Numbers don’t lie. No one can argue against the notion that a numerical value provides some sort of concrete insight into the operation of a system. However, numbers often don’t tell widely accepted truths; in other words, people tend to interpret figures in a wide variety of ways, most of which cannot be objectively true.

If we aren’t careful, public education in Missouri might take a drastic turn for the worse because of the interpretation of a few numbers.

Amendment Three, also known as a Missouri Teacher Performance Evaluation, is on the Nov. 4 election ballot as an initiated constitutional amendment. In other words, since enough registered voters signed a petition in favor of this constitutional amendment, a public vote on the issue will ensue.

According to ballotpedia.com, “If approved by voters, this measure would implement teacher performance evaluations that would be used to determine whether a teacher should be dismissed, retained, demoted or promoted. It would also prevent teachers from collectively bargaining over the terms of these evaluations.”

At this point, these words might not seem to hold much water. Nevertheless, unless public awareness raises to the maximum, such an initiative might pass by before we get the chance to think twice. Part of the potential danger of an initiative is that, as the word implies, it deals with a law initiated almost completely by the people.

Sponsoring this proposal is the Teach Great campaign, run by the Children’s Education Council of Missouri. Those in favor of the initiative claim to be focused primarily on protecting the educational rights of teachers and students as well as fostering academic justice. That said, to put the quality of a teacher’s past experience by the wayside and to use nothing but “quantifiable student performance data” to judge an educator is to place a disproportionately great amount of emphasis on schooling and nowhere near enough emphasis on education.

Here’s a question to ponder: is our country’s system of higher education not number-driven enough already? Students are constantly preoccupied with inching one point higher on the ACT, keeping the GPA above a specifically set value and keeping the price of college at a reasonable value given the circumstances at hand.

If voters aren’t deliberate in their decision making and allow Amendment Three to slip by unnoticed, our teachers, even those who have been around long enough to have had our parents in class, will be judged almost completely by their students’ test scores.

How much should we be paying Mrs. Jones? Check her students’ median test scores for the past three years. Who deserves that new job opening? Well, all signs imply that Mr. Smith is excellent at inspiring young people, but Ms. Johnson has produced students with some of the highest test scores in the state.

Of course, the teacher’s perspective on this issue is one of insurmountable pressure and discomfort, but imagine the student’s point of view. It’s painful enough to know that, in today’s world, numbers can make or break us. But the absolute last thing that anyone wants to do is to bring down somebody who has dedicated their life to shaping the minds of the youth with them.