Two Reports, One Story
A school board reads two accounts of the same event. Report A (district newsletter): "Attendance improved after the new start time, rising from 91% to 93%." Report B (parent blog): "The later start did nothing - tardiness got worse and half the buses ran late." The board also has raw data: average daily attendance went from 91.2% to 93.1%; chronic tardiness rose from 4% to 6%; bus on-time rate fell from 88% to 71%. A board member says, "These reports contradict each other, so neither can be trusted." The board must reconcile the accounts before voting on whether to keep the schedule.
1. Are the two reports actually contradictory? Explain using the data.
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They are not contradictory - they measure different things.
- Report A tracks average daily attendance: 91.2% → 93.1%, a real +1.9 point gain.
- Report B tracks tardiness (4% → 6%) and bus punctuality (88% → 71%).
Both can be true at once: more students show up overall, but more arrive late and buses are less reliable. The board member's "both are wrong" conclusion is a false dilemma - each report is accurate on its own metric but selective. Reconciling them means weighing attendance gains against punctuality costs, not discarding both.
2. What decision-relevant question does the combined data raise that neither report addresses alone?
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The combined picture suggests a trade-off: attendance up ~2 points, but tardiness up 2 points and bus on-time down 17 points. The key question is whether the attendance gain is quality attendance or just more late arrivals counted as present. If the 2-point attendance rise is largely students arriving late, the "improvement" is partly an artifact of the tardiness increase. The board should ask for the overlap - how many of the newly attending students are also the newly tardy - before deciding. Neither report alone can answer this.
3. Write one sentence the board could issue that is fair to both reports.
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"Since the schedule change, average daily attendance rose about 2 points, but chronic tardiness also rose about 2 points and bus on-time performance fell 17 points, so the change improved overall attendance while worsening punctuality - a trade-off the board must weigh." This states both effects with their magnitudes and labels the tension rather than picking a side.