Odds and ends

It’s been a wild week to be an involuntary observer this week — the week before spring break for me turned out to be very busy for both anticipated and unanticipated reasons, so I was unable to comment on the debate over SB 1718 in Florida (the “parent trigger” bill), the higher ed budget and Florida Polytechnic U, or anything else. I hope to get to some of it over spring break, but let me suggest you whet your appetite for the work of Sue Dynarski, Joshua Hyman, and Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach on the long-term outcomes from the Tennessee STAR experiment with a different twist: can one predict long-term outcomes of programs when we know that the short-term effects fade? Today’s presentation slides from the Society for Research on Educational Effectiveness is tantalizing (HT: Sara Goldrick-Rab, who tweeted some key items this morning). Some very interesting hints in the slide stack, esp. at the very end given the conventional wisdom about return on the investment in early-childhood intervention.