Mark Twain once offered up advice that, nearly a century after his death, is always sure to amuse. There are three kinds of lies, Twain famously said. Lies, damn lies, and statistics.
Yet no matter which part of the equation you’re on, most Coloradans know that, when it comes to education, there is truth in numbers. And, improving the statistics – in how they apply to real, live children in Colorado – is undoubtedly going to be job one for the lone finalist for the new commissioner of Colorado’s Board of Education.Dwight Jones is currently the superintendent of the Fountain-Fort Carson school District in El Paso County. His is a district with a high percentage of minority students, where more than half are children of military enlistees.
If Jones, 44, is approved by the state board of education to lead Colorado’s 178 school districts forward, he will replace William Moloney, who is retiring after a sometimes-controversial decade in the position.
This weekend, a Denver Post op/ed noted Jones, should he be appointed, would “do well to etch these three numbers into his new desk: 30; 11; and 226.
