Why Meadow died : the people and policies that created the Parkland shooter and endanger America's students

Foreword: "My sister" -- Preface: "Daddy, keep going" -- Picking up the pieces. A teacher survivor ; An immigrant father ; An education expert ; A student journalist -- Cruz control. An exceptional student ; Going to MSD ; Leaving MSD ; Returning to MSD -- The politically correct school district. From Broward to your school ; The underreporting ; The broken PROMISE ; The "so-called tragedy" -- The fight to #Fixit. Graduation week ; Flip the board! ; Free campaign ads ; The election -- Epilogue: You have to #Fixit.;Andrew Pollack, whose daughter Meadow was murdered in the Parkland, Florida high school shooting, teamed up with education expert Max Eden to find out how the Parkland shooter slipped through the cracks. They argue that the policies pioneered in Broward plague American schools, and make school shootings more likely.;Meadow Pollack was murdered during the Parkland school shooting. Her father teamed up with Eden, a leading education expert, to launch his own investigation into questions about school safety-- questions that matter for parents, teachers, and schoolchildren nationwide. There's a reason why the Parkland shooter slipped through the cracks. It was the most avoidable mass murder in American history... and the policies that made it inevitable have spread to your school. -- adapted from jacket and Amazon.com info How the obsession with quantifying human performance threatens our schools, medical care, businesses, and government Today, organizations of all kinds are ruled by the belief that the path to success is quantifying human performance, publicizing the results, and dividing up the rewards based on the numbers. But in our zeal to instill the evaluation process with scientific rigor, we've gone from measuring performance to fixating on measuring itself. The result is a tyranny of metrics that threatens the quality of our lives and most important institutions. In this timely and powerful book, Jerry Muller uncovers the damage our obsession with metrics is causing--and shows how we can begin to fix the problem. Filled with examples from education, medicine, business and finance, government, the police and military, and philanthropy and foreign aid, this brief and accessible book explains why the seemingly irresistible pressure to quantify performance distorts and distracts, whether by encouraging "gaming the stats" or "teaching to the test." That's because what can and does get measured is not always worth measuring, may not be what we really want to know, and may draw effort away from the things we care about. Along the way, we learn why paying for measured performance doesn't work, why surgical scorecards may increase deaths, and much more. But metrics can be good when used as a complement to--rather than a replacement for--judgment based on personal experience, and Muller also gives examples of when metrics have been beneficial. Complete with a checklist of when and how to use metrics, The Tyranny of Metrics is an essential corrective to a rarely questioned trend that increasingly affects us all. Today, organizations of all kinds are ruled by the belief that the path to success is quantifying human performance, publicizing the results, and dividing up the rewards based on the numbers. But in our zeal to instill the evaluation process with scientific rigor, we've gone from measuring performance to fixating on measuring itself. The result is a tyranny of metrics that threatens the quality of our lives and most important institutions. In this timely and powerful book, Jerry Muller uncovers the damage our obsession with metrics is causing--and shows how we can begin to fix the problem. Filled with examples from education, medicine, business and finance, government, the police and military, and philanthropy and foreign aid, this brief and accessible book explains why the seemingly irresistible pressure to quantify performance distorts and distracts, whether by encouraging "gaming the stats" or "teaching to test." That's because what can and does get measured is not always worth measuring, may not be what we really want to know, and may draw effort away from the things we care about. Along the way, we learn why paying for measured performance doesn't work, why surgical scorecards may increase deaths, and much more. But metrics can be good when used as a complement to--rather than a replacement for--judgment based on personal experience, and Muller also gives examples of when metrics have been beneficial. Complete with a checklist of when and how to use metrics, The Tyranny of Metrics is an essential corrective to a rarely questioned trend that increasingly affects us all. -- Inside jacket flaps The Parkland school shooting was the most avoidable mass murder in American history. And the policies that made it inevitable have spread to your school. "After my sister Meadow was murdered at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the media obsessed for months about the type of rifle the killer used. It was all clickbait and politics, not answers or justice. That wasn't good enough for us. My dad is a real tough guy, but Meadow had him wrapped around her little finger. He would do anything she wanted, and she would want him to find every answer so that this never happens again. My dad teamed up with one of America's leading education experts to launch his own investigation. We found the answers to the questions the media refused to ask. Questions about school safety that go far beyond the national gun debate. And the answers to those questions matter for parents, teachers, and schoolchildren nationwide. If one single adult in the Broward County school district had made one responsible decision about the Parkland shooter, then my sister would still be alive. But every bad decision they made makes total sense once you understand the district's politically correct policies, which started here in Broward and have spread to thousands of schools across America." --Hunter Pollack, "Foreword" How the obsession with quantifying human performance threatens business, medicine, education, government--and the quality of our lives. Today, organizations of all kinds are ruled by the belief that the path to success is quantifying human performance, publicizing the results, and dividing up the rewards based on the numbers. But in our zeal to instill the evaluation process with scientific rigor, we've gone from measuring performance to fixating on measuring itself--and this tyranny of metrics now threatens the quality of our organizations and lives. In this brief, accessible, and powerful book, Jerry Muller uncovers the damage metrics are causing and shows how we can begin to fix the problem. Filled with examples from business, medicine, education, government, and other fields, the book explains why paying for measured performance doesn't work, why surgical scorecards may increase deaths, and much more. But Muller also shows that, when used as a complement to judgment based on personal experience, metrics can be beneficial, and he includes an invaluable checklist of when and how to use them. The result is an essential corrective to a harmful trend that increasingly affects us all The Argument In A Nutshell -- Recurring Flaws -- The Origins Of Measuring And Paying For Performance -- Why Metrics Became So Popular -- Principals, Agents, And Motivation -- Philosophical Critiques -- Colleges And Universities -- Schools -- Medicine -- Policing -- The Military -- Business And Finance -- Philanthropy And Foreign Aid -- Excursus -- When Transparency Is The Enemy Of Performance: Politics, Diplomacy, Intelligence, And Marriage -- Unintended But Predictable Negative Consequences -- When And How To Use Metrics: A Checklist. Jerry Z. Muller. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.