Is Michael Gove as dangerous as he sounds?

[subcontrabass]

And, yet (yes, the old chestnut), degree classifications, like school public exam results, continue to rise.

This is a product of meaningless league tables. When a university is judged to be better if it awards more first class honours degrees then all universities will put pressure on their academic staff to award more first class degrees.

Where I worked there (a former Polytechnic) were a few of us who endeavoured to maintain some semblance of standards. There was one memorable year when one external examiner (from a Russell Group university) congratulated us for the standard we were maintaining for a Master's degree (for which I had responsibility) comparing us very favourably against a prestigious Russell Group university (where he was also an external examiner), which on a similar programme was passing students with extremely low levels of attainment and awarding distinctions for work that was not distinctively outstanding.

[french frank]

The huge influence of non-academic pressures is very detrimental. If you have a well-qualified profession, you let them get on with the job, without the interference of parents (or politicians, for that matter). The interfering parents will mainly be the ones who have some choice in where/how their children are educated: if they don't like the school, tell them take their kids somewhere else.

Abolish league tables
Abolish the National Curriculum
(Bring state schools fully under local authority management where concerns for community requirements will count more than those of individual parents).

[Stillhomewardbound]

I'm often curious as to why successful journalists desire to blunder into politics pace Gove & Boris Johnson.

Presumably, they 'want to make a difference', but I'm sure they have much more chance of managing that as commentators rather than politicians.

[Uncle Monty]

I taught only in higher education, and then for not very long, so I barely have a right to a view on all this, but I've listened to the phone-in "conversation", and it seems to me that while Gove is all over the place, and probably a complete menace, he didn't do too badly when confronted with the public-bar ranter on the other end of the line! This is tragic, to me at least, because I actually agreed with the bloke, and if he could have exercised a bit of self-control he might have had a better answer to Gove's question about the three Rs -- i.e. should they be on a core curriculum, though you don't have to call it anything as fancy as that? Observation suggests that kids don't know to speak, write or count, though perhaps it was always thus. The caller's assertion that these attainments "just happen" in school was a bit lame.

Things have certainly changed since I left school in the mid-60s, when we had absolutely no guidance as to careers, nary even a mention (I think it was considered vulgar), so that I have frequently been surprised to see old school colleagues popping up in all sorts of jobs and professions in which I never heard them express the slightest interest. Things have swung far too far in the other direction in my view, certainly since the advent of Thascism, where education is merely a stepping-stone to a "career". We do our children a terrible disservice if we have them believing they live only to work and to feed the commercial machine. Surely education should aim to fit them for life, not merely for business?

I agree with the poster who talked of "measuring the unmeasurable". It seems to me that it should be obvious to the authorities which schools are likely to struggle -- because of multi-ethnicity, low parental aspiration and involvement, whatever -- and extra resources should be put into those. Otherwise, let the teachers get on with it. I don't believe that, as someone said, if teachers were any great shakes, they'd be in industry, commerce, etc. In my experience teachers are a different species, homo pedagogicus, and get through fantastic work that most of us certainly wouldn't want to touch, albeit with a lot of moaning In my day (Jeez, I sound ancient. . .) the hawk-eyed School Inspector on his or her regular visits could spot instantly when something needed improvement, without the need for sheaves of statistics.

This may be controversial, but I also don't think parents should be officially involved in schools. They're too close to be either objective or unselfish. Like asking a murder victim's family what sort of sentence they think appropriate. That's why we have authorities, to (we hope) take a larger and wiser view. Let them get on with it.

Sorry to drone on. I feel rather like the little boy I saw interviewed recently, saying, "How do I know what I think till I see what I say?".

[Lateralthinking1]

If we are simplisitically to gear education more and more towards employment, aren't people actually ludicrously over-qualified?

Do we need (a) a nation of people with the language abilities of Michael Gove who are also capable of rocket science or (b) builders, electricians and plumbers?

The newspapers give the answer. A look at home ownership around the country also shows that those with practical skills can be very well paid. I really can't see why such skills shouldn't also be options on the curriculum. But then this is the real world....!

[subcontrabass]

capable of rocket science

Rocket science is actually quite simple. What is difficult is rocket engineering, actually applying the science.

[Dave2002]

I agree with the poster who talked of "measuring the unmeasurable". It seems to me that it should be obvious to the authorities which schools are likely to struggle -- because of multi-ethnicity, low parental aspiration and involvement, whatever -- and extra resources should be put into those. Otherwise, let the teachers get on with it. I don't believe that, as someone said, if teachers were any great shakes, they'd be in industry, commerce, etc. In my experience teachers are a different species, homo pedagogicus, and get through fantastic work that most of us certainly wouldn't want to touch, albeit with a lot of moaning In my day (Jeez, I sound ancient. . .) the hawk-eyed School Inspector on his or her regular visits could spot instantly when something needed improvement, without the need for sheaves of statistics.

One of the conclusions of the film I indicated earlier was that in the US the teachers are often the problem, but that it's impossible to fire them. I don't necessarily agree with all of that, but there are still quite a lot of pretty ignorant teachers. Heads often like them not because they can teach, but because they don't lose control in the classroom. I can think of a few - eg. Mr Ohm's Law, who managed to convince a whole class that V=I/R and also to replicate perfectly diagrams which gave completely incorrect representation of optics, others who openly admit that they can't do the questions on the exam which some of their students have just sat, etc. These people are hardly going to organise themselves in such a way that they will be out of a job, or to hurt their colleagues who are similarly competent. Kids can often tell when teachers don't know what they are doing, as with one who changed schools and then said "Mrs X really can do that maths stuff ...." - after experiencing a few years with Mrs Y whose opinion was "it's not worth worrying about this stuff, I was never very good myself, and it's not done me any harm ....!" Such people may be pleasant and well meaning, but they should not be allowed to continue in schools.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

The huge influence of non-academic pressures is very detrimental. If you have a well-qualified profession, you let them get on with the job, without the interference of parents (or politicians, for that matter). The interfering parents will mainly be the ones who have some choice in where/how their children are educated: if they don't like the school, tell them take their kids somewhere else.

Abolish league tables
Abolish the National Curriculum
(Bring state schools fully under local authority management where concerns for community requirements will count more than those of individual parents).

There's a fine line between being a genuinely concerned parent and a pushy parent of the Schoolgate Mafia variety.
Incidentally, I remember Local Management of Schools being introduced and I don't recall that it was at all popular. There is more waste brought about by duplicating tasks in every school than there ever was under "full" L.E.A control.

And the longer Michael Gove continues to meddle in what he doesn't understand, the more I begin to like Lord Voldemorte.:(

[Stillhomewardbound]

Just watching him on Question Time now, but the funny thing is, no matter how closely I look I can't see the strings.

How on earth does Gerry Anderson manage it. FAB!!

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

in a similar debate either at the old place or the old new place i commented on a really difficult conundrum - the sheer difficulty of implementing policy across the large number of institutions in the country

England 2007
17,361 Primary
3,343 Secondary
448 Nursery
1,078 Special
448 Pupil Referral (?)
2,340 Independent
25,018 TOTAL

On measurement, weighing a pig makes it fatter if it is part of a time series showing the effect of diet and care etc ... measurement in organisations of any type is inevitable, and often poor, but getting good measurement takes time and learning, all organisations start with 'bad' measurement and improve; i believe the measuring of Value Added to Pupils is an improved and worthwhile measure of School Performance ... without measurement accountability is remarkably difficult ...

Estelle Morris took the decision to remove the requirement for at least one foreign language GCSE as a move to ease the truancy figures ....

after five years as a governor of a secondary school i am left with several main impressions;

accountability is almost impossible in such an overly complex system with central diktats and shambolic local organisations ...
although leadership and ethos can be a powerful force for the good they are often stifled, and the weight or process rituals on decision making is excessive to put it mildly

too many teachers at all levels feel aggrieved without any observable provocation and are both ineffective and truly unpleasant individuals in a system which fails to address their dysfunctional behaviour ....


The Finns who are commonly regarded as world leaders in educational attainment achieved this position by investing heavily in the quality of teachers, the TeachFirst Project is credited with substantial positive impact here in Britain

http://www.teachfirst.org.uk/TFHome/index.aspx

... and as a Governing Body it was as hard to do something to recognise outstanding work by teachers as it was to address the substandard efforts of some of their colleagues ...

and finally that i mostly felt that the role and impact of governors was a work of fiction to conceal the decision making elsewhere ..

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Estelle Morris took the decision to remove the requirement for at least one foreign language GCSE as a move to ease the truancy figures ....

And that was only the teachers.

The dogmatism of Kenneth Baker has returned in that subjects dear to the 1930s are again the only ones considered important.

[eighthobstruction]

<<'too many teachers at all levels feel aggrieved without any observable provocation and are both ineffective and truly unpleasant individuals in a system which fails to address their dysfunctional behaviour ....'>> cadaja

....can you tease that out a bit more....please....

[Uncle Monty]

One of the conclusions of the film I indicated earlier was that in the US the teachers are often the problem, but that it's impossible to fire them. I don't necessarily agree with all of that, but there are still quite a lot of pretty ignorant teachers. Heads often like them not because they can teach, but because they don't lose control in the classroom. I can think of a few - eg. Mr Ohm's Law, who managed to convince a whole class that V=I/R and also to replicate perfectly diagrams which gave completely incorrect representation of optics, others who openly admit that they can't do the questions on the exam which some of their students have just sat, etc. These people are hardly going to organise themselves in such a way that they will be out of a job, or to hurt their colleagues who are similarly competent. Kids can often tell when teachers don't know what they are doing, as with one who changed schools and then said "Mrs X really can do that maths stuff ...." - after experiencing a few years with Mrs Y whose opinion was "it's not worth worrying about this stuff, I was never very good myself, and it's not done me any harm ....!" Such people may be pleasant and well meaning, but they should not be allowed to continue in schools.

I'll take that on board, thanks. I have no direct experience of all this, though I have often been surprised by teachers who turn out not to be as thick as one thought

My own teachers were uniformly serious and clued-up, albeit clearly certifiable in some cases. If we had doubts about the high-level competence of one or two by the time we got to the sixth form, we kept it to ourselves rather than trumpeting it abroad. Are there really so many bad teachers around? Have they all become useless in the admittedly long span of years since I was a student? Or are we so obsessed with uniformity, measurement and the dreaded "accountability" (whassat?) that we forget there are many equally valid ways of skinning a cat?

Mention has been made of teachers as unpleasant individuals who complain a lot about nothing, and while I agree they moan a lot (always have), I do think they have plenty to moan about. The sheer triviality of much of what they have to deal with on a daily basis would finish me off very quickly, and the amount of paperwork and preparation they face, to say nothing of the strain of constant surveillance by the Big Brother from Whitehall, must be morale-sapping.

[mikerotheatrenestr0y]

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)?

Speaking as a former university lecturer [28 years man and boy, and I left because I was sick of arguing against the functional linguists who didn't want literature taught in a school of languages] who is now an in-house supply teacher in an "outstanding" school that is applying to become an academy, the advantages of becoming an academy are evident: money, and control of it. My school was saving up for a big building project, earning money by selling the services of its advanced skills teachers to train others in the county, and so on - only to have funds clawed back, and to be told that it couldn't hold funds over from one year to the next... Schools under LEA control are milch-cows for councils struggling to balance budgets.

[Lateralthinking1]

I live in an area in which the demographics would be expected to produce schools near to the top of the league tables. The local school though had a dreadful reputation for nearly 40 years. During that period, it went through a number of organisational changes. For example, in the latter part of that period, it was attended by 11-16 year olds. Earlier on, in the 1970s, when it was newly built and I was coming through the school system, it catered for 11-14 years olds who then went on to single sex state schools for the rest of their education.

As it was, I passed the eleven plus and took a different route but all of my local friends went onto it and from the word go the problem was with teachers. There was a very marked contrast between the teachers there and those at the schools for older students. After many, many years of abysmal performance, the school was chosen in two thousand and something to be one of the first academies. To local delight, its fortunes turned around in a matter of months. There is currently a £20m rebuilding programme there which appears to involve the actual replacing of several main buildings. Good to see how in the current climate some still have the money for extravagant point-scoring.

I find it interesting to see how decisions were made on which schools should first be chosen to become academies. We have been told that the concept is a very good way to raise the standards in under performing schools. Each time, we hear phrases like "poorer neighbourhoods", "inner city areas" and "a wide range of cultural backgrounds" as references to where academies could make a real difference. However, as far as our local flagship academy goes, none of the above applies.

My point is this. Academies were first and foremost a new political philosophy. Once favoured, strategies were chosen to ensure that the concept was seen to make complete sense. Like much in politics, those strategies were and are disingenuous. Many of the flagship schools are in middle class, greener, areas, where improvement could have been achieved by a simple change of teachers and arguably a bit more investment. On that latter point, bear in mind that schools which were built in the 50s and 60s were viewed as having tremendous facilities. As such, they were often just left to look after themselves, making do year after year on comparatively limited resources.