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Written by Tom Bowman
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Monday, 19 November 2007 |
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 The Conservative Party’s latest idea on ensuring that all children are able to read by the age of seven is noble. Yet they’ve once again slipped into the idea of measuring standards through centrally set testing. For the vast majority of children in Britain they face repeated testing throughout their days at school, and most of this is merely for the whim of the politicians.
As Michael Gove MP told the Andrew Marr Show on the BBC: "We want to introduce a simple test which means at the end of two years of primary school we know whether or not children have mastered the skills they need to read.” It is rather shocking to read that a Conservative MP wants to know whether a child can read or not. This type of nannying interference is typical of the politics of the moment, and as an opposition party the conservatives should be offering an alternative not aping it. The over emphasis on the state to monitor (by turning the exam and test results into statistics) the development of children has removed this role from the parents. The most important people in a child’s education are its parents and they need to become more involved and not further alienated.
The Conservatives should be focusing on removing the state from the lives of children and allowing the teachers the freedom to teach the children in their care how they best see fit. It is noticeable, after all, that children are not only different but they develop and learn at a range of speeds. A teacher should be endowed with a wide range of skills so that these disparities are equalised in the way the children are taught.
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Written by Tom Clougherty
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Friday, 09 November 2007 |
This week's Economist praises the educational reforms of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg – and with good reason. As the article notes:
Progress has been sufficiently impressive that the Broad
Foundation declared New York the most improved urban school district in
the nation... Graduation rates are at their highest in decades.
Much of this success is due to New York's charter schools, which are
independently run, but publicly financed. Often backed by private firms
or charities, these schools have far more flexibility in their
operations than local authority schools (although they are not allowed
to select pupils – places are allocated by lottery). In return
head-teachers are held accountable for the education their schools
provide, getting bonuses if they succeed and losing their jobs if they
fail. Schools that don't improve face closure.
Such is the charter schools' success that Bloomberg now intends
to extend their autonomy and accountability to the rest of the schools
in the city.
In the UK, city academies were meant to be like 'charter schools'
but – despite some encouraging signs – the results have mostly been
disappointing, leading many to question their worth. Accordingly, one
of the first things Gordon Brown did on becoming Prime Minister was
give local authorities more control over academies.
That was to completely miss the point. Academies have not been
disappointing because they were too independent. They have been
disappointing because they are little more than re-launched state
schools in fancy new buildings.
If we want city academies to make a real difference, we should
take a leaf out of New York's book. There must be real independence,
real incentives to succeed, and real accountability if they fail.
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Written by Tim Worstall
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Sunday, 09 September 2007 |
Wat Tyler
does a sterling job, consistently cataloguing how our tax money is
burned on the bonfire stoked by the State apparatus. Here, he's looking
at the report just out on the productivity levels of the education
system. Yes, much more money is being spent and we obviously want to
know whether we're getting a better system for it. No is the obvious
answer, but have a look at the gymnastics necessary to cover this up.
The ONS reckons that in the decade to 2006, overall
spending increased in real terms by 25.3% (technical aside- regular BOM
readers may wonder why that's less than the 60% quoted here:
essentially it's because the ONS has deflated cash spending using a
specific index of educational input prices, whereas we simply used the
Treasury's GDP deflator: in other words, educational input prices-
especially salaries- have risen much faster than the general price
level... another Simple Shopper triumph).
Now that might seem sensible, to use a different deflator: we've known
for a long time that services will tend to become more expensive
relative to manufactures, after all. However, the specific one used
here is in fact driven entirely by the huge amounts of money being
pumped into the educational system itself: as Milton Friedman pointed
out, it's always a monetary matter and if you funnel it in to a certain
sector then of course prices in that sector will rise. So by choosing
that deflator they're actually covering up how badly the system has
performed.
Thus Wat's 60% is a better number to use: and output, even by the
manipulation used, is only up 27% or so. Yes, we are spending more to
get a worse education system.
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