For many years I have been an advocate of the English Baccalaureate but I believe that it should not be narrow based and merely functional. However, by creating new league tables in upper schools and disguising them in this name Michael Gove has hijacked this noble system of testing and makes a mockery of British Education. Are we returning to Callaghan and Baker's world where all heads and teachers are fools and need soundly whipping with a new monthly whizzo idea dreamt up in the Minister's bath the night before? Is Gove as dangerous as he sounds or will the Government and the Education System have the common sense to see through his bluster and the strength to put him back in his paper bag in the bin?
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For many years I have been an advocate of the English Baccalaureate but I believe that it should not be narrow based and merely functional. However, by creating new league tables in upper schools and disguising them in this name Michael Gove has hijacked this noble system of testing and makes a mockery of British Education. Are we returning to Callaghan and Baker's world where all heads and teachers are fools and need soundly whipping with a new monthly whizzo idea dreamt up in the Minister's bath the night before? Is Gove as dangerous as he sounds or will the Government and the Education System have the common sense to see through his bluster and the strength to put him back in his paper bag in the bin? -
'Mr Gove said: "If you can discover that the school down the road is doing twice as well while spending half the cash you will ask 'Why?'" '
Quite. But would you be able to evaluate the complexities of the answer?It isn't given us to know those rare moments when people are wide open and the lightest touch can wither or heal. A moment too late and we can never reach them any more in this world. -
ff: I'd question the likelihood of being able truly to discover that a school is doing twice as well as another, even before we get to evaluating the answer.
Sounds to me like yet another example of the modern obsession with measuring the unmeasurable, and cloaking difficult, necessarily subjective, assessments in the objective language of science
I keep hitting the Escape key, but I'm still here!Comment
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Is Gove as dangerous as he sounds
Worse. Why is he busy nationalising schools (i.e. bribing as many as possible to go under central state control with no accountablity to the local community which they serve)?Comment
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My (controversialOriginally posted by subcontrabass View Post
) view was that had already happened long ago with Local Management of Schools. The schools seemed to love that idea, but I personally prefer (in theory!) local education authorities which have expert professional staff dealing with administrative and financial matters. Qualified school staff are there to teach.
PS I've never been a school teacher, so what do I know?It isn't given us to know those rare moments when people are wide open and the lightest touch can wither or heal. A moment too late and we can never reach them any more in this world.Comment
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Not controversial with moiOriginally posted by french frank View PostMy (controversial) view was that had already happened long ago with Local Management of Schools. The schools seemed to love that idea, but I personally prefer (in theory!) local education authorities which have expert professional staff dealing with administrative and financial matters. Qualified school staff are there to teach.
I suppose this is more Big Society bilge?
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If so, it seems to me quite the opposite. Schools become (quasi) autonomous, rather than part of their community, which is why I objected to LMS in the first place.Originally posted by Uncle Monty View PostNot controversial with moi
I suppose this is more Big Society bilge?
Oh, and don't talk to me about League Tables. The most anti-educational things ever. All this information given to parents. Okay so far, but parents are only interested in the education of their own children and other peole's children can go hang. No!
(to show I'm not getting over wrought!)
Last edited by french frank; 12-01-11, 17:35.It isn't given us to know those rare moments when people are wide open and the lightest touch can wither or heal. A moment too late and we can never reach them any more in this world.Comment
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More accurately some headteachers liked having more power. From my experience (I was a schoolteacher until 1988) it did not have widespread support from those actually teaching.Originally posted by french frank View PostMy (controversial) view was that had already happened long ago with Local Management of Schools. The schools seemed to love that idea,Comment
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He's far MORE dangerous than he sounds. His mentor is Chris Woodhead and you can't get more dangerous than that. Both talk the same simplistic twaddle. Neither has recent teaching experience. However Michael Gove is yet to be discredited.Is Michael Gove as dangerous as he sounds?Comment
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I was sickened this evening to hear Gove talking about "poor" children in the context of GCSE choices. He clearly has a Victorian view of society.
Chris Woodhead did untold damage to the curriculum. I don't think there is much we can do at present, other than resist these sinister wreckers.Comment
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From a political perspective, Gove's handling of the interview was atrocious. He must have all kinds of reasons why he is choosing this approach but appeared to have no line to take. The nearest he came to one was that teaching should include English and maths which the caller pointed out is already being done. The obvious point was that greater specialization might arguably lead to improvements in those areas but I didn't hear even that being made.
If there is one thing more hateful than any other in a politician - and it is a truly despicable trait - it is for him or her to say to a member of the public repeatedly that he has said things he hasn't or hasn't said things he has. Here we had it from Gove in the lie that the caller had not expressed a view on what he would teach - he explained that it would be the broadest range of subjects - and the lie that the caller said it was for the child to choose - he didn't. Mixed in was a pompous point on etiquette, broken by Gove himself, and a sarcastic comment about pulling to the side of the road which seemed designed to be heard as not having pulled over.
Personally, I think the best approach to education would be just to let it settle for five years. Stop tinkering with it for the sake of trying to become the next Chancellor or Home Secretary, or whatever, and the students might have some sort of chance.
The very worst of it was the Soviet-Union style psychological mind games that Gove appeared to be employing. This has already become one of the most sinister aspects of this Government. Clegg is another who seems to be a dab hand at it. If this is now seen as an indicator of calibre, lets all get out of this godforsaken hell hole of a country and leave them to continue to smash it into pieces. They can then sit smugly in the wasteland they have created with no need any longer to pretend to worry about anyone else.Last edited by Guest; 12-01-11, 20:14.Comment
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Yes, I've just posted about the very same on R4 CiY Board....So may I just venture....Gove Compare....Gove Compare....
This is a fabulous example of the arrogance and disingenuousness of Gove, when confronted with an ordinary human being....who hasn't assimulated the disemboguement of perspicacity or obfuscatory-rodomontade required to be a President of the Oxford Union and member of the Debating club....bong chingComment
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Yes, all very worrying - especially to those of us who still have children at school.
Am I imagining it, or has Gove had Botox? His face is permanently expressionless.Comment
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He is five years younger than me and has already moved from staunch Labour to staunch Conservative. The average voter might often want to switch allegiance but it would be nice to think that the elected representatives had some consistent, deep-rooted, values. The temptation otherwise would be to think of it as all ego. Anyway, he may well equally whimsically change his mind on his own policies when it is too late.
Let us also not forget - ever - the standards of our great and the good. The only way of doing this is to ensure that the key information remains prominent at all times in the future. It is so important that it sticks in the memory of Joe Public. I will do my bit. Why? For an informed analysis, there can be no full separation of standards-based policy from the personal ethics of those producing it. Hence this quote:
"Michael Gove reportedly claimed £7,000 for furnishing a London property before 'flipping' his designated second home to a house in his constituency, a property for which he claimed around £13,000 to cover stamp duty. Around a third of the first £7,000 were spent at an interior design company owned by Gove's mother-in-law. Gove also claimed for a cot mattress, despite children's items being banned under the Commons rule. Gove said he would repay the claim for the cot mattress, but maintained that his other claims were "below the acceptable threshold costs for furniture" and that the property flipping was necessary "to effectively discharge my parliamentary duties". While he was moving between his multiple homes, he stayed at the Pennyhill Park Hotel and Spa, charging the taxpayer more than £500 per night's stay.".
So much for the maths. Hope my grammar and spelling were ok.Last edited by Guest; 12-01-11, 20:52.Comment
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