True Believers: Why the Kentucky Board of Education knew they were right about Barbara Erwin

On Friday morning, I had done some work at my church and by the afternoon was tired enough to take a nap on the couch. We semi-retired guys can do such things when school's not in session. So when Raviya Ismail from the Herald-Leader woke me to tell me that Barbara Erwin had resigned, my response must have been rather muted.

She remarked, "You don't seem very excited."

I was still thinking about it, I guess. ...About what must have happened? Was she being charged with fraud in St Charles? Did the police arrest her for the missing file?!

But what I said was, "It was never personal."

What do you think? she pressed.

"Well, that was one of the possible solutions," I muttered. It would have been better if the board had acted on wednesday, though.

I told her about how I got involved in the story; how the bad news just kept on coming; and how I thought the board got screwed by the search firm...but I didn't say it quite that way. That last part wasn't totally true, either.

I mean, it was accurate. Ray & Associates did not earn their pay. But when the board continued to stand behind her - after everything - they assumed all of the responsibility themselves.

They broke it. Now they need to fix it.

But like Raviya, a lot of folks have asked how the Board could be in such denial. Raviya was struck by a KSN&C commenter who compared the board's mental state to that of a person in an abusive relationship.

I told her I thought it was mostly confirmation bias; the tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms one’s preconceptions. Afterall, I fell victim to that one myself. (Early on, I thought I had confirmed Erwin's Texas awards, but expecting confirmation kept me from seeing what was really there.)

In May, I posted a piece from Healthbolt on cognitive bias and then sat back and watched while the Kentucky Board of Education played out many of the biases outlined in, "26 Reasons why everything you think is right - IS WRONG .

Recently Slate ran an article on the recent 12-day hearing over thimerosal in children's vaccines and its possible links to autism. The article, "True Believers: Why there's no dispelling the myth that vaccines cause autism" also delves into the way perfectly rational people can, past a certain point, delude themselves into ignoring eveidnce that fails to support their previously established conclusions.

The hearing showed the link between autism and the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine was unconvincing.

None of that moves Mary Wildman, 47, whose son's case is before the court and who drove from her home near Pittsburgh to watch the hearing... "I know what happened to my son after he got his MMR shot," she told me. "I have no doubt. There's no way they'll convince me that all these kids were not damaged by vaccines."

What appear to be crazy choices are actually rational, in that they maximize an individual's benefit—or at least make him or her feel good.

I think the board saw something they valued greatly in Barbara Erwin and it blinded them to thoughts of a down-side. I think they saw a rare commodity. I think they saw something in her personality.

They shouldn't feel too bad about it. Others have made the same mistake.

But I keep wondering why she quit as she did.

• Maybe it's just as she suggested and she could tell that it wsn't going to get any better for her. After all, she produced soooo much material for bloggers and reporters to feed off of. We were probably going to cramp her style.
• Folks in Arizona have suggested that the close scrutiny she really wasn 't going to like - was the scrutiny the state board was going to give her... 30 days to develop a plan without a consultant; wanting her to check in whenever she was in a board member's part of the state and producing weekly communications. Erwin said she'd always done that. Her board members always knew where she was. Arizonans chuckled at the suggestion. They must have been laughing in St Charles too. The other day, board member Chris Hansen questioned whether St Charles should even pay her for the last two weeks (when she promised to help the new guy with transitional issues) because apparently no one knew where she was. (She told Kentucky reporters she was in Europe. She told the state board she was teaching in Illinois; she needed permission for that one from the St Charles board - but didn't have it.)
• Some in Kentucky have wondered if the governor finally got involved - but then - just as quickly seem to dismiss their own idea.
• I really wonder, if another shoe about to drop in St Charles? ..and maybe Barbara Erwin knows it.
  

That last one is my own favorite theory, but it may not be true. I'll have to wait for the evidence.