Educators have criticized a Forbes magazine ranking of public schools, calling it inaccurate and misleading.
Seven Maryland counties appeared in the Forbes ranking of best and worst school districts for the buck ? a comparison of per-pupil spending with quality of education, measured by SAT scores and graduation rates. The magazine looked at 97 counties with populations of at least 65,000 where 50 percent of per-pupil spending comes from property taxes.
Forbes pointed out that money is not the only factor in quality of education, but it did not take into account each district?s percentage of minority, special needs or non-English-speaking students, who can influence graduation rates and SAT scores, said Michael Wotorson, national education director for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
“Those numbers should have been mentioned,” Wotorson said. “It would have added further context, but it wasn?t mentioned because it would have colored the report in the opposite direction of the point they were setting out to make. They used totally inadequate data and it just galls me.”
He suggested Forbes wanted to prove higher spending doesn?t necessarily translate into better performance.
The NAACP is pushing for standard measures of graduation rates because school districts can “flub around with data” and exclude students who entered special education programs, went into alternative schooling or moved to a different country, Wotorson said.
The study?s author, Christine Settimi, acknowledged the differences in reporting among school districts, saying she had to trust school
officials to honestly report numbers.
“You ask why we didn?t adjust the numbers to account for the percentage of minority students,” Forbes Editor William Baldwin said. “I?d like to know what percentage adjustments you think we should make for these students.” He declined further comment when told educators believe those populations affect a school district?s graduation rates and SAT participation.
“It?s a very unfair analysis in my mind,” said Dorie Flynn, executive director of the Maryland Association of Nonpublic Special Education Facilities. “Every state reports information differently, so when they keep comparing, it?s such a disservice to the community.”
In Maryland, the cost of educating a special needs child is three times that of a student without special needs, Flynn said.
“They need specialized education, a special environment and sometimes therapy,” Flynn said. “You can?t compare their graduation rates [with] students who sailed right through.”
Howard County schools ranked seventh of 97 school districts, said Howard County school system spokeswoman Patti Caplan, who called the report “fairly narrow in scope.”
“It didn?t look across the categories that the No Child Left Behind Act requires schools to address,” she said. “There are a lot of other aspects in education that could and should be looked at.”
