Educational Self-Assessment

Today's New York Times covers the difficulties inherent in making an apples-to-apples comparison between charter and public schools - if you read past the editorial headline.

A recently-issued report suggests that students attending charters are lagging behind "traditional schools" in reading scores. Critics have condemned the study for failing to consider the academic background of the students at charters - who, in many cases, have left public schools behind after a history of poor achievement. So the report doesn't accurately answer the question - are these kids doing better than they would have otherwise?

Nevertheless, the inadequacy of this conclusion didn't prevent teachers unions from making very predicable noises about the "unchecked expansion of the charter school experiment". This is the same group who frequently brays loudly in protest against any kinds of standards whatsoever, regardless of who makes them up. Since the results of this study served their self-interested policy goals I'm guessing that the standard they used was somehow entirely acceptable by the unions.

On another alarming note, Peter Bronson in today's Enquirer can't make any sense of the standards used for scholastic success in Ohio. In attempting to raise the bar to a 10th Grade achievement level the State Board has effectively lowered the passing criteria to 50% or less - provided you account for all of the various unintelligible fudge factors. And, as is too often the case, African Americans are doing the worst by these convoluted standards of measurement. All of us should be ashamed when any segment of the community can only graduate from high school half the time.

Mrs. Spacetropic (who is in the profession) may leave my pillow and blanket outside at the estate for saying this ... but I wonder at times if everyone in the field of education should be barred from any kind of comparative statistical self-assessment until they demonstrate more proficiency with numbers and the scientific method. I don't care if the standards are set by teachers, bureaucrats or policy makers - but they need to be crystal clear to everyone, arithmetically sound, and demonstrably useful in the production of an increasingly better educated citizenry.

Tags: Education, Ohio, Peter Bronson