Working to targets in education

[Bob Adsett <bob.adsett@lineone.net>]

Dear all

I have just heard that the council in Bradford UK have now started to
allocate additional resources to our local schools, not to provide
additional teaching for all pupils, but to support specific training to
teach children how to perform better in the new national SATs tests
(Standard Attainment Targets).
The SATs have become the latest form of education league table measuring one
schools performance against another in a national ranking system. (and if
that is not divisive enough the government has introduced performance
related pay for teachers).

So the local education authority in an attempt to improve it's ranking is
now targeting  middle ranking students and cramming them through test papers
in a vain attempt to improve their performance to the higher grades so that
the education authority looks good.

This has become especially important for Bradford in the light on a national
audit by education watchdog OFSTED who dammed the education authority as
failing a couple on months ago (so much so that the government has insisted
that external consultants from the private sector are brought in to run the
education service).

In many parts of the UK we abolished a senior (grammar) school entrance
examination called the 11 Plus many years ago because of the damage that it
caused to so many failing the test. It appears that  we have revisited all
that was bad in the previous system and have brought back the 11 Plus
through the back door.

And if this was not enough our Prime Minister announced this week that in
the next few years he wanted to see over 50% of under 30 year olds obtaining
higher education (Degree) qualifications. I suppose that nobody pointed out
to him that he was asking for students of below average ability to obtain
higher level qualifications - who says we are not in an election year -
Magic Wand anybody?

bob