The Null Hypothesis Strikes Again

Stephen L. Morgan and Sol Bee Jung write,

The results demonstrate that expenditures and related school inputs have very weak associations not only with test scores in the sophomore and senior years of high school but also with high school graduation and subsequent college entry. Only for postsecondary educational attainment do we find any meaningful predictive power for expenditures, and here half of the association can be adjusted away by school-level differences in average family background. Altogether, expenditures and facilities have much smaller associations with secondary and postsecondary outcomes than many scholars and policy advocates assume. The overall conclusion of the Coleman Report—that family background is far and away the most important determinant of educational achievement and attainment—is as convincing today as it was fifty years ago.

Pointer from Timothy Taylor, who links to other papers, not all of them as supportive of the null hypothesis.

1 thought on “The Null Hypothesis Strikes Again

  1. But single parent households, due to Dem-feminist “sexual liberation” and the promotion of promiscuity and pregnancy over marriage based sex has had a larger negative effect on blacks.
    Therefore, the truth that sexual promiscuity contributes to poverty is a “racist truth” and is suppressed. Even if you’re talking about how so many, maybe most, poor whites now come from “broken” families, it’s not PC to talk about the truth.

    And since this primary truth dominates the many secondary truths & half-truths, but remains uncorrected, the problem ain’t gonna be solved.

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