“What gets measured gets managed.” This aging axiom of business is different from the vast majority of “sayings” that are supposed to convey the wisdom of the ages to management students — not only because it is true, but that its truth is even more relevant today than when it was first minted.
The flip side of the axiom also contains a truth. What is not measured is not managed. Our measurement systems are a reflection of our values — the things we care about and the things we don’t. The design of a corporate information system, for example, might seem like a collection of tech-speak, bits and bytes. But it really is a treasure map revealing not only what the organization believes is important now, but what it will value in the future.
Our educational system provided an excellent example of how measuring something elevates its importance so that it becomes a management priority — and a reflection of our values.
For over a decade, a key element in our efforts to improve public education was the high school graduation rate. The now-defunct No Child Left Behind Act included both goals for improving that rate and a sequence of economic consequences, rewarding progress and penalizing failure. The result: graduation rates improved.
There was an anomaly in the graduation rate data, though. There was a requirement for students to take federally sponsored standardized tests in several grades, including the eleventh, and, of course, most of those planning on attending community or four-year colleges usually took the SAT or ACT exams.
Graduation rates improved markedly, which, in theory, meant that student performance had improved. But there was no reflection of that improvement on the standardized tests. There also appeared to be no lessening in the need for remediation courses at community and four-year colleges. Something wasn’t right, and some educators, analysts, and employers believed that standards had been lowered in order to manage the graduation rates.
The lowering of high school standards is not unprecedented, although it has not been systematically measured — or managed. For years it has been apparent that the shortfalls of our K-12 system have been pushed forward, most visibly to our higher education institutions. Even the least demanding of these colleges and universities have encountered increasing numbers of entering students who lack the academic skills, study habits, and self-discipline to complete college level coursework.
In earlier times, underperforming students would drop out of college with little more than wounded pride. In today’s world, though, students often drop out of courses and programs with not only wounded pride but also the substantial financial burden of student loan debt to show for their efforts.
In the minds of many people, lowering academic standards and pushing skill shortcomings forward to higher education had a certain amount of justification. Among the reasons behind this thinking was the idea that motivation was more important than acquired skills — which is often true — and that students who wanted to pursue their education could be quickly brought up to speed in college.
Of the many things that could and did go wrong with that idea, probably the most toxic is that pushing the problem forward achieved a double-whammy of unintended consequences: it undermined the value of a high school diploma, and, with some assistance, managed to undermine the value of a college degree, too. This is bound, in turn, to undermine efforts to motivate students at all levels.
While too many of our high school students are not up to speed in academic subjects and skills, that doesn’t mean that they are unaware or incapable of understanding what is happening to the value of the diplomas they are working toward.
Some years ago, a young Coast Guardsman I had known stopped by to see me on his way to his new assignment in Alaska. He was sporting an extra stripe on his uniform sleeve, indicating that he had been promoted to second class petty officer. It’s an important career step and I congratulated him on his achievement. We talked for a bit, and eventually he said that he was glad for the promotion, and the pay raise, but “everybody in the department got promoted,” and that he, “wished he had gotten it under an officer who wasn’t just trying to buy some popularity. It would have meant more to me then.”
Under the new Every Student Succeeds Act it is not clear how priorities will be reset as individual states reassume responsibility for school performance. But one thing won’t change. What gets measured gets managed, and what gets managed reveals our values. We cannot undermine our standards and expect that it will not affect how students look at their education. It should mean something.
James McCusker is a Bothell economist, educator and consultant. He also writes a column for the monthly Herald Business Journal.
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