michael gove

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
I'd agree that a significant part of teaching has always been directed at training kids to pass exams, but obviously the trend in this direction has become much more extreme over recent years.

The relentless and crushing emphasis upon measuring everything is by no means restricted to education though - it's society-wide. In the field in which I work, which relies upon obtaining grants in order to run projects of social usefulness, things have become similarly absurd with the hegemonic language of "outputs, outcomes and impact" imposed upon everyone. Qualitative evidence barely counts any longer.

Only just saw this part of the article:
'Sarah Cumberlidge remembers a taster day her school put on for kids in their last year of primary: "Little year 6s, who came in to do a lesson and try a few things. And afterwards, they said, 'But Miss, what was the learning objective?' I was horrified." '
As well you might be. Chilling.
 
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firefinga

Well-known member
we evaluate ouerselves to death

The relentless and crushing emphasis upon measuring everything is by no means restricted to education though - it's society-wide.

Gotta agree here. I work in a technology related field and been doing this for a couple of years now. By now, I would say 25% of my time and energy by now I am wasting for "evaluation", filling out forms (on paper and online!!) sitting in meetings on "team evaluation" and all that crap. And I am working in the private sector!
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
The relentless and crushing emphasis upon measuring everything is by no means restricted to education though - it's society-wide.

Oh, for sure - but I think it's in education that it's having potentially the most damaging and far-reaching long-term consequences (subjective judgement, of course). I know it's infected healthcare, transport, the civil service, policing, the military too, no doubt - just about everything.

In the field in which I work, which relies upon obtaining grants in order to run projects of social usefulness, things have become similarly absurd with the hegemonic language of "outputs, outcomes and impact" imposed upon everyone. Qualitative evidence barely counts any longer.

And anyone who quibbles must therefore be opposed to assessment of any kind, and the only reason you could have for feeling that way is not being any good at your job, right? Sigh.
 
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you

Well-known member
The relentless and crushing emphasis upon measuring everything is by no means restricted to education though - it's society-wide. In the field in which I work, which relies upon obtaining grants in order to run projects of social usefulness, things have become similarly absurd with the hegemonic language of "outputs, outcomes and impact" imposed upon everyone. Qualitative evidence barely counts any longer.

Spot on. Quantization is a capitalist symptom- when something becomes a market everyone breaks out the abaci and has a jolly time totting and re-totting stuff - doesn't matter that its not productive. Health, Education, Art or Sales.

What is even more galling about this trend is why, when most peoples mobile phone have more computational power than previous generations could even imagine, human energy is expended more and more on mundane quantification.

I remember a business I used to work at years ago - there were more people employed to count, manage and evaluate than there were to sell and install the product.

----

Education is now a market, hence the absurd quantification obsession. All the commentary by the major political parties is focused on competition, that our kids need skills and education that will enable some form of business advantage in a future global market. When was the last time you heard 'experience', 'happiness' or 'well being' mentioned in relation to education on QT? Creativity is only brought up now as a commodity the west can export.

Quantification doesn't help even business, but its a virus that spreads in the quasi-open unfathomable market. Choice is elucidated nicely in The Wire - do you become McNulty and fight against Bureaucracy - or be like Bunk and accept to work within it.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I remember a business I used to work at years ago - there were more people employed to count, manage and evaluate than there were to sell and install the product.

I remember vimothy posted this here years ago, it's stuck with me ever since:

Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people:

First, there will be those who are devoted to the goals of the organization. Examples are dedicated classroom teachers in an educational bureaucracy, many of the engineers and launch technicians and scientists at NASA, even some agricultural scientists and advisors in the former Soviet Union collective farming administration.

Secondly, there will be those dedicated to the organization itself. Examples are many of the administrators in the education system, many professors of education, many teachers union officials, much of the NASA headquarters staff, etc.​

The Iron Law states that in every case the second group will gain and keep control of the organization. It will write the rules, and control promotions within the organization.

Seems relevant here.

Also, isn't this one of those areas where 'advanced' capitalist economies have bizarrely seemed to converge, in certain respects, on the modes of organization typical of the totalitarian socialist states of the last century? Except now it's %age of kids passing Maths/Science/English at grade A*-C, rather than tons of rice/coal/steel/whatever produced - everyone, from whole regions of a country down to individuals, has to constantly demonstrate against the standard metric that they are doing their bit.
 
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you

Well-known member
I remember vimothy posted this here years ago, it's stuck with me ever since:



Seems relevant here.

Also, isn't this one of those areas where advance capitalist economies have bizarrely seemed to converge, in certain respects, on the modes of organization typical of the totalitarian socialist states of the last century? Except now it's %age of kids passing Maths/Science/English at grade A*-C, rather than tons of rice/coal/steel/whatever produced - everyone, from whole regions of a country down to individuals, has to constantly demonstrate against the standard metric that they are doing their bit.

I'm not sure it's as straight forward as that - although I see the comparison tbf. Rather, I think the 2nd category is now less totalitarian - it is atomized and farmed out to almost every individual (think self reporting and evaluation)... so much so that the demand for the 2nd category inhibits the achievement of the 1st. If you are a doctor, car salesman or teacher you would lose the job if you didn't complete the quantifying actions from the 2nd category - how many 1st goals you achieve, healing/treating/selling/teaching wouldn't mean shit if you didn't play the bureaucracy game and evaluation of the 2nd category. McNulty was the example here - he wanted to be true police at the expense of paperwork and protocol, thus he got canned.
 

Patrick Swayze

I'm trying to shut up
Mice and Men by Steinbeck [...] A book that kids, and particularly boys, enjoy.


w460.jpg
 

jenks

thread death
Having spent the day on strike and hearing various accounts of how 'selfish' we are, Gove has done well to throw the spotlight on us and continue not to answer any direct question on anything. Instead he got his LibDem attack dog on the case - Laws. Nothing at present that I hear about Gove surprises me.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

matt b

Indexing all opinion
The Education Secretary, Michael Gove, has approved a plan to spend £45m on a free school, making it almost certainly the most expensive in the country even though it has just 500 students, The Independent has learnt.

The cost of setting up the Harris Westminster Sixth Form for high-achieving students is six times the average cost of establishing a free school and equates to around £90,000 per pupil.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/e...may-be-be-britains-mostexpensive-9222364.html

(FYI: sixth forms get just under £4000 per pupil, down from approx £4500 in 2010 and this is to be cut further by Gove)
 
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