Thursday, April 29, 2010

The NY Times Has Provided Us With A Widget


The CityRoom article begins in the familiar Times style and heralds the arrival of something very important:

"The New York Times has assembled an extensive database of New York education statistics that will help readers put the vast sea of information about schools into better context."


But did they? The paper of record would have us believe that an "extensive database of education statistics" has nothing more than test scores. How about the age of the facility? class size? number of science labs? hours of gym? is art offered? music? an orchestra? credentials of staff? number of sports teams? number of after school clubs? funding per student? special education services? grievances filed? criminal incidents? AP courses? placement record? ....

Sorry, a school's test scores don't constitute a "vast sea" of anything. I suspect the publishers and editors of the Times would consider more than test scores before selecting a school for their children. But they have one idea of education for their children and an entirely different one for ours.

2 comments:

NYC Educator said...

Well, I have to disagree. To me, it certainly sounds like a vast sea of something. But don't we already get a vast sea of that from the NY Post?

Pogue said...

"All the test scores that are fit to print."

The only thing the Times is missing is a "Page Six".

Sad.