Who will make the statistics sing? Meet Professor Aaron Pallas

Teachers College Professor Aaron Pallas

Eduwonkette, the soon-to-be NYU professor who specialized in explaining education research to the rest of us, and whose data analysis often contradicted Department of Education claims, signed off this morning. Her many fans are now declaring a collective “Nooo!”

Here’s Nancy Flanagan, in the comments:

Oh, no. No. Who will make statistics sing? Who will take on the nattering nabobs of educational negativism, the Big Names who blog to hear their own wonky voices? Who will simplify arguments for those who believe that complicated and quantitative = correct? I am, quite literally, crushed.

Nancy, please meet Aaron Pallas, professor of sociology and education at Teachers College, Columbia University; former statistician for the U.S. Department of Education, and the man behind Eduwonkette’s blogging sidekick, Skoolboy.

Professor Pallas will be keeping up his own sharp analysis of what the New York City data show in a new section of GothamSchools that we and our awesome web brains are furiously working to develop, tentatively titled the GothamSchools Commons. Please look out for his contributions very soon.