Thread by @AbhiDhabi5

@TheAtlantic @SStossel @davidfrum @AdrienneLaF does the Atlantic still follow the factchecking process in this piece:
theatlantic.com/notes/2018/01/… 1/

Because, if so, I am curious as to how you can maintain that this claim in the Article (among others) is consistent with the Atlantic being "dedicated to accuracy and truth" 2/

@davidfrum wrote "Evidence from North Carolina suggests that even a fairly small increase in the non-native-speaking presence in a classroom seriously depresses learning outcomes for all students" in this article theatlantic.com/magazine/archi… 3/

That seemed implausible to me so I asked him for the source. To @davidfrum's credit, he provided the following:

edpolicyinca.org/blog/how-does-… 4/

I pulled the full study, and found that the author did not describe the study or its results correctly. Such clear factual errors should be promptly corrected in The Atlantic. The full study is here: izajodm.springeropen.com/track/pdf/10.1…
5/

Factual mistake one: The study did NOT look at what happened as a result of an increased "non-native-speaking presence" in classrooms. It looked at what happened to student achievement when "Limited English Proficient" (LEP) students are added to middle school classrooms 6/

LEP students are defined as those who "have sufficiently low levels of English proficiency to make them eligible for additional services to improve their English skills." (p. 1.) 7/

This is important because many non-native speakers, especially those who immigrate at a young age, DO have sufficient English skills to not require ESOL. So the article did not describe the group it looked at accurately. 8/

Factual mistake two: The study EXPLICITLY did NOT find evidence that the test scores of non-LEP students were "seriously depress[ed]." In fact, the authors state that: "Our preferred estimates show that having peers – defined at the grade level – who are not proficient . . ." 9/

in English is associated with modestly lower achievement in both reading and mathematics for non-LEP students . . . .10/

An increase of 10 percent in LEP peers, approximately one student per grade, is associated with a 1.1 percent standard deviation decrease in reading test scores and a 0.7 percent standard deviation decrease in mathematics test scores." (p. 18) 11/

"modestly lower" is NOT "seriously depress[ed]." That is a clear error. 12/

Factual mistake three: The study also found the following for LEP students: "For LEP students, an increase of 10 percent in LEP peers corresponds with a positive but statistically insignificant increase in reading test scores and a three percent standard . . . (p. 18) 13/

deviation decrease in mathematics test scores." So there was NO evidence of "seriously depress[ed]" test scores for LEP students as well (the article said for "ALL students." Instead, LEP students had a stat. insignificant INCREASE 14/

in reading test scores and what looks like a modest decrease in math test scores. It is not accurate to describe these results as "seriously depress[ed]." 15/ These errors should be corrected.

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