Education visualized

Nat Crowley Sr. (BDN, Oct. 5) notes education as a public service, and schools as environments for helping students develop character, independent thinking and judgment, and proposes that it will benefit America if students leave school with harmonious personalities. He visualizes education as the lifeline of our American culture. These are principled and positive reflections, but his support for these reflections is unprincipled.

Listing a hierarchy of responsibility, accountability and authority to run education as a business won’t assure any of these outcomes. Running a school requires business acumen, but education is neither a school nor a business.

It is laudable to propose that each administrative level performs its designated duties responsibly and keep order and control. But how does this proposed top-down system not conflict with Crowley’s offer of state legislation enacting site-based management, where schools are controlled at the local level? Where is the “local” boundary? Effective site-based models include teachers, parents and students and don’t require state legislation. Examine the research.

Crowly blurs unrelated statistical indices together. The median only applies to percentiles; the bell-shaped curve and stanines are statistically different summaries. This is not a small error, but it is unfortunately common.

He pronounces “Hitler was a brilliant man” as emphasis for his argument, a juxtaposition of “betterment” and intelligence. This is a frightening emotional appeal, as is likening the Columbine murderers to Hitler. The scale of behaviors is significantly different. Further, the implication that you can’t be both good and intelligent is ludicrous.

I am saddened by his lack of respect for fact as he expresses opinion. I propose that Maine’s populace focus on defining each local educational problem in clear, operationally manageable terms and not accept expert or op-ed prefabricated solutions. M. Mark Schwartz Stillwater