PLY: Precisely what I have been warning about – some questions about the metrics & evaluation methods allied with the knee jerk hatred of the destructive left (aka the ‘we don’t want to make life better just complain’ brigade) makes for uneasy reading to end the week. We need a coherent response on the metric issues methinks. Happy to help where I can…
God’s Work – How Goldman Sachs Scammed A Utah Program Meant To Help Preschool Children
Michael Krieger – Liberty Blitzkrieg
Goldman Sachs announced last month that its investment in a Utah preschool program had helped 109 “at-risk” kindergartners avoid special education. The investment also resulted in a $260,000 payout for the Wall Street firm, the first of many payments that is expected from the investment.
Yet since the Utah results were disclosed, questions have emerged about whether the program achieved the success that was claimed. Nine early-education experts who reviewed the program for The New York Times quickly identified a number of irregularities in how the program’s success was measured, which seem to have led Goldman and the state to significantly overstate the effect that the investment had achieved in helping young children avoid special education.
Goldman said its investment had helped almost 99 percent of the Utah children it was tracking avoid special education in kindergarten. The bank received a payment for each of those children.
The big problem, researchers say, is that even well-funded preschool programs — and the Utah program was not well funded — have been found to reduce the number of students needing special education by, at most, 50%. Most programs yield a reduction of closer to 10 or 20%.