While No Child Left Behind requires states to issue school report cards, ostensibly to let parents know how their child's school is doing, we should observe our neighbors across the pond. "School league tables" were introduced a decade ago in Britain to offer an easy way to compare the academic achievement of different schools. But, according to an editorial in the Wall Street Journal, the latest tables make comparisons harder, in part because the new system of calculations not only seeks to compare academic and vocational courses, but actually values vocational courses higher. For example, a school earns 58 points for a student scoring at the top of a national academic test but receives 68 points for a student who earns a D grade in a vocational course, such as health and beauty, while "a Level 2 certificate in cake decoration" earns 55 points. The government maintains that the new calculus benefits pupils who would otherwise graduate with no marketable skills by encouraging schools to offer more vocational courses. But the Journal argues that the system "offers an incentive for schools wanting to improve their league performance to strongly encourage pupils to switch into vocational degrees from academic ones." Of course, the editors also note the irony of having "report cards" that facilitate the comparison of schools, since parents can't do anything with that information. In the U.K., they note, all children whose parents can't afford otherwise "must attend a local school. State schools in Britain only compete for more government funding - and increases in standards occur largely through government manipulation of figures." Though we observe somewhat more choice in England and Wales, at least at the secondary level, than does the Journal, there's no doubt that gaining access to good schools is a path full of obstacles and, at day's end, has more to do with demographic formulas than individual preferences.
"Apples and candyfloss," Wall Street Journal, January 18, 2005 (subscription required)