Colorado ranks 47th in crime and corrections, 45th in fiscal stability, and 39th in opportunity, according to U.S. News and World Report, Governor Jared Polis noted in July.
Ha ha, just kidding! Polis proclaimed that “Colorado Ranked #1 in Education,” ignoring the low rankings in other categories and downplaying the fact that most Colorado students cannot read or do math at grade level according to state testing.
You can see the U.S. News rankings for yourself. Colorado ranks as 17th “best state overall,” which I guess is kind of good? I mean, it’s the top half, right? Okay, sure, we got beat by Wyoming, Wisconsin, and Delaware, while our neighbor Utah took the #1 spot. Not embarrassing at all!
Cherry picking
If you dig into the specifics, you will find that, while Colorado ranks 47th in crime and corrections, we actually rank 49th in public safety. At least we’re not dead last! That dishonor goes to New Mexico.
If you look at the education subcategories, you’ll find that we rank #3 in higher education and #9 in pre-k–12. Notably, being ninth on this list does not mean that Colorado has the ninth best schools. Rather, the ranking depends on “preschool enrollment, standardized test scores among eighth-graders, high school graduation rate and college readiness.”
Preschool enrollment per se says nothing about educational success. As Ann Schimke writes, “A report from the National Institute for Early Education Research showing that Colorado’s universal preschool program meets only two of 10 benchmarks meant to promote preschool quality.” Frankly, this program seems more like free babysitting (and “free” in this context means funded by taxpayers) than something aimed to improve education.
Relatively high standardized test scores mainly mean that Colorado residents tend to be wealthier and better-educated, not that the schools are doing a great job. But various elected officials rely on the stupidity fostered by the public schools to lie about cause and effect.
In a related release, Polis quotes various elected officials who groundlessly claim the education establishment is responsible for Colorado’s relative success. For example, Senator Jeff Bridges claims the ranking “shows that in Colorado, we know how to put our education dollars to good use.”
Of course, the high ranking also proves that taxpayers need to spend even more money on public schools, according to various officials whom Polis sites. Rep. Emily Sirota says the ranking shows “there is still more work to do to fully fund our schools.”
You see how this game works, right? Whether the purported evidence suggests that the public schools are failing or succeeding, the conclusion is always the same: raise tax funding.
Poor outcomes
As a reminder, back in May, the Colorado Department of Education released preliminary results for the latest round of testing from the Colorado Measures of Academic Success. The results are dismal. In not a single subject, in not a single grade, do a majority of students meet or exceed expectations. True, the PSAT and SAT, national tests, show around two-thirds of students who take those tests doing okay in reading and writing, but even those tests show most students performing poorly in math. Anyone who crows about those outcomes is shameless.
Let us state the facts bluntly: Colorado being #1 in education (or #9 in pre-k–12 education) means only that our k–12 schools completely suck overall (with some notable exceptions), only maybe they suck slightly less badly than schools in most other states.
But wait: Did you catch me in a contradiction there? On one hand, I seem to be saying that, insofar as Colorado students are succeeding, that’s mostly because they have parents who support their learning, while, on the other hand, the relative lack of success reflects poorly on schools. So which is it: Do schools matter or not?
Basically I think that students with parents deeply invested in their education will do pretty well regardless of the quality of the schools and indeed regardless of whether they even go to school. (My homeschooled sixth-grader scores in the top one percent on the California Achievement Test, and he’s never gone to regular school.) On the other hand, students without those advantages still often can do well if they attend an excellent school. It is precisely those students the public schools routinely fail.
For the most part I don’t think academic success is a matter of funding. More money will not equal better outcomes, especially when funds are not tightly tied to results. Colorado’s public schools waste vast sums on bloated bureaucracies and curricula fads.
What matters is a deep institutional and person commitment to helping students develop literacy, numeracy, and basic knowledge. But tax-funded institutions have weak incentives to achieve strong academic outcomes.
For what it’s worth, I don’t much trust the U.S. News rankings anyway, although they probably give some indication. (They definitely generate advertising dollars for the company.) But critically observing how public officials selectively use the rankings is a social-studies lesson in itself. I suggest that Polis leave the cherry-picking to Western Slope farmers.
Ari Armstrong writes regularly for Complete Colorado and is the author of books about Ayn Rand, Harry Potter, and classical liberalism. He can be reached at ari at ariarmstrong dot com.
