Posted by Editors
Academies, ASCL, Education Business, Events, Free Schools, In The News, League Tables, Managerialism, Ofsted, Standards, Teach First, Teacher Bashing, Testing, Tories, Working Conditions
Tuesday, March 27th, 2012
Michael Gove, UK Ed Sec, spoke at the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) conference on the the 24 March 2012 so we thought we’d run through the justifications he could come up with for alienating both teachers and headteachers with his needless reforms. There was a defence of free schools and academies. There [...]
Posted by Editors
In The News, MetLife, Ofsted, PISA, Standards, Working Conditions
Thursday, March 15th, 2012
While in the UK OFSTASI’s Wilshaw spouts further drivel about declining literacy standards, across the pond in the US a very illuminating survey of teachers has attracted a lot of recent attention, not least because it shows just how dissatisfied teachers currently are. The MetLife Survey of the American Teacher: Teachers, Parents and the Economy [...]
Posted by Editors
In The News, League Tables, Politics, Standards, Teacher Bashing
Tuesday, February 21st, 2012
The BBC reports today that Labour education spokesman Stephen Twigg has called for the creation of an independent office to raise standards in education in England. On so many grounds this is a mistake. We have written at length about standards in the past but it is clear that Time Warp Twigg, new to the [...]
Posted by Editors
In The News, League Tables, Research, Standards, Teacher Bashing
Sunday, March 13th, 2011
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 [...]
Posted by Editors
Alfie Kohn, Education Philosophy, In The News, NCLB, Standards
Thursday, May 3rd, 2007
The Case Against “Tougher Standards” By Alfie Kohn People who talk about educational “standards” use the term in different ways. Sometimes they’re referring to guidelines for teaching, the implication being that we should change the nature of instruction — a horizontal shift, if you will. (In the case of the standards drafted by the National [...]
