
You clearly didn't read my comments. I actually *agreed* with you that parenting makes a huge difference. I also took a quick look at your other almost 50 comments that aren't in this thread, and none of the were particularly instructive on this issue.
Saying "I know as a fact" when empirically it's not true, however, is silly.
I see that you modified your comment above with parentheticals:
(with all these overpaid board members and millions in endowments they have to get that money where they can after all) again…. not what they were 30 years ago. Options are out there, and my point is that today private does not mean success or necessarily quality (there are plenty of liberal wacked out theories flying around the Ivy League these days in my view.)
Those board members were always paid well. The endowments were always high (and are in the billions in some cases). You seem much more concerned about ideology than making a substantive comment here about whether the Ivy League has undesirables. The comment just seems uninformed and has nothing to do with whether the Ivy League schools produce good scholars and good workers.
We pulled our sons when they were in 3rd, 5th and 7th from the schools and yes, my oldest son actually saw (as did many other students) other boys smoking pot AT Hillview. During school hours. The kids were caught, and served a small detention.
So you didn't see actual drug dealers, like I thought. As I mentioned, private schools are not devoid of pot, and people often have the ability to buy more expensive things. They just do it in their expensive homes instead.
As I mentioned, at 7th grade, you're sort of past some of the stronger influences parenting can have. It doesn't appear that your kid was the one smoking, and it's likely that will transfer to the new school. It's the Bay Area after all, it's probably likely that some of your new school's parents' smoke pot -- they certainly have the time and can afford it.
tatupu70
2011 Aug 2, 7:49am
Careful -- Freakonomics has NOTHING to do with experiments. Freakonomics is simply a backwards look at data and has more to do with chance and random discovery, than having good smarts and doing good thinking. I'd much rather have a clever thinker than someone who can pore through mounds of data just to find a random correlation.
I think you need to re-read Freakonomics. It has nothing to do with random correlations or chance. It is the scientific method. Testing a theory based on the data. It is the opposite of random correlation.
The authors are clearly clever thinkers. Why do you think otherwise?
You seem much more concerned about ideology than making a substantive comment here about whether the Ivy League has undesirables.
Precisely, that is what I am focusing on ...ideology. This is all ideology, and frankly lunacy to a great degree.
I really should not be on this thread. I don't give a damn what school does what or which produces a failure or a success to be honest. I don't have children in school, nor am I here to discuss parenting or educational issues so before the future of society issues start up that's the end of my comments on this topic.
Corntrollio: Many people KNOW when their children are quite young that the children are headed for a state university, NOT THE IVY LEAGUE. There is no need to build a resume of extracurricular excellence, they just need the appropriate SAT score, or to be in the top 10% of their class. Under this set of circumstances, the child is free to choose whatever activities he likes, and most boys would like to be on a football team or basketball team at a small school rather than to be one of the kids on the chess team or in the Madrigal Society at Gargantuan High School. Similarly, a lot of girls would like to be cheerleaders at a small school than to be on some kind of third-string pep squad at a bigger school. It shouldn't matter so much, but 14-year-olds can be so immature! heh
Corntrollio said:
You're jumping to the other end of the spectrum without sufficient justification. If your kid was a slacker in elementary and middle school, chances are that your kid will be a slacker in high school. At some point, kids get beyond your parenting, and high school is generally beyond parenting. If you haven't put a good head on your kids' shoulders by then, sending them to an exclusive private school probably where they can't hack it won't do it.
If you read what I posted carefully, you will find that my chief recommendation was shelling out for private/parochial school from 5th to 8th, and using the public system for K-4 and 9-12. IMO, kids who "go sour" usually do so by becoming bored/alienated during the middle school years. People with dysfunctional kids often will try to tell themselves and others that everything was OK up until the child turned 15 and fell in with the wrong crowd, but in the situations that I have seen up close there were clear warning signs by 7th grade. Also, middle schools and junior highs that do not separate the kids by ability tend to run "everybody can be successful" classes that have little academic content. You, Corntrollio, should be adamantly opposed to this sort of mollycoddling. After several years of cut-and-paste activities, many bright children will REFUSE to take difficult classes at the high school level, because they know that they can coast through on a lower track cutting and pasting. In addition, when they get to the high school, they may be put into higher-performing classes based on IQ, and find that they are out-gunned by the kids who went to private or parochial schools through the 8th grade, and who actually know the different parts of speech, know how to write a five-paragraph essay, etc. They feel that they are behind and can never catch up, so they just give up.
I don't know whether you have children or not, but many people deeply regret having sent their child to the "wrong" school, regardless of why the school turned out to be "wrong." I have NOT suggested some rigid one-size-fits-all strategy for choosing a school. My suggestion is to choose carefully and get the best education you can with the resources you have.
leo707
2011 Aug 2, 8:32am
SJSU churned out tons of professionals before Silicon Valley was spotlighted on the national conscience. Not even Ivy League schools have cranked out so many in recent years.
OK, so most of the worker bees in SV come SJSU. Where did all the money people, and founders of SV tech go to school?
leo707
2011 Aug 2, 8:36am
So you didn't see actual drug dealers, like I thought. As I mentioned, private schools are not devoid of pot, and people often have the ability to buy more expensive things. They just do it in their expensive homes instead.
If there are drugs in a school there are drug dealers in the school.
In general people are kidding themselves if they think private or "rich" area schools will insulate their kids from drugs and violence. Those things can happen anywhere.
And, yes... richer kids means more disposable income for more expensive drugs.
I think you need to re-read Freakonomics. It has nothing to do with random correlations or chance. It is the scientific method. Testing a theory based on the data. It is the opposite of random correlation.
The authors are clearly clever thinkers. Why do you think otherwise?
Just to be clear, the prototypical examples of Freakonomics -- e.g. a drop in crime is correlated to an increase in abortions -- are not experiments and do not involve the scientific method. They are just as well known for their statistical errors in academic circles (e.g. the police/crime/election thing).
Are you saying there are examples in the book that strictly involve scientific method -- e.g. making a hypothesis, setting control groups, randomly assigning subjects (preferably double-blind if possible) and using statistical analysis to determine whether you can statistically reject the null hypothesis? I don't think that's the case, but you should be able to tell me quite quickly.
My impression of Freakonomics and Freakonomics-type research is that it basically does post-hoc analyses of vast mounds of data to find a correlative discovery. That is pretty rote.
Many people KNOW when their children are quite young that the children are headed for a state university, NOT THE IVY LEAGUE.
But if you read carefully above, I said it's not about the Ivy League. It's about having the kid that is motivated and curious such that he/she may apply to the Ivy League. "State university" is quite broad -- do you mean the Berkeleys, Michigans, North Carolinas, UCLAs, and Virginias of the world? Those state schools accept fewer than 50% of the applicants. Or do you mean Sacramento State (no offense intended), which accepts the vast majority of applicants?
Under this set of circumstances, the child is free to choose whatever activities he likes, and most boys would like to be on a football team or basketball team at a small school rather than to be one of the kids on the chess team or in the Madrigal Society at Gargantuan High School.
That seems to be conventional stereotyping. I'm not sure why that is necessarily the case. They could just as easily be confused as to why their tiny high school has no chess team or why their tiny high school doesn't take chess seriously. By no means are sports the only thing that can make someone well-rounded, even if we are to go with that theory. Similarly, I don't know why coaching people to be mediocre helps either.
After several years of cut-and-paste activities, many bright children will REFUSE to take difficult classes at the high school level, because they know that they can coast through on a lower track cutting and pasting.\
...
In addition, when they get to the high school, they may be put into higher-performing classes based on IQ, and find that they are out-gunned by the kids who went to private or parochial schools through the 8th grade, and who actually know the different parts of speech, know how to write a five-paragraph essay, etc. They feel that they are behind and can never catch up, so they just give up.
That's actually the opposite of what I've found typical, which is that the bright and motivated children will seek out more intellectual stimulation. They'll read more and try to learn more and do more academic things. I think this says more about motivation to start out with than anything else.
I'm not sure you gave great examples there -- grammar and writing "five-paragraph essays" are very rote and not always indicative of critical thinking or intelligence.
Also, middle schools and junior highs that do not separate the kids by ability tend to run "everybody can be successful" classes that have little academic content. You, Corntrollio, should be adamantly opposed to this sort of mollycoddling.
Which middle schools are these? Any old middle school in the area I grew up in (okay city school district, neither great nor horrible) realized, for example, that some kids would be more advanced or less advanced in math, and bumped the advanced ones up to pre-algebra, algebra, etc. before the less advanced ones who wouldn't tackle those until high school. Many states have an "academically gifted"-type program that they use for this.
I have NOT suggested some rigid one-size-fits-all strategy for choosing a school.
It seems like most of the regret you're talking about is mostly about hyper-optimization in one way or another. I don't think I'm suggesting a one-size-fits-all solution either -- I think you have to be able to respond to your kid. You might raise a slacker too and need to respond adequately to that.
Maybe our sole disagreement is the time period during which things go bad. I think it's earlier than you, but we can agree to disagree. A lot of studies I've read suggest that the foundations start early. The high school level is typically far too late, and it seems like we agree on that.
This topic seems to have jumped the track. Its simply about a subject that in my opinion has become perhaps a bit too obsessive: Parents putting too much emphasis on schools and sometimes paying way too much for a house in specific neighborhoods strictly because of a belief in faith that living in such and such place near such and such school will guarantee their kids will turn out to be geniuses and succeed in life.
Its luck of the draw no matter what and spending tons of money in an attempt to buy success won't necessarily have the desired outcome. As is life.
My impression of Freakonomics and Freakonomics-type research is that it basically does post-hoc analyses of vast mounds of data to find a correlative discovery. That is pretty rote.
This is a good criticism of Freakonomics and Freakonomics-type "research" that I ran across before:
http://www.tnr.com/print/article/freaks-and-geeks-how-freakonomics-ruining-the-dismal-science
Spend $200, once, for all children, on the Robinson Curriculum. It's self-teaching: little intervention by parents above grade 3. www.RobinsonCurriculum.com.
Use Salman Khan's free videos (1+1 = 2 through calculus): www.KhanAcademy.org. Bill Gates uses it for his kids.
That's all you need. Robinson's six kids all used AP exams to quiz out of the first two years of college.
dunnross
2011 Aug 2, 9:34am
Any public school in USA is still 100 times better than the public school system in 3rd world countries.
It depends on what you call a 3rd world country. I don't know much about African schools but, I can assure you that any public school in India, Russia or Argentina is 10 times better than any public school in the US. At least all these countries have a world map in their classrooms, unlike the US schools which only have a map of the state and teach students about local Indian tribes, before teaching them about WWII or the Persian Empire.
I can assure you that any public school in India, Russia or Argentina is 10 times better than any public school in the US. At least all these countries have a world map in their classrooms, unlike the US schools which only have a map of the state and teach students about local Indian tribes, before teaching them about WWII or the Persian Empire.
Nice strawmen all around. I'm not sure what backwater school you're talking about, but I don't think I've ever been in a US classroom of the appropriate type (e.g. history/geography or elementary school) that didn't have a world map, and that's in multiple states. Many curricula I've seen tend to include local history/geography/culture in some year of elementary school, sure, but that's not to the exclusion of more advanced topics as time goes on. I don't see anything wrong with learning local, national, and international history.
This is what I was talking about when I described getting into ideological critiques rather than substantive ones.
That's not to say that certain things could be more advanced here. I believe many foreign schools get deeper into things like multiplication and division at a younger age than is typical here.
leo707
2011 Aug 2, 9:57am
Robinson Curriculum
Robinson seems kind of like a crackpot.
Robinson's six kids all used AP exams to quiz out of the first two years of college.
...and... 3 got expelled from college... why? Robinson says because he is being "persecuted", but the college does not comment. My guess is that they were trying to push some of their fathers ridiculous beliefs, but who knows.
Use Salman Khan's free videos (1+1 = 2 through calculus): www.KhanAcademy.org. Bill Gates uses it for his kids.
This actually looks like a pretty good resource. I would use it for my kids. Not a replacement for "traditional" schooling though.
Robinson's six kids all used AP exams to quiz out of the first two years of college.
That's nothing impressive in itself. You can do this at most any school with AP classes.
Use Salman Khan's free videos (1+1 = 2 through calculus): www.KhanAcademy.org. Bill Gates uses it for his kids.
This guy has become somewhat of a sensation, and he provides a good resource. This can be used to supplement teaching for sure.
Harker was amazing for our kids. They DO have scholarships available.
Loved Harker, so challenging.
Would not want most, if any, govt schools!
We had the same debate/discussion when we lived in Sunnyvale.
Fortunately our children went to a public 'alternative' school for elementary school. For high school, Fremont HS was just not a consideration. We debated whether to move to Palo Alto - for the 'schools' but learned that there were 35-40 students in those classes. Fortunately they were accepted to Menlo School which is a very rigorous college prep school. And initial tuition was $11K - back in the day. I don't know how we could rationalize the expense today but they got an incredible education in extremely small classes. Do a calculation taking into every conceivable item - there are huge costs to moving not to mention the disruption. And check out the schools you'd be moving for in order to determine whether you'd be getting the bang for the buck that you were hoping for. I'm a supporter of public schools but forty students in a class is not a win to me.
do the math, 15K per year, so, 13 years of school at 15K per year.
that's 195K....
if you have 2 kids, it's almost 400K.
now, you have to do a NPV of that
-150K minus the interest on 150K
plus 15K per year, plus 150K out when you sell the house to pay
for the kids tuition.
it's basically 9K per year on interest on the better house or 15K per year
on tuition, but you can sell the hosue.
Home school is an inexpensive option.
There is a homeschool co-op called Pioneer Family Academy. Kids go two days a week, full day, tues and thurs all day. Given enough homework to do at home M, W, F.
Most of them at 16 go to West Valley or other Jr College.
Have AA at 18 years, BA at 20 years from SJSU
All very inexpensive.
Great kids to be around!
http://gothardsisters.weebly.com/
homeschoolers!
See also garynorth.com
He has a ton of info on home school and on many other aspects of education on a budget.
The house will maintain its value through most real estate cycles. People psychologically find it easier to pay for a house rather than having to write a check to private schools.
Check out these schools for example:
http://www.movoto.com/schools.aspx
do the math, 15K per year, so, 13 years of school at 15K per year.
that's 195K....
St Francis / Bell are only 4 years (HS) so your out 60K. You can transfer from public as many did in the past. You may well have over 15 years to save so start planning now. Save and contribute around 3K a year for 15 years earning 5% return and you get to 60-65K by the time kids get in.
Two kids ? .. should have tied the tubes after the first one!
Well, we've got 3 kids and another on the way and the house we bought when our oldest was 2 is in a pretty mediocre school district. (We live in a part of Richmond that has El Cerrito schools - the one near us has average test scores but will be under construction for the next 2-3 years and the students will be in portable classrooms.) Our oldest is starting kindergarten this fall, and we've decided to go with a private co-op K-5 school for $10k per year + substantial parent participation. The school has great teachers and offers music, Spanish, and other extracurricular activities. The parents do all of the administration, driving on field trips, supervision of lunch and before/after care, maintain and clean the buildings (leased from a church).
We're happy with this option for the upcoming year, but it isn't going to be such a great option in a few more years when our twins start elementary school. I'm not sure what we're going to do at that point, but even with parent participation and sibling discounts, private school costs will get out of hand with 3+ kids. We're considering moving into a better school district or homeschooling supplemented with extracurricular activities or lessons.
chip_designer
2011 Aug 2, 5:32pm
I can assure you that any public school in India, Russia or Argentina
you are an indian, who did graduate school in russia (kind odd, I thought all hindu comes to usa), and became a missionary in argentina. :D
if you ever lived in those countries, you would know for sure what kind of public school system they have.
I'm wondering about the parochial schools - what's the churches' interest in subsiding them?
This is of course a rhetorical question.
tatupu70
2011 Aug 2, 10:43pm
My impression of Freakonomics and Freakonomics-type research is that it basically does post-hoc analyses of vast mounds of data to find a correlative discovery. That is pretty rote.
This is a good criticism of Freakonomics and Freakonomics-type "research" that I ran across before:
http://www.tnr.com/print/article/freaks-and-geeks-how-freakonomics-ruining-the-dismal-science
That criticism is much different than yours. That article seems to be saying that Levitt is giving economics a bad name because he doesn't study the "traditional" economic topics. Sumo Wrestling and Weakest Link are not worthy of study in the old guards' mind.
I didn't see much criticism of his methods, however. Your definition of the scientific method is a little too specific. Here's from wiki.
1.Define a question
2.Gather information and resources (observe)
3.Form an explanatory hypothesis
4.Perform an experiment and collect data, testing the hypothesis
5.Analyze the data
6.Interpret the data and draw conclusions that serve as a starting point for new hypothesis
7.Publish results
8.Retest (frequently done by other scientists)
Now, you're right that the data is historical rather than newly collected. So they have to be careful in their analyses, but they usually are. Their statistical techniques are usually spot on.
The best of Freakonomics work is questioning the status quo and letting data answer the question rather than conventional wisdom. Like women getting mammograms, for instance.
Done!
2011 Aug 2, 11:24pm
If "Bay Area" breaks off into the sea, then will Oakland become the new fortress?
The arguments about getting the money back from buying a house in an expensive school district vs. not getting it back when paying private school fees wouldn't work if people are economically rational. If they are rational then the extra price of housing in the good school districts should take that into account so that the net present value of the two paths is equal. Remember, that you pay a bunch of interest to buy that more expensive house that you don't get back. The total capital costs would add up to the costs of private school fees. Of course, the market might not be in this rational equilibrium, but the story is a bit more complicated than people are making out.
leo707
2011 Aug 3, 3:39am
That criticism is much different than yours.
Yeah, that was my take away from the article. Not quite sure why corn cited that article as a support for his/her criticism.
Your definition of the scientific method is a little too specific....
...Now, you're right that the data is historical rather than newly collected.
Yes! Archival data can be analyzed in much the same way that data collected just for the study.
I actually find archival studies to be some of the more interesting ones. That is because they often are:
tatupu70 says
questioning the status quo and letting data answer the question rather than conventional wisdom. Like women getting mammograms, for instance.
madhaus
2011 Aug 3, 4:25am
The advantage of the "good" school district is it buys the peer group. For the extra money you spend to live there, you get a majority of families who value education, read to their children, and provide plenty of enrichment. Your kids are surrounded by others who know their parents will react immediately if they don't do their homework. College is assumed, and the goal is to qualify for a very selective one.
Consider the not-so-joking term "Asian fail": a B. And yes, most parents would prefer their kids be stressed about homework rather than getting jumped in the restroom.
"The best of Freakonomics work is questioning the status quo and letting data answer the question rather than conventional wisdom. Like women getting mammograms, for instance."
I found some data that might be classified under freakonomics.
Recently some government information came out that said that suv's were half as likely as sedans (passenger cars) to have an accident. But what the media did not report on this is according to NTSB the death rate is actually twice as high. So combining the two if suv's get into half as many accidents as passenger cars and the death rate is twice then actually accident per accident there are four times as many deaths. Interestingly enough vans have the best safety record but the media failed to report on that as well. But that also brings up is it the car or the driver being more at fault? SUV's are more likely to be used in commercial application while vans are more likely to be used as buses. So hauling stone for masonry job where time is money vs. kids to soccer practice will certainly have people drive safer.
Although schooling is a financial decision for a family, I think the most important consideration is whether the school reflects your family's values and ideas of education, at least as much as possible. This includes the students, teachers, school district, church, whatever. Kids spend a huge amount of time at school and are greatly influenced by their peers and teachers, and the general attitude of the school. If you are willing to get involved in improving a struggling school, it can be a great experience for parents and children. Most private schools do have some sort of financial aid programs and if that is a good fit, there are ways to make that work, even on a lower income. Charter schools come with their own sets of problems, but are a great fit for some families. Magnets and homeschooling are other options. It is about the priorities for the individual family, and for parents it is really important to feel that your kids are safe and in an environment that is conducive to learning and growing. Balancing all of these priorities including housing is the challenge of the modern family. It really needs to be about what is good for the family in a holistic sense, including financial considerations.
For the investor, established "good public schools" do mean a premium on housing in the district and probably will continue to do so.
tatupu70
2011 Aug 3, 8:35am
The arguments about getting the money back from buying a house in an expensive school district vs. not getting it back when paying private school fees wouldn't work if people are economically rational. If they are rational then the extra price of housing in the good school districts should take that into account so that the net present value of the two paths is equal. Remember, that you pay a bunch of interest to buy that more expensive house that you don't get back. The total capital costs would add up to the costs of private school fees. Of course, the market might not be in this rational equilibrium, but the story is a bit more complicated than people are making out.
Interesting theory, but impractical. What should you assume for # of kids in a family? How do you adjust this for families with no kids. Also, neighborhoods with good schools often have other attractive features besides the school district. How do you adjust for that?
Another consideration is that you can drop out of the private school or apply for financial aid in the form or reduced tuition if things get tight. An expensive home in a good school district doesn't give you that option.
Another option which I've used is District of Choice. Some top rated districts give you a permanet spot and the sending district cannot contest it unless too many students have left.
And there's the old standby of using someone else's address to get into a better district. Just sayin'....
At least the Private Schools do provide actual dollar costs you can factor the premium you are paying and alternatives to buying into a high scored area. Good Luck
For us, the Harker experience was priceless... (No, I do not work there!)
The peer group was amazing. Highest AP scores in the State of California. Half the class every year is National Merit...
No tattoos, piercings, craziness, etc. If you want to be crazy and disruptive you are gone so fast from there. It is a serious learning environment.
Having said that, I think homeschool / plus co-op/ plus job could have been very rewarding for my kids.
Feel so fortunate they had an opportunity to attend Harker.
Maybe it's not for everyone for sure but it works for some quite well. Just grateful. :)
They DO have scholarships available. My kids attended on scholarship.
I live in a pretty ordinary house in Cupertino school district for the past 20 years and never did upgrade !
My kids went to the high API score public school in Cupertino till their high school. I found that my eldest child was getting lost in the huge classes in middle school and decided to send her to a private school in a smaller class setting. My son was good at academics and athletics and we decided to send him to Bellarmine as they have a very good sports program.
The experience for both my kids for private high schools was amazing. For most parts, the teachers were better than the public schools. Every school has their strong and weak departments and these schools are no exception. Every school/university, private or public have their drug issues. Some more so than others. However, the fact that there is little tolerance for these at private school helps. My son's freshman class was about 430 kids and the final graduating class was about 380. So about 50 kids left during the course of 4 years, for various reasons, including inability to handle the rigor as forced to leave on being disciplined by the school.
When we had gone to the Bellarmine presentation before making a school selection, If I remember right the presented said - "We cannot guarantee that we will send your kid to Harvard, but at the end of four years of high school, we want to see them turn out to be good human beings". I was a bit apprehensive about this, but I realize the value of this statement after my son is graduating.
Being a non-Christian, I was a bit worried about the compulsory religious subject that my son had to take, almost every semester. It turned out to be a non-issue. The school is very accepting and liberal. In the end, it turned out that my son has a very good understanding of all religions and he appreciates that.
My son loved the academic rigour and sports at Bellarmine. For him it was the best school I could send him to. He loved the school spirit and the enduring friendships that he has formed. One of his teachers was an amazing role model. It made my parenting a bit easier.
Both my kids are attending the IVY's and showing promise of doing very well at college.
I would say there is no right answer on private or public school choice. I had to spend a lot of money to get my kids through high school, since there turn out to expensive. Parental involvement is the most important, in both public and private schools. The private schools did a lot of heavy lifting for me so my involvement was lesser than had I sent them to a public school. It worked out well for us, but could as well work out well for others who are involved with their kids in a public school setting.
That criticism is much different than yours. That article seems to be saying that Levitt is giving economics a bad name because he doesn't study the "traditional" economic topics. Sumo Wrestling and Weakest Link are not worthy of study in the old guards' mind.
If you think it's a different criticism, you didn't read the whole article. Again, these things are not clever -- they're just identification.
For example:
But, at times, Levitt gave the impression he was more interested in clever techniques than answers to questions. In a 1997 paper, for example, Levitt argued that hiring more police decreases crime, a proposition for which there was surprisingly little evidence. (The fact that municipalities expand police departments when crime rates rise tends to muddle the picture.) To prove it, Levitt needed to simulate an experiment in which the size of a police force was randomly increased. His solution was to exploit the fact that mayors often hire more police officers in the run-up to an election. The only hitch, as a grad student later pointed out, was that mayors up for reelection don't actually hire many police officers, at least not enough to show that they lower crime.
In addition, the scientific method is most certainly not being used, because Levitt's conclusions are based on simply correlation without any way to prove causation. The opening argument is that abortions cut crime. This falls apart on examination:
http://www.isteve.com/abortion.htm
Now, you're right that the data is historical rather than newly collected. So they have to be careful in their analyses, but they usually are. Their statistical techniques are usually spot on.
Right, but it's an exercise in statistics then, not necessarily an exercise in scholarship or the scientific method.
The best of Freakonomics work is questioning the status quo and letting data answer the question rather than conventional wisdom. Like women getting mammograms, for instance.
A good criticism with respect to that point -- again, nothing wrong with questioning the status quo, but often Freakonomics doesn't stand up to peer review:
http://www.city-journal.org/html/eon_07_11_05sm.html
Care to point me to the mammogram thing?
You also didn't quote my original statement which is completely consistent with this article:
Freakonomics is simply a backwards look at data and has more to do with chance and random discovery, than having good smarts and doing good thinking. I'd much rather have a clever thinker than someone who can pore through mounds of data just to find a random correlation.
I'm not the only one saying this:
http://www.noapparentmotive.org/papers/DiNardo_on_Freakonomics.pdf
I actually find archival studies to be some of the more interesting ones. That is because they often are:
Sure, but that doesn't mean that they are good scholarship or that they help us answer important questions. It just means they are "interesting." Archival studies can legitimately be used for useful purposes, but that's not really what the Freakonomics-types studies do. They tend to make overbroad conclusions based on correlations.
tatupu70
2011 Aug 4, 10:21am
If you think it's a different criticism, you didn't read the whole article
Well, I disagree with that. I think the theme of the article was as I summed it. Even the paragraph you posted is talking about him being "clever". The whole article reeked of sour grapes to me.
In addition, the scientific method is most certainly not being used, because Levitt's conclusions are based on simply correlation without any way to prove causation.
Yes, proving causation is a tricky endeavor. But that is the case no matter how you do an experiment. It doesn't matter if the data is historical or new--trying to control other variables is always difficult. That doesn't mean he's not using the scientific method, however. Just that he he was wrong about which variables to control.
Right, but it's an exercise in statistics then, not necessarily an exercise in scholarship or the scientific method.
No--it's more than that. Coming up with the hypothesis, determining how to control all other factors, and analyzing the data is more than an exercise in statistics. The only difference I can see is that you are using old data rather than performing a new test. Is that why you think it's not following the scientific method? If so, why?
You also didn't quote my original statement which is completely consistent with this article:
Freakonomics is simply a backwards look at data and has more to do with chance and random discovery, than having good smarts and doing good thinking. I'd much rather have a clever thinker than someone who can pore through mounds of data just to find a random correlation.
Sorry, I thought the other quotes framed my points better. I don't agree that chance or random discovery have any bearing on Freakonomics. Do you think Levitt was sitting around looking at Sumo Wresting data and found a random correlation? Of course not. He had an idea and then found data to test this hypothesis and analyzed said data. Sounds a lot like the scientific method to me.
Sure, but that doesn't mean that they are good scholarship or that they help us answer important questions
You don't think understanding why crime rates decreased is an important question? Or whether mammograms actually decrease cancer? What is the cost? Those aren't important questions?
Finally, if your point is that Levitt didn't properly control for outside variables on some studies--that's a legitimate concern. But it means those particular studies are poor--just like papers are criticized in all sciences for similar flaws. You can't dismiss all his papers because of a mistake on one.
On mammograms:
The only difference I can see is that you are using old data rather than performing a new test. Is that why you think it's not following the scientific method? If so, why?
No, you can use the scientific method with old data -- the issue is that he's just finding random correlations on most of the questions that could be truly useful and not really finding things that are about causation.
I don't agree that chance or random discovery have any bearing on Freakonomics. Do you think Levitt was sitting around looking at Sumo Wresting data and found a random correlation? Of course not. He had an idea and then found data to test this hypothesis and analyzed said data. Sounds a lot like the scientific method to me.
So you're saying the Levitt was sitting around thinking about sumo wrestlers and then found data to prove it? That seems far more unlikely.
You don't think understanding why crime rates decreased is an important question? Or whether mammograms actually decrease cancer? What is the cost? Those aren't important questions?
Finally, if your point is that Levitt didn't properly control for outside variables on some studies--that's a legitimate concern. But it means those particular studies are poor--just like papers are criticized in all sciences for similar flaws. You can't dismiss all his papers because of a mistake on one.
On mammograms:
Is the mammogram study a freakonomics thing? Yes, that seems like valuable research.
So does crime research. But only if it's real research. A hand wavy argument that abortions lowered crime is not so useful, especially when it falls apart upon examination. That's true of most of his "studies" on important subjects like crime -- again, the police/election thing was complete BS -- the assumptions fell apart at first examination.
Again, some of his studies are *interesting* but most of them are not useful for anything and very few of them show clever thinking. They are certainly not as certain as he presents them to be either.
Many of the conclusions in the Freakonomics books that are presented as facts and conclusions are subject to heavy criticism by other scholars. Even the used house salesman example he has given has alternate explanations (I believe Arnold Kling, who I almost never agree with, had some.
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I am not a parent yet, but this has always sort of irked me. People get frenzied over which school district they are buying into and certainly, will seem to overpay for a house to get their kids into some school. Why is it that so many people take no issue with dropping an additional $100,000+ on a house to get at a school, but balk at the notion of private schooling? For $100,000 you could send your kid to a number of private K-8 schools and a college prep place like Bellarmine at $15k per year. It does not seem to compute. Thoughts?