Have you ever read legal documents and been confused by their jargon?  Although councils have been banned from using jargon, the ban does not extend to the law, politics, or even journalism.  Of course, many journalists just quote from their sources, so if their sources use jargon, journalists cannot help but use it in their articles.  But, as a Fool, I sometimes struggle to understand some journalist articles, whether or not jargon is used.  Take, for example, this education article on the BBC online by Gary Eason.  In it, he describes parents’ reactions to the proposed school report cards (which I still have reservations about, and my reactions clearly differ from many of those interviewed).

This is taken directly from the website:

‘The parents “struggled to understand” two very basic, draft report cards provided by the department – one with more explanatory information than the other.

“The overall perception was that they had to work very hard indeed for information which they didn’t know how to use.”

The researchers concluded that report cards could be very valuable.’

I’d like to understand how researchers came up with their conclusion.  If parents struggled to understand sample report cards, how is it going to be very valuable to them?  Or is it going to be valuable to the researchers who could care less how a school performed as long as their kids didn’t go there?