No PolitiFact Texas, The Texas GOP IS Calling For Schools to Stop Teaching Critical Thinking Skills

As readers of this blog know, I am a frequent defender of independent fact checking operations such as PolitiFact, FactCheck, and The Fact Checker. These operations are necessary to promote critical thinking and reality based political discourse. However, the people who run these operations are human and do occasionally make mistakes (although quite a bit fewer than some would have you believe). I believe a recent PolitiFact Texas article is indeed guilty of one of these mistakes. The article examined a claim by New York Times columnist Gail Collins in which she claims "The current Republican state [Texas] platform calls for an end to the teaching of ‘critical thinking’ in public schools." PolitiFact Texas argues this was taken out of context and assigns a rating of "Half True" to the claim. But did PolitiFact do a satisfactory job justifying this rating?

As PolitiFact notes, Outcome Based Education is not a concrete idea.

"So what the heck is it? The news stories we read indicate outcome-based education takes different forms nearly everywhere it's applied. The Fort Worth Star-Telegram gave a description in an Oct. 30, 1996, news story about opposition to OBE-like elements in the state's planned education overhaul:

Under outcome-based education, academic and personal goals are set for students before they can graduate. The program stresses that children are not allowed to fail, so they might be given the same test or report over and over until they do the work satisfactorily. It also may eliminate traditional grades, competitive student assessments and distinct subjects and grade levels.

Methods of implementing outcome-based education include awarding group grades instead of individual grades and eliminating honors programs.

The "founding father" of OBE, education reformer William Spady, gave an example in an interview for the December 1992/January 1993 issue of Educational Leadership magazine, published by ASCD (formerly the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development). Asked whether an outcome might be "The student will be able to list the five causes of the Civil War," Spady replied: "No, sorry; that is not an exit outcome. But, 'Identify and explain the fundamental causes and consequences of the Civil War' would be an enabling outcome worth pursuing en route to some larger exit outcome.""

That is interesting, but could that be what the Texas GOP is actually referring to? PolitiFact takes a look at their 2010 platform:

""The primary purpose of public schools is to teach critical thinking skills, reading, writing, arithmetic, phonics, history, science, and character . We oppose Outcome-Based Education (OBE) and similar programs.""

Based on what PolitiFact has found as a description of OBE, nothing in the Texas 2010 platform seems to apply here. In fact, the earlier Civil War example sounds like an attempt to actually understand the civil war instead of just memorizing a few facts. It is the difference between telling a student to "list" and "explain." The former is mere memorization. The latter includes thinking critically about the causes and outcomes. So why again does the GOP not support OBE? Let us look again at their 2012 platform:

"We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority." (emphasis mine)

Humans are not natural critical thinkers, so behavior modification is necessary for critical thinking. And critical thinking necessarily also involves challenging fixed beliefs and authority. So it sounds as if the reason the Texas GOP wants to ban OBE is actually because of qualities necessary for critical thinking. If they want to ban qualities necessary for critical thinking, does it not follow that they must therefore want to effectively ban critical thinking all together? Donald Prothero of SkepticBlog explains:

And the last phrase is almost too bizarre for belief: they explicitly don’t want their kids to think critically because their ideas might challenge “the student’s fixed beliefs and undermine parental authority.” That’s it in a nutshell—the classic dogma of fundamentalist churches and authoritarian states. Don’t think for yourself, don’t ask questions, don’t rock the boat, because the Church, the GOP and your parents are the ultimate repository of truth, and we don’t want to have the lies we told you as children undermined by anything like education.

So PolitiFact is correct that critics have failed to take note of the OBE part of the GOP platform. But given how they describe OBE, it is clear they are talking about what essentially boils down to critical thinking. So the distinction should have made this article score a "Mostly True" at worst.

In addition it is striking is that PolitiFact falls for the GOP's weasel word use of the term "critical thinking":

"Both [2010 and 2012] platforms support critical thinking when it comes to "controversial theories" such as evolution, which "should be taught as challengeable scientific theories ... Teachers and students should be able to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of these theories openly and without fear of retribution or discrimination of any kind.""

There is strong evidence to suggest "critical thinking" in this context has little to do with actual critical thinking skills. It is essentially used as a weasel word for unsubstantiated challenges to the theory of evolution and climate change. The fact that the Texas GOP called the theory of evolution "controversial" speaks volumes as to what they are saying. The theory of evolution is accepted by nearly all biologists and scientists all over the world. It is far from controversial outside the minds of a generally scientifically illiterate public. Any kind of actual controversy within the theory of evolution is far above the level of any high school student. The "controversies" they speak of are actually a large number of widely debunked creationist arguments unfit for science education. This is not critical thinking. Just because the Texas GOP calls it critical thinking doesn't mean they support critical thinking skills. This is an obvious fallacy. For example, I could say I support a good diet but claim people should eat at McDonalds every day. Do I really support a good diet? Would someone not be justified in claiming I do not actually support a good diet.

So it sounds as if PolitiFact has missed the point. But this is to be expected every once in a while. Although PolitiFact is a great source of information in a world filled with disinformation, they are not always right. Should you dismiss them because they are not always right? Of course not! You would have to dismiss all information because the people that produce that information are all imperfect. PolitiFact has an excellent track record. So chances are their analysis is correct. All this post does is reinforce what fact checkers such as PolitiFact (as well as skeptics in general) have tried to say. Think critically and don't take anything for granted. Do not pick and chose what you are skeptical of based on pre-existing biases, and know when to reasonably accept a claim. Do not be a denier.

Tea Party Debate Fact Fail

Politifact has rated a few of the comments on the CNN / Tea Party Express GOP debate from 9-12-11:

Mitt Romney led the attacks on the Republican frontrunner, Texas Gov. Rick Perry, by saying that Perry didn't support the retirement program. "In writing his book, Gov. Perry pointed out that … by any measure Social Security has been a failure," Romney said. We checked Perry's book and found Romney was right. We rated the claim True.

Romney found much of his ammunition from Fed Up!, the book Perry published last year. Romney said that Perry said in the book that Social Security "is unconstitutional." We found that while Perry never exactly used those words, he came pretty close. We rated Romney's claim Mostly True.

Perry, asked about his comment likening Social Security to a Ponzi scheme, replied, "It has been called a Ponzi scheme by many people before me."

But when we asked experts about the structure of a Ponzi scheme and the funding of Social Security, the analogy does not hold up. So we rated Perry's claim False.

... 

When the conversation turned to jobs, Perry repeated a claim of many critics that the economic stimulus has created "zero jobs." We rated that Pants on Fire. The stimulus may not have created enough jobs to offset other losses, but most economists say it did add some jobs. (We even interviewed a man who attributed his new job to the stimulus.)
...

Romney and Rep. Michele Bachmann took aim at the health care law passed last year, claiming it took $500 billion out of Medicare. Bachmann said that President Barack Obama "stole over $500 billion out of Medicare to switch it to Obamacare." She has a point that cost-savings from Medicare were used to offset the cost of the rest of the law, but she misleads when she says the money was stolen. We rated her statement Mostly False.

Notice the return of a few doozies from their success in 2010:
They are still trying to pin Obama as a man who wants to rob Medicare of its funding. Of course nobody doubts this is a winning strategy. No truth needed.
Update 9-14-11: The Washington Post Fact Cheker pointed out something else about this claim:

In fact, in the House Republican budget this year, lawmakers repealed the Obama health-care law but retained all but $10 billion of the nearly $500 billion in Medicare savings, suggesting the actual policies enacted to achieve these spending reductions were not that objectionable to GOP lawmakers. (emphasis mine)

Republicans have decided to skip any conversation about the details of the stimulus and its effects on the economy. Instead they just repeat the demonstrably false claim that it didn't create a single job. Republicans have gone beyond the point of just calling it a failure. Now they feel they must continue to lie. Only problem, these lies are gunna take the market down with them.
Update 9-14-11: In the Fact Checker article mentioned above, Glen Kessler noted "A recent review of nine different studies on the stimulus bill found that six studies concluded the stimulus had “a significant, positive effect on employment and growth,” and three said the effect was “either quite small or impossible to detect.” "(emphasis mine)

One great point of the night was that Mitt Romney seemed to be constructing Obama's campaign for him. When you attack a program loved by 75% of the population, you may just as well plan on keeping your job in Texas.


Update 9-14-11: Fackcheck also checked the debate:

• "Bachmann said an executive order signed by Perry would have "forced" young girls to take a "potentially dangerous drug." But federal government regulators declared the drug a "safe and effective vaccine" to prevent a sexually transmitted disease that could lead to cervical cancer. Also, the order allowed parents to opt-out.
• Romney falsely accused Perry of misquoting him on Social Security. Perry correctly characterized a section of Romney's book in which Romney compared the federal government's management of Social Security to a banker who steals from his client's trust fund.
• Huntsman falsely claimed that Romney's book labeled Social Security "a fraud." Romney wrote that Americans have been "defrauded" because of the way the program has been managed, but he did not call it a "fraud."
• Santorum claimed Pennsylvania voters in 1994 rewarded his "courage to tell them the truth" about Social Security. But, as Santorum himself acknowledged at the time, he nearly lost that election after his opponent unearthed a video tape of the Republican discussing the need to raise the eligibility age for Social Security.
• Cain claimed county government retirees in Galveston, Texas, make "at least 50 percent more than they would ever get out of Social Security" because the county opted out of Social Security. But that's only for initial benefits, and those retirees do not get annual cost-of-living adjustments. Also, not all retirees get such a high initial benefit. 
• Perry cherry-picked job creation numbers when he boasted of creating 1 million jobs as governor "while the current resident of the White House is overseeing the loss of 2.5 million jobs." Texas has increased jobs by 1 million during Perry's tenure, but only 95,600 have come since Obama has been president."

Update 9-14-11: The GOP is becoming the party of the anti-corporate anti-vaxers.

The Weekly Standard still thinks long division is a good substitute for critical thinking [Defending the Truth-O-Meter] .

After reading a few columns from The Weekly Standard, it should come as no shock when they respond to criticism without the first inkling of why they were criticized. In a recent article from The Weekly Standard, conservative author Jeffrey H. Anderson complained:

...the “stimulus” has added or saved just under 2.4 million jobs — whether private or public — at a cost (to date) of $666 billion. That’s a cost to taxpayers of $278,000 per job.   

In other words, the government could simply have cut a $100,000 check to everyone whose employment was allegedly made possible by the “stimulus,” and taxpayers would have come out $427 billion ahead.

This has become a common conservative talking point since 2009. Politifact Texas debunked this claim when it was made by David Dewhurst, correctly pointing out a few things:

"43 percent was spent on tax cuts for individuals and businesses; 19 percent went to state governments, primarily for education and Medicaid; and 13 percent paid for government benefits to individuals such as unemployment and food stamps. The remainder, about 24 percent, was spent on projects such as infrastructure improvement, health information technology and research on renewable energy."

"Any cost-per-job figure pays not just for the worker, but for the material, supplies and that workers’ output — a portion of a road paved, patients treated in a health clinic, goods shipped from a factory floor, railroad tracks laid," the 2009 Associated Press item noted."

Basically, Jeff Anderson acted as though this money was merely spent on wages and benefits, which is made abundantly clear by his suggesting the government could have achieved the same result by just giving "a $100,000 check to everyone whose employment was allegedly made possible by the “stimulus.”" His alternative clearly did not point out the tax breaks, work performed, food to the needy, and research that was  accomplished by the stimulus (although these are tough to quantify). The Weekly Standard decided that, instead of engaging in real critical thinking about the efficacy of the stimulus, they would rather create a one-liner based on pure elementary school long division.


Of course, The Weekly Standard somehow didn't get the message, and instead decided to write a rebuttal for the Politifact article. Once again, The Weekly Standard missed the point entirely.


Jeff Anderson:

Jeff Anderson:
“First, I never said that the $278,000 per job was all spent on salaries or wages. I would never attribute anything close to that degree of efficiency to the federal government.”

It seems as though the Weekly Standard is either purposely ignoring the point of this politifact article, or they are just too hard headed to figure out what appeared to be painfully obvious. First, Politifact already responded to this item: “Then again, this clarification doesn't fit with the blogger's earlier claim that taxpayers would have come out ahead if the government had just cut checks to everyone credited with getting a stimulus-tied job.” So his alternative would make no sense if he meant it covered more than just salary and wages. This would only make sense if the stimulus was just meant to give employers money to hire people to sit around and do nothing. I’m not sure where this guy has worked in the past, but the point of a job is to perform a task and accomplish a goal. And there are costs that go into that. I have a computer, and a cubicle. I work with equipment that cost up to a million dollars apiece. Then there are also administrative costs in training me, not to mention the amount of money spent on materials needed for me to produce goods. That seems to be what he is missing about the stimulus. So if the government had “cut a $100,000 check to everyone whose employment was allegedly made possible by the “stimulus,”” no bridges would have been built, no roads would have been paved, no patients would have been treated, no goods would have been shipped.

“Second, the expenses quoted above were all part of the “economic stimulus,” which, presumably, was intended to stimulate the economy. So either the “stimulus” spurred economic growth or it didn’t. And if it failed to add or save (many) jobs, then it at best stimulated (mostly) jobless growth. It has been a jobless stimulus.”

The mistakes he makes here can be highlighted in his misguided analogy about giving a $100,000 check to everyone whose employment was allegedly made possible by the “stimulus.” More is accomplished than just stimulating the economy, although it is one of the end results.

He also neglects indirect stimulus effects. One of the key components of the stimulus was “Temporary programs to protect the most vulnerable from the deep recession, including increases in food stamps and expansions of unemployment insurance.” This clearly does not directly translate to jobs. However, unemployment insurance and food stamps give people money to spend. This helps slow the decline in the demand for goods and services, which in turn helps slow the decline in the demand for jobs. This is two-fold as it keeps people from starving and also helps avoid job loss. Because this process is indirect, it is very hard to quantify the amount of jobs created or saved as a result of these efforts.

"Third, how does one divvy out (or, as PolitiFact says, “spend”) $286 billion in tax cuts (43 percent of $666 billion) yet still fail to spur much job growth? Likewise, how can $160 billion (24 percent of $666 billion) be spent on “infrastructure improvement, health information technology and research on renewable energy” without spurring much job growth? And why was $127 billion of the “stimulus” (19 percent of $666 billion) spent on teachers or Medicaid?”

I’m not sure this really challenges Politifact’s ruling. This has to do with the effectiveness of the stimulus and not his statement about the cost per job of the stimulus. Politifact did not tackle the effectiveness of the stimulus in this article. However, for reference, they have many times before.

Anyway, I’m not sure 2.4-3.6 Million jobs is “not much job growth” This may be subjective. However, if we base this on initial predictions, the stimulus was only projected to create 3 to 4 million Jobs. This means that, at best the stimulus had a 120% success rate. At worst, it had a 60% success rate. So he would either have to create a straw-man claim in which the government projected the creation of more jobs than stated, or he would have to take the worst success rates.

Another way of looking at this is to look at those numbers in context. Current dollar GDP was $13.9 trillion dollars in 2009 and 14.5 trillion dollars in 2010, totaling $28.5 trillion dollars between both years. This $666 billion spent was around 2% of GDP for those years. Given that stimulus spending was so small compared to the total size of the Economy, how much job growth did they expect?

Note: I’m not looking at unemployment because too many factors are involved in this measurement.

“As I wrote in my response to the White House, “This much is clear: Based on an estimate by Obama’s own economists, for every $278,000 in taxpayer-funded “stimulus” money that the Obama administration has spent — whatever it may have spent it on — the “stimulus” has added or saved just one job.” That remains an undeniable fact.”

If he had stuck with just this, then his meaning would be more up to interpretation. It would have been technically true but incredibly misleading. Instead he continues in his original column by saying “the government could simply have cut a $100,000 check to everyone whose employment was allegedly made possible by the “stimulus,”” indicating an essentially equivalent act would merely put money in those people’s hands, just like a salary and benefits would do. Since he added this, it would be very hard for someone to interpret him as meaning job costs and worker output as well.

“A less-widely reported part of my initial post noted that the conclusions of Obama’s economists also showed that the “stimulus” was now shedding jobs. In relation to estimates of what an un-“stimulated” economy would look like, Obama’s economists said that the stimulus had added or saved 2.7 million jobs as of New Year’s Day but only 2.4 million as of July 1, a decline of (to use the report’s exact figure) 288,000 jobs. In other words, over those six months, the economy would have added or saved more jobs without the stimulus than it has with it — according to an estimate from Obama’s economists.

The entire response on this point from PolitiFact (both the Ohio and Texas versions) is to cite Moody’s chief economist Mark Zandi, who told the left-leaning website TPMDC that “the Weekly Standard misinterpreted that data.” That was good enough for PolitiFact… PolitiFact writes, “‘It’s not that ARRA [the stimulus] is now costing the economy jobs, it is that the economy is now creating jobs without ARRA’s help,’ Zandi told TPMDC. ‘This is exactly the objective of fiscal stimulus, namely to end recession and jump-start economic recovery.’”

Zandi’s claim, however, doesn’t square with the numbers provided by Obama’s economists. They show that the gap between the number of jobs with and without the “stimulus” is narrowing. The “stimulated” economy is not “creating jobs without the stimulus’s help” — at least not at the rate that it would have created them had the “stimulus” never been passed.

Put otherwise, if the “stimulus” added or saved 2.7 million jobs through the end of last year versus the number of jobs that would have been added or saved without it — which is exactly what Obama’s economists assert — then it has correspondingly lost, or failed to save, 288,000 jobs since then. In other words, it’s shedding jobs.”

It seems as though he has missed Zandi’s point. As an analogy, let us say I want to buy a new car, but I don’t have the money or credit to do so. Let’s say my father decides to buy me the car by getting the loan and making the payments. At that point I can see he is the reason I have that car. If it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t have that car. Now let’s say I come across some money… for instance let’s say I win the lottery. Now I have the money to officially buy the car from him and make the payments myself. Seeing as how I could at that point have bought one of these cars from the dealership anyway, I can safely say he is no longer the reason I have the car. He is the reason I previously had the car, but not now (although I could still be appreciative of his help). This is essentially the point of what Zandi is saying. It’s not that these jobs went away, it’s that the employers are to the point where the job would have been there anyway at this point. The only difference is that the person with that job would have been a new hire or newly re-hired. They would have been on unemployment this entire time instead of actually holding a job. Now there may be other long term effects from him having a job during that time instead of being unemployed, but there doesn’t seem to be a need to go into that right now. You can argue whether or not the report should present numbers this way, but it is clear the report does not say the Stimulus is "shedding Jobs"

Basically it looks like Jeff Anderson of the Weekly Standard did what many who criticize Politifact do; he missed the whole point of the article. Maybe politifact should have spent more time explaining it. It didn’t seem that hard to figure out. But if you are unwilling to try and understand what someone is saying, no amount of explanation will do…