This has not been a good month for numbers people. The political conventions were bad enough. Then there was disheartening news regarding much-admired national institutions. I am talking about universities and football, and not getting into trouble together, as is usually the case, but rather getting into trouble separately.
We knew that many for-profit universities were taking advantage of trusting students by overstating the workplace value of the degrees they offer. Not-for-profit law schools were also guilty. Now, it appears that the value of plain-old liberal arts degrees may also have been oversold, based on sloppy surveys of employment status of recent graduates. This matters because young people burdened by student loans can seek relief from their debts if they can show that they were misled by the degree-granting institution where they paid tuition. It could get expensive, and not just at the for-profit colleges, as Jeffrey Selingo points out in a Washington Post opinion piece.
Then there’s football. I played in high school and college. I loved the game, and escaped serious injury, although not all of my teammates were so lucky. We now know that concussions can lead to long-term neurological damage. After fierce initial denial, the response by parents, athletes, coaches, trainers and medical professionals has been gathering strength. There is room for uncertainty regarding the appropriate protocols, and the NFL and the colleges have a big stake in preserving the game.
One would hope that the evolving changes in the game would be guided by a spirit of open inquiry that puts the interests of the athletes first. However, the New York Times recently investigated claims being made by an NFL-funded study that evaluated the increase in safety from teaching a technique called heads-up tackling. Preliminary results showed a 74% decrease in youth football injuries, including concussions. Unfortunately, by the time the study was complete and published in a peer-reviewed journal, it turned out that the reductions in injuries were due to an entirely different set of protocols, which are required in only one of the national youth football leagues, Pop Warner Football. The Times reported that the initial results were not withdrawn or corrected. Meanwhile, many in the football establishment continue to repeat the mistaken claims.
These incidents leave the Numbers Guy very frustrated. We have pages and pages of Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) that specify how profit and loss accounts should be presented. Doctors and lawyers are required to adhere to well-documented professional standards. Academic research is governed by well-documented ethical and statistical principles. But here we have bad information that has caused significant harm to young people and there is no one to issue professional sanctions or simply fire the careless or incompetent. I don’t think that the courts are the best place to settle these matters, although too often they are the only place where someone who was harmed can seek redress. The press does a lot of good, but they are limited in the number of issues they can explore and the resources they can devote to investigations.
Does anyone have ideas on how to upgrade the level of fact-gathering, fact-checking and fact-presenting in our society? I’ll be looking for answers and sharing them here, and I welcome comments from readers.