Jens 'n' Frens
Idle thoughts of a relatively libertarian Republican in Cambridge, MA, and whomever he invites. Mostly political.
"A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many bad measures." -- Daniel Webster
Friday, September 03, 2010 :::
Megan McArdle highlights the problems with an education study claiming that small schools are better by sorting schools in North Carolina by decile and finding the proportion of each group that was ranked in the top 25 schools in the state sometime between 1997 and 2000.
Even without the volatility issues she highlights, I would have to suspect data mining. It seems an odd number to look at. If I were picking an example to emulate, it wouldn't be "occasionally excellent", it would be "generally very good" or "consistently good" or "never at the bottom".