bc especially appreciates the reference to schooling reported by
Dickens in "Hard Times".
p.s. usual source "UnderNews"
BRITISH SCHOOL SCANDAL RAISES CONCERN OVER U.S. TESTING OBSESSION
Guardian, UK - An investigation into the marking of Sats by the
government's own exams agency has revealed that nearly half of grades
awarded for some papers are wrong, prompting new calls for the
controversial tests taken by every 11-year-old in England to be
scrapped.
A review of the marking of test papers by the Qualification and
Curriculum Authority found that in English writing tests taken at
aged 14, 44% of grades awarded were wrong, in reading up to a third
were faulty and in science up to one in six were wrong. Math tests
were found to be accurate. . .
Ministers abolished tests for 14-year-olds last year in the wake of
the collapse of the marking process last summer. But they insisted
tests for 11-year-olds should stay, setting up an expert group to
consider their future. . .
Previous research by academics has suggested that up to one in three
results are inaccurate but the fact that this research was conducted
by the government's own exam agency will put pressure on ministers
to . . .
The QCA employed ordinary markers to re-mark a sample of test papers
taken in 2006 and 2007, with senior examiners providing a second
opinion to see whether the levels, or grades, awarded to pupils were
accurate. The results confirmed longheld concerns teachers have had
about accuracy, particularly about English results, which involve
longer written answers leaving more scope for error. . .
A separate paper from the QCA revealed that record numbers of schools
had appealed the results of 150,000 papers taken last year when the
marking process collapsed under the management of a new company, ETS.
Some 22,000 appeals resulted in new levels being awarded. But it said
there was "no particular cause for concern" about the quality of last
year's marks as a result. . .
John Bangs, head of education at the National Union of Teachers said
that Sats had now been proved unviable and should be scrapped. "The
government's Sats policy is not viable. There's no reason to expect
that the situation is any different in primary schools."
John Dunford, general secretary of the Association of School and
College Leaders, said: "We always feared that the assessment house
for 14-year-olds was built on sand and this proves it.". . .
Wikipedia - Educational Testing Service (or ETS) is the world's
largest private educational testing and measurement organization,
operating on an annual budget of approximately $1.1 billion on a
proforma basis in 2007. ETS develops various standardized tests
primarily in the United States for K-12 and higher education, but
they also administer tests such as the Test of English as a Foreign
Language TOEFL, Test of English for International Communication
TOEIC, and Graduate Record Examination GRE internationally. . .
Guardian,UK, February 2009 - The Cambridge review of primary
education has been three years in the making. More than 70 academics
have produced 29 reports with thousands of children, parents,
teachers and head teachers taking part in surveys across the country.
It presents a damning view of the primary curriculum, which it
suggests has failed generations of children, as well as a blueprint
for a radical new kind of schooling.
What is wrong with the curriculum?
There is an over-emphasis on the skills of reading, writing and maths
at the expense of other subjects, the report claims. This limits
children's enjoyment of school and risks severely compromising their
natural curiosity, imagination and love of learning, it says.
National testing at 11 has meant schools focus on short-term learning
at the cost of children's long-term development. The most
"conspicuous casualties" are arts and the humanities. Learning that
requires time for talking, problem solving and exploring ideas is
sacrificed for what it describes as a "memorization and recall" style
of learning.
There is a false belief, it claims, that a focus on basic skills
combined with a breadth of learning covering a full range of subjects
cannot be achieved. This is a false debate, according to the report's
lead author, Robin Alexander, of Cambridge University, who cites
evidence that schools that blend literacy and numeracy into the wider
teaching of other subjects often get the best results. . .
finally:
Guardian, UK - Soulless schools cursed by league tables and dominated
by "formulaic" exams are squeezing the lifeblood out of education,
leading headteacher and political commentator Anthony Seldon will
warn tomorrow.
The 21st-century obsession with teaching "facts" harks back to Thomas
Gradgrind's utilitarian values in Dickens's Hard Times, he will say
in a hard-hitting lecture to the College of Teachers. The result is a
system that stifles imagination, individuality and flair.
In an extraordinary indictment of the national examination system, Dr
Seldon, master of Wellington College and biographer of former prime
minister Tony Blair, will claim that we are forgetting the very
purpose of education. "Many parents, many teachers, will recognize
it. Schools need to be liberating places, but it is very hard to do
it with the utter throttling, choking straitjacket of the national
examination system curriculum," he told the Observer
In Britain, he advocates a severe cut-back of external testing and
examinations, which he claims have increased because of a lack of
trust of schools, heads and teachers. . .
He will claim that schools have concentrated on a very narrow
definition of intelligence: the logical and the linguistic, at the
expense of cultural, physical, social, personal, moral and spiritual
intelligence. He will add that we should be asking: "Not how
intelligent is a child but rather, how is the child intelligent?"
Seldon will argue the case for bringing back playing fields, placing
orchestras and music at the heart of the curriculum, and offering
dance, physical exercise, outdoor adventure and challenge to everyone.
"Dickens's message is as timely and urgent for us in 2009 as it was
in 1854," Seldon will argue. "It is that soulless, loveless,
desiccated education damages children for a lifetime. Education
should be an opening of the heart and mind. That is what education
means; it is this, or it is nothing."