Single measure is misleading to many

I share and support letter writer Ron Woldeit’s concerns for our education system (“WASL requirements: It’s about the system, not the test,” Nov. 28). I’m troubled by the use of simple statistics to measure education performance. If a school test average this year is 75 and the previous year’s was 80, we’d conclude a troubling decrease in performance. But, let’s add that last year the lowest score was 10 and the highest was 110, while this year’s low is 60 and the current high is 100. Could we reach a different conclusion?

I believe our school system today contains the very best and the worst schools that have ever existed and that the range may be more troubling than the average. Our use of a single descriptive measure could be misleading. We need to use more critical analysis and the press may have to take the lead.

Lynnwood