If the purpose of a ranking system is to help decide questions like how much should be spent on education, then obviously it doesn't make sense to include spending in the ranking. (And this is not a strawman, the article mentions that Paul Krugman for example smartly pointed out that states that spend more have better rankings.)
> There are a lot of aspects of education that standardized testing can't (or won't) measure: access to extra-curricular programs, funding for art/music departments, technical education, etc.
> these tests rarely include questions about "controversial" topics in history or scientific ideas that are opposed by Christian fundamentalism.
These are legitimate criticisms of standardized testings, but not excuses for ignoring its results, if you don't have better data available.
> Then the bad data is used to justify the ideological position. Law enforcement works the same way.
Maybe instead of using "bad data", like how many crimes are solved, on law enforcement, we should just ask how much is spent on it - the more the better?
> There are a lot of aspects of education that standardized testing can't (or won't) measure: access to extra-curricular programs, funding for art/music departments, technical education, etc. > these tests rarely include questions about "controversial" topics in history or scientific ideas that are opposed by Christian fundamentalism.
These are legitimate criticisms of standardized testings, but not excuses for ignoring its results, if you don't have better data available.
> Then the bad data is used to justify the ideological position. Law enforcement works the same way.
Maybe instead of using "bad data", like how many crimes are solved, on law enforcement, we should just ask how much is spent on it - the more the better?