Reviewing David Warlick’s blog, which I enjoy tremendously, more so than reading the blogs and published writings of his detractors, I ran across this paragraph:
But I think that we need to acknowledge the tragic waste that is resulting from today’s system. We need to stop believing that we can bandaid the system into relevance. I think that we need to be willing to say, “It’s too late for her. Now, what can we do to make sure that we never have to say that again.”
And the question that popped into my head was, how do you quantify the “tragic waste that is resulting from today’s system?” How bad is it really and where do I go to find that out? How do you quantify, tragic?
It’s important to know how to quantify tragic when referring to schools because my gut reaction is that we too often criticize schools, teachers, administrators in the media, in the legislature, in books. Of course, I can cite the reports that call for dramatic change to our education system. I’m just not sure I believe them anymore. Is that an ostrich dropping its head into the sand, anomie, or just a realization that every constituent group has its own agenda and plan for achieving it, which may or may not cause considerable collateral damage to other stakeholder groups.
How do you quantify tragic in today’s education system? Perhaps one should ask, how do you quantify learning in spite of all odds? How do you quantify a passionate desire to continue learning and doing when everyone, even your own mother, tells you it’s impossible, you’re not qualified, you can’t do it, and should go find another way?
Now, that last paragraph would be so much better if I had links for each example. I don’t.
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Another Think Coming 
I am not a doomsday demon when it comes to public schools. I have personal knowledge of many, many schools where dedicated and talented people are helping large numbers of students learn in authentic ways and at high levels. However,you asked to quantify tragic. Here are some numerical indicators that portray some potentially tragic situations in relation to public schools:1. The National Commission on Teaching and America's Future in 2009 documented high schools in Philadelphia where the teacher dropout rate was higher than the student dropout rate (in schools where just over 50% of the students were graduating on time)2. In the US, in 1980, the high school graduation rate was 80% (up from just over 60% in 1960 and just over 50% in 1950). Since 1990, the rate has remained consistently near 70%. (These numbers do not include students who earn GEDs).How did we get better and then worse?3. NAEP statistics indicate that approximately one-third of US 4th graders read below grade level. Approximately one-third of US students do not graduate from high school. Could there be a connection between these statistics?4. Statistically speaking African-American and Hispanic male students in many urban high schools have a greater likelihood of going to jail than they do of graduating from college.5. The US Dept. of Education can name the 2000 high schools in the US with the highest dropout rates, label them as "dropout factories" but our nation has not been able to reverse their patterns of student underachievement.6. I read in a blog this week that the Texas authorities responsible for planning prison construction base their future estimates, at least in part, on the 3rd grade reading scores statewide and then project into the future. Can this be true?7. Undergraduate tuition at public colleges and universities in California was raised 38% for next year while professors are being laid off and enrollments are being capped.I offer these comments not to say that US education is an unmitigated failure, but to emphasize unequivocally that we can, and must, do much, much better. It us not difficult to find numerical substantiation for many dimensions of educational shortcoming (some which I would term tragic); what I personally find more challenging is to find people who are willing to consistently compile and report numbers that show where and how our efforts at educating our young people are succeeding…and why.
I am not a doomsday demon when it comes to public schools. I have personal knowledge of many, many schools where dedicated and talented people are helping large numbers of students learn in authentic ways and at high levels. However,you asked to quantify tragic. Here are some numerical indicators that portray some potentially tragic situations in relation to public schools:1. The National Commission on Teaching and America's Future in 2009 documented high schools in Philadelphia where the teacher dropout rate was higher than the student dropout rate (in schools where just over 50% of the students were graduating on time)2. In the US, in 1980, the high school graduation rate was 80% (up from just over 60% in 1960 and just over 50% in 1950). Since 1990, the rate has remained consistently near 70%. (These numbers do not include students who earn GEDs).How did we get better and then worse?3. NAEP statistics indicate that approximately one-third of US 4th graders read below grade level. Approximately one-third of US students do not graduate from high school. Could there be a connection between these statistics?4. Statistically speaking African-American and Hispanic male students in many urban high schools have a greater likelihood of going to jail than they do of graduating from college.5. The US Dept. of Education can name the 2000 high schools in the US with the highest dropout rates, label them as “dropout factories” but our nation has not been able to reverse their patterns of student underachievement.6. I read in a blog this week that the Texas authorities responsible for planning prison construction base their future estimates, at least in part, on the 3rd grade reading scores statewide and then project into the future. Can this be true?7. Undergraduate tuition at public colleges and universities in California was raised 38% for next year while professors are being laid off and enrollments are being capped.I offer these comments not to say that US education is an unmitigated failure, but to emphasize unequivocally that we can, and must, do much, much better. It us not difficult to find numerical substantiation for many dimensions of educational shortcoming (some which I would term tragic); what I personally find more challenging is to find people who are willing to consistently compile and report numbers that show where and how our efforts at educating our young people are succeeding…and why.