Seebach: Education Week hits a new low in annual state ratings

Saturday, January 13, 2007

The trade paper Education Week puts out an annual report under the heading "Quality Counts," which for the past 10 years or so has ranked the states on a variety of education measures. It's predictably tendentious, given its audience - they call it "Quality Counts," but they could just as well have called it "Money Talks" - but this year they have really outdone themselves.

The 2007 edition carries the pretentious title "From Cradle to Career: Connecting American Education from Birth to Adulthood." The aim is "to track state efforts to create seamless education systems from early childhood to the world of work," and the centerpiece is a brand shiny new "Chance-for-Success Index," which as you can imagine is only loosely related to any such thing.

There are 13 indicators, and you have to read them all to appreciate why this is such a silly exercise. First, they are mostly outside the state's control. Second, they are so overlapping and interconnected that treating them as independent indicators entails a lot of double counting. Third, the states are not uniform on these measures; in the same state, some counties are rich and others are poor. Fourth, it takes no account of the fact that people often move from one state to another. Fifth, the methodology is weird. Starting from zero, a state gets one point for being significantly above the national average, and two for a greater statistical certainty that it is significantly above the national average. States lose points for being below average.

I apologize if that fifth bit doesn't seem to make any sense. Rest assured, that's because it doesn't make any sense.

OK, here goes. Six indicators for the early years are the percent of children:

• In families with annual incomes at least 200 percent above the federal poverty line;

• With at least one parent who has a postsecondary degree;

• With at least one parent working full time and year-round;

• Whose parents are fluent English-speakers;

• Who are 3 or 4 and enrolled in preschool;

• Who are enrolled in kindergarten if they are eligible.

For school-age children, there are three indicators, the percent of public school students who:

• Score proficient or better in fourth-grade reading on the National Assessment of Educational Progress;

• Score proficient or better in eighth-grade math on the NAEP;

• Graduate from high school in four years.

For adults, the four indicators are the percent of:

• 18- to 24-year-olds who have a postsecondary degree or are enrolled in a program leading to one;

• Adults (25- to 64-year-olds) with a postsecondary degree;

• Adults with incomes above the national median;

• Adults who work full time all year.

There's no doubt that individual children on the more favorable sides of these indicators are likely to do better than those on the less favorable sides. But the fallacy of this approach should now be clear; if you compare two identically situated individuals, their "chance of success" in life has little or nothing to do with what state they live in or where they were born.

Virginia scored the highest number of points, 22, with Connecticut and Minnesota just behind. Why Virginia? Because a lot of well-educated people move to Virginia to take well-paid jobs in Washington, D.C. In fact, the only possible points Virginia didn't get were for preschool and kindergarten enrollments, which didn't differ from the national average enough to count.

Connecticut has a lot of residents who commute to New York. And Minnesota was indeed a great place for my son to grow up, but it's hard to see how he would have been better off if, say, fewer Minnesotans retired earlier than 65. Yet if enough of them continued working, Minnesota's score would go up a point.

Colorado ranked 16th, if you care.

At the bottom of the scale is New Mexico, at -23 points. The only three points it didn't lose were in the same two categories that Virginia didn't gain; preschool and kindergarten enrollment. Turns out only 10 states got points (up or down) in kindergarten enrollment, so it isn't obvious why this indicator is important enough to include. However, Colorado was one of them, so our -1 point for having a lower-than-average percentage of children in kindergarten cancels out our +1 point for having a higher-than-average percentage of high school students who graduate. Which of those, do you think, is more likely to translate into success in life?

And as for New Mexico, what is it supposed to do about the fact that it is below average on 12 of 13 indicators? Move the state next door to Washington, D.C.? It's one of 10 states that lost points because fewer of its children have parents who speak fluent English. But 39 states (and the District of Columbia) gained points for being above average. I'm not sure how that works.

All in all, disappointing. "Looking through a wider lens," they write. What's the point if you've smeared it with Vaseline first?

Linda Seebach is an editorial writer for the News. She can be reached by telephone at (303) 954-2519 or by e-mail at seebach@RockyMountainNews.com.