The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 12 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Caplan: Average adult knowledge of core school subjects is near zero
“I've got data on knowledge of history, government, science, and foreign languages, in addition to literacy and numeracy. Literacy and numeracy, at least there's a credible story, but the other things that I just mentioned, there if you go and look at what adul…”
Caplan: Teaching students "how to learn" is mostly wishful thinking
“In the book I review what educational psychologists have determined about this, and the main result is that most of this learning how to learn or learning how to think stuff is wishful thinking. Most of the time when someone learns a subject, the most that the…”
Caplan: Increasing school choice does not significantly raise student test scores
“I've looked at least some of the research, and it seems like the idea that if there's a lot more school choice, this will raise test scores a lot, ah, doesn't seem to be true.”
Caplan: Standard credentials and seniority do not predict actual teacher effectiveness
“The main thing known is none of, like, the obvious social science measures of teacher quality predict teacher quality. So, having credentials from better schools, or having more credentials, or even more experience, none of the standard things that are in the …”
Caplan: 1971 Griggs ruling restricts degree-based hiring as much as IQ tests
“If you look at the original case, it actually said that not only is IQ testing legally suspect, but educational credential hiring legally suspect.”
Caplan: Pushing every American kid toward college fails two-thirds of students
“And the current one where we try to keep virtually every American kid on the college track is one that doesn't work out for about two thirds of kids.”
Caplan: National education spending boosts GDP far less than personal earnings
“The main result is that the measured effect of national education on national income is much smaller than the effect of personal education on personal income, which fits very nicely with the signaling story and does not fit really with any other story out ther…”
Caplan: People fail to apply knowledge across subjects without explicit prompting
“People are very bad at applying what they've learned. Especially without external prompting, so there's a lot of experimental evidence where you'll teach, for example, either math and science or science and math, and you'll sort of randomly assign which order …”
Caplan: Education credentials drive labor market rewards independent of actual learning
“Even after you throw the whole kitchen sink in, every possible adjustment anyone's ever thought of, There still seems to be this lingering and substantial labor market reward of education that is unexplained by anything other than you've got the credential.”
Caplan: Intelligence tests predict labor market success far better than personality tests
“Intelligence tests are, you know, quite predictive, but personality tests, at least for labor market outcomes, don't seem all that predictive”
Caplan: Maintains a standing open commitment to bet on his own assertions
“I have a blanket announcement. If you think that I'm saying something ridiculous, let's form a bet on it. And like, I'm sticking my neck out. I am always open to bets”
Caplan: Vocational education boosts long-term earnings and employment rates
“First of all, there's quite a bit of research on just the selfish gains to the individual student, so even for students that do go into college, there's still pretty good evidence that, you know, vocational education in the long run rates your earnings and emp…”