Submitted by Bill Paine, Mar 14, 2008 10:10

Teacher's unions love subjective measurements of educational progress, especially when they measure the process instead of the results. Grading warm-and-fuzzy concepts like "teamwork" plays right into the hands of education bureaucrats--they can set their own goals based on their own criteria. Only by examining the results--objectively measured by how well students learn the essential skills needed to join the labor force or go on to higher education--can we truly assess the effectiveness of an educational system, a particular school or an individual teacher.

As for the problems with the current grading system highlighted by Ms. Weingarten, the principal fault lies in its emphasis on improving scores--a school with already high scores had little to improve on, thus was graded lower than a school moving from abysmal to merely bad scores. The solution is simple: have two grades, one that quantifies relative improvement year-to-year, and another that reflects actual current scores. As a parent, an C/A grade (C for improvement, A for current scores) tells me my child is getting a good education, while an A/C grade tells me my local school is fixing itself but still has a long way to go.

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