Well, this post clearly comes from the heart. This isn’t really a good thing. Don’t forget that your personal experience may not be representative of the average person.
Now, I haven’t read the book, so I have many questions. For one, how do you estimate what a person’s economic productivity would have been if they hadn’t finished school? I don’t see an obvious valid way to do it (I see many invalid ones though).
Most of the useful stuff – writing, reading, basic math – we would have learned anyway.
You probably meant “our parent’s would have taught us anyway”. Which is only true if they have the time, and if they actually know how to read, write and do basic math.
For one, how do you estimate what a person’s economic productivity would have been if they hadn’t finished school? I don’t see an obvious valid way to do it (I see many invalid ones though).
My suspicion is that if you want to engage with the literature on a subject, you need to actually read the relevant books and papers—it’s very common that someone hears about an illustrative argument, says “oh, but they didn’t rule out hypothesis X,” but of course the scientists thought of that and did actually test hypothesis X. Or you’re objecting to the use of observational studies to estimate counterfactuals, at which point you need to be thinking about rare natural experiments and basically throwing out most of the modern econometrics literature.
You probably meant “our parent’s would have taught us anyway”. Which is only true if they have the time, and if they actually know how to read, write and do basic math.
Or Sesame Street, or so on—unschooling (that is, telling the government you’re homeschooling your kids and then not) tends to result in people performing about a grade worse on tests than their age suggests, which is a pretty tiny difference considering the amount of effort that goes into schooling.
My suspicion is that if you want to engage with the literature on a subject, you need to actually read the relevant books and papers
Well, that’s a complicated question. Do I want to engage with the literature (the book)? That depends, can I take the literature seriously or is it just libertarian wet dreams? I don’t know, OP didn’t convince me entirely, so I’m asking for more details.
unschooling (that is, telling the government you’re homeschooling your kids and then not)
Interesting. But wikipedia says “Unschooling’s interest-based nature does not mean that it is a “hands off” approach to education. Parents tend to involve themselves, especially with younger children”, which is a bit different.
<...> tends to result in people performing about a grade worse on tests than their age suggests
Do you have a source for this? I would worry that the kinds of parents who choose unschooling are not a representative sample. Although if unschooling was really neglectful homeschooling, that would be interesting.
Do I want to engage with the literature (the book)? That depends, can I take the literature seriously or is it just libertarian wet dreams?
“The literature” in this context isn’t just Caplan’s book (which you can take seriously), but also the papers he’s citing and other books; a nontrivial part of his book is looking at the studies that schooling proponents do and evaluating their results.
That is, it’s one thing to, say, look at people who are pro-Green and notice all the unsupported assumptions in their reasoning, and another thing to also look at people who are pro-Blue and compare the reasoning styles. Oftentimes whole fields of knowledge are just clumsily grasping in the dark, but only critically evaluating people in that field with a particular position will lead to a misshapen view of the actual state of knowledge. Beware of the man of one study, and all that.
Do you have a source for this? I would worry that the kinds of parents who choose unschooling are not a representative sample. Although if unschooling was really neglectful homeschooling, that would be interesting.
I couldn’t find it in five minutes of searching; most things linked back to Peter Gray’s study, which didn’t look at the thing I was remembering. I do recall this being matched as well as they could, but of course the parents aren’t a representative sample.
I’m not interested in the studies of schooling proponents and I’m not citing their work. The situation is not symmetric. Schools already exist and so we know what the world with schools looks like. The question is, “what would a world without schools look like”. It’s possible that pro-school arguments are weak, and it’s possible that anti-school arguments are stronger. But even if the expected outcome of demolishing schools was positive, I would not support it unless the confidence in this outcome was also very high. Because the worst case scenario seems very bad.
When I ask if I can take Caplan’s book seriously, I’m asking if he’s aware of such considerations or if his argument ends with “there is no proof that schools work so we should demolish them”.
Of course, demolishing all schools isn’t the only option. And I guess I could update my beliefs about whether something like unschooling should be encouraged more.
Yes, Caplan is aware of all of the considerations you’ve raised. It’s a good read too.
He also doesn’t push “demolishing all schools” but cutting government subsidies. He’s also confident that that’s not going to happen. Even in the event that substantial cuts in subsidies *were* realized, he doesn’t imagine *no* schools, just significantly fewer. He also ‘supports’ subsidized grade school (as a form of daycare). His conclusions are most directed at graduate school, college, and, to a lesser extent, high school.
And maybe it’s not clear, but Caplan’s book is about the benefits of education, in its current forms, being weak *relative to their costs* (e.g. other opportunities).
If you say that, I’ll have to raise my confidence in Caplan a little bit. But I’d raise it a lot more if you hinted at what those considerations actually look like. How high is his confidence in his conclusions, and where is that confidence coming from?
Well, this post clearly comes from the heart. This isn’t really a good thing. Don’t forget that your personal experience may not be representative of the average person.
Now, I haven’t read the book, so I have many questions. For one, how do you estimate what a person’s economic productivity would have been if they hadn’t finished school? I don’t see an obvious valid way to do it (I see many invalid ones though).
You probably meant “our parent’s would have taught us anyway”. Which is only true if they have the time, and if they actually know how to read, write and do basic math.
My intention is to get to the parts of the book with the numbers and studies and calculations.
But my estimate of how economically productive someone would be without school if given the chance (e.g. no signaling issues)?
Yeah, pretty much a wash, if instead basically allowed to be a kid and given chances to do things and learn.
If you work them at hard manual labor, maybe not so much. At least, if taken to the extreme. But that’s not the relevant alternative.
Sorry, I might be having trouble parsing your reply.
In a future post?
No, I understand what your intuitive estimate is, I’m asking you to explain how you estimate it.
My suspicion is that if you want to engage with the literature on a subject, you need to actually read the relevant books and papers—it’s very common that someone hears about an illustrative argument, says “oh, but they didn’t rule out hypothesis X,” but of course the scientists thought of that and did actually test hypothesis X. Or you’re objecting to the use of observational studies to estimate counterfactuals, at which point you need to be thinking about rare natural experiments and basically throwing out most of the modern econometrics literature.
Or Sesame Street, or so on—unschooling (that is, telling the government you’re homeschooling your kids and then not) tends to result in people performing about a grade worse on tests than their age suggests, which is a pretty tiny difference considering the amount of effort that goes into schooling.
Well, that’s a complicated question. Do I want to engage with the literature (the book)? That depends, can I take the literature seriously or is it just libertarian wet dreams? I don’t know, OP didn’t convince me entirely, so I’m asking for more details.
Interesting. But wikipedia says “Unschooling’s interest-based nature does not mean that it is a “hands off” approach to education. Parents tend to involve themselves, especially with younger children”, which is a bit different.
Do you have a source for this? I would worry that the kinds of parents who choose unschooling are not a representative sample. Although if unschooling was really neglectful homeschooling, that would be interesting.
“The literature” in this context isn’t just Caplan’s book (which you can take seriously), but also the papers he’s citing and other books; a nontrivial part of his book is looking at the studies that schooling proponents do and evaluating their results.
That is, it’s one thing to, say, look at people who are pro-Green and notice all the unsupported assumptions in their reasoning, and another thing to also look at people who are pro-Blue and compare the reasoning styles. Oftentimes whole fields of knowledge are just clumsily grasping in the dark, but only critically evaluating people in that field with a particular position will lead to a misshapen view of the actual state of knowledge. Beware of the man of one study, and all that.
I couldn’t find it in five minutes of searching; most things linked back to Peter Gray’s study, which didn’t look at the thing I was remembering. I do recall this being matched as well as they could, but of course the parents aren’t a representative sample.
I’m not interested in the studies of schooling proponents and I’m not citing their work. The situation is not symmetric. Schools already exist and so we know what the world with schools looks like. The question is, “what would a world without schools look like”. It’s possible that pro-school arguments are weak, and it’s possible that anti-school arguments are stronger. But even if the expected outcome of demolishing schools was positive, I would not support it unless the confidence in this outcome was also very high. Because the worst case scenario seems very bad.
When I ask if I can take Caplan’s book seriously, I’m asking if he’s aware of such considerations or if his argument ends with “there is no proof that schools work so we should demolish them”.
Of course, demolishing all schools isn’t the only option. And I guess I could update my beliefs about whether something like unschooling should be encouraged more.
Yes, Caplan is aware of all of the considerations you’ve raised. It’s a good read too.
He also doesn’t push “demolishing all schools” but cutting government subsidies. He’s also confident that that’s not going to happen. Even in the event that substantial cuts in subsidies *were* realized, he doesn’t imagine *no* schools, just significantly fewer. He also ‘supports’ subsidized grade school (as a form of daycare). His conclusions are most directed at graduate school, college, and, to a lesser extent, high school.
And maybe it’s not clear, but Caplan’s book is about the benefits of education, in its current forms, being weak *relative to their costs* (e.g. other opportunities).
If you say that, I’ll have to raise my confidence in Caplan a little bit. But I’d raise it a lot more if you hinted at what those considerations actually look like. How high is his confidence in his conclusions, and where is that confidence coming from?