Targets

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

During my 41.333333 years of teaching, "targets" became a fact of life, whether we liked it or not.

I did not.

Consider this. A keen employee will work enthusiastically and will want to make improvements, so will try to give that little bit extra in order to achieve this. This is the way it worked before the era of targeting. It worked.

There were skivers, of course, but there were ways of dealing with people who didn't pull their weight, but such avenues were often overlooked. An underperforming worker could be given targets to aid performance, but for those already working to capacity, targets were counterproductive.

As a music teacher in a secondary school, I remember the hours of preparation, and the non-existent lunch breaks - they did exist, of course, but music teachers were rehearsing on a daily basis.

But somehow we made it work.

Then along came the new whizz-kid, taking over from the retiring head teacher.

"I'm not going to make any immediate changes, but we'll need to have a few targets to see us through until the summer." It all sounded harmless enough, until we learnt the magnitude of the targets.
One brace soul did ask: "What would you like us to stop doing in order to achieve these targets?" The whizz-kid didn't seem to understand why anyone should ask such a question. As the burden of targets continued, the school fell apart in every way. My music department was very badly hit, and in the end (1996) I resigned publicly at the end of school concert, thanking nearly everyone: colleagues, pupils, and the Chairman of Governors (who was attending the concert), but accidentally forgetting to thank the whizz-kid.

The school continued to collapse, and the whizz-kid was replaced. The damage seemed irreversible, as by then, targets were part of performance management. A new kind of teacher emerged, largely pre-programmed for the brave new world. Some were/are very good, but music has suffered as a part of this process.

Recently, the school effectively ceased to exist, being swallowed up by a neighbouring school.

And it all began with targets.

[Dave2002]

Recently, the school effectively ceased to exist, being swallowed up by a neighbouring school.

And it all began with targets.

I sympathise. However you are implying a causal relationship - and that is not proven.

[Beef Oven!]

Crikey! No wonder people don't like any of the new BaL formats or clapping between movements at Proms if they think like this!

[Beef Oven!]

Alpie, if you 'somehow made it work' first time round, why didn't you do the same with the new guy? Or why didn't any of you guys step up to the plate and lead the school? Was there no succession planning? Did everyone think everything was alright and would never change? Did you not see the risk?

Especially since you had 5 years experience repeated 8.26666666 times!

(I'm fighting the corner of all whizz-kids, wherever they may be!)

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I sympathise. However you are implying a causal relationship - and that is not proven.

I think my main point is that when you try to put a quart into a pint pot, it overflows.

[Serial_Apologist]

As an application of performance principles to areas outside the manufacturing production line, I've always assumed targets to be Fordism as applied to, in this case, education. The difference lies presumably in the orderer of the manufactured product being in the powerful position of declaring he wants his product by the date the manufacturer says he'll deliver by at the price the manufacturer is able to afford, or else he, the customer, will go to a competitor..... whereas in the case of the educational product, the qualified pupil, the teacher must do the job to a given standard within a specific timeline, and if not, the money, whether taxpayer's or fee-paying parent's, will go where the productivity is achieved more efficiently, namely faster and in larger numbers of high achievers within specified timelines. In olden times, successful trade union campaigns to improve working conditions allowed for a degree of slack within input-drivenworking systems that ensured no one - the worker at his or her bench, the teacher in front of the class and his or her pupils - was overstretched to the point of narrow focusing on the result, regardless of the health and wellbeing of the operator. In education this would have meant broadening the knowledge field of the recipient, to produce a rounded individual, being treated as equivalent to the instilling of factual information. But given the voracious tendency of the system, based as it is on successful competition at all levels, firm against firm, pupil against pupil, school against school, any slack within the system came to be seen as part of the "problem of competitiveness" putting "less efficient" units at a disadvantage vis-a-vis other "more efficient" enterprises, and more measurable means had to be brought to bear on a problem seen as bearing on all sectors regardless, from car assembly lines to classroom assembly lines. Hence targets.

[Beef Oven!]

As an application of performance principles to areas outside the manufacturing production line, I've always assumed targets to be Fordism as applied to, in this case, education. The difference lies presumably in the orderer of the manufactured product being in the powerful position of declaring he wants his product by the date the manufacturer says he'll deliver by at the price the manufacturer is able to afford, or else he, the customer, will go to a competitor..... whereas in the case of the educational product, the qualified pupil, the teacher must do the job to a given standard within a specific timeline, and if not, the money, whether taxpayer's or fee-paying parent's, will go where the productivity is achieved more efficiently, namely faster and in larger numbers of high achievers within specified timelines. In olden times, successful trade union campaigns to improve working conditions allowed for a degree of slack within input-drivenworking systems that ensured no one - the worker at his or her bench, the teacher in front of the class and his or her pupils - was overstretched to the point of narrow focusing on the result, regardless of the health and wellbeing of the operator. In education this would have meant broadening the knowledge field of the recipient, to produce a rounded individual, being treated as equivalent to the instilling of factual information. But given the voracious tendency of the system, based as it is on successful competition at all levels, firm against firm, pupil against pupil, school against school, any slack within the system came to be seen as part of the "problem of competitiveness" putting "less efficient" units at a disadvantage vis-a-vis other "more efficient" enterprises, and more measurable means had to be brought to bear on a problem seen as bearing on all sectors regardless, from car assembly lines to classroom assembly lines. Hence targets.

So how long do you want to wait in agony in A&E or on a cancer pathway?

[greenilex]

Internalisation may be the key, perhaps. A good public servant is in their job for reasons beyond personal survival, and imposing targets is seen as insulting. I managed 22 years in the state system teaching English mother tongue, and luckily no-one had the temerity to suggest that my work was less than perfect. I would certainly have looked for another job.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

So how long do you want to wait in agony in A&E or on a cancer pathway?

Targets can also be used as a diversionary tactic to avoid the blame for the problem of underfunding.

[Beef Oven!]

Targets can also be used as a diversionary tactic to avoid the blame for the problem of underfunding.

Taking A&E as an example, under funding is often given as the reason for underperformance. But when you ask the staff for the details of the immediate problem, they say they don't have enough emergency doctors to through-put the patients. Talk to the FD and you'll see the funding is there, the post is there but it's vacant. Seems like the NHS can't plan its workforce very well. Nor is the NHS imaginative enough to market and attract people to excellent jobs and careers.

The interface with social services is the next problem. But getting two bureaucratic public bodies, with staff who are resistant to change, to cooperate effectively is no easy task.

But we're not supposed to talk like this. The mantra is 'under-funding' and any politician would be shot down in flames if they did anything other than portraying NHS staff as hard working heroes who have to do their work with broken tools.

Then Joe Public comes along and regurgitates the 'underfunding' mantra and the cycle continues.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

... with staff who are resistant to change, to cooperate effectively is no easy task.

Ah, I thought we might get on to that one. The whole problem with targets is that they are often imposed upon professionals by people with much less knowledge. The effect of targeting is to divert resources from other essential areas. Politicians can than say: "It's up to the NHS/local authorities/Social Services to decided how they spend their money. In other words, shift the blame."

People who work in public services are mostly extremely flexible.

[Conchis]

Government policy from (about) 1990 onwards has had one clear but undeclared aim: to remove experienced (ie. 'expensive') teachers from the state system and replace them with NQTs (the 'n' once stood for 'newly'; nowadays, it usually stands for 'not') who will be too overawed by the system and too 'grateful' for having a 'job' (not a career, or even a profession) to complain. These newbies will also knuckle down and accept, sans question, the crap that emanates from the 'Executive Head' (a very 2010s concept). Ultimately, it is the students who will suffer, though several teachers will have nervous breakdowns before they quit.

This policy certainly seems to be working, as people are abandoning the teaching profession in droves.

[teamsaint]

Ah, I thought we might get on to that one. The whole problem with targets is that they are often imposed upon professionals by people with much less knowledge. The effect of targeting is to divert resources from other essential areas. Politicians can than say: "It's up to the NHS/local authorities/Social Services to decided how they spend their money. In other words, shift the blame."

People who work in public services are mostly extremely flexible.

Part of the problem with targets is that they often target something very specific at the expense of something else equally important.

So, as you will know better than me, you get the situation where schools focus their efforts on those students who are marginal in terms of passing a particular level, and resources are diverted away from those who are perceived as having no chance of attaining that level at this time.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

This policy certainly seems to be working, as people are abandoning the teaching profession in droves.

Well, without being too specific, around the the time I resigned from classroom teaching, the following occurred amongst music teachers in nearby secondary schools.

Two nervous breakdowns
One suicide
Three good teachers hounded out by an incompetent advisor (who could have been front-page news in the post-Weinstein world).
Two teachers made ill by unreasonable demands by their head teachers. Both left their jobs. (Targets?)


This is probably the tip of the iceberg.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Part of the problem with targets is that they often target something very specific at the expense of something else equally important.

Exactly.

And then the employees affected get the blame when it falls apart.