So Rob Portman voted to confirm Betsy DeVos

[Benton]

(02-09-2017, 05:01 PM)bfine32 Wrote: Of course we can make stats reflect whatever we desire.


 

Not exactly. You can omit stats — and facts — to take a position. But there's not two sets of reality, where facts mean one thing here, and another thing there. Stats are stats, and we're graduating more people, our graduation rates are higher, our college participation is higher, more kids are entering college prepared for classes.

Now, why we're doing better, that's subjective. My opinion and yours may vary... but if your starting point is 'schools are doing worse because Betsy said so' then I'm guessing the 'why' is going to be irrelevant to the discussion as it's an erroneous origin.

Quote: I can point to how much we spend on average per student based on the rest of the world and the bang we are getting for our buck. If the two of you want to say the education system has been overall sucessful and the best way to determine who should head the program is to compare his or her resume to his or her predesessors; that's your opinion and who am I to say it is wrong.

I could raise the High School graduation rate, increase our performance results on internal tests, and get more kids enrolled in college overnight; however, this does nothing if the rest of the world is getting smarter around us.

I'm not following, I guess. I went to public school, so bear with me there. I would say that improving graduation rates, performance and college readiness is a step toward us getting smarter. I don't see how having fewer graduates, lower test scores and fewer continuing to post secondary is going to make us more competitive globally.