EdWeek: Closing the Measurement Gap

"What’s ironic is that the federal government endorses entirely different ideas about measuring performance in education. In medicine, governments recognize that hospitals should not be blamed for patients’ characteristics that they do not control. When educators make this point, they are censured for their “soft bigotry of low expectations.” In medicine, the government acknowledges that no matter how good the care is, some patients are more likely to die. In education, there is a mandate that schools should make up the difference, irrespective of students’ risk factors.

Perhaps most of us could agree that if the sole goal of accountability systems is to compare organizations, risk adjustment is the most fair and accurate approach. When patients in a hospital die, we rarely claim that the hospital is failing. By the same token, the fact that some students in a school are failing does not mean that the school is failing. Sound public policy should be able to distinguish these two conditions. "

"If we close the measurement gap, we can begin a radically different conversation about what investments in public education are necessary to give disadvantaged kids a fair shot. The likely educational dividends for these children make risk adjustment a risk worth taking."

full story: http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2007/10/31/10jennings.h27.html