And then I wrote

Two of the prettiest female high school graduates I have ever known, one a relative, went on to study statistics in college and have carved out careers in actuarial science. I was always tempted to ask, what’s a nice girl like you doing in a job like that?

Anyway, that thought came to me when I read that Iowa ranks second in the nation in percentage of high school students who graduate.

While the educators were feeling good about that, the allied statistic that only a third of those graduates are prepared for college was almost overlooked.

Should we feel good about the first if the second is just as true? What’s the purpose of graduating if the student is not prepared for further education?

A couple educators said the two stats should not necessarily be thought of that way. For one thing, it is not the purpose of high schools to send all graduates on to colleges. Some may never go beyond the high school education. Many of them have some training in areas which are not germane to college. Some will go on to other forms of education, such as trade schools, for which they may be well prepared.

And all that is probably true.

Still, I have heard parents complain that their college-bound children were not adequately prepared, and had to take remedial work as college freshmen. And I know from way back when I was a university freshman that a large majority of entering students failed to get a high enough score in pre-registration testing to avoid taking communications and math skills course before beginning course work in their degree areas. I had no trouble testing out of comm skills, thanks to the dedicated nuns at St. Patrick’s, but just barely avoided the math course, since I failed to heed the advice of the nuns in that area. And of course, I took no math at all at university!

That university, my university, Iowa, apparently will once again not be represented in the NCAA basketball tournament. As of today, Washington’s Birthday, things did not look promising at all. The Iowa women may have a chance. The men, probably not.

So it was interesting to read last week that, in the absence of their star player due to legal charges, the Iowa team starts a lineup of all former Iowa high school players at times these days.

A few years back, when there was a similar situation, a friend who was also a big fan of Iowa basketball made the observation that Iowa could not win consistently with that kind of a team. “Too many white guys,” he said. But it was not a racist remark. Just an observation that opposing teams all seemed to have one or more of those “athletic” black players who could run faster, jump higher and shoot better than most of the best Iowa high school graduates. And Iowa was losing some of its best “white kids” to other schools at the same time.

So is the fact that five Iowa kids start something to be proud of? The executive secretary of the Iowa High School Athletic Association thought it was. But then, his job does not depend on whether that Iowa team wins or loses.

One of those Iowa kids is black. That’s 20%. That state as a whole has a black population of just over two per cent!

At one point during the recently televised Iowa State - Kansas State game, I idly noticed that all ten players on the court were black. Kansas has a black population of just under six per cent.

I don’t know how many of those kids were natives of their respective states. I doubt if many were.

So what?

So maybe nothing.

They are just statistics.

And as I said at the start, I have never liked statistics and the math that leads to them.