Less than a third of government ministers are happy with the teaching profession's handling of education, a survey suggests.
Just 28% of a sample group of government ministers questioned in England and Wales were satisfied with teachers' performance, Mori found, while 1% were very satisfied.
Meanwhile, 51% said they were fairly or very dissatisfied.
According to the poll, of senior and junior government ministers, dissatisfaction increased with experience.
Ministers with three or more years in the job had a 53% chance of being dissatisfied.
Only 32% of newly appointed ministers felt the same.
Nearly half of this group said they were satisfied with the teaching profession's performance on education.
This dropped sharply to 27% for those with one to five years' experience.
A Mori spokesman said: "Coming at a time when the teaching unions are facing stiff opposition from the government concerning national tests, the school workforce agreement and teachers' pay proposals, the survey suggests that the problems already facing the teaching profession may increase over the next parliamentary session."
Just kidding. Here's what this BBC report really said. I've been suffering from a bit of a belly ache for the last day or so. So that will probably be your lot today.
I struggle to get a sense of whether primary education is getting any better, and if so whether any improvement that has happened is anything to do with government policies.
John Clare, in the Telegraph (linked to admiringly by Melanie Phillips), doesn't really explain why things have turned out as they have, but at least he says what the story is:
… For the past three years, the proportion of 11-year-olds reaching the expected levels in English and maths has stalled. Not only does that leave one in four ill-equipped to cope with secondary school, but it offends our national expectation that standards will continue to rise as relentlessly in the future as in the past.Almost worse than that in the Government's eyes, there's now not the slightest prospect of primary schools reaching the literacy and numeracy targets it originally set for them next year and subsequently shifted to 2006.
So, an improvement, but then a disappointing levelling off in that improvement. Things have got as good as they are soon going to. That's what's happening. That's the picture, as painted by Clare.
But why? Clare attacks progressive-creative education, and lauds chalk-and-talk. But that doesn't explain anything about the pattern of (a) improvement and then (b) slackening off in the improvement. Melanie Phillips echoes Clare in trashing progressive-creative, but the same complaint applies to her. (They both join in denouncing Ofsted's interpretation of its own findings.)
I mean, if the government's policies (which are not necessarily the same as Ofsted's) are so bad, how come there was any improvement at all?
Suppose that primary school doctrine can indeed be classified into either progressive-creative or chalk-and-talk, either/or. Crude, but maybe that'll do. And suppose that our present government has switched from neutrality and trusting the teachers and the educrats and the teacher trainers and basically worrying about other things (my take on the attitude of the previous government towards ) to being semi-strongly inclined towards chalk-and-talk, and semi-hostile to progressive-creative. Maths hours, literacy hours, a semi-serious move towards phonetics, etc. An effort, but still quite a bit of confusion. Again, that's a simplification, but there has been something of a shift, some way towards chalk-and-talk, but not the whole way.
Suppose further, as I do, that Clare and Phillips are right that chalk-and-talk works better than progressive-creative. What I see is an educational world in which whatever good the shift (such as it has been) in government policy has now done pretty much all it can. Those teachers and educrats and teacher trainers who are willing to change their ways have now changed them. Those who aren't willing to change their ways aren't going to, unless they are subjected to a whole lot more pressure than this current regime is willing to put on them. Hence the levelling out in the improvement.
Well, that's my story and … I'd be very happy to change it in the light of further evidence.
There's an interesting article in the Telegraph about the differences between a state comprehensive school and an independent school, by Matthew Godfrey, who went from teaching at one to teaching at the other. It's not a surprise that he found the latter school to be more civilised. But he believes that the difference was not so much that the independent school pupils were more civilised in their social backgrounds but that the management of the independent school was better. Simply, the government meddled relentlessly in the running of the state school, and didn't allow it to be run so well. Resources were not the problem. The eagerness of children to learn was not the problem. The problem was that the place was badly run.
… the vast majority of 11-year-olds who started at the comprehensive each September were conscientious and bright, too. Apart from a few notable exceptions, their parents were committed and concerned. It was a sad truth, though, that a significant minority of the children soon became troublemakers, and the number increased steadily over time. A year group that the teachers used to call the "gorgeous" year seven had become the "nightmare" year 10 by the time I left.A lot of this gradual deterioration was a result of increasing peer pressure and other problems related to the pupils' social background. But there were so many other issues at the comprehensive – many of which had nothing to do with the pupils – that I ceased to believe the problems within the school gates were simply a result of what happened outside them.
In contrast, the independence of judgement of the people running Latymer Upper, which was the consequence of Latymer Upper itself being independent of the government, fed through to its pupils being more independent minded and confident themselves. Meanwhile, at the state comprehensive, the nationalised industry syndrome of indolent, ineffective and demoralised management likewise fed through to the attitude and conduct of the pupils. Several times, the management of the comprehensive …
… refused to allow the expulsion of highly disruptive pupils, preferring to send in expensive but largely ineffectual "consultants" to give advice and monitor teaching and learning. Instead of engendering a sense of ownership or pride in the school, they contributed to a growing culture of tiresome bureaucracy.
Consultants. This final paragraph will strike another chord with all those who are the victims of bad management, not just in schools but anywhere:
The comprehensive had a long and interesting past, too, but it was not shared with the pupils or parents. Its future goals were expressed in a hugely long-winded "mission statement", which was so filled with management gobbledegook that it meant nothing to anyone. If it can learn anything from Latymer, it is that a spirit of independence goes a long way to motivate pupils and teachers.
This blog does not have a mission statement. It just gets on with it, free from government interference.
As Jackie D says, Clive Soley MP has stirred up some interesting comments about tuition fees.
Such as this from David T:
I used to be a university lecturer. I taught at a number of institutions: Southampton, a couple of London University colleges, a couple of Oxford colleges, and City University. At City, my students were almost entirely self-funding.It was notable that at City, the students had a very different attitude to their course. They wanted, desperately, to learn and be taught. They insisted on being taught well, and complained if they were not. They asked for me to set them essays and examinations.
By contrast, at certain of the other universities, the attitude of many students was more akin to school children. Some students complained about being set "homework", for example.
There is a real value in students – who lets face it, are adults – having a stake in their own education. The financial stake this government is proposing is modest and should be supported.
As a footnote, when I was an undergraduate, I was involved in the campaign against student loans. As a good labour party member, I also knocked on doors during elections all the way through the late 1980s. After seeing the reaction of ordinary people to the suggestion that the student grant should be restored, I soon stopped talking about it on the doorstep!
And it's pretty depressing also when children are treated in such a way that they too spend all their time behaving "like school children".
Joanne Jacobs has more comment on that NYT piece by Emily White about e-schooling which I also linked to on Sunday.
Commenting on this kind of thing:
Yet it is also true that there is a beauty in high school: those long, exhausting hours full of other kids, everyone trying to interpret one another. It's a beauty that Gus Van Sant evokes in his new Columbine-inspired film, ''Elephant'' -- kids break dancing and taking pictures and making out, even as the school day is headed for darkness.
... JJ says:
Some students like the social interaction of school; others can't handle it or prefer not to or go to schools where the danger is too dangerous to be beautiful.I see why I've been unable to break into the New York Times Magazine. I lack the right mentality.
Quite so. When I read those bits about Gus Van Sant I thought, yes, Emily White has indeed got the right mentality that you need to smuggle anti-school-compulsion anti-government-meddling stuff into the New York Times, and good on her. You nod towards matters artistic, of the sort that Middle America wouldn't have heard of or wouldn't approve of if it did hear of them, but concede nothing of substance.
It's true. Many kids do enjoy their schools. So admit it, and let that be the bit where you sprinkle on a dash of Gus Van Sant, and making sure also to splash in the word "Columbine" itself, which as we all know is an issue which proves beyond doubt that everyone in the world should vote Democrat and read the New York Times every day for ever. It could well be that those very paragraphs clinched it for this article getting published by the NYT.
(Actually, Columbine is the case against compulsory schooling and government meddling in hundred foot high flaming letters, in about five distinct ways, but simply to mention Columbine is to score NYT brownie points. We're talking about a conditioned editorial reflex here, not a conscious thought process.)
But, as Joanne Jacobs agrees, what White's article actually says is that many kids don't like regular schooling, and that if that's so they shouldn't have to submit to it, and they don't have to submit to it.
I wonder what Gus Van Sant thinks about that.
Last Friday, Patrick Crozier sent in to and had published on Samizdata a piece about what caused the outbreak of the First World War. (He blamed the Kaiser.) WHen I last looked there had been 55 comments.
This posting, together with the comments it provoked, gives me a chance to return to a favourite theme on this blog, which is the educational power and impact of the internet, and of blogging in particular.
In my opinion this posting, and the debate and discussion it sparked off, illustrates the educational power of the blogosphere at something like maximum strength.
Education is a complicated thing, but one of the many things it surely means is the opportunity to participate in a community united by shared intellectual interests, and to talk around subjects before plunging head first into all the details, and all the reading one might do. (A number of further reading suggestions were offered by various commenters, including one from me, in the one comment I contributed to the discussion.)
There is probably no completely satisfactory substitute for face to face contact to get this kind of intellectual stimulus and guidance, but this kind of virtual discussion is probably the next best thing. Several of the commenters on this thread made this point themselves, but added that actually getting a face-to-face discussion of this quality would be very hard indeed. So for many, it would be this kind of virtual discussion, or nothing.
Equally, if you don't want to get stuck into too much detail, but merely want an overview of a topic like this one, then such a discussion would probably give a more complete picture of the topic, and of how various different intellectual camps argue about it, than any one screed of comparable length by just one scholar, however distinguished.
None of which means that it's an either/or thing. There's nothing to stop a university student reading through this post and all the comments, and feeding what he or she learns into the other face-to-face discussions and learning that they are also doing.
Speaking for myself, I believe that I'm learning an enormous amount from having joined the community of bloggers.
And especially from Samizdata. I really don't know quite how Samizdata does it, but Samizdata comments at their best can be remarkably informative and interesting. At their worst, comments on Samizdata are the usual crass rubbish you get everywhere, but at their best, they can be exceptionally good. The occasional interventions of the presiding editorial geniuses, Perry de Havilland and Adriana Cronin, help. These can often be quite assertive, but that, I think, serves to keep everyone on their toes, and to frighten sillier commenters into silence, while putting the best ones on notice that only their best will truly impress. It also helps that the most relentlessly silly commenters have the plug pulled on them. Maybe that's some of why Samizdata sometimes works so very well. But in truth, I no more know how you create a great group blog, with a great commentariat, than how you set about creating a great university.
If you are interested, as I am, in the whole subject of what I'm starting to call e-ducation, then do go and read this New York Times article, quickly, before it disappears.
The deal for a typical e-school of this sort is that you pay something like $250 a month, and they educate you at your home computer rather than in a regular school. But, you are a member of a virtual school, with many of the trappings of a real school. What you escape is the social grief. The traditional class-room educational system is what remains. In a sense, it's the opposite of de-schooling. The most schooly bit of a regular school is set up in your home, but without all the debased-Clueless stuff that generally goes with a regular school.
These two, buried on page 4, seem to me to be the key paragraphs:
When talking to virtual-school kids, this is a common thread: the sense that they have escaped something dangerous by getting out of high school. ''I saw the way the social system was set up, and I wanted to get away from that,'' says Kristen Dearing, a student at Basehor-Linwood charter school in Kansas.MacKenzie Winslow, 14, who attends the Laurel Springs school in Ojai, Calif., from her home in Colorado, says: ''I didn't want a bad experience. I had a lot of friends who'd gone to high school, and they said the kids were pretty nasty. I didn't want to deal with that.''
One of the strongest memes in our culture is that children, unlike adults, shouldn't try to escape from situations they don't like. Instead they should stick around and "deal with" them. (Adults, on the other hand, are allowed to escape whatever they can afford to escape. The argument for such talk is that it prepares children for dealing with later horrors. And the argument against this is that again and again, one of the absolute best ways of dealing with horrors is simply to get away from them, the way adults do if they can. Escape is dealing with. And the sooner children learn this basic lesson, then they can get used to re-arranging their own lives for the better, if they choose, whenever they need to. True, some things can't be escaped. But thinking that nothing can be escaped when a lot can is no preparation whatsoever for dealing with the truly inescapable.
That was the really interesting thing about this NYT piece. It suggested to me strongly that now a different and opposite meme is beginning to spread in a quite big way. It strongly confirmed what I've been sensing for a long time, which is that parents are more and more moving towards a freedom-for-children model of child growth, and that giving more freedom and more choices to parents, will lead directly to more freedom for children. Parents and children already talk a lot about the educational options a child has. Children are already feeding a lot into these discussions. So, another choice, like this virtual schooling arrangement that is springing up in America, leads directly to more freedom for children.
Pause. As in: slight change of subject. What follows might have made more sense as a separate posting, merely linked to this one.
It occurs to me that opening up school choices like this makes more sense if you believe that children are genetically different from each other, rather than blank slates (in Steven Pinker's phrase). And increasingly, distinct people with an inner nature is what our culture is coming to believe children to be. If your genes make you a geek, then any amount of socialising with Cher, the Alicia Silverstone character in Clueless, or her down-market black finger-nailed equivalent, isn't going to stop you being a geek. It's just going to make you into a geek who fails to be a social star, but who also fails to be a successful and happy geek. By going against your inner nature you are unhappy, and you fail to make the best of that inner nature. So if you are a geek, be a successful and happy geek, not a failed Cher.
Sign up for a virtual school. Race ahead with your schoolwork. Graduate at fifteen. Get to a college full of other geeks and be happy, as soon as you can, and then get a great geek job. And when you have ten million bucks from your swank job in computers, well, that should take care of a lot of your socialisation problems and peer group pressures. At that point, Cher will realise that maybe you have social potential after all.
Actually, I've made Cher sound like a social monster. She isn't. She also believes in geeks being good geeks rather than bad Chers, but that's a different argument. The Cher I'm maybe really talking about here is a street-copy of the original Cher, as in mad bitch in fishnet stockings dancing up a storm on a battleship, but without the money the real Cher got paid to do that. Fine if you can pull it off, as she presumably does later on in the evening, but geeks don't want to be joining a social system run by people with those kinds of aspirations, not least because people with those aspirations often hate geeks and want to make them miserable and ashamed of their geekness.
Big complicated post. Sorry, if your inner nature is such that you prefer the short ones.
Category: Parents and children • Peer pressure • The Internet
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