Assessing Ourselves To Death

Matthew DiCarlo:

I have two points to make. The first is something that I think everyone knows: Educational outcomes, such as graduation and test scores, are signals of or proxies for the traits that lead to success in life, not the cause of that success.

For example, it is well-documented that high school graduates earn more, on average, than non-graduates. Thus, one often hears arguments that increasing graduation rates will drastically improve students' future prospects, and the performance of the economy overall. Well, not exactly.

The piece of paper, of course, only goes so far. Rather, the benefits of graduation arise because graduates are more likely to possess the skills - including the critical non-cognitive sort - that make people good employees (and, on a highly related note, because employers know that, and use credentials to screen applicants).

Posted by Jim Zellmer at October 6, 2012 1:02 AM
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