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Empirical evidence is information that researchers generate to help uncover answers to questions that can have significant implications for our society. Take seatbelts. Prior to their invention, people were killed or maimed in what today we would think of as minor traffic accidents. So smart engineers put their heads together to try to do something […]
Based on recent media coverage, you might get the impression that the Florida Tax Credit (FTC) Scholarship Program operates in some kind of Mad Max free-for-all, where families are routinely exploited by ne’er-do-well school operators. An editorial in the Orlando Sentinel decried “your tax dollars” being “whisked away” to private schools and called for an […]
In September, Matt Di Carlo and Kinga Wysienska-Di Carlo published an interesting research brief for the Albert Shanker Institute, wherein they used data from the Common Core of Data and the Private School Universe Survey (both administered by the US Department of Education) to track levels of segregation in public, private and charter schools in […]
Students with special needs are a vulnerable population. Often, they lack the ability to effectively advocate for themselves within the classroom or school house. Diagnoses can be complicated and contradictory—incredible strengths in one area can be tempered by profound deficiencies in others. No two children with special needs are alike. This is perhaps why both […]
Tell me if you’ve heard this chestnut before: “We can’t let parents choose their child’s school because they don’t have enough information to make a good choice.” Lord knows I have. Like many old adages that have a kernel of truth suffocating under a pile of manure, this statement does have some merit. Insofar as […]
Determining if a policy actually causes some impact on people’s lives is an incredibly difficult task. Humans are complex creatures, and the world that we live in has lots and lots of interconnected moving parts. It is a challenge to see how altering one small part of it, say by offering a student a voucher, […]
In 1979, there were 9,640 Catholic schools in the United States. By 2011, there were 6,841. That decline has been caused by a number of factors, each of which is worth exploring further—as are the policies that can contribute to their possible resurrection. From 2001 to 2011, the number of private Catholic schools decreased at […]
The holy grail of research is the causal claim. That is, if you can prove that A causes B, not that A is related to B or that A is similar to B, you can cure diseases, create rockets that leave our atmosphere, and design social programs that help people live better lives. In medicine, […]