A different sort of ranking

interesteddad
Thu, 19 May 2005 19:27:46 +0000

Hoedown:

It was the USNEWS “predicted graduation rate” that Stanford’s Pres. took the magazine to task for. Specifically, he thought it was absurd to “predict” a 99% graduation rate for Caltech and then hammer them because their ultra-demanding curriculum results in an 85% grad rate.



Let me examine an example in “Value added”: The California Institute of Technology offers a rigorous and demanding curriculum that undeniably adds great value to its students. Yet, Caltech is crucified for having a “predicted” graduation rate of 99% and an actual graduation rate of 85%. Did it ever occur to the people who created this “measure” that many students do not graduate from Caltech precisely because they find Caltech too rigorous and demanding - that is, adding too much value - for them? Caltech could easily meet the “predicted” graduation rate of 99% by offering a cream-puff curriculum and automatic A’s. Would that be adding value? How can the people who came up with this formula defend graduation rate as a measure of value added? And even if they could, precisely how do they manage to combine test scores and “education expenditures” - itself a suspect statistic - to predict a graduation rate?