Sun-Times Exclusive: Is there a Pulitzer for lazy reporting?

Some school districts in Illinois pay average teacher salaries that are higher than other school districts. Other districts pay average salaries that are lower than other districts. Some of the districts with higher average teacher salaries have students that scored low on the ISAT test when compared with other districts, and some districts with lower average teacher salaries did better.

But no real correlations between salaries and student performance can be made from all this, and the Chicago Sun-Times, which splashed this mish-mosh of so-called data across its pages, makes no real claim that they can.

It is an illustration of the sorry state of today’s investigative journalism that the Chicago Sun-Times passes this off as serious work.

…nobody has found a workable way to measure teacher performance as it relates to student performance, said Robin Steans, executive director of Advance Illinois, an education policy group.

“You can’t find two merit programs that look alike, so it’s complicated to draw any conclusions about how to do it in terms of making a difference in the classroom,” said Steans, a former teacher.

Steans contends the statewide ISAT and PSAE — tests the Sun-Times analysis used to calculate achievement rankings — are flawed ways to measure progress because they aren’t consistent from year to year.

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