Group items matching

in title, tags, annotations or url

but we are being outperformed by nations which spend less.

the challenge lies not in what we spend, but in what we do.

explanation for the conveyor belt comes not from money, therefore, but from other incentives that schools face.

Schools have become used to governments setting blanket targets,

We should not be surprised that these drive behaviour – but not always the behaviour that the Department for Education wants.

The percentage of pupils gaining five ‘good’ A*-C GCSEs has increased by 50% over the last decade.

this should be an indicator of great success

has been questioned by many commentators.

When we look at whether the improvement on the GCSE metric is general or specific to those close to the grade boundary, it is clear that this measure is driving what is happening in schools.

intensive targeting of resources on pupils just below the C grade and/or an increase in teachers’ expertise in ‘teaching to the test’ has been behind  improvements.

Whatever the explanation, it doesn’t inspire confidence that the rise in exam grades for average ability candidates really reflects an increase across all groups in mastery of the subjects studied.

Narrowly-defined targets like these, based only on exam results subtly inhibit the overall education of young people.

If an acceptable level is reached, failure among a substantial minority is tolerated.

At earlier stages in the system, similar testing frameworks focus school accountability on achieving a certain percentage of pupils reaching a defined average, rather than a focus on absolute attainment.

it is possible to dramatically reduce attainment gaps in their primary school populations and raise standards on a broader basis than the UK has managed.

nes, a process which is accelerated if the bee is fatally injured. Release of alarm pheromones near a h

A more probable source of this way of doing business is the residue of an old ideal of the university. Such survivals of previous practices are not unusual in social life. Physicians, for example, experience a struggle between two competing understandings of their field: the prevalent view that treating patients is a business, and the residue of the old ideal that it is a calling. Ministers live the same ambiguity. Faculty committees constitute the respect that today's university pays to the old notion that it is a community of students and scholars. The impotence of the committees is acknowledgment that at this time in history, institutions of higher education are business ventures, in certain ways similar to factories.

The growing disempowerment of the faculty is accelerated by the distance of governing boards from campus processes.