Increased Interest in School Rankings
Its difficult to remember a time when the public school system in this country was under greater scrutiny. Newsweek is running features on the subject, there are a plethora of sites online that cater to a growing demand for comprehensive school rankings, and that most vociferous of public speech mechanisms, the blogosphere, has enough to say on the subject of listing schools based on rankings. Now, the richest man in the world has stepped into the picture. In the summer of 2006, Bill Gates and his wife Melinda announced the education program goals of their charitable foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
The announcement of the Gates proposed education goals couldnt have come at a more appropriate time. The public education system in the country is under growing pressure to deliver amid increasing concerns that the countrys schools are churning out semi-literate youngsters who might be ill equipped to handle college level jobs in the real world. Proponents of school rankings insist that these listings give high school authorities a picture of where their schools stand overall. These schools, they argue, can thus...