Having Fun with Letters and Numbers

Business, government, and—unfortunately—even educational leaders have fallen into the simplistic approach that accountability equals test scores. Dr. W. Edwards Deming, the American who brought true quality to the workplace and who was a statistician by training, commented that the most important characteristics cannot be measured.

Here are some characteristics which make for success that high-stake testing do not measure: character values, creativity, thinking, motivation, ambition, persistence, humor, reliability, politeness, enthusiasm, civic-mindedness, self-discipline, self-awareness, empathy, leadership, and compassion. The most important characteristic has not been mentioned, and here is how you can have some fun with it.

If
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
equals
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
26

then
K+N+O+W+L+E+D+G+E
(11+14+15+23+12+5+4+7+5) = 96,

and

H+A+R+D+W+0+R+K
(8+1+18+4+23=15+18+11) = 98.

Both are important, but both fall short of 100.

The most important factor, however, hits the magic mark, namely,

A+T+T+I+T+U+D+E
(1+20+20+9+20+21+4+5) = 100.

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