site banner
naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   34937 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 30, 2023

This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.

Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.

We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:

  • Shaming.

  • Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.

  • Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.

  • Recruiting for a cause.

  • Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.

In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:

  • Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.

  • Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.

  • Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.

  • Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.

On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.

13
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

And, the course exists for one reason: to get more African American students to take AP courses.

That sounds both very counter-productive (see Goodhart's law) and extremely condescending. Like, since they can't take AP math, so we invent AP bullshit and pretend it's the same thing. Nobody would think it's the same thing.

  1. Goodhart's law is irrelevant. I meant that the ultimate goal was to get African-American students to do better in college. The College Board's theory is that any exposure to college-level curriculum in high school helps students do better in college. They claim, "Research consistently shows that AP students are better prepared for college than students who don’t take AP, regardless of their exam score. They’re more likely to enroll and stay in college, do well in their classes, and graduate in four years." Whether that is true or not, of course, is a different question.

  2. I don't know what you mean by "inventing" AP bullshit, since colleges do offer AfAm Studies courses. And is it any more bullshit than AP Drawing? Or AP Art History?

I meant that the ultimate goal was to get African-American students to do better in college.

Is that the goal? Because if it is, it would be very easy to achieve - just award a college degree to every African American at birth, with perfect GPA. In fact, why not PhD? It doesn't cost anything. Here, mission accomplished. If, however, the mission is to actually get them prepared for college learning, in preparation for future adult life, then AP bullshit is not going to help much (unless, of course, they'd be specializing in bullshit industry, which is a billion dollar business by now - then it'd help a lot).

Research consistently shows that AP students are better prepared for college than students who don’t take AP,

That's exactly what I'd call extreme Goodharting - taking a wrong side of correlation, grabbing it and running with it. Sure, being AP student correlates with being successful. Because AP is harder, so students feeling like they can take on harder work - usually succeed more. But if you start creating bullshit APs, you aren't making the students to perform better, you are just ruining the metric. It's like saying "students getting high grades are usually successful, so if we award 100 for everyone, everyone would be maximally successful". It doesn't work this way.

since colleges do offer AfAm Studies courses.

Yup, and you can also get PhD in various bullshit. Not exactly news.

And is it any more bullshit than AP Drawing? Or AP Art History?

Sure is. Drawing at least supposed to teach you some actionable skills (I'd pay good money to somebody who would be able to teach me to draw, I am hopelessly terrible at that). Art history, done right, is a fascinating subject. Then again, AA history done right would be a fascinating subject too, but nobody would do it right any time soon, I suspect.

But if you start creating bullshit APs,

  1. That is a very strange response, since I said: "I would think, for example, that the effect of taking an AP course on future college success would depend on the course in question"

  2. You are assuming that the course will be bullshit, but as you note yourself, "AA history done right would be a fascinating subject too," so you are not claiming that there is anything inherently wrong with offering AP AA Studies, but rather that you think that this particular course will not be "do[ne] right." That might be true -- see my top post on the subject, where I express similar concerns -- but it isn't guaranteed.

Edit: Re this:

Is that the goal? Because if it is, it would be very easy to achieve - just award a college degree to every African American at birth

Maybe, but note that that is not something that the College Board has the power to do. Regardless, the fact of the matter is, if the College Board wanted to improve actual, real college-level skills of African American students, which they say they do; and if they believe that taking AP courses, even one, have that effect, which they say they do; then they would do exactly what they have done here: Take steps to get more African American students to take AP courses.

You are assuming that the course will be bullshit, but as you note yourself,

Yes I do. I mean, those are the same schools in the same system that struggle to teach people to read and write by graduation. This is the same system that graduates people who are unable to read their own diploma. What would be my confidence level that they would do such a complex and politicized subject as AA history right? Near zero. I think it's purely "the care hums and vibrates when moving, so if we get into a broken car and start humming and jumping around, it'd magically start moving again". Pure cargo cult education. Well, and of course fat paycheck to whatever graduates of AA studies that are going to be paid taxpayer money to develop such courses and even more money to perform such courses - after all, Advanced Level education can't come cheap!

Maybe, but note that that is not something that the College Board has the power to do.

You can get reasonably close. Admit every AA person and award them a degree and perfect GPA immediately. I am not sure why such a simple idea never occurred before. I blame racism.

and if they believe that taking AP courses, even one, have that effect,

That sounds to me like "why the government just won't print enough money for everyone and give it out for free?!" The obvious detachment of the correlation happens right here, where you tying to pull at the wrong side of the correlation and fake the result without providing the cause.

And in case you don't believe me, maybe you'll believe this guy: https://www.foxnews.com/media/florida-democrat-agrees-desantis-ap-african-american-history-course-i-think-its-trash

That's exactly what Goodhart's Law is for. Being an AP student seems to be a good measure, in that it appears to predict college success, so we make a target of "number of AP students" under the assumption that there's a causal relationship in this correlation (AP classes cause better college outcomes), while failing to account for other explanations like selection effects (students more likely to do well in college are more likely to take AP classes).

That is not an example of Goodhart's law. Goodhart's law is about when a measure becomes an end in itself. Here, the end is college success, not AP enrollment. What you are talking about is potential reverse causation. And, FWIW, researchers are obviously aware of selection effects and other potential confounders. Whether they successfully adjust therefor is a different question, but one can't tell without looking at the actual research, which you have not done.

And the point is not that AP enrollment actually increases college success, but rather that the College Board thinks it does (or has conveniently convinced itself that it does). My point was about the College Board's motive, not the value of the course (I would think, for example, that the effect of taking an AP course on future college success would depend on the course in question. I would hypothesize, for example, that taking AP Calculus would have a greater effect than would taking AP Art. The effect would also, I would expect, vary based on the student and school in question, including the socioeconomic and English language learner status of the student).

Goodhart's Law is

When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure

That is exactly what's happening here. "Being an AP student" is a measure, and they want to increase the thing that it measures, so they set a target of "more AP students". This will probably mean that "being an AP student" will be less useful as a predictor of future success. Because people involved, who are responsible for meeting the target, will be heavily incentivized to cut corners and take the easiest path to meeting the target.

but rather that the College Board thinks it does

Or is willing to pretend it does, etc, etc. It's still a solid example of Goodhart, unless there is rock solid reason to think that AP classes actually increase college success. Because the most likely scenario (because it's the easiest, most reliable method) is that more AP students will come from the pool of more marginal students who will do less well in college. Just like "high school graduate" no longer reliably implies basic literacy or numeracy; the easiest, most reliable way to bump the numbers for "college graduate" is just to stop having standards.

Again, the end is not "being an AP student." It is a means to the end of "success in college." The College Board is not defining "success in college" as "taking AP courses in HS" (unlike, as you note, those who define "success in high school" as "getting a diploma", which is indeed an example of Goodhart's law. It is absolutely incorrect to say, as you do, that the College Board is using "Being an AP student" as a measure of college success.

Note that I am NOT saying that offering the class is a good idea or bad idea, nor that offering the class will or will not increase student success in college, as should be clear from what I said. Either offering the course will ultimately increase AfAm students success in college, or it won't. We obviously don't know yet, and the CB might well be basing its belief on false premises. But it is clearly not an example of Goodhart's law.

Or is willing to pretend it does, etc, etc

Right, I said that: "or has conveniently convinced itself that it does")

It is absolutely incorrect to say, as you do, that the College Board is using "Being an AP student" as a measure of college success.

Earlier, you cite the College Board saying:

"Research consistently shows that AP students are better prepared for college than students who don’t take AP, regardless of their exam score. They’re more likely to enroll and stay in college, do well in their classes, and graduate in four years."

This is the measure. The correlation between being an AP student and doing well in college. So they made a target of "number of AP students", under the assumptions that "being an AP student" causes "doing well in college". But by making it a target, they change the incentive structure around "becoming an AP student" which means that the old correlation doesn't necessarily hold anymore, and given general trends in the incentives of large organizational structures, that change will probably be in an undesirable direction (probably "more AP students don't do well in college").

An alternative phrasing of Goodhart's Law might be "There are no cost-free optimizations in matured systems. The very act of attempting an optimization imposes costs elsewhere in the system." If you want to increase the number of AP students, there will be side-effects somewhere else in the system (because the system consists of people who react to the rules change) that will hamper or ruin the purpose of the increase. Check the wiki page for the alternative formulations and corollaries, I think the concept quite widely applicable.

On the more general topic of "large organization logic", this is probably driven by someone(s) in management who needs a measurable goal to point to the next time they apply for a promotion, and this is a number whose increase can be justified with facially plausible logic. Those people probably don't much care if "being an AP student" becomes less predictive of "doing well in college", because that almost certainly won't come up during the VP interview.

This is the measure. The correlation between being an AP student and doing well in college. So they made a target of "number of AP students", under the assumptions that "being an AP student" causes "doing well in college". But by making it a target, they change the incentive structure around "becoming an AP student" which means that the old correlation doesn't necessarily hold anymore, and given general trends in the incentives of large organizational structures, that change will probably be in an undesirable direction (probably "more AP students don't do well in college").

Yes, all of that is quite plausible. I mentioned as much in my initial response. It just isn't Goodhart's law. Compare to when people observe that people with HS diplomas do better in life, and then say, "if we make it easier to graduate, our students will do better in life." The difference between the two is the mechanism. A HS diploma is associated with success because it is a de facto measure of basic skills needed for success, such as getting to work on time, basic literacy, etc. But the diploma itself does not provide students with those skills. So, if you lower the bar, it will no longer be a de facto measure of those skills, so the correlation with success will disappear. In contrast, the claim re taking an AP class is that, even when controlling for student quality, it provides students with things -- skills, knowledge, the exposure to college-level expectations -- that themselves make college success more likely. If that is true, then increasing enrollment by members of group X will indeed result in greater success in college for those students. The analogy with the HS diploma example would be if you just slapped an "AP" label on an existing class.

In contrast, the claim re taking an AP class is that, even when controlling for student quality, it provides students with things -- skills, knowledge, the exposure to college-level expectations -- that themselves make college success more likely.

The specific claim was "controlling for test results", which I would argue is a poor proxy for "controlling for student quality". "People who take AP classes" is still a heavily selected subset of "high school students". Even the ones who bombed the test still had teachers and counselors thinking they were a good fit for the class in the first place. Going back to the diploma example, schools didn't just start off by giving out free high school diplomas. What they did was lower standards incrementally until we get the situation with grade inflation. Which feeds into why I think "slapping an AP label on an existing class" is exactly what we will see moving forward. That AP label is worth an extra 1.0 on a GPA, which will help students when applying to college, which makes the school look better. And even if every kid in that honors AP class bombs the test, well, bombed tests don't count against you, and the College Board themselves said that taking the class at all helps with college success! It's not like adding the AP class in AAS is going to add time to the school day; every kid taking that class is taking it instead of some other class. If that class isn't something like another AP history class, then you're going to be pulling from the kids who were specifically taking honors classes instead of AP classes.

If that is true, then increasing enrollment by members of group X will indeed result in greater success in college for those students.

And in theory, making every kid finish HS will increase literacy and general education. In the real world, "increasing literacy and general education" is actually very hard (especially when educators are hobbled with ideological bullshit), and gaming the system and targeted statistics is much more achievable.

More comments

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats