Evaluating Schools

Charles Murray says we should “finally acknowledge that standardized test scores are a terrible way to decide whether one school is better than another. … This is true whether the reform in question is vouchers, charter schools, increased school accountability, smaller class sizes, better pay for all teachers, bonuses for good teachers, firing of bad teachers—measured by changes in test scores, each has failed to live up to its hype. … The reason for the perpetual disappointment is simple: Schools control only a small part of what goes into test scores.”