Liam calls the ???chance for success??? index in Education Week's ???Quality Counts??? rating of state school systems misleading. I agree, and there's plenty more room to argue the merits of the factors that contribute to the scores and ratings, from Ed Week faulting states for not spending enough on K-12 education without examining whether they actually need to be investing more dollars in their schools, to rewarding states for having mandated small class sizes.
But now you can do more than just grumble about how the states are rated. Ed Week offers a nifty calculator that allows you to adjust the weight given to the various factors ??? and even eliminate them.
For example, the Buckeye State earned a B- rating by Ed Week's estimate. Applying Liam's suggestion, eliminating ???chance for success??? altogether and applying its weight to actual student achievement, results in Ohio's grade dropping to a C+.
Flypaper readers, play around with the calculator and let us know how you would calculate ???Quality Counts.???
