Is sheepskin just a state of mind?

Admit it, you've been kept up nights worrying about your state's high school graduation rate.

I know I have... not.

Frankly, the only graduation rate I'm concerned about is that of my own kids. They'd better graduate (and in the case of the college student, thanks for getting ready to graduate early. You're a peach, Sweetie.)

Now the feds want to make the graduation rate standardized nationally.

I admit, as a statistic, it can be rather interesting for the sake of comparison. But admit it, unless you're a real stats geek, do you, as a consumer really care?

I mean, I like baseball a lot, but it has waaaaay too many stats. Some are useful. For example, it's handy for a pitcher to know what kind of pitches a certain hitter likes and does not like. That way, the pitcher can prepare to throw the ball a certain way and increase his chances of success. Good stat.

Bad stat? Home runs.

Home runs?

Yeah. The home run is what all the fans want to see, but as a statistic, it's almost useless. The pitcher wants to avoid giving up home runs, and to do so, he uses the more useful stats that tell him which pitches to avoid. But you can have a player who's known for hitting home runs, but maybe he does it more when the game is already well-in-hand. (Is a 10-3 loss any better than losing 10-1? No.) The fact he hits home runs does not tell you much. And sometimes a team can have one great home run hitter, but no one else can hit worth a lick and the team stinks.

Grad rates are like home runs. They are easy to understand, but tell you very little about what's really happening in education. Some states include people who get a General Ed Degree (which is often more difficult to do than attend high school), and some do not. Some allow for kids who take five years due to hardship or other factors, while other states ignore that.

So this stat is all over the map and doesn't give a real picture of how well a state teaches its kids.

So the feds can standardize it. It looks nice. But it means nothing.

After all, isn't the most important graduate the one in your family?