I’m so glad the MI teachers have had their salaries maintained, for it is evident they do such a good job. As noted in ‘Left Out Of Best Schools,’ five schools in Bellevue made the cut and, as further noted, 24 schools in a state list fared better. While it was suggested that MI ranked 2,000 this year, I would note that the district ranked 891 in 2010. If true, that is not a good trendline.

While I am not a fan of ‘multiple-guess’ testing or most of the yardsticks employed, academics are, in fact, a very specific thing. And the world competes this way. I came from New York, where the districts pay for and vote on school expenditures — not all this state, local and federal stuff. And school budgets sometimes don’t get passed. Say goodbye to football, band, school plays, and leave more time for studying. It seems to me, we should not delude ourselves about our children’s education. If it is trending down, we need to ask why. And I doubt a bureaucratic explanation will satisfy. There seems to be a lot of unfounded narcissism, around here — and I include U Dub. Regrettably, you are only as good as you are ranked. (Specific numbers are meaningless, but deciles and quartiles?)

Not getting around to answering the questionnaire is one answer. I fear that those who rank and score our children have a fear of being ranked, themselves. Another simpler explanation is that if the cut-off was 500, we didn’t have a prayer of being ranked, anyway.

John Prudden