How not to improve education in India

Some great analysis from MINT who highlight a new Government of India report, which ranks state education "outcomes".

What is odd is that the government rank has a negative correlation with the rankings of the Pratham report which directly measures learning outcomes.

So what goes into the government "outcomes" index?

- Number of teaching days
- Teacher working hours
- Enrolment rates
- Drop-out rates
- Primary-to-secondary transition rates

These are all basically inputs, with the exception of drop-outs and transition rates, which maybe say something about quality. But none of them are actually directly measuring learning at all. Yet more evidence for the Lant Pritchett case that focusing on inputs or "EMIS-visible" metrics won't get us quality learning outcomes, and measuring learning directly is critical to focusing policy attention on how to improve learning.

HT: Abhijeet Singh

Don't shit on your own doorstep

I was talking to a water and sanitation programme manager a few weeks ago, who seemed frustrated that these stupid people kept crapping everywhere. Why would you shit on your own doorstep? The programme had several "behaviour change" interventions (horrible phrase, slightly Orwellian no?), but really, how hard should it be to not shit in the open?

One of the great things about economics is that it does not assume that people are just being dumb. It treats people with respect, and assumes first that there is probably a good reason why they are doing something which might seem irrational. I don't really know enough about water and sanitation, but I was suspicious of the idea that these recalcitrant natives just couldn't figure out what was good for them.

Does this paper prove me right?

"latrine use constitutes an externality rather than a pure private gain: It is the open defecation of one’s neighbors, rather than the household’s own practice, that matters most for child survival. The gradient and mechanism we uncover have important implications for child health and mortality worldwide, since 15% of the world’s population defecates in the open. To put the results in context, we find that moving from a locality where everybody defecates in the open to a locality where nobody defecates in the open is associated with a larger difference in child mortality than moving from the bottom quintile of asset wealth to the top quintile of asset wealth."

The problem then is a "simple" collective action problem (simple in the sense of understanding the nature of the problem, not at all simple to solve). This isn't that complicated stuff.

HT: kim yi dionne

Important Research Funding Opportunities: Quantifying the economic impact of Shakira (for UNICEF)

"Shakira Mebarak, world-famous singer and songwriter, is a devoted advocate for children. The singer, known professionally as Shakira, was appointed a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador on 24 October 2003."

Which is all very well and everything, but surely what we all really care about is exactly how valuable is she to the UNICEF marketing team? And what is it about her that makes her valuable? Are singers more or less valuable than actresses? Blondes or brunettes? Men or women? Does fundraising value depreciate over time with age? If you've always been fascinated by important research questions like these, well do UNICEF have the RFP for you (sadly I think the quantitative celebrity fundraising research and analytics team at my office is busy right now, so I'm generously passing this on. You're welcome). Thank god UNICEF is taking evidence-based decision-making seriously where it really matters.

"Quantitative Research: Identifying the Right Celebrities for UNICEF Partnerships & Public Attitudes towards Celebrity Partnerships 

The purpose of this Request for Proposal (RFP) is to seek proposals from qualified agencies to provide quantitative research (using System 1 approach) for identifying the right celebrities for UNICEF partnerships & Public Attitudes towards Celebrity Partnerships."

Why governments don't like private schools?

Here are a few excerpts from the new textbook delivered to millions of primary school children in Venezuela:

1. The first page of each [book] starts with the words “Hugo Chavez: Supreme Commander of the Bolivarian Revolution.”  

2. They describe Chavez as the man who liberated Venezuela from tyranny, at times making him appear more important than 19th century founding father Simon Bolivar.  

3. The books present a 2002 coup that briefly toppled Chavez as an insurrection planned by Washington while playing down the role of massive opposition protests in this deeply divided country.

via Robin Grier