The New York Times carries a stunning piece of news this morning: a new study shows that “a performance gap between African-Americans and whites on a 20-question test administered before Mr. Obama’s nomination all but disappeared when the exam was administered after his acceptance speech and again after the presidential election.” The researchers dub it the “Obama Effect.”
Stunning if it’s true, that is. And replicable. And demonstrable in young children, not just the adults in the study.
“It’s a very small sample, but certainly a provocative study,” Harvard professor Ronald F. Ferguson tells the Times. “There is a certainly a theoretical foundation and some empirical support for the proposition that Obama’s election could increase the sense of competence among African-Americans, and it could reduce the anxiety associated with taking difficult test questions.”
At D-Ed Reckoning, Ken DeRosa is skeptical, calling it “the educational equivalent of cold fusion.”
