Why studies on Education Systems amuse me

I'm often amused at how Americans can willfully ignore the obvious but come to believe fantasies that their daily lives easily refute if they'd just admit it to themselves. Education is a biggie. You often see comparisons that rate X state tops and Y state bottom and of course, people love to latch on and say, "see, X state has awesome policies".

Cmon people. Work at least a little harder. Here. Let me run a couple things by you.

Two high schools. SAME state and district meaning same policies, same superintendent etc.

School A - On Standardized test, scores in every category(Science, Social Studies, Math etc). NO SCORE under 97% pass.

School B - No score in any category HIGHER than 71%. Lowest scores are at 37%.

These two schools were in a southern state. Let's try this elsewhere. Perhaps a state known for being educationally awesome.

School A - Worst score in any category. 86%
School B - Best score 71%. Worst 55%.

You wont believe me, but for the 2nd example, I accurately guessed the school's demographic IN ADVANCE within 2%. For a city I know nothing about.

You too can play this game. Go to greatschools.net and pick pretty much any district anywhere in the country. You'll find the same thing AND, eventually, you will literally be able to accurately guess the student demographics based upon score comparisons alone.

So, we can go on thinking that the reason School A is better than School B is due to some fantastic plan their principal has, better per student funding or some other silliness like that, or, we can identify the real problem. The former will lead to a lot of pretense with new policies that get the same results the old ones got.

Or. We could actually try something novel an talk about/address the real cause of the disparities.

Nah. Too hard. Might be called names if ya do that!