"Spin aside," said the headline in the metro daily, "Georgia still 49th out of 51."

Let's put aside for now the fact that the headline clearly states an editorial opinion even though it is the lead headline on a news page. Let's just deal with the assertion.

As Paul Newman said in a movie about being falsely accused, "It's true, but it's not accurate."

It's true that Georgia students taking the Scholastic Assessment Test in hopes of going to college scored only 968 compared to a national average of 1017, and only one state, South Carolina with 951, and the District of Columbia (964) scored lower.

But does it constitute "spin" to point out that 64 percent of Georgia's students took the test compared to as few as 4 percent in other states, and only 13 states had a higher percentage of students taking the quiz?

If by "spin" you mean interpretation, perhaps. But we all know the word has a negative connotation that suggests the spinner is cooking the figures and trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the spin-ee.

It's also fair to point out that, of the 13 states that did have a higher percentage than Georgia taking the test, only D.C. scored lower. Now the spin goes the other way.

Look at the figures carefully in the context of other information and you can probably learn something about how the educational system is working in a given state, I suppose.

But that's not how the media deal with this information. There is among both media and politicians a tendency to rank the states according to their SAT scores and then glibly point out in election campaigns and at budget time that Georgia ranks 49th out of 51 and is well below the national average.

Lying behind that quick-draw interpretation is a big "therefore." Therefore, we need to spend more and more and more money on education in Georgia because we have to catch up. The shame of it all!

Or, is it: Therefore, we should fire all the teachers and start over. Or: Therefore, we should fire all the administrators, promote all the teachers and let them run the system.

What nonsense.

Ask yourself this: What would the national average be if 64 percent of Mississippi's students, Alabama's, Arkansas', Louisiana's, Utah's, Tennessee's students took the SAT. All of those states and more had fewer than 15 percent of students take the test.

Ask yourself what's wrong with Utah and Mississippi, where only 4 percent were smart enough to take the SAT. In Arkansas it was 6 percent, Alabama 8. How can you possibly make any sort of comparison between the main stream of our student bodies and the cream of the cream in other states?

If we want to use test scores to evaluate how well an educational system is working compared to others, then we must make the test a requirement for all students. And even then there are other factors that must be considered.

At one time a few years ago, I checked into which state had the best SAT scores. It was New Hampshire that year. Then I checked into which state spent the most money per capita on education. It was New York, which at that time ranked pretty low... still does. At 998, the state ranks 11th this year.

New Hampshire didn't spend the most on education, not even the average. The state spent less per capita than any other state.

Does that mean we should adjust our education budget so it is the lowest in order to improve our scores? No more than a 49th ranking means we have the third worst educational system in the nation. You can't make those kinds of decisions based on one isolated piece of information.