The U.S. Department of Education's Office of Special Education Programs collects data on how states implement the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act through the mandated State Performance Plan/Annual Performance Report (SPP/APR). Some indicators in the SPP/APR require state educational agencies (SEAs) to report data by race and ethnicity.…

Basic knowledge of ideas of causal inference can help students to think beyond data, that is, to think more clearly about the data generating process. Especially for (maybe big) observational data, qualitative assumptions are important for the conclusions drawn and interpretation of the quantitative results. Concepts of causal inference can also…

Heterogeneity in response styles can affect the conclusions drawn from rating scale data. In particular, biased estimates can be expected if one ignores a tendency to middle categories or to extreme categories. An adjacent categories model is proposed that simultaneously models the content-related effects and the heterogeneity in response styles.…

Meta-analysis synthesizes related research by considering three major factors: sample size, magnitude of significance, and statistical test used. These factors produce an effect size, expressed as a correlation or as a difference between means, divided by the standard deviation. Discusses ways to use effect size when results are not consistent and…

It is curious that so many people are accepting of statistics despite Disraeli's famous aphorism concerning "three kinds of lies." This acceptance certainly seems to hold for education statistics, especially when they imply something negative about American public schools. Sometimes people accept statistics because they are not in a position to…