Sloppy Reasoning, Misused DataAuthor(s): Brian PowellSource: The Phi Delta Kappan, Vol. 75, No. 4 (Dec., 1993), pp. 283, 352Published by: Phi Delta Kappa InternationalStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20405084 .

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KAPAN (ISSN 0031-7217) Published monthly, except July and August, by Phi Delta Kappa, Inc., 408 N. Union, P.O. Box 789, Bloomington, IN 47402. Subscription rate, $35 per year, domestic; $38.50 per year, foreign. Single copies $4.50 each (plus $3 processing fee); remit with order. Indexed in Educa tion Index and in Current Index to Journals in Education; avail able on microfilm, University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor,

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GU E S TED I T O R I A L

Sloppy R

Sloppy Reasoning, Misused Data

Many Kappan readers probably shared my irritation with George Will's column of September 12, in which he used Scho lastic Aptitude Test (SAT) scores to

'"prove" that there is no correlation be tween school funding and school quali ty. Eight days later, however, The Her ald Times (Bloomington, Indiana) car ried a response to George Willfrom Bri an Powell, an associate professor of so ciology at Indiana University.

With the permission of The Herald Times, we are reprinting a slightly short

ened version of Powell's column in this space. Access to the information that Powell provides will help Kappan read ers push the mass media to stick to the facts and to keep the record straight with regard to the performance of American

education. - PBG

* * *

FOR someone so concerned about the quality of American public schools, George Will should do his homework. In a recent column, Will attempts to

discount the argument that public expen ditures for schooling are linked to educa tional productivity.

Using the SAT as a barometer of the success of American schools, he notes that the five states with the highest SAT scores - Iowa, North Dakota, South

Dakota, Utah, and Minnesota - do not

rank especially high in per-pupil expen ditures.

He also implies that pupil/teacher ra tios are not associated with SAT scores,

making reference to Utah, which has the fourth-highest SAT score, the lowest per pupil expenditure, and the highest pupil/ teacher ratio. (Interestingly, Will con

veniently ignores the fact that three of the

other four states he lauds have among the lowest pupil/teacher ratios in the United

States.) In his zeal to "prove" his point, Will

apparently is willing to ignore some facts.

For example, when comparing per-pupil

expenditures and teacher salaries, he for

gets to mention that the cost of living var

ies considerably across states - and that

one reason teachers may earn more in

New Jersey than in North Dakota is that it is more expensive to live in the for

mer. Nor does he indicate that in North

Dakota the average income of teachers is higher than the average household in

come, whereas New Jersey teachers fare

worse financially than the average house

hold. Will is troubled that public expendi

tures have soared in the past 20 years. He overlooks the fact that a large portion of the increase has been for programs for

the handicapped. But perhaps the most glaring error in

his reasoning has to do with SAT scores.

While Will is correct that Iowa, North

Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, and Min

nesota have the highest SAT scores, he

neglects to provide an equally important

piece of information: very few students

in those states take the SAT. According to the College Board, more

than 40% of high school seniors in the

U.S. take the SAT. By contrast, only 4% of graduating seniors in Utah take the

SAT, making Utah the state with the low

est participation rate. Figures for the pro

portion of seniors taking the SAT in the other four states are: Iowa, 5%; North

Dakota, 6%; South Dakota, 6%; and (Continued on page 352)

KAPPAN STAFF PAULINE B. GOUGH, Editor CAROL BUCHERI, Design/Production Director, BRUCE M. SMITH, Managing Editor Advertising/Circulation Manager RISE KOBEN, Assistant Editor VICTORIA VOELKER, Designer STANLEY M. ELAM, Contributing Editor CHERRY MERRITT-DARRIAU, Advertising Sales TERRI HAMPTON, Permissions SHEILA WAY, Compositor

DECEMBER 1993 283

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BA C K T A L K

lion of them?) owe their economic well being to atrocities perpetrated against eth

nic minorities is not going to win eco

nomically literate converts to the multi cultural cause. - Bob Ellingsen, history

teacher, Perris (Calif.) High School.

Teachers Make the Difference

I was delighted to read Linda Darling

Hammond's article in the June issue. She

rightly points out that "there is little room

in today's society for those who cannot

manage complexity, find and use re

sources, and continually learn new tech

nologies, approaches, and occupations." Achieving such goals means that schools must pay closer attention to actual human

potentials for learning and for acquiring

the characteristics of thinking and deep

understanding that our future citizens will

need and that current research into cog

nitive and creative thinking is unraveling.

Her reference to past efforts in this

direction was also refreshing, for we

have been down this road before. But

schools capable of creating such an en

vironment need extraordinary teachers, as Darling-Hammond well knows. When

all is said and done, teachers basically

teach themselves: they model modes of thought and expressive behavior for their

students whether that is their intent or

not. So if we need future citizens who are comfortable with critical and creative

thinking processes, then we need teachers who are comfortable with them as well.

We don't need more "designed control" over curricula or more tests and meas

urements. Americans have long had a love-hate

relationship with the teaching profession. It's a part-time, semiprofessional job, and

certainly not the way to "make it" in our

society. But we want our own children to have the most experienced, under

standing, and skilled teachers, because we know that the teacher makes the dif

ference. Such ambivalence toward teach ers needs to be addressed in any discus

sion of school reform. The teaching pro fession is the key to successful school re

form. I do not wish to downplay the impor

tance of standards and assessment. These are important aspects of good education, if only because students, teachers, head teachers, and the community in general

deserve to know how the public money is being spent. But standardized paper and-pencil tests do not connect with the goals Darling-Hammond enunciated. From long-term folders to exhibitions and dis plays of student work, there are many

ways to set, demand, and achieve high

standards while at the same time attend ing to the diverse, complex, and unpre dictable needs and interests of the citizens of the small community called the school. - Lydia A. H. Smith, Concord, Mass.

Delighted with Alexander

I took some delight in reading Lamar Alexander's prophecy in the June issue that parents' right to choose their chil dren's schools will be commonplace by

the year 2000 ("School Choice in the Year 2000"). I hope so. One would have

expected "freedom of choice" to apply to schools in America before anywhere else in the world! What Americans would accept having

to send their children to the church or

hospital within whose "boundaries" they live? Or having to do business with the

gas station, bank, grocery store, or fast

food restaurant in whose "boundaries" they live? Or having our children be treated by a dentist or doctor to whom they are

"assigned"? We even get to choose the tel

ephone service we want. So why are our

children "assigned" to schools within whose "boundaries" we live? - Ernest G. Noack,

principal, South Kitsap High School, Port Orchard, Wash. E<1

Sloppy Reasoning, Misused Data

(Continued from page 283)

Minnesota, 10%. The college entrance examination re

quired for admission to the public univer

sities in these states is not the SAT, but

the American College Testing (ACT) pro gram. As a result, a much more select

group - presumably made up of students

who plan to study outside the state, of ten at prestigious private schools - takes

the SAT. In New Jersey, the state that Will uses

as an example of indiscriminate use of

public funds and low SAT scores, 76% of high school seniors take the SAT.

Among the other states with high partic ipation rates on the SAT are Connecti

cut (88%), Massachusetts (81%), New York (74%), and Maryland (66%).

To compare states with such varying

participation rates and not even to ac

knowledge these differences is careless at best and deceptive at worst. But Will

is not the first (and he probably will not

be the last) to overlook or downplay the

importance of the size or composition of the test-taking population.

Public officials from high-scoring states hail the scores as evidence of the strength

of their states' educational systems. Some journalists make similar generalizations, as illustrated by a recent headline in an Iowa newspaper: "Iowa First Again." In

deed, one of the reasons the College

Board was hesitant to publicly release

state SAT scores was its concem that

such information would be inappropriate ly used.

At this point, readers may assume that

there is no satisfactory way to compare

SAT scores by state. However, simple

statistical techniques can be used to cor

rect for the varying participation rates and other compositional differences in the test-taking populations of individual states.

As a sociologist interested in standard ized testing, for the past decade I have conducted analyses of state SAT scores. And once these statistical adjustments are

made, the states' rankings are consider

ably different from those depicted by Will. While Iowa and North Dakota re

main in the top 10, South Dakota and

Minnesota fall to the middle, and Utah plummets to the bottom.

Equally important, many states with high public expenditures (adjusted for cost of living) and low pupil/teacher ra

tios move into the top 10. My analysis

confirms that high per-student expendi tures and low pupil/teacher ratios are

strongly associated with high corrected state SAT rankings.

George Will is worried about the "mis

education of the public" by the public education lobby. I, too, am concerned about the miseducation of the public -

by Will's flagrant misuse of statistical data. - Brian Powell

352 PHI DELTA KAPPAN

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