STANDARD TRANSMISSIONS
Reed ths colum
By Rik Davie/The Scugog Standard

Statistics, someone once said, are used by bureaucrats the way drunks use lampposts.... more for support than illumination.

So I always find it humourous and not a little condescending, to use comparisons when looking at statistics. So here goes.

The Durham District School Board announced the other day that 84 per cent of first time participants in its secondary schools achieved the provincial standards for literacy.

First off, that means that as many as 18 per cent of Durham high schoolers probably cannot adequately read this column. That can be construed as a good thing or a bad thing depending on who you ask.

But to my point.

Eighty-four per cent success is all relative to what you are discussing. If teachers were bomb disposal technicians, how would we view an 84 per cent success rate?

If you were only successful at your job 84 per cent of the time. If 12 per cent of your actions at work resulted in failure, how long would you keep your job?

How would you like to be aboard the plane with a pilot who had an 84 per cent success rate?

How about a surgeon with an 84 per cent success rate.... Doesn’t garner a lot of confidence lying on his table, does it?

Now let us be fair to our teachers. The good ones are really, really good. They fight crowded classrooms and attempt to teach the kids who want to learn while the ones who don’t take up the majority of a school’s time.

But enough with the statistics.

They mean nothing and are reflective of nothing. A senior education official with a lot of years behind her in these matters told me once that any education testing results are, at most, a snapshot of how things were at a particular time and place.

What is concerning is that if 12 per cent of kids could not make the set standards for literacy then it ought to follow that an equivalent number would show up under those forces to repeat a grade or subject or be taking remedial classes in the problem areas.

Here’s dollars to donuts that is not the case. Not even close.

Our kids have to be able to read and write at a much higher than average level if they are to compete on the world stage and the facts are they cannot.

Now rest assured that somebody, somewhere, has statistics to say that I’m wrong.

Get ready for next weekend’s Chrome by the Lake car show. Water St. will close and open its gates to some of the finest, fastest, shiniest four-wheeled sculptures around.

The usual array of chariots from all over this area and as far afield as the United States will strut their stuff and this year even the racers will be represented with local race cars and even a NASCAR ‘tin top’ sporting the Pizza Pizza colours. The Blue Heron Charity Casino, Pizza Pizza, Vos’s Independent, Emmerson Insurance and The Township of Scugog have all pulled together to make this a huge success for tourism and local business as well as a fundraiser for our local museum.

Me? I just love seeing that much chrome and leather in one place and feeling the rumble beneath my feet as they roll down the street.

Come on out this Saturday for the doings at Reflection Park. There will be a dedication of benches to some special people and an auction of some pretty good goodies to help pay for the placing and maintenance of waste containers in the park located on Queen St. just east of Simcoe St.