I really don't want this comment to come across as a hot take, but this article saddens me. Even if we accept the results of this study as completely valid, "Air filters create educational gains"...
I really don't want this comment to come across as a hot take, but this article saddens me. Even if we accept the results of this study as completely valid, "Air filters create educational gains" sounds like a sort of dystopian spin on "Indoor pollution has measurable negative impact on cognitive development of kids". Air filters get touted as means for raising test scores and closing the achievement gap rather than something we should do because our students should be able to be in schools where they can breathe good quality air. That's an uncomfortable emphasis to me.
Also, please take their mention of KIPP schools with a grain of salt. This is a bit of an aside, and I'm not up to date on them, but I doubt that their data is representative of the populations that they are serving. In my interview with a KIPP school years ago, I asked the principal directly what interventions were in place for students with significant behavioral issues, and they said something to the effect of "A student like that wouldn't last very long here."
Sure enough, when I started working at a public school near this same KIPP school, we would get students who had been forced out of it, especially in the month or so before state standardized testing. A lot of the area charter schools, this KIPP school included, would push out their worst-performing students as a way of cooking the books in their favor. It was both flagrant and unjust. I don't know that this is the practice at all KIPP schools (they operate in different states which have different laws applying to charters), and I don't know that it's a current practice anymore, but it was at this particular one at the time that I was teaching nearby, and it soured me on their entire network. They've always presented themselves as the data-driven success story leading the charge for charters, but I don't trust that their methods serve all students or even that their data shows what they're saying it does.
Oh that's interesting! I remember when I was in grade school to middle school we were constantly being shown numbers that showed Japanese students our age were several grades ahead of us in math....
Oh that's interesting! I remember when I was in grade school to middle school we were constantly being shown numbers that showed Japanese students our age were several grades ahead of us in math. Years later we learned it was because they kick out the students who don't perform well, just like you mention here. Absolutely awful.
That said, I found this of interest because this is not too far from where I live (Los Angeles). The Aliso Canyon incident a couple of years ago involved a gas well leaking to the point where they had to evacuate the town these kids are in. The well has been fixed, but the air quality still hasn't fully recovered. Seeing such a simple remedy gave me some hope that people in that area (particularly kids) might get some aspects of their normal life back soon.
Good points! Thanks for pointing this out. I like seeing these things play out. I don't have a very good statistical background other than taking 1 or 2 classes in college that I barely remember,...
Good points! Thanks for pointing this out. I like seeing these things play out. I don't have a very good statistical background other than taking 1 or 2 classes in college that I barely remember, so it's good to have these types of analyses.
The school district didn’t reengineer the school buildings or make dramatic education reforms; they just installed $700 commercially available filters that you could plug into any room in the country.
...
He finds that math scores went up by 0.20 standard deviations and English scores by 0.18 standard deviations, and the results hold up even when you control for “detailed student demographics, including residential ZIP Code fixed effects that help control for a student’s exposure to pollution at home.”
I really don't want this comment to come across as a hot take, but this article saddens me. Even if we accept the results of this study as completely valid, "Air filters create educational gains" sounds like a sort of dystopian spin on "Indoor pollution has measurable negative impact on cognitive development of kids". Air filters get touted as means for raising test scores and closing the achievement gap rather than something we should do because our students should be able to be in schools where they can breathe good quality air. That's an uncomfortable emphasis to me.
Also, please take their mention of KIPP schools with a grain of salt. This is a bit of an aside, and I'm not up to date on them, but I doubt that their data is representative of the populations that they are serving. In my interview with a KIPP school years ago, I asked the principal directly what interventions were in place for students with significant behavioral issues, and they said something to the effect of "A student like that wouldn't last very long here."
Sure enough, when I started working at a public school near this same KIPP school, we would get students who had been forced out of it, especially in the month or so before state standardized testing. A lot of the area charter schools, this KIPP school included, would push out their worst-performing students as a way of cooking the books in their favor. It was both flagrant and unjust. I don't know that this is the practice at all KIPP schools (they operate in different states which have different laws applying to charters), and I don't know that it's a current practice anymore, but it was at this particular one at the time that I was teaching nearby, and it soured me on their entire network. They've always presented themselves as the data-driven success story leading the charge for charters, but I don't trust that their methods serve all students or even that their data shows what they're saying it does.
Oh that's interesting! I remember when I was in grade school to middle school we were constantly being shown numbers that showed Japanese students our age were several grades ahead of us in math. Years later we learned it was because they kick out the students who don't perform well, just like you mention here. Absolutely awful.
That said, I found this of interest because this is not too far from where I live (Los Angeles). The Aliso Canyon incident a couple of years ago involved a gas well leaking to the point where they had to evacuate the town these kids are in. The well has been fixed, but the air quality still hasn't fully recovered. Seeing such a simple remedy gave me some hope that people in that area (particularly kids) might get some aspects of their normal life back soon.
This response/analysis thinks that the study actually shows nothing at all: https://statmodeling.stat.columbia.edu/2020/01/09/no-i-dont-think-that-this-study-offers-good-evidence-that-installing-air-filters-in-classrooms-has-surprisingly-large-educational-benefits/
Good points! Thanks for pointing this out. I like seeing these things play out. I don't have a very good statistical background other than taking 1 or 2 classes in college that I barely remember, so it's good to have these types of analyses.
Sounds potentially promising.