“…a must-read for serious students of economic policy.” - Glenn Hubbard, Dean, Columbia Business School, and former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers
“Unintended Consequences should be read by anyone who takes for granted the superiority of progressive taxation and has not thought carefully about the trade-offs involved.” - The New Republic
“…reminds us that inequality sends a signal of what society lacks most, in America’s case, entrepreneurship and risk taking.” - Lawrence Lindsey, CEO, The Lindsey Group, former Director of the National Economic Council
“…serious thinking for serious thinkers. …a thought-provoking blueprint for growing middle- and working-class incomes.” - Mitt Romney, former Governor of Massachusetts
“Unintended Consequences represents the most cogent and persuasive analysis of the Financial Crisis to date.” - Andrei Shleifer, 1999 John Bates Clark Medal Winner
“…a must-read for serious students of economic policy.” - Glenn Hubbard, Dean, Columbia Business School, and former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers
“Unintended Consequences is full of substance, it is one of the must-read books of the year, and once I finish it I will be giving it a second read through right away.” - Tyler Cowen, Professor, George Mason University
“…a comprehensive explanation of the modern economy.” - Julian Robertson, Founder, Tiger Management
“…challenges misconceptions that distort our economic debates.” - Arthur Brooks, President of the American Enterprise Institute
“…a very valuable contribution.” - Larry Summers, former Secretary of the Treasury and director of the National Economic Council, president emeritus, Harvard University
“…a fresh argument for the productive value of inequality.” - David Autor, Professor of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
“…a fresh argument for the productive value of inequality.” - David Autor, Professor of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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The Gates Foundation is hoping better curriculum will boost student learning. A study says, not so fast

Matt Barnum Chalkbeat

Date Posted:: March 12, 2019
Is Database:: Database

A recent study found no significant differences in student achievement gains linked to different textbooks, challenging the Gates Foundation’s curriculum-focused strategy.

A recent study, partially funded by the Gates Foundation, analyzed educational outcomes across six states and found no significant differences in student achievement gains linked to different textbooks. This finding challenges the Gates Foundation's curriculum-focused strategy, suggesting that merely changing textbooks may not substantially enhance student learning. The study's results question the effectiveness of investing heavily in curriculum changes as a means to improve educational outcomes, potentially prompting policymakers to reconsider resource allocation strategies in education. The implications are significant for educational spending, as the anticipated returns on investment in new curricula may not materialize, urging a reevaluation of how educational funds are utilized to achieve desired learning outcomes.

"...“We didn’t really find large differences in student achievement gains across different textbooks,” said the University of Maryland’s David Blazar, one of the study’s authors. It’s a surprising conclusion for the six-state analysis, which was funded in part by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and released Monday. And though it is just one study — which clashes with prior research — the results raise questions about the likelihood that the Gates Foundation’s curriculum-focused approach will boost student learning in the way its leaders hope. “This study throws some cold water on the idea that just swapping out textbooks would make a big difference,” said Morgan Polikoff, a University of Southern California professor and another of the study’s researchers...."
Matt Barnum, "The Gates Foundation is hoping better curriculum will boost student learning. A study says, not so fast,"Chalkbeat, March 11, 2019, https://chalkbeat.org/posts/us/2019/03/11/gates-foundation-curriculum-textbooks-study/

Standardized Test Scores and Academic Performance at a Public University System

Theodore Joyce, Mina Afrouzi Khosroshahi, Sarah Truelsch, Kerstin Gentsch, et al. National Bureau of Economic Research

Date Posted:: March 25, 2026
Is Database:: Database
Is Important:: Important

SAT scores are known to be better predictors of college and post-college success in Ivy+ universities. By contrast, this study of a public urban university system with 11 colleges shows that for the 2010–2019 cohort, high school GPA strongly dominates SAT scores.

Many of the country’s most selective colleges have returned to requiring the SAT, based on evidence that the test not only predicts student success, but facilitates the identification of qualified applicants from disadvantaged backgrounds. The results from our study of a large public urban university system find the opposite: high school grades are a vastly superior predictor of student academic success than is the SAT. We undertake an exercise with binned scatter plots of six year graduation rates against HSGPA [High School Grade Point Average] stratified by URM [under-represented minority] and whether the student received the maximum Pell grant (Figures 1a and 1b). [Note that SAT is included in the regression so the monotonic linear effect of GDP remains after controlling for SAT score]. We find that URM are less likely to graduate in six years at every level of HSGPA than are non-URM. In contrast, we find no similar difference when we stratify the plot by whether the student received the max Pell grant or not, a strong proxy for a low-income household (Figure 1b). The clear takeaway from the analysis of the 2010-2019 cohorts is the dominance of HSGPA in predicting student academic success. The results are in direct contrast to recent high-profile analyses of students from Ivy-plus colleges that demonstrated the superiority of SAT over HSGPA in predicting not only first-year academic outcomes, but post-college success as well.

The Lost Generation

Jacob Savage Compact Magazine

Date Posted:: December 17, 2025
Is Database:: Database
Is Important:: Important

Jacob Savage argues that the widespread discrimination against young white men in “high-status” sectors such as media and tech during the 2010s is a key driver of contemporary political dynamics among young men.

In 2011, the year I moved to Los Angeles, white men were 48% of lower-level TV writers; by 2024, they accounted for just 11.9%. The Atlantic’s editorial staff went from 53% male and 89% white in 2013 to 36% male and 66% white in 2024. White men fell from 39% of tenure-track positions in the humanities at Harvard in 2014 to 18% in 2023. The white men shut out of the culture industries didn’t surge into other high-status fields. At Google, white men went from nearly half the workforce in 2014 to less than a third by 2024—a 34% decline. In 2014, at Amazon, entry-level “professionals”—college graduates just starting out—were 42.3% white male. These were the employees who, if they’d advanced normally over the next decade, would be the mid-level managers of today. But mid-level Amazon managers fell from 55.8% white male in 2014 to just 33.8% in 2024—a decline of nearly 40%. In retrospect, 2014 was the hinge, the year DEI became institutionalized across American life.

Twelfth-Grade Math and Reading Scores in U.S. Hit New Low

Matt Barnum Wall Street Journal

Date Posted:: September 9, 2025
Is Database:: Database
Is Important:: Important

New National Assessment of Educational Progress results show the share of American high school seniors who scored basic or above on national tests fell to the lowest level on record: 68% in reading and 55% in math.

American high-school seniors’ scores on major math and reading tests fell to their lowest levels on record, according to results released Tuesday by the U.S. Education Department. Twelfth-graders’ average math score was the worst since the current test began in 2005, and reading was below any point since that assessment started in 1992. The share of 12th-graders who were proficient slid by 2 percentage points between 2019 and 2024—to 35% in reading and 22% in math. The results are from tests that are part of the National Assessment of Educational Progress, administered to tens of thousands of students in early 2024. In reading, two-thirds of seniors could determine the purpose of a persuasive essay, but only one in five was able to draw a conclusion from such an essay, supported by the text. In math, 60% of students deduced the population of an area using information on size and density, while just under half correctly turned a real-world scenario into an algebraic expression.

Standardized Test Scores and Academic Performance at Ivy-Plus Colleges

John Friedman, Bruce Sacerdote, Douglas Staiger, and Michele Tine National Bureau of Economic Research

Date Posted:: March 18, 2025
Is Database:: Database
Is Important:: Important

Students at Ivy-plus colleges whose SAT/ACT scores were at the 99th percentile had 1st-year college GPAs 0.43 points higher than those who had scored at the 75th percentile, while high school GPAs had little predictive power. @John_N_Friedman

We analyze admissions and transcript records for students at multiple Ivy-Plus colleges to study the relationship between standardized (SAT/ACT) test scores, high school GPA, and first-year college grades. Standardized test scores predict academic outcomes with a normalized slope four times greater than that from high school GPA, all conditional on students’ race, gender, and socioeconomic status. Standardized test scores do not underpredict college performance for students from less advantaged backgrounds. Collectively these results suggest that standardized test scores provide important information to measure applicants’ academic preparation that is not available elsewhere in the application file. While some of the raw correlation between these variables relates to students’ demographic characteristics, much remains even when controlling for these variables. In contrast, high school GPA does not predict academic performance nearly as well. We also find no evidence of bias against students from less advantaged backgrounds, as students from such backgrounds do not outperform (and in some cases underperform) other students with the same test score

Can Gifted Education Help Higher-Ability Boys from Disadvantaged Backgrounds?

David Card, Eric Chyn, and Laura Giuliano National Bureau of Economic Research

Date Posted:: February 21, 2025
Is Database:: Database

Card et al, find that the 25-30 percentage point college enrollment gap between disadvantaged boys and girls with IQs of ~116 closed among students who qualified for a “gifted” program. @EricChyn

We study the effects of being identified as gifted in elementary school on subsequent test scores, courses and grades, and on the probability of entering college, for disadvantaged children in a large urban school district (“the District”). The law specifies a threshold of 130 [IQ] points for non-disadvantaged students, but allows districts to select a lower “Plan B” threshold [116 pts] for FRL and ELL students. The strict IQ threshold for gifted status provides the basis for a regression discontinuity (RD) evaluation of the impacts of being identified as gifted. Figure 6 illustrates how these impacts affect gender gaps by presenting the estimated mean potential outcomes for the complying boys (left side) and complying girls (right side) using an 8-point bandwidth. The estimated college entry rate for male compliers who narrowly miss the gifted threshold is 46%; the 28 ppt treatment effect of passing the threshold raises this to 74%, which equals the rate for female compliers who narrowly miss the threshold - being identified as gifted raises the college entry rate of marginally eligible boys to the same rate as girls.

Covid Learning Losses

David Leonhardt New York Times

Date Posted:: February 12, 2025
Is Database:: Database
Is Important:: Important

.@DLeonhardt reports a sharp partisan gap in learning loss: 8 of the 10 states with the biggest math declines since 2019 – likely due to prolonged school closures – voted Democratic, while 8 of the 10 smallest shortfalls voted Republican.

Many public schools in heavily Democratic areas stayed closed for almost a year — from the spring of 2020 until the spring of 2021. In some Republican areas, by contrast, schools remained closed for only the spring of 2020. Eight of the 10 states that have lost the most ground since 2019 voted Democratic in recent presidential elections. And eight of the 10 states with the smallest math shortfalls voted Republican. [Higher initial scores don’t] explain the post-pandemic patterns. For example, New Jersey (a blue state) and Utah (a red state) both had high math scores in 2019, but New Jersey has fared much worse since then.

A recent study found no significant differences in student achievement gains linked to different textbooks, challenging the Gates Foundation’s curriculum-focused strategy.

SAT scores are known to be better predictors of college and post-college success in Ivy+ universities. By contrast, this study of a public urban university system with 11 colleges shows that for the 2010–2019 cohort, high school GPA strongly dominates SAT scores.

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Jacob Savage argues that the widespread discrimination against young white men in “high-status” sectors such as media and tech during the 2010s is a key driver of contemporary political dynamics among young men.

Related Articles:

New National Assessment of Educational Progress results show the share of American high school seniors who scored basic or above on national tests fell to the lowest level on record: 68% in reading and 55% in math.

Related Articles:

Students at Ivy-plus colleges whose SAT/ACT scores were at the 99th percentile had 1st-year college GPAs 0.43 points higher than those who had scored at the 75th percentile, while high school GPAs had little predictive power. @John_N_Friedman

Related Articles:

Card et al, find that the 25-30 percentage point college enrollment gap between disadvantaged boys and girls with IQs of ~116 closed among students who qualified for a “gifted” program. @EricChyn

Related Articles:

.@DLeonhardt reports a sharp partisan gap in learning loss: 8 of the 10 states with the biggest math declines since 2019 – likely due to prolonged school closures – voted Democratic, while 8 of the 10 smallest shortfalls voted Republican.

Related Articles: