Let it work; For `tis the sport to have the enginer hoist with his own petard: and't shall go hard. But I will delve one yard below their mines and blow them at the moon. 

-- Hamlet, Act III, Scene IV

Public education is a perennial concern in the United States. And in a time of peace and a healthy economy, it becomes a primary concern. Today's student is tomorrow's banker, lawyer, assembly-line worker, architect, politician and teacher. Americans worry that the public schools of today are not producing graduates who are prepared for the world of tomorrow.

As public sentiment goes, so go the actions of politicians. At all points along the ideological spectrum, there is no shortage of ideas about fixing public education. One cannot be a viable candidate for elected office without a plan or initiative for education. From the separation of school and state on one side to an increased federal role in curriculum, funding and standards - and at all gradations in-between - scholars, activists, pundits, administrators and the guy down at the corner bar have a plan to improve public education. Studies are done, seminars are held, and debates rage on.

And all sides go to education statistics to bolster their positions.

Every year Americans are barraged with statistics about education. In some cases they provide useful information. More often, however, they are designed to promote a specific way of looking at the education status quo.

Education statistics fall into three categories: outcomes, inputs and descriptions.

Outcomes include data such as test scores, graduation and dropout rates, surveys of parent and student satisfaction, and tracking of achievement and income after school is completed.

Inputs include spending, teacher training, textbooks and supplies, class size and curriculum.

Descriptions include teacher and student demographics, enrollment, number of instructional days, and size of staff.

These statistics are used everyday to frame the debate on public education. Teachers use state and district salary rankings to bargain for higher pay. Principals use enrollment figures to call for class size reduction and infrastructure support. Per-pupil spending is used as a barometer to determine a community's commitment to quality education.

Critics of the education establishment also use statistics. Stagnant or declining SAT scores, lack of correlation between spending and achievement, and growth in school bureaucracies are their arguments of choice.

Unfortunately, we may have reached the point where the statistics themselves are driving the debates. Per-pupil spending, for example, is certainly the most cited education statistic. It appears in news stories, government reports and public policy advocacy studies. Yet, per-pupil spending is only one way of describing public school expenditures - and not the most accurate way at that.

As a statistic, per-pupil spending is very useful information. But as part of the policy debate, it can be used only one way: more is better. When was the last time you heard someone say we need to spend less per pupil?

When a push is on to increase spending on public schools, what pictures are broadcast on your local TV news? Usually you see out-of-date textbooks, broken school windows, leaking pipes and overcrowded classrooms. The message is clear: the solution to these problems is increased funding to buy new books, repair the windows and pipes, and build new schools. Yet these activities make up only a small percentage of current school spending.

The use of most education statistics is to build a foundation for a particular perspective or agenda. This report attempts, in the words of Shakespeare's Hamlet, to "delve one yard below." It offers a different perspective on the facts and numbers of public education inputs, outcomes and descriptions. It does this in two ways: 1) it highlights rarely used, "stand alone" statistics compiled by the U.S. Department of Education; and 2) it utilizes "interactive statistics." Interactive statistics simply means combining two or more statistics in a different or unusual way. The clearest example of this in the report is a state ranking of instructional payroll benefits expressed as a percentage of salary. Such a formulation may be more useful than a simple state salary ranking. Perhaps low-salaried teachers receive relatively high benefits. Perhaps well-paid teachers are shortchanged on benefits.

The purpose of this study is to provide just such information. And though the report includes many tables of state rankings, higher is not necessarily better nor lower worse. Is it better to be a high-salary, low-benefit state or a low-salary, high-benefit state? Who knows? The Education Intelligence Agency doesn't, but suddenly the debate over teacher salaries contains more nuance and subtlety. Perhaps even more room for agreement.

You may find it unusual that this report presents so much evidence but draws so few conclusions. Unlike many studies, this one does not aim to supply answers, but merely to change some of the questions we ask.