I listened to a programme on the radio yesterday that had me gritting my teeth, shouting at the radio and then vainly trying to find a feedback mechanism. Not good for my blood pressure at the end of a tranquil holiday. The presenter was trying to answer the question “Are Scotland’s schools really better than A long list of contributors were consulted: Pete Main a Maths teacher from Perth, and previously Tooting, who had therefore taught in both systems; Sarah Atkin, a parent of a 9 year old at a school in the Black Isle; Linda Croxford from the Centre for Educational Sociology, Edinburgh University; Brian Boyd, Professor of Education at Strathclyde University; Tom Miers of the Policy Institute; and James Stanfield, Author of How Good are Scotland’s Schools? Evidence from Home and Abroad, Policy Institute, Edinburgh March 2007.
The Policy Institute is a Charity that says it is an independent body committed to researching how liberal principles of market economics, the rule of law and limited government can be applied to modern
It was the rather aggressive, unpleasant face of consumer-led models. I quote from their website: "The Policy Institute was founded in 1999 and is registered as a charity (No. SC029012). As such it is entirely independent of the political process and has no party affiliation" Google tells me that a Tom Miers was a Conservative candidate in the Caithness Sutherland and Easter Ross constituency and placed 4th in the 1997 General Election, with a mere 10% of the vote. Presumably it's not the same Tom Miers? Otherwise you'd have to question the group's score on their "independence" performance indicator.
The easy, lazy measure of schools' goodness which they had used was exam performance. They were not prepared to consider whether that was a valuable or even particularly illuminating measure. (After all how could you make a graph to show improvements in creativity or social awareness?) They drew the conclusion that English schools were doing better because their SATs results were improving. (Doesn’t it just mean that English teachers are getting better at knowing what their children need to do to pass tests? And how valid is the thought that if a company has to compete against others to win a tender process to provide an exam system, it's not going to get picked again if it gives poor results, is it? )
Those interviewed who were actually involved in Education, ie all the other contributors, thought that the Scottish system was better, despite its shortcomings. Pete Main felt that Education was less of a political football than in the south. He felt there was less pressure than with SATs and he felt more respected in
Brian Boyd, as usual, stuck up for us valiantly. He made the case for Intelligent Accountability. He agreed that of course we should energetically address the gap of opportunity between the classes highlighted in the OECD PISA report. But he spoke of
For a good talk on the subject of trust and accountability, and an appeal for a system that measures what we value, not one that values what we can measure, look here.
