New Education Metrics

According to Politico, the budget passed by the Texas Legislature in the recent session establishes

new metrics for evaluating school success rates that shift focus away from “performance statistics,” such as standardized test scores, and toward “success statistics,” like graduation rates, enrollment rates in post-secondary education like college or vocational school, and estimated income of secondary school graduates ten years after their entry into the workforce.

While Politico approves of this change, it is a sham.

Schools will now a have motivation to graduate students, regardless of the knowledge and skills that they have acquired. Standardized tests, whatever their flaws, at least measure the level of knowledge a student has obtained. Graduation rates will prove nothing about the actual success of a school–not if knowledge and critical thinking skills are how we measure a successful education.

Similarly, enrollment in college or a vocational school proves nothing about the success of a school. Enrollment doesn’t mean the student will actually graduate.

Finally, we are supposed to believe that estimates of future income also reflect on a school’s success. Suppose a high school graduates a high number of students who get athletic scholarships to college and then go on to become professional athletes. The metrics of college enrollment and future pay will be skewed by factors that have nothing to do with academic success.

In a few years, this scheme will fall apart and we will once again be subjected to political debates over school funding. Those debates could be ended once and for all by abolishing government schools. It is the only moral solution.