No Child Below Average

Charles Murray explains the bell curve. Again.

(Do try to follow along--no math is required.)

At stake is not some arcane statistical nuance. The federal government is doling out rewards and penalties to school systems across the country based on changes in pass percentages. It is an uninformative measure for many reasons, but when it comes to measuring one of the central outcomes sought by No Child Left Behind, the closure of the achievement gap that separates poor students from rich, Latino from white, and black from white, the measure is beyond uninformative. It is deceptive.

I once told Greg that I hoped that my children learn, if nothing else, these two things:

1. The law of supply and demand.
2. The bell curve and what it means

But how many public school teachers understand even that?