Correlation and Causation

There’s the headline, and then there’s the story.

The MSM is lousy this week with headlines along the lines of “Test Scores Up Since NCLB,” in reporting the Center on Education Policy’s new study. The articles themselves tend to get it right, explaining CEP’s finding that yes, math and reading scores are up, but no, we can’t definitively give NCLB the credit.

Or, as CEP’s Jack Jennings says, “there should be no rush to judgment as there may be many factors contributing to the increased achievement.”

Unfortunately, that point is going to be lost on the skimmers and scanners, who will see “Test Scores Up” and “NCLB” in the same headline and connect the dots in one direction only.

For those who still like to read, Stateline.org and the LA Times are two who do good jobs of laying out the findings — and writing headlines. And NEA summarizes the study here. 

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