Girls, Math, and Larry Summers
Posted on July 25th, 2008 in Uncategorized | 31 Comments »
Lots of newspapers are reporting on a new study published in Science which demonstrates that girls do as well as boys on math tests.
“Girls are just as good as boys in math,” said Wisconsin’s Janet S. Hyde, lead investigator of the study, published in Friday’s issue of the journal Science.
The news articles consistently refer to Larry Summers’ infamous remarks about alleged “innate” differences between men and women when it came to aptitude for science and mathematics.
Such as:
But attitudes - and aptitudes - have been changing. In 2005, after former Harvard President Lawrence Summers suggested that women may be biologically unsuited to succeed at math, he was ultimately subtracted from the top post.
(Get it? “Subtracted from”?)
But a closer look at the study suggests that using it to knock Summers isn’t entirely fair. After all, Summers was specific in suggesting that differences between men and women were only found among outliers—the very best and the very worst. And the study doesn’t really resolve that issue.
Among math whizzes, there remain sex differences.
But they don’t add up to anything definitive. For instance, there are more white boys than girls with scores in the 99th percentile. But among Asian-Americans, it’s reversed: girls outperform boys.
On the other hand, there’s no question that some (if not all) of the past differences in math/science achievement levels between boys and girls was due to cultural biases such as lowered expectations, the way girls who wanted to study math and science were discouraged from doing so, and teacher biases.
Were I still at 02138, I might write (or assign) a piece about how Larry Summers’ remarks have inadvertently produced enormous scholarly attention to this area and many unintentional but positive consequences. Probably not much consolation for Summers, but I think it’s true nonetheless.
31 Responses
7/25/2008 3:00 pm
Richard,
Here, The Wall Street Journal includes something that neither the (Old) Grey Lady, nor The AP wanted to pick up (and both will be used extensively in syndication). Why is that? Bias, that old nemisis of fairness. One of Larry’s main points was that results in both tails showed more boys. The Times wouldn’t even mention anything that might indicate that he might be correct in that respect. For shame!
From The WSJ:
“One measure of a top score is achieving the “99th percentile” — scoring in the top 1% of all students. Boys were significantly more likely to hit this goal than girls.
In Minnesota, for example, 1.85% of white boys in the 11th grade hit the 99th percentile, compared with 0.9% of girls — meaning there were more than twice as many boys among the top scorers than girls.”
7/25/2008 3:20 pm
Thanks for the math help! (not only can most of us read we can add too!)
And, by the way, why do you know that boys in Minn score twice as high in math than girls? Gotta get you a more interesting hobby.
7/25/2008 4:26 pm
“Oh Sam,” I’m not sure your sarcasm is warranted. Sam’s not taking a position on the boy-girl issue; I think his objection is more to the reporting of what LHS said.
On the other hand, Sam is pretty good at speaking for himself, so maybe I should just let him do that…
7/25/2008 5:32 pm
Thanks Richard.
To Oh Sam:
It really is sad that while you may be able to do the math, it is quite clear you are challenged with regard to reading.
Have you read the report? Your answer indicates that you haven’t; perhaps you now will.
It seems clear to me that what Larry had to say of results about tails, was, if, not precisely on point, then certainly open to full discussion and didn’t call for Nancy Hopkins’ response (“I would’ve either blacked out or thrown up.”), nor of the viscious criticism to which he was subjected.
I do not know that, to quote you “boys in Minn score twice as high in math than girls.” You said that; I didn’t. If you can’t get that right, can we trust anything else you have to say? Perhaps not.
Again, have you read the report? The reporter for The Times has, but it is clear that neither she nor her editor, has wanted to report, accurately, the gist of the report as it applies to what Larry said, even though she (Levin) criticizes him for his comments.
Is this all about my friend Larry? Are you still angry about his tenure? That shouldn’t have anything to do about his comments at the “academic conference” in January 2005 .
Is it possible, that if he said something that was challenging and that didn’t fit the dogma of being politically correct, you could objectively evaluate what he said? Could you face facts? Read what Larry said; read the current report and see if there isn’t just a little truth, a tiny bit of truth, in what Larry had to say.
It appears that you are not comfortable in identifying yourself ? Why is that? HL does. RT does. SE has finally done so.
Rich, forgive me; very sorry for my sarcasm on the site.
7/25/2008 5:43 pm
Take a breath!
Folks, the LS story is ancient history. Let it go and move on.
Richard, don’t bring it up again please. And Sam, relax. I gather LH is your friend but you too have to move on.
7/25/2008 6:03 pm
Well, For God’s Sake, why don’t you report on something else interesting if you don’t want to talk about Larry and girls and boys and math and science…Richard is a busy man these days…he doesn’t always have the time to research and present you with the kind of stuff many of you like to discuss…RT..SE..HL..you all make good reading…and I’ll bet Richard would enjoy hearing from you too. Nice to see you, Sam…
7/25/2008 6:11 pm
To “For God’s Sake”
If there is an article in 477 newspapers in the U.S.( as of this moment on Google news) and Richard posts about the article behind the article, and the article has to do with the former President of Harvard, why is it ancient history? If Larry is going to be denigrated for what he said, why not try to set the record straight.
BTW, I’m very relaxed. “For God’s Sake” are you relaxed?
7/25/2008 7:19 pm
“For God’s Sake” (also “For the love of God”, who has the temerity to tell SE to go away?) seems to want discussion of various sorts to stop. Why? I don’t think s/he’s very relaxed, Sam.
7/25/2008 11:18 pm
“It appears that you are not comfortable in identifying yourself ? Why is that? HL does. RT does. SE has finally done so.”
Let’s see, Sam. You are retired and wealthy, I believe. RT and HL are tenured professors. Maybe job security explains the difference between those who identify themselves, and those who don’t?
7/25/2008 11:59 pm
True enough in principle “anon anon”, but look at “For God’s Sake”‘s post:
“Take a breath!
Folks, the LS story is ancient history. Let it go and move on.
Richard, don’t bring it up again please. And Sam, relax. I gather LH is your friend but you too have to move on.”
This person wants cessation of some threads, and one is entitled to wonder why, since that’s ALL s/he asks for. I would be unsurprised if FGS was a tenured professor. So I would say this sort of post, on a blog like this, could well identify itself — or at least go beyond saying “Move on! Stop talking about this!”
7/26/2008 10:49 am
My goodness. Isn’t easy to get you all worked up. Nope not a tenured professor-don’t know if that is a compliment or an insult. Either way it is interesting and good fun to see just how seriously you all take yourselves and really cannot defend yourselves with grace and wit.
So, just someone who every now and then reads this blog. You see, those of us who make decisions as to whether or not the university can expand its footprint read this too! It is all fair game, Richard, and how the university and its community behave here is indicative of how it will behave in a new community.
Perhaps you are entitled to wonder why but you are not entitled to answers. You must earn those. See you on the pitch.
7/26/2008 12:35 pm
OK, Mascheranda/For God’s Sake/?anon anon (maybe sticking to one name would make things easier), I just said I would be unsurprised. Good to have an authority on footprint expansion, and maybe you could say whether an item in yesterday’s Globe will be a model of such expansion. It doesn’t seem to be getting much attention:
http://www.boston.com/business/healthcare/articles/2008/07/25/harvard_stem_cell_research_gets_boost/
I thought most of us didn’t take ourselves too seriously here. . .
7/26/2008 1:12 pm
GSK teaming up with H - great. And, it is summer. You are a media guy so why drop it on a Friday in the summer? But perhaps it begs questions that regulators and policy makers (local, state and federal) are already thinking about. Should a university have tax-exempt status? Should the endowment be taxed? What is the relationship of the collaboration vis-a-vis corporate structure, license agreements, revenue and taxes. All that boring stuff. And who benefits.
However, you think (and comment on items) that appear internal to H only and seem to misunderstand or maybe just dont understand that the university is not a law unto itself regardless of the faculty mentality. Perhaps they are really only allowed a small patch to play in or perhaps that is all they can effectively handle. Don’t know but I haven’t seen a whole lot of mental horsepower.
The university operates in a context that extends beyond the walls of the yard and even Cambridge. Decisions about the university’s expansion both internal and external most especially the built environment will be decided by “outsiders”. That means for all the the back and forth amongst and between faculty and their thoughts on matters, their opinions don’t matter one iota in the grand scheme of things. I hope you can understand this in the context of the comments regarding “move on” and “take a breath”. Perhaps they should really start to add some value to the discussion thread about what a university’s responsibility is in the modern context not the 18th century environment in which it is governed and operates currently. And Richard, a big part of that responsibility lies with you. And, faculty cannot limit it to their domain. Think broadly and deeply about the university in a civic context.
Oh, yes you do take yourselves seriously. too seriously (and you guys get cranky when it is pointed out!). The responses are evidence, no? So, Richard, raise the bar and elevate the conversation with regards to H. So, should the university be allowed to act like a big hedge fund that is tax exempt both at the operating level and the real estate level? Come on Rich think like the editor you are supposed to be. AMDG
7/26/2008 2:33 pm
On your opening and closing paragraphs, drop me a line and we can talk, Mascheranda. My ‘inside’ opining is generally to straighten people out who’ve gotten things wrong (as in the July 18 post on the tenure case). Read it again and you’ll see. Everything else, including that, you can find in the Crimson.
I’m actually one of the few who do turn up to every faculty meeting, and have done two stints on faculty council, so couldn’t agree more on the need for faculty responsibility. Ditto on discussion of governance, but again this isn’t the place for that.
Back to ‘editing’, speaking of snarky tone.
7/26/2008 3:13 pm
RT you are one of the good guys and nothing I wrote was directed at you. Best.
7/26/2008 3:30 pm
Mascheranda,
Who are these outsiders that you refer to. What is the built environment.
And this makes no sense “So, should the university be allowed to act like a big hedge fund that is tax exempt both at the operating level and the real estate level?
Why don’t you explain.
Best
Perplexed
7/26/2008 3:55 pm
Dear Perplexed
Outsiders- someone who isn’t an insider. Simply, not faculty, admin or staff of H. Is that clear?
Built environment- the actual buildings H owns and uses to conduct business; in this context Allston. Should tax exempt university owned facilities be used for the purposes of wealth creation and not have the proceeds taxed or pay rent to the “state”? Ricardo theory of rent- first year economics.
The university buys and sells without tax consequences. Again, theory of rent.
You don’t sound so perplexed. And, next time you can always use a dictionary to look up the words.
7/26/2008 4:19 pm
OK, M. no offense taken.
7/26/2008 5:38 pm
Mascheranda,
With all due respect, you didn’t answer the questions and I’m still perplexed. What does it mean, should the university be allowed to act like a big hedge fund that is tax exempt both at the operating level and the real estate level. I don’t understand what tax exemption at the operating level means in this context (the context of a big hedge fund).
Where do tax exempt hospitals fit into his equation.
Are you suggesting that only outsiders will be allowed to decide the university’s expansion on an internal level. And just what internal level are you referring to. Are you suggesting that no one in the university will be able to make decisions about its extenal environment.
Do you believe Harvard is just a big hedge fund.
As you suggest, why don’t we elevate this discussion about Harvard. First and foremost to that end, may I suggest you cut the David Ricardo nonsense.
7/26/2008 9:39 pm
It’s all about the questions.
Perhaps you should try to address them.
And, why don’t you use question marks?
As a matter of fact, perhaps you can research why a non-profit needs a non-profit (Partners Health Care)….hmmm. Oh, why do they need a private equity arm as well. Oh, they are tax exempt, correct?
Does the endowment have to report its holdings to anyone or entity but the corporation?
Should the medical school, the university, the teaching hospitals use tax exempt grants to develop technologies and derive royalties that are exempt from taxes and is that the best use of public money?
And how do the publicly traded pharma companies fit into this mix and why?
Doesn’t matter what I believe.
What matters is the general consensus.
You can suggest anything you want.
I like David Ricardo.
Time to get back to the beach. Bonfire time.
Ad Majorem Die Gloriam Inque Hominum Salutem
7/26/2008 9:48 pm
Make that dei gloriam, M., otherwise reasonable questions. Bad carbon footprint there on your beach.
7/26/2008 10:04 pm
Thanks. The nuns would be ashamed. And it is an offering to the gods. Not to worry it is offset by lots of renewables.
Cheers
7/27/2008 4:30 am
You asked: “Does the endowment have to report its holdings to anyone or entity but the corporation?”
Let’s assume that the people who run the endowment, were required to report the holdings, to the public at large. What purpose do you think it would serve?
7/27/2008 8:50 am
Transparency
7/27/2008 8:58 am
Transparency? Don’t you realize that the holdings change every day. What would transparency on any given day show you that might be worthwhile?
May I also ask you to address the question that “perplexed “asked, namely “What does it mean, should the university be allowed to act like a big hedge fund that is tax exempt both at the operating level and the real estate level. I don’t understand what tax exemption at the operating level means in this context (the context of a big hedge fund).”
Thanks in advance for your answers.
Sam Spektor
7/27/2008 10:01 am
Mascheranda looks a lot like the guy I had a big back-and-forth with a few years back, about Harvard’s payments in lieu of taxes and educators’ parochialism. On the other hand he seems to be taking himself a little more lightly, and has a bit of a British or Australian vibe. Perhaps he’s semi-retired himself to Nantucket.
I have to join M. in deploring lots of the developments in the corporate superstructure of big universities.
But (to get on the topic of what topics we should be on) larger institutional/civic contexts are not intrinsically more interesting or important than those internal to a profession. The fact that in posting here now and then my main professional concern is with a few thousand college students doesn’t mean that the economist, the tax analyst, and so on have trump cards about what the REAL issues of faculty governance should be. Many fewer dollars are at stake within the College but lots more moral educations — less (biotech) excellence, if you like, but more soul. (I’ve got a hot paragraph about smaller contexts on page vi or so of my book {_At the Brink of Infinity_, perhaps you’ve heard of it — goes nicely by the john}.)
The point upthread about Summers continues to be important, because it goes to the rottedness of the media environment. How many people STILL believe that Al Gore claimed to have invented the Internet? How much of such chuckleheaded conventional wisdom has Richard himself absorbed in the world of national politics, even while he bemoans the persistence of zombie narratives (like the one about Summers) within his own ambit of research?
Moreover: Even Richard seems daft about what Summers was trying to be up to when he put his foot in it. When Richard says that Summers ‘inadvertently’ sparked a lot of research into gender differences in boys’ and girls’ math learning, he’s got it backwards. The whole point of showing so much interest in the subject, and doing his hobbyist’s routine at the conference, was to highlight the importance of the issue so that researchers would know places like Harvard were paying attention to their work. This is the more benign way of understanding his line about the devil’s-advocate thing he did: “I am here to provoke you.” Nothing inadvertent at all about Summers’s creation of more interest in the topic (although of course his own infamy wasn’t the method he thought he was undertaking in the closed-door session).
Hamhanded? Yes. Well-intentioned? Yes. A little jowly? Sure, but he married well!
SE
7/27/2008 10:16 am
Since the issue here appears to be about taxing a non-profit (if Harvard can be called a non-profit) then it, it’s related businesses and students, should be ineligible for federal and state grants, low interest loans to students and other funds currently available.
Food for thought-
From Higher EdM ay 20, 2008
“At a time when the endowments of many elite schools have ballooned into the gazillions, as have the earnings on such endowments, and the institutions have begun to address questions about how they can justify soliciting further alumni donations, government grants or charging tuition to students, it is valid to at least ask how they meaningfully differ from businesses.
In the case of institutions like Harvard or Yale, that routinely use graduate students. rather than professors, to teach undergraduates, allow professors to teach increasingly arcane and obscure subject matter that coincides with the “research” they are doing, and hire, retain and reward professors for research and writing that is increasingly read, let alone understood, by literally a handful of people, it becomes harder to see the broader benefit conferred. “Research” becomes an arcane game played for grant money. The profs bring that money in, and the students are the cover for the whole operation, even as their “education” becomes very much beside the main point of the institution. Most of the public that subsidizes these universities with tax breaks, government grants, guaranteed student loans, etc., are entirely unaware of how much this scene has changed in the last few decades and are still under the quaint impression that the main task of universities is to educate students.
In fact, many of the elite universities have become bait-and-switch con operations that have little interest in the educational tasks that used to be the reason for their tax exemptions. They lure the students and the public money in with the illusion of tradition and education, and stick the students with grad students for teachers and professors who condescend to grudgingly teach a class or two when they could be doing their “real” work of publishing obscure treatises no one will ever read or benefit from. Profs who get teaching awards are embarrassments to their universities, all of whom know the real academic studs are too loftily brilliant to stoop to mere teaching”
7/27/2008 11:00 am
Sam there is more of a commercial hue to Harvard than Crimson and its activities are not devoted exclusively to tax exempt purposes and perhaps will not pass the commensurate test.
7/27/2008 1:53 pm
Mascheranda
You have to be very careful when you give nonsense generalities to Sam about endowment and financial matters re Harvard and universities in general. He made a gazzilion dollars for the Robertson Foundation at Princeton (and if you want to see an interesting university endowment case that many of us at here at Harvard and other universities are watching very closely, Google it) which is now causing problems. He inadvertently caused this problem. So he knows endowments first-hand from that and also because of his wife and friends on the Harvard endowment board. If you aren’t careful and try to fake your knowledge about financial issues he’ll be all over you. On the other hand, if you want to learn what is really going on from a financial standpointpoint, he can be a good teacher as he’s showed many of us here and elsewhere but only if you ask the right questions
7/27/2008 4:33 pm
It is often the case that a questioner will misstate “facts” only to have knowledgeable people hop right in to correct the error proving just how “right” and “superior” they are. Invariably this technique often provides even more avenues to investigate (without a whole lot of heavy lifting). Investigateive work can be fun and you really don’t have to be smart to get the answer right-just determined. So, I say ask all the wrong questions and misstate facts to your hearts content. These people can’t help themselves and someone will say/write something that they shouldn’t have and oops the cat is out of the bag.
7/27/2008 5:31 pm
Casual Observer: Thanks for the post and what appears to be a threat. I don’t know why I need to be careful. Anyway, since you are in the mood please enlighten me as to why Harvard is not listed publicly embracing donor intent? I bet DGF will be very happy with you tomorrow for kicking rattle snakes this weekend. Just what she needs!
The “Donor Bill of Rights” – a statement of principle governing nonprofit fundraising and management – was created and adopted by the American Association of Fund Raising Counsel, Association for Healthcare Philanthropy, the Association of Fundraising Professionals, and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education. The statement of donor rights also has been adopted and endorsed by numerous other fundraising-related organizations and associations, including Independent Sector, National Catholic Development Conference, National Committee on Planned Giving, National Council for Resource Development, Alliance of Nonprofit Mailers, and United Way of America and by hundreds of individual charities, universities, and non-profit organizations.
The “Donor Bill of Rights” states:
Philanthropy is based on voluntary action for the common good. It is a tradition of giving and sharing that is primary to the quality of life. To ensure that philanthropy merits the respect and trust of the general public, and that donors and prospective donors can have full confidence in the nonprofit organizations and causes they are asked to support, we declare that all donors have these rights:
I. To be informed of the organization’s mission, of the way the organization intends to use donated resources, and of its capacity to use donations effectively for their intended purposes.
II. To be informed of the identity of those serving on the organization’s governing board, and to expect the board to exercise prudent judgment in its stewardship responsibilities.
III. To have access to the organization’s most recent financial statements.
IV. To be assured their gifts will be used for the purposes for which they were given.
V-IX. (These items deal with donor recognition, confidentiality, professionalism.)
X. To feel free to ask questions when making a donation and to receive prompt, truthful and forthright answers.