The word on the grapevine and now at least one UK daily is that McKinsey’s Mr. Targets himself, Sir Michael Barber, was all set to return as chief of the Department for Education. We’re not the only ones dismayed by this news as so were senior civil servants apparently. While other notables such as Chris [...]
It is not our style to engage in a round of back-patting but recent news regarding the Institute for Learning and Browne’s Tuition Fees Review was not exactly news to us. Firstly, the IfL demands for a £68 annual fee have been met with howls of derision not least because no-one can work out what [...]
Too early to say, of course, but the actions of one Pennsylvania woman give us hope that the days of factory education are coming to an end. State College, Pennsylvania (CNN) — A Pennsylvania mother has decided she does not want her two children to take the two-week-long standardized tests given by her state as part [...]
The BBC article on the latest research by the CfBT Education Trust would make you think that UK teachers are hopeless at maths. “England’s trainee teachers do worse in mathematical tests than their peers in some major economic competitors, a study suggests. Teacher trainees in schools in Japan, China and Russia, easily outperformed those from [...]
In the following Boston Globe article, Learning from Finland How one of the world’s top educational performers turned around, Pasi Sahlberg of Finland’s Ministry of Education and Culture and former Washington-based World Bank education specialist illustrates very succinctly why current UK and US education policy is on the wrong track. “IF AMERICANS harbored any doubts [...]
Yet more creative reading of official statistics by a UK government minister. More than 79,000 children missed out on a place at their first-choice secondary school for this September, apparently. However, Nick Gibb Minister for Schools seems to think that this means, ” there simply aren’t enough good schools.” No it doesn’t, Nick. The figures [...]
Illuminating article and video interview with Joanne Barkan of Dissent magazine about about the lack of democratic accountability, business ideology and questionable science that characterises philanthropic interference in US and increasingly, UK education.
The news that three senior McKinsey & Co consultants are in the dock for the US’s most serious insider trading scandal in generations makes us wonder if this consultancy firm is really the right one to lead UK education policy. Prosecutors allege that a billionaire hedge fund founder, Raj Rajaratnam, was given tips about McKinsey [...]
Yesterday’s announcement of yet more tinkering with the magical world of teaching standards was accompanied by words of support from this season’s Yes Men and Women and some Rumsfeldesque comments by the Gove-nor himself. “Headteachers and teachers have told me in no uncertain terms that the current teachers’ standards are ineffective, meaningless and muddy, fluffy [...]
Good to see that the ‘charity’ known as Teach First is hard at work. Now that they’ve got their claws into primary school kids they’re obviously not going to waste any opportunity to spread their message of bringing joy and light into the lives of the poor. The occasion as part of Teach First PR [...]
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