G.I. Guarantee Watch: Day 4

by David Safier

Day 4 of my G.I. Guarantee Watch has come and gone, and still no word from Matthew Ladner or Darcy Olsen of the Goldwater Institute about honoring G.I.'s Guaranteed Research policy.

You can go to the Day 3 post to get all the information about Matthew Ladner's error which led me to ask G.I. to honor its guarantee. Today, I want to show you how this is supposed to work.

About a year ago, Ladner wrote in one of his Daily Emails that Arizona's per student funding was somewhere in the middle of states' spending, not 49th, which everyone else agrees is our ranking. He came to that conclusion by using his $9,700 figure and comparing it to other states' per student figures. The problem is, the $9,700 figure includes all kinds of spending other comparisons leave out to create an accurate state-to-state measurement.

He and I argued in the BfA comments section at some length, with our able commenters supplying some of the best information (Great work, folks!). Finally, Ladner saw he was beat. He realized he could keep his $9,700 figure, because it isn't an error — its a meaningless number, but he derived it from state budget data — but he had to discard his middle-of-the-states canard.

And that's what he did. He honored — or at least kind of honored — the G.I. Guarantee. On March 17, 2009, Ladner wrote this in a Daily Email.

Over the past couple weeks I have been debating progressive blogger David Safier and his readers about per pupil spending in Arizona public schools. It's been a good exchange, and I have learned things in the process.

[snip]

For those who wish to obsess about where Arizona ranks compared to other states, I have conceded that I don't know how many other states may be low-balling their numbers in ways similar to Arizona. In the absence of reliable national numbers, I have pledged not to make claims about where Arizona ranks, even if the usual suspects continue to claim Arizona is ranked 49th (along with several other states).

It's not an apology exactly, and only half an admission of error, but it's a public acknowledgment by Ladner that he wrote something he had to retract because he couldn't vouch for its accuracy.

The current error is even more clear cut. Ladner should do the right thing and once again write a public statement fessing up. He may wiggle and weasel in the process, but he has to make some kind of mea culpa in public, or G.I.'s Guaranteed Research Policy isn't worth the website it's printed on.