Posted by Ed 

I see that Paul Peterson is presenting a paper at the American Political Science Association (APSA) on the NAEP public/private school comparison. Like Paul, I’m a political scientist by training and we, of course, have a bit of a history.  I’ve written in APSAs professional issues journal about his and Jay Greene’s work:

"It is now several decades since Karl Popper first warned, in The Poverty of Historicism, against using the trappings of science as totems of competence in political debate… To present to the general public research that has not endured the scrutiny of peer review while all the time calling the work "political science" is a challenge to the very nature of our enterprise…"

Peterson replied with his usual restraint. My follow-up article was called "Science should be a Process, Not A Bloody Shirt." This dust up concerned Peterson’s touting his then APSA paper on his special scientific research into the Milwaukee voucher program. His Wall Street Journal article that preceded the paper presentation was called "School Choice Data Rescued from Bad Science." Of course, my point in the quote may have been slightly in error, because it seems that Peterson was touting work that had in fact failed peer review. I regret the error, but I’m sure Paul forgives me for that point.

Now I think that it’s a good idea to try to evaluate research on the merits, and if I picked up this new paper, I’d attempt to do so. But given that Milwaukee begat Cleveland which begat New York, I’m a bit more likely to say three strikes and you’re out.