To rave reviews, Standard and Poor's has launched a site that compares per- pupil spending, student teacher ratios, proficiency scores and many other interesting factoids, making it easier for parents, educators and policy leaders to explore the "largest collection of public education data ever assembled."
Sounds pretty great, huh? At NCTQ we have all checked out the specs on the schools that shaped our youth. As for NCTQ President, Kate Walsh, her hoity-toity private school didn't even make the list, but she defends her elitist upbringing by pointing out that her mother was also the school headmaster- school choice was clearly not a family value. NCTQ communications guru Leah Martin learned that her elementary school lies at the bottom of the barrel- robbing her of all professional confidence. And research fellow Chris Abram feels lucky to have been one of the 15 students in his class who even learned to read.
"But at the end of the day," observed Leah, "how worked up should we really get? There's no statistic for which students reigned at four square."