The Right Numbers Right

Nick Burkholder

The New Jersey School Boards Association is continuing to tout “New Jersey students' participation rate in the SAT as among the highest in the nation; 86% of New Jersey's seniors took the SAT, far higher than the national average of 49%.”

So, they’re bragging about the number of students who take a test?  That’s the same as a staffing department bragging about the number of candidates that complete applications.  It’s essentially meaningless.

The NJ SAT data is included in what is essentially a commercial for NJ public schools.  The real performance of the schools aside (I graduated from a NJ public high school), it’s the inaccurate and fallacious measurements, many presented in similar fashion that has devastated our economy.

Now, more than ever, and from on, we must be on guard against misleading data in all aspects of our lives.  And if you’re not using a customer driven, performance outcome metric at work you should start right now.  If the dearth of hiring has you uncertain about how to measure email us. We’ll help you get the right numbers right.