"The Gold Standard" of education
Melanie Phillips (who really does raise the bar every single day in terms of terribleness in blogging) trots out one of the most annoying cliches in British journalism - the characterisation of the A-Level exam as "the gold standard" of the British educational system.
The Gold Standard is widely recognised to have been a bad monetary policy system. Specifically, it was abandoned fifty years ago because it was too inflexible and could not cope with a changing economy, and today it is only advocated by isolated cranks. Is this really the analogy that Melanie Phillips et al want to make? Orwell noted that crap metaphors like this are a sure sign of someone who does not care what they're writing about.
In fact, as Matthew Turner proved, the A-Level has seen grade inflation of roughly 2% per annum over the last thirty years, which seems to me to be a perfectly sensible standard, allowing for improving productivity in the education sector and the Flynn effect.
Update: At what point does it become acceptable to call someone a Kahanist? Surely this must be getting close.
Update Note cunning use of "at what point does it become acceptable?" in order to "adumbrate" something which it might be libellous to "say". Obviously one can't judge the entirety of someone's views based on one blog post. What I specifically wanted to draw attention to were the twin views that a) "Israel" is an entity larger than the State of Israel and b) "Israel" so defined is a homeland "of the Jews alone" (a phrase which MP uses twice, but which does not appear at all in the linked document). Greater Israelism was certainly part of the platform that got the Kach party banned, and "of the Jews alone" is at the very least a careless expression in implying an ethnic criterion for Israeli citizenship. I don't think this is harmless stuff at all and am getting increasingly surprised that the Spectator is so keen to publish it.
"The fish barrel has arrived. Let me fetch my rifle."
ReplyDeleteInteresting. Initially I thought you were going to argue that actually, exam standards should be "flexible" to adapt to changing economic conditions (i.e. presumably they should get easier for the things that don't matter and harder for the things that do).
ReplyDeleteBut then you argued that the grade inflation seen can be explained away without invoking the hoary old chestnut "exams are getting easier".
Well, I don't believe teacher productivity - in terms of higher exam results - can account for very much of the rise (unless, unbeknownst to me, radical new teaching methods have been adopted widely in the last 10 years), and I do think some exams are getting easier. Especially Physics, which seems to be moving away from quantitative questions(!)
Moreover, I suspect that it is easier to get a higher grade on the papers designed for A*-to-C students than the papers designed for B-to-Fail students (do they still have this little-known division in operation?), and I also suspect that as grade inflation from the earlier years works its magic, more students are being entered for the A*-to-C papers. (Although, there may be fixed quotas for the number of students allowed to take an A*-to-C paper, so maybe not.)
Especially Physics, which seems to be moving away from quantitative questions(!)
ReplyDeleteBy "quantitative" here you mean "arithmetic" and I don't accept that this is intrinsically easier. A lot of the questions on the old "hard" syllabi just involved plugging numbers into formulae (which formulae you were allowed a cribsheet of). They were just tests of your ability to do arithmetic word problems and really didn't have much to do with physics.
Radical new teaching methods have indeed been introduced in the last ten years, in general revolving around ensuring that the exams and coursework are testing the students' actual knowledge of the subject, rather than, say, bundling up physics with needlessly confusing arithmetic word-problems, or bundling a whole load of subjects with short-term memory tests. This does make them "easier" in the sense that pointless obstacles have been removed, but complaining about this is like those old buggers who piss and moan about how today's footballers aren't a patch on Freddie Grimethorpe who used to head a soaking wet leather ball in his hobnail boots.
Of course teacher productivity can account for such a rise. Just like a taxi driver learns the best route to Holborn without getting stuck on the Strand, a teacher learns the best way to teach kids to pass exams.
ReplyDeletePeople bemoan the fact that all kids learn nowadays is "how to pass exams", rather than their times tables or all the kings since Aethelred the Pointless. Surely, if they're required to pass exams, that's not all bad? The same people (viz, Philips) seem to moan that coursework is no good because you can use the internet, and that people should take proper exams like in the old days. Where do these people get off pissing on the kids? If exams were so hard in the old days, how on earth did Melanie Philips pass any of them?
The rise in grade inflation as I found funnily enough about matches the annnual average increase in gold mine production.
ReplyDeleteSo it really is a 'gold standard'.
On 'radical new teaching methods' I believe there is a teacher, later Chief Inspector of Schools, who happens to be a friend of Melanie Phillips, who used to practice very radical new teaching methods which were apparently 'educative and experimental' for both teacher and pupil. Didn't catch on though.
ReplyDeleteI don't think this is harmless stuff at all and am getting increasingly surprised that the Spectator is so keen to publish it.
ReplyDeleteIs the Spectaki normally reluctant to publish views of a dubious nature?
Maybe its more of a financial metaphor. Its mostly the private schools that complain about the "Gold Standard", and as everyone knows the only reason you send your kids to Private school is so that they get better grades, yada, yada, yada.
ReplyDeleteErgo, what she's really complaining about is that this competitive advantage has been erroded.
Incidentally, anyone pissing and moaning about A-levels really doesn't know what they're talking about. Britain does just fine at educating its elites - its everybody else it does such an appaling job at. But Mel only cares about the elites, so its hardly surprising.
Wow, definitely a Kahanist.
ReplyDeleteIncidentally, this:
"The key point it makes is that Israel was not a new creation but the restoration of the Jews’ ancient national home, to which the international community recognised in the early years of the last century that they and they alone had an overwhelming legal and moral claim."
Is not only historical bullshit, but astonishing in its sheer insanity.
Even if you accept the story about Jews being driven out of Israel by the Romans (which is pretty debatable historically - mostly they seem to have left for economic reasons, and a lot seem to have stayed and may well be the ancestors of today's Palestinians) - that was nearly 2000 years ago! What about a homeland for American Indians (South, middle and North)? That's a quarter of the time period. Hell, the Celts could make a claim to England - the Saxons have a homeland, right, its in Germany.
The linked piece is not exactly all that great itself - it does that horrible weasel thing about the great deal that "Arab Israeli citizens" get, which rather ignores a thick four million people who'd love to have that status but can't. But it seems to me that Melanie Phillips is several yards to the right of her source, and very very close to territory that could get her chucked in jail if she were to repeat it in Israel.
ReplyDeleteBTW, your permlinks don't seem to work, perhaps you have not set some mysterious blogger switch.
ReplyDelete"A lot of the questions on the old "hard" syllabi just involved plugging numbers into formulae (which formulae you were allowed a cribsheet of)."
ReplyDeleteWell, in 1964 there were no cribsheets allowed and we had to plug the numbers into differential equations. I suppose that's a sort of arithmetic.
A lack of cribsheets is harder, but pointlessly so. Its not as if you won't have access to the things in real life. There seems tobe a school of thought that mistakes rote learning, for useful ability.
ReplyDeleteI don't believe you really read the second article, because it is simply not possible to get past a first sentence as badly written as: Those (and there are many) who don’t know the history of the Jewish people and who have fallen for the propaganda lies that Israel was only created as a result of the Holocaust or that Jewish immigration to Palestine started in the 1880s would do well to read this concise historical account by Dore Gold and Jeff Helmreich.
ReplyDeleteI take it that's Dore Gold as in the guy who used to be Ariel Sharon's press flack?
ReplyDelete(Imagine your mother having to tell her friends that. For this we sent him to college!)
"But it seems to me that Melanie Phillips is several yards to the right of her source, and very very close to territory that could get her chucked in jail if she were to repeat it in Israel."
ReplyDeleteOh hell I hope that doesn't happen...
The thought of having to defend Mel's right to free speech (knowing full well she wouldn't lift a finger for someone if the roles were reversed) fills me with weariness... Sigh.
Well, I beg to differ. Some subjects are simply much easier than they used to be, Maths being the most obvious and undeniable example of this. The first two modules or so cover what used to be O level work twenty years ago. The syllabus is smaller and the questions are more structured.
ReplyDelete