There’s a longstanding polling trend showing a wide disparity in favorable approval ratings for individual members of the U.S. House and Senate and the overall negative perception of Congress itself.

More anecdotal is the observation that Illinoisans can love their individual school district while bemoaning the larger quality of public education. There are even smaller rifts, such as parents who think their kids’ K-5 experience was tremendous but loathe the middle school, or others who swear that if you don’t get the right third-grade classroom assignment, it could derail everything that follows.

I observe this sentiment because I share the approach in some ways, such as abhorring the youth sports industrial complex but happily registering my kids with their chosen baseball or gymnastics programs. You know, because they’re different and special.

These thoughts rattle about while reading Peter Hancock’s Capitol News Illinois report on the State Board of Education’s vote to adopt a new scoring system for the statewide report card due this fall.

Some headlines suggest the state is lowering standards so it appears more students are succeeding, likely a welcome take for those already convinced public schools are a disaster. Setting aside such partisanship, it seems more useful to challenge the larger idea of being able to measure anything against a statewide rubric when so many individual factors come into play.

The current reform movement is rooted in things like scores showing fewer than half of Illinois high school graduates are “proficient” in language arts and a smaller percentage checks that box for math. However, from the same student pool, roughly two-thirds are enrolled in college classes within a year of high school graduation.

“Put simply, as currently designed, our proficiency rates do not reflect the reality of student progress,” State Superintendent of Education Tony Sanders said. “They’re misaligned with what it actually means to succeed in college and career.”

Yet even taking Sanders at face value, it’s easy to picture a different state official next decade saying college enrollment isn’t a viable (or the primary) measure for the adequacy of secondary school classrooms, to say nothing of the K-8 elementary/middle foundation. It’s not unlike a sports franchise that replaces its fire-breathing head coach with someone more cerebral only to can the soft-spoken guy in favor of another red-faced screamer.

Most parents’ primary concern is their own children’s preparation for adult life, not all of which comes from formal schooling. Many taxpayers (not all of whom are parents) have larger considerations, from the value of personal property or property tax bills to a broader interest in an educated society and capable workforce.

Public officials of all sorts must have measurable goal frameworks, but it’s important to acknowledge the inherent flaws.

• Scott T. Holland writes about state government issues for Shaw Local News Network. He can be reached at sholland@shawmedia.com.