The Tyranny of Metrics

by Jerry Z. Muller

The costs of trying to use metrics to turn schools into gap-closing factories are therefore not only monetary. The broader mission of schools to instruct in history and in civics is neglected as attention is focused on attempting to improve the reading and math scores of lower-performing groups. Pedagogic strategies that may be effective for lower-achieving students (such as longer school days and shorter summer vacations) are extended to students for whom these strategies are counterproductive. And resources are diverted away from maximizing learning on the part of the more gifted and talented—who may in fact hold the key to national economic performance.32 The emphasis on measuring the achievement gap and the pressure to close it has other troubling effects. One is the blame heaped upon teachers and schools for their failure to accomplish what may be beyond their reach, and for reasons that have little to do with their own limitations. The logic of NCLB, “Race to the Top,” and similar programs, places the responsibility for closing achievement gaps on those who may have neither the power nor the ability to do so. That itself is a recipe for the demoralization of teachers. Add to that the dilemma presented to teachers: pursuing the multiple aims of education versus teaching to the test; following their broad vocational mission versus adhering to the narrow criteria upon which they are to be remunerated. Whichever course they choose, they lose. In addition, many teachers p...