Some preliminary thoughts on the media coverage of the Amarillo Independent School District TAKS controversy:
1. Statistical analyses of the sort that the Dallas Morning News published and the Amarillo Globe-News reprinted to imply cheating is always circumstantial evidence. Because we are berated by statistics through our media and by our politicians, and because those statistics are so used, misused and abused to manipulate us, I have long believed that basic statistics should be taught as part of the regular curriculum in high school. The understanding of statistics is a citizenship issue. Statistical analysis has also demonstrated that the results of the 2004 national election were extremely suspect. Did we see these statistics in the Morning News?
2. Accordingly, although statistics can tell us the chances of something happening, they cannot prove why or how it happened. That the scores improved is known. The newspapers provided numbers and context that demonstrated the unlikelihood of it happening. But without additional specific evidence, we jump to a conclusion if we assume cheating.
3. Amarillo Independent School District did a good job of educating the media and the public about the statistical issues involved. They credibly demonstrated how small results could look bigger under the Dallas Morning News methodology. Superintendent Rod Schroder also—like a good defense attorney—established reasonable doubt by providing credible alternative explanations for the improved results. These alternative explanations included increased tutoring and outstanding teaching.
4. However, appeals to sentiment remain logical fallacies. The coverage in the Amarillo Globe-News was surprisingly thorough and accurate, with some exceptions noted below. Through the magic of my S.O.’s roommate's TiVo, I was able to also view the coverage on KCIT Fox 14 and KVII Channel 7 (the ABC affiliate). (Kim Fischer of Fox 14 amusingly questioned the “validididity” of the results.) A viewer of the television coverage only might be forgiven for concluding that the essence of AISD’s defense involved a vulnerable-looking blonde crying crocodile tears. This blonde- whose picture also graced the front page of the AGN- was Lee Elementary School principal Karen Atkinson. Apparently using the same tactic seventeen-year-old girls sometimes use to get out of speeding tickets, Atkinson cried for the cameras that her students had been upset by the coverage and fretted that people thought they were “stupid” because they were “poor.” This testimony was unseemly, unprofessional and unnecessary, since the facts (so far) appear to be on AISD’s side.
5. Furthermore, although the TAKS results were interpreted by the Morning News in such a way to maximize unusual results, and although the AISD provided credible evidence which should settle the matter unless other evidence of cheating appears, the results do remain unusual. Therefore, the victory-crowing of the headline “Parents, principals knew it was quality education, not cheating” seems premature and misleading. “Believed” might be a better word. Comments in the article such as
"You can't compare third-graders with fourth-graders. It's like comparing an apple and a lemon, and it just don't work. They had a bad set of figures to start with; you can't compare across grade levels."
prove my main point: that the general public is undereducated about statistics to the point that it is a danger to the republic.
6. AISD’s “internal investigation” remains just that: an internal investigation, with all that implies. Schroder is perhaps best viewed as a defense attorney. His job is to provide a credible narrative for why the scores appear as they do that does not involved cheating on the part of AISD employees. At this point in time he appears to have done so, and absent further evidence from the prosecutors (Dallas Morning News) the matter should be dropped.
SPACEDARK
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