Using “Moneyball” to Explain Education Reform’s Value Added Data
Full disclosure. I know Billy Beane, the inspiration for Moneyball.
In another world I was part of some three decades ago as an athletic trainer in professional baseball, I was there when Beane arrived as a young kid from a San Diego high school. He didn’t play long in the major leagues, but then again, the vast majority of players who sign professional contracts do not. Making it to there – even for a day – is no small feat. Smart guy, Beane. He could have gone to Stanford and might have been John Elway’s replacement. We’ll never know what might have been, but even Beane now says of his 1980 decision to take the New York Mets’ cash instead of going to Stanford was the “only decision he would ever make in his life about money.”
Hmmmmm.
Only within the creative minds of our greatest story-tellers could Beane’s life story have been written. Even