SCHOOL FOR THOUGHT

The Moynihan Challenge: school choice variation

OK all you school choice opponents:  Matthew Ladner has a challenge for you.  If you don’t know Dr. Matthew Ladner, look it up.  Dr. Ladner has a variation of what has been termed the Moynihan Challenge.  The late U.S. senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (a democrat) issued it when faced by studies that often showed confusing results as justification spending for this or that program.

“The late senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D., N.Y.) related an insightful anecdote in his book Miles to Go. Senator Moynihan asked Laura D’Andrea Tyson of the Clinton Administration for two supportive studies justifying the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on a favored program. Moynihan received two studies the following day, but after reading them, noted that both studies actually concluded similar programs had failed to produce any positive results. In response, Moynihan wrote the following in a letter to Tyson:

“‘In the last six months I have been repeatedly impressed by the number of members of the Clinton administration who have assured me with great vigor that something or other is known in an area of social policy which, to the best of my understanding, is not known at all. This seems to me perilous. It is quite possible to live with uncertainty, with the possibility, even the likelihood that one is wrong. But beware of certainty where none exists. Ideological certainty easily degenerates into an insistence upon ignorance.”

Ladner reflected, “Pronouncements by school-choice opponents are rife with such ideological certainty.” So Ladner issued a similar challenge four years ago.

“The first person in the nation who can send me two random assignment school-choice studies showing significant declines in either academic performance or parental satisfaction will win a steak dinner. I’ll even throw in drinks and dessert - the whole nine yards. You have one month to send the studies to .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). Feel free to forward this to your anti-school-choice friends and invite them to play. The more the merrier.”

I asked Ladner if any one has been successful yet, especially when year after year school choice brings academic success to students and satisfaction to parents as indicated once again here.  He says he is still waiting.