ShareThisWord from The Wall Street Journal that some law schools have been gaming the grotesque rankings racket of U.S. News & World Report magazine by channeling lower-scoring applicants into part-time programs that don't count in the ratings isn't surprising ("Law School Rankings Reviewed to Deter 'Gaming,' " Aug. 26). The magazine's rankings, of undergraduate and graduate programs across America, are wide open to corruption. American higher education would be far better off if the magazine hadn't concocted these rankings and anxious, status-obsessed students and their parents didn't worship them. This scam is particularly virulent in New England, with its many famous old schools.But then, Americans love rankings, no matter how misleading or inane: Best places to live, to die ....Comparisons between educational institutions are always deeply flawed because each one is unique and complex, and the evaluation of their quality rife with subjectivity and special pleadings. "Everything is what it is, and not another thing," noted Bishop Joseph Butler, an English theologian. (Thank you, David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker magazine, for using that quote in a recent issue. Thankfully, The New Yorker does not do rankings, though it does do a lot of reviewing.)The ability of institutions to manipulate such rankings is almost infinite. U.S. News (which probably would disappear without its rankings racket) says it may revise its system to discourage the law schools' gaming. But don't worry: The schools will continue to find other easy ways to cheat on rankings. Still, happily there's no word yet that staffers at U.S. News have received cash bribes.(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
Another rankings scandal
Paying taxes unites us. It also divides us. People can pay five and even six times more in state and local taxes than other folks in similar circumstances making similar incomes.
Who's got your number?
In one of the fastest-growing forms of identity theft, crooks are stealing tax refunds by swiping personal information and using it to trick the Internal Revenue Service.
