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I’d like to thank Eugene for inviting me to join the VC, and to my fellow bloggers for having me. I’m really looking forward to posting here!

For my first contribution, I thought I’d post a brief comment about Espinoza v. Montana Dep’t of Revenue, the Blaine Amendment case that the Court currently has under consideration. The Court heard oral argument in the case last week. It’s always tricky predicting the outcome of a case based on oral argument. But it seems pretty clear, at least to me, the the Court will ultimately rule in favor of the petitioners.

Followers of this blog know the facts of the case. (Ilya recently posted about the case here.) Briefly, Espinoza concerns the constitutionality of a Montana school-choice program that allows parents to direct state-funded scholarships to religiously affiliated schools. The Montana Supreme Court ruled that the program violated the state constitution’s “Blaine Amendment,” which prohibits the appropriation of public money for “sectarian” institutions, including private, religiously affiliated schools. Petitioners argue that excluding them from otherwise available scholarship funds, simply because they planned to use the funds at a religiously affiliated school, violates the federal Free Exercise Clause.

Based on the Justices’ interventions, the Court seems likely to rule that, in these circumstances, barring parents from using public funds to pay tuition at religiously affiliated schools is unconstitutional. The Court’s cases point to that outcome. Zelman holds that the Establishment Clause isn’t violated when public money reaches religiously affiliated schools “wholly as a result” of parents’ “genuine and independent choice.” Trinity Lutheran Church holds that a state cannot deny a school access to public financial assistance simply because the school has a religious character. When you put these two cases together, it seems to me, the petitioners prevail.

That’s not to say their victory will be sweeping. For one thing, the Court seems likely to limit its holding to the facts of this case and avoid a ruling on the constitutionality of Blaine Amendments more generally. At least that’s what the Justices’ interventions suggest. Moreover, the four progressive Justices signaled their strong disagreement with the petitioners’ Free Exercise argument.

Interestingly, two of the progressive Justices, Kagan and Breyer, who joined the Court in Trinity Lutheran Church, indicated that they see this case as quite different. Trinity Lutheran Church involved state funds specifically for playground refurbishment–a use unrelated to the religious character of the school in question. Espinoza, by contrast, involves unrestricted funds that a school presumably could direct towards religious education. There is a case that suggests a state may refuse to allow its tax money to be spent for those purposes. But that case, Locke v. Davey, involved tax money for clergy training, not for general education at an accredited, religiously affiliated school–a distinction that will probably persuade the Court’s conservatives that Locke doesn’t apply here.

In short, oral argument suggests another of those familiar, narrow, 5 to 4, Religion Clause decisions. If that’s the case, Espinoza will be an important victory for school choice advocates–though perhaps not as sweeping as they might have hoped. Stay tuned.

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When you put political officials in charge of education, you get politicized education. That point was made recently in an investigation conducted by New York Times correspondent Dana Goldstein into the ideological customization of textbooks for the numerous public schools of California and Texas. Her article is eye-opening, but it’s only the most recent evidence that the line between education and indoctrination is often blurry when government institutions present the world to the children under their control—with conflict as an inevitable result.

“The books have the same publisher. They credit the same authors. But they are customized for students in different states, and their contents sometimes diverge in ways that reflect the nation’s deepest partisan divides,” Goldstein writes.

Side-by-side comparison of the eight textbooks Goldstein examines, all published since 2016, reveal very different takes on hot-button issues including immigration, race relations, sexuality, self-defense rights, and economics.

Interpretations of the Civil War and its aftermath remain divisive:

Southern whites resisted Reconstruction, according to a McGraw-Hill textbook, because they ‘did not want African-Americans to have more rights.’ But the Texas edition offers an additional reason: Reforms cost money, and that meant higher taxes.

Whole paragraphs on redlining and restrictive deeds appear only in the California editions of textbooks, partly as a result of different state standards.

Presentations of free markets and private enterprise are also different in textbooks crafted for different states:

Texas policymakers feel strongly about giving students a positive view of the American economy; since 1995, state law has required that high school economics courses offer an ’emphasis on the free enterprise system and its benefits.’ That emphasis seems to have made its way into the history curriculum as well.

California’s curriculum materials, by contrast, sometimes read like a brief from a Bernie Sanders rally. ‘The yawning gap between the haves and have-nots and what is to be done about it is one of the great questions of this time,’ says the state’s 2016 social studies framework.

California and Texas get customized and very differently spun versions of the same publications because they are large markets with centralized state panels that approve textbook acquisitions. As you would expect, the California panel leans left and the Texas panel leans right.

Given how eye-opening the Times investigation is, it’s ironic that a project by the same newspaper now features in debates over politicized education.

“The 1619 Project—The New York Times Magazine‘s much vaunted series of essays about the introduction of African slavery to the Americas—will now be taught in K-12 schools around the country,” Reason‘s Robby Soave noted just days ago. “Many historians, though, have questioned The 1619 Project’s accuracy. Five of them penned a letter to The New York Times expressing dismay ‘at some of the factual errors in the project and the closed process behind it.'”

Billed as corrective to the long-time glossing-over in American classrooms of the legacy of slavery, The 1619 project tacks far in the other direction, portraying the United States as irreparably stained by racism and the practice of human bondage, and free market economics as rooted in plantation slavery.

“Mandating the use of The 1619 Project in K-12 curricula is at best premature until these issues are resolved and the Times makes a good faith effort to answer its critics,” economic historian Phil Magness told Soave.

The curriculum debates of the moment are only the latest manifestation of years-long disagreements over how the world should be presented to students in the public schools.

“The Texas State Board of Education adopted a social studies and history curriculum Friday that amends or waters down the teaching of the civil rights movement, religious freedoms, America’s relationship with the U.N. and hundreds of other items,” CBS reported in 2010.

Tucson, Arizona public schools sparred with critics for years over a controversial ethnic studies program in a battle that presaged a similar debate in California.

Michigan officials divided over partisan lines when it came to issues including the question of whether students should be taught the U.S. is a “democracy” or a “republic.”

And, famously, battles between classroom advocates of creationism and those of evolutionary theory dragged on for decades, starting at least as long ago as the 1925 Scopes Trial. Lost in most reports about that courtroom drama is that the textbook at issue contained not just now-widely accepted ideas about the natural emergence of humanity, but also some truly awful eugenics nonsense presented as fact.

It’s true that people can differ over interpretations of the world around us without the intervention of government officials—and can do a bad job of it entirely free of bureaucratic directives. Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States is the go-to alternative to history textbooks for lefties. But it’s widely criticized by mainstream educators as at least as spun as—and often less accurate than—many of the works it seeks to counter. And private schools can teach nonsense as readily as public schools; if you want your kids to learn creationism today, plenty of fundamentalist institutions are available to do the job.

But Zinn’s estate offers his take on the world primarily to private buyers who want an alternative to official texts. And church-run schools aren’t subsidized by advocates of evolutionary theory—they charge willing parents the price of admission.

By contrast, government officials with control over public schools and the textbooks they use impose their specific visions of “truth” from the top down on the willing and unwilling alike. Their intent is to ensure that approved takes are fed to all of those young voters of the future. That’s a guaranteed recipe for conflict over what’s taught. Such disputes are so common, in fact, that the Cato Institute tracks them in their multitude on its Public Schooling Battle Map.

If you’re looking for a complete fix for biased lessons, it probably doesn’t exist. School choice is no guarantee that children will learn only accurate information, let alone that they’ll be taught to critically analyze their lessons and accept no source as the final word. No approach is going to reach that high a standard.

But when families choose education options that suit them, and avoid those that don’t, there’s much less reason to fight over what’s taught in the classroom. There’s even a better chance for diverse opinions to flourish and be debated in settings where the stakes are lower.

Don’t worry, we’ll still find plenty of other reasons to argue.

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The fracas over Don Lemon of CNN laughing at his panel’s insults about the intelligence of Trump supporters raises a larger issue: the ignorant belief that Trump supporters are much dumber than the general public and much dumber than those who supported Clinton in 2016.  Don Lemon and his guests specifically ridiculed Trump supporters for supposed problems with “readin'” and “geography” (e.g., picking out Ukraine on a map).

Even without looking at the data, it would be surprising if there were any VERY LARGE differences in intelligence between the average Trump supporter and the rest of the general public.

INTELLIGENCE OF TRUMP SUPPORTERS

We don’t have great data on the intelligence of Trump supporters, but the best available is in the 2018 General Social Survey. For those unfamiliar with the GSS, it is generally regarded as the leading omnibus academic survey in the US; it usually achieves response rates about 10 to 20 times higher than the typical public opinion poll.

In 1974, the GSS adopted a 10-question vocabulary test (WORDSUM) that was extracted from a standard, widely used IQ test. The National Science Foundation (NSF), in its 2018 report on science knowledge, refers to this battery of GSS items as a “verbal ability” test.

In the 2018 GSS, respondents were asked for whom they voted in 2016 (PRES16) or for whom they would have voted if they had voted (IF16WHO): Clinton, Trump, someone else, or no one.

On the verbal ability test (WORDSUM), not surprisingly the median number of vocabulary questions correct was the same for both Clinton and Trump supporters: 6 out of 10 words correct.  The mean verbal ability score for Trump supporters was 6.15 words correct, while the mean verbal ability score for Clinton supporters was 5.69 correct, a difference of nearly a half a question on a 10-question test.  This moderate difference is statistically significant at p<.0005.

Further, Trump supporters score significantly higher on verbal ability (6.15 correct) than the rest of the public combined (5.70 correct), whereas Clinton supporters score significantly lower on verbal ability (5.69 correct) than the rest of the public combined (5.98 correct).

This should not be too surprising. On the 22 General Social Surveys using the verbal ability scale since 1974, for every single one, conservative Republicans score significantly higher than the rest of the public combined. As for Republicans overall, they score significantly higher in verbal ability than Democrats in all five decades, including for the 2010s combined.

But the Trump era is helping Democrats to catch up: the Republican advantage dropped to insignificance in 2016, and in 2018 Democrats (6.03 correct) actually scored slightly (but insignificantly) higher than Republicans (5.98 correct).

In 1996, the GSS employed another module lifted from a standard IQ test, one testing analogical reasoning.  Again, Republicans and conservative Republicans in 1996 performed significantly better on analogical reasoning than the rest of the public and significantly better than Democrats.

TRUMP SUPPORTERS’ KNOWLEDGE OF SCIENCE

These results on verbal ability are also consistent with the results of most (but not all) of the National Science Foundation’s science knowledge questions on the GSS.

Testing the hypothesis that Trump supporters have greater science knowledge than those who supported Clinton in 2016, on six questions Trump supporters offer the correct answer significantly more often than Clinton supporters: those about lasers, radioactivity, viruses, the father’s contribution to the biological sex of the child (BOYORGRL), whether “according to astronomers” the universe began with a huge explosion (BIGBANG1), and that the earth goes around the sun and that it takes a year to do so (combined EARTHSUN and SOLARREV).

On one science knowledge question—whether the center of the earth is hot (HOTCORE)—the superior performance of Trump supporters over Clinton supporters is borderline significant (1-sided Fisher’s Exact Test p=.05-.10).

On two questions, the structure of atoms (ELECTRON) and continental drift (CONDRIFT), Trump supporters score slightly, but insignificantly, better than Clinton supporters. On none of these nine science questions do Trump supporters score worse than Clinton supporters.

When one compares Clinton supporters to the rest of the public combined, Clinton supporters perform significantly worse than the rest of the public on the same six science questions on which Trump supporters perform better than Clinton supporters.

Indeed, less than half of 2016 Clinton supporters (49.6%) are able to answer correctly both of two related questions: whether the earth goes around the sun or the sun goes around the earth (EARTHSUN) and whether that takes a day, a month, or a year (SOLARREV).  Remember these two questions are multiple choice! You would have a 50-50 chance of guessing correctly on the first part: whether the earth goes around the sun or vice versa. Sadly, the general public that didn’t do hugely better than Clinton supporters, with only 57.1% (compared to 49.6%) knowing that the earth goes around the sun and that it takes a year to do so.

When one compares Trump supporters to all the rest of the public combined (rather than just to Clinton supporters), the pattern for these nine science questions is roughly similar (though weaker).

Overall, on most science knowledge questions Trump supporters score significantly higher than Clinton supporters and significantly higher than the combined non-Trump supporting public. Usually, you have to ask about beliefs, rather than knowledge, about evolution and the origins of the universe to get any substantially better answers on individual science questions from Clinton supporters than Trump supporters.

MAP-READING

As for reading maps and picking out countries, which the CNN segment raised, I searched quickly and found two Pew surveys from 2013 that asked respondents to pick out Egypt or Syria on a map of the Middle East. Testing the hypothesis that Republicans were significantly better at finding an unlabeled country on a map than Democrats, one 2013 Pew study supported that hypothesis (Republicans were indeed significantly more likely to pick out Syria on a map), while the other 2013 Pew study reported that Democrats were insignificantly better at picking out Egypt on a map.

Thus, neither of these two studies supports the CNN’s panel’s ridicule of right-wing map reading, and there is some weak evidence pointing in the other direction. Of course, this was a test of Republicans, not Trump supporters, but Trump supporters did better on the 2018 GSS verbal ability test and on 2018 science knowledge questions, so there is no strong reason to suppose that the results would be radically different if one were to test Trump supporters today rather than Republicans in 2013.  In 2013 the differences were not large either way, and it’s unwarranted to suppose that (in a study of the quality of the GSS) any differences in map-reading would be large today.

IGNORANCE LEADS TO BIGOTRY

Don Lemon laughed uncontrollably at his guests insulting the intelligence and knowledge of Trump supporters. The best evidence we have suggests that, compared to the general public, Trump supporters score significantly better than the rest of the public—and Clinton supporters score significantly worse—on a standard verbal ability test. Likewise,  Trump supporters score significantly better on most science knowledge questions than Clinton supporters or the general public.

In this essay, I analyzed the results of over 30 questions from 22 different representative national surveys, involving over 20,000 respondents. Not one of the questions I examined here supports the idea that Trump supporters are significantly less knowledgeable than Clinton supporters, and some of them point to small or moderate differences in the opposite direction. The idea that there are very large differences in intelligence or knowledge here is implausible without strong evidence.

In short, Don Lemon is a bigot—and like most bigots, he’s an ignorant one as well.

 

[Disclosure: The author made a small donation to the Hillary Clinton campaign in the fall of 2016.]

[Research Note: General Social Survey data were downloaded from NORC. GSS data are weighted by WTSALL. On science questions, I coded the correct answers v. those who gave wrong answers, said they don’t know, or failed to answer.  The Pew data were downloaded from the IPOLL database at the Roper Center, and the WEIGHT variable was used. For 2×2 tables, significance was determined by 1-tailed Fisher Exact tests. For differences of means, 1-sided independent T-Tests were used without assuming equal variances.]

 

 

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Some unsettling new legislation has been quietly advancing in Congress. Called the Cybersecurity and Vulnerability Identification and Notification Act of 2020, the bill passed out of the House Committee on Homeland Security yesterday and will now go to the full House for a vote.

The legislation—like its companion in the Senate—gives the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) more power to subpoena information from internet and telecommunications companies, including subscriber names, addresses, and telephone numbers.

Rep. James Langevin (D–R.I.), one of the bill’s sponsors, describes it as giving the new Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA)—created by President Donald Trump in 2018—”the ability to say something when they see something.”

That’s the first sign that something might be off, since “see something, say something” is more or less the motto for DHS-enabled snooping and security theater.

A press release from Langevin’s office insists that subpoenaed data will “only to be used for notification about a risk, not for surveillance or investigation purposes.” Why do I not feel reassured?

The legislation grants that “the director of Homeland Security may issue a subpoena for the production of information necessary to identify” suspected security vulnerabilities in an “information system connected to the internet,” so long as DHS says the potential risk is connected “to critical infrastructure.”

Compelling private information when it involves risks to “critical infrastructure” might sound smart. But it’s important to keep in mind that it doesn’t take much for CISA to deem something critical infrastructure. The agency’s 16 sectors of critical infrastructure extend to such places as casinos, hotels, motels, campgrounds, zoos, shopping malls, self-storage facilities, condominiums, banks, insurance companies, and motion picture studios.

Also relevant: just how loose Homeland Security’s definition of “risk” is. This month, for instance, the agency has been warning about the purportedly high risk of sex traffickers at the Super Bowl—an urban legend that has been thoroughly, repeatedly debunked.

Langevin claims that in the past, potential risks have been identified but “CISA has not been able to identify the owner of a vulnerable system and warn them of their exposure.” The new policy would force “telecommunications companies that may have relevant subscriber information that could make it easier to identify the subscriber assigned an IP address” to share that information with Homeland Security.

That sounds like a good way for DHS to demand identifying information on any systems, services, or subscribers it wants.

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FREE MARKETS

Another California city is effectively decriminalizing hallucinogenic mushrooms. A new ordinance adopted this week in Santa Cruz says “the investigation and arrest of individuals involved with the adult possession, use, or cultivation of psychoactive plants and fungi listed on the Federal Schedule 1 list for personal adult use and clinical research be among the lowest priorities for the city of Santa Cruz.”

Meanwhile, the feds are still going after marijuana sellers in states where the drug is legal. Michigan resident Danny Trevino was just sentenced to more than 15 years in federal prison for running medical marijuana dispensaries in a state that allows medical marijuana. “He was not allowed to use the state’s medical-marijuana law as a defense to the federal charges,” MLive.com reports.

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FREE MINDS

David French on “the growing threat to free speech online”: attempts to overhaul or abolish Section 230. “Hostility against Big Tech may cause our nation to blunder into changing the nature of the internet to enhance the power of the elite at the expense of ordinary Americans,” French writes at Time.

One frightening development on this front has been Attorney General Bill Barr jumping on the anti–Section 230 bandwagon. Section 230 doesn’t apply to federal criminal investigations of the sort Barr is supposed to be worrying over.

For a 101 on Section 230 and its foes, see this ReasonTV video:

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QUICK HITS

• Good news: U.S. life expectancy is on the upswing again, according to the latest report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
• Clearview has been marketing its facial recognition technology to law enforcement, promising to find matches in 75 percent of all searches. “That doesn’t actually mean it finds the right person 75% of the time,” notes Tim Cushing. “It only means the software finds someone that matches submitted photos three-quarters of the time.” Meanwhile, BuzzFeed finds that Clearview has been lying about the police agencies it has worked with.
• Elizabeth Warren wants “criminal penalties for spreading disinformation online,” CNBC tweeted yesterday. Read Scott Shackford here for what Warren actually proposed.

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