| > See, there it is again - SHOWING UP. Whatever you call it, it is in fact an outcome, and one with a demonstrated influence on other outcomes of interest, so its one that it make sense to target as a means of targeting those other outcomes. > You didn't say "getting a degree" or "graduating to a high paying job" or even "putting themselves in a position to succeed in life" Incorrect. I didn't mention the first. I did mention future income as something that increased attendance of formal education is demonstrated to affect, even short of getting a degree. I didn't mention the third because it is a fuzzy concept, of which the second (which, again, I did mention) is a concrete operationalization. > That's the problem - merely attending isn't enough to address any historical disadvantage other than "spent at least a day on a college campus as a student". You assert this, but there is considerable evidence that further educational attainment, even at the level between "graduated high school" and "some college", has positive influence on other outcomes, including future income and one's childrens' future outcomes, including their own level of educational attainment. > In a list of historical disadvantages, this is just above "has used a ski lift at least once" in importance. I am aware of no evidence supporting that the difference between "some ski lift use" and "no ski lift use", controlling for other known contributing factors, has any significant positive contribution to one's future income or other important outcome measures, either one's own or one's children. So, no, I don't think this is correct, at all. > Attendance does not address true disadvantage unless the other three also improve While I'd want graduation and other factors that assume graduation to improve as well, the actual evidence is inconsistent with the claim that attendance without graduation has no effect on reducing disadvantage. |
Maybe, but if you optimize only this metric (enrollment) while disregarding all others (graduation), then you'll soon get ineffective results and the "demonstrated" influence will no longer hold true - simply enroll minorities, regardless of their knowledge or intelligence, and make sure most fail the next year. Will you be satisfied? Will it still correlate with the desired outcome?