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 Circus Week saw rich City types swapping their braces for a board rubber and pen for the day.

You would think that this would be all about teaching the young kids a thing or two about business or life in the world of the rich.

But to one participant, a partner at a big accountancy firm, the day was about scouting for future talent. Talent that is still only 8 or 9 years old.

To City worker Ms Mercer, “Most businesses are thinking smartly about where they are getting their talent from, rather than just going to the top universities. There are a lot of very bright young people from more deprived backgrounds who haven’t thought about the opportunities they might have. Many could be very successful in the city.”

Admittedly, she then went on to say that “Good teachers are so important but they can’t do it on their own. They need the support of the community, parents and business.”

But with charities like Teach First around, who needs enemies.

It is also good to see that former McKinsey consultant and founder and CEO of Teach First, Mr. Wigdortz, was on hand to remind us that “Studies show that socio-economic status still determines whether children in the UK fulfill their potential.”

But we’ve been here before. Aside from the fact that ‘potential’ could mean almost anything, the line about the direct causal link between poverty and educational underachievement is simply not true.

Studies have been unable to identify the most crucial factor(s) contributing to educational success. For one thing, our own research has revealed that only a couple of schools on special measures -one key indicator of educational underachievement – are on Teach First’s list of impoverished schools. And if there was such a direct link and it could be demonstrated without exception, you just wouldn’t find poor kids passing examinations or at university. But that isn’t true either.

If it was really about raising levels of achievement, what we think our Brett should really be doing for these kids is finding fully trained and experienced teachers who are fully committed to teaching them for more than one day when the cameras and journalists are around and for longer than the two years his TF recruits sign up for.

A PR exercise is one thing. Making a lasting difference is another. And facilitating the recruitment of underqualified, inexperienced graduates to do the work that a well-trained, experienced but more expensive teacher should be doing is clearly muddleheaded if not tragic.

This simply isn’t true. What has really fallen short are literacy test scores not literacy standards. OfSTED are confusing scores with literacy levels. A child that does badly on a test isn’t necessarily lacking in literacy. They are just unable to score high enough on the test.

You may wish to claim that test-taking is part of what it means to be literate, but this isn’t what we’re talking about. We’re talking about being able to read and write not do well on a test.

If we wish to argue that literacy test scores are the same as literacy standards then the report explains that scores among 7 year olds has actually gone up.

Why OfSTED continue to exist is because via the mainstream media channels they sell an image of failing schools, teachers and pupils when that simply isn’t the case. And to back things up they refer to test scores.

But these scores are massaged. Deliberately. Gilbert and the Inspectors want to continue in their well-paid posts. They then quite understandably have no will or reason to change how things are currently done. The climate of failure that they peddle serves their own selfish interests, and we pick up the tab.

There are failings but no school is an island. A failing school is invariably in an impoverished area. This is the real cause of underperformance. No inspector is needed to tell us that. The Beeb should continue to report this…as they have done…not be the conduit for OfSTED propaganda.

That this money – an extra £4bn – is coming at a time when those in FE and HE face hefty cuts will raise little cheer for those who are paying mortgages, have children to feed and saw education as free of the boom-bust cycle that so plagues the private sector and job security.

Even the money that is being squeezed out of the FE/HE sponge and passed onto to schools isn’t without a cost. This cost not simply being a financial one, of course, but also the right to decide how that money is spent.

Just lik NuLab, the Coalition of One will expect to control where that money goes and how it is spent. They do this, naturally, through the quangos such as OfSTED that still remain.

What is needed is freedom for schools to do as they have always done even before the Age of OfSTED and get on with schooling. But this is only feasible if there are no strings. By attaching strings to how money is spent, unnecessary bureaucracy is created. Without the strings OfSTED and those like it lose their raison d’etre. Period.

The imaginary world of success and failure that these strings and inspectors create and perpetuate serves only the very people that have a vested interest in the system being created and perpetuated. No system, no problem.

This may be the case but the study does not show this. The study actually shows us not that teaching is under-rated but that prospects for career development are perceived as relatively limited.

But we would argue that this is actually why many would wish to join the teaching profession in the first place: to get their hands dirty and not be moved upstairs. Teachers love teaching. Those who join teaching for non-teaching careers are missing the point and are better suited to employment in the private sector.

If teachers regained control of schools and were allowed to make decisions that are currently made by layers and layers of administrators and managers then schools would become places of education once more and not the plaything of career managers and administrators that they are at the moment.

Teachers who wonder about career progression are not in teaching for the right reasons. Teachers who are concerned about their low salaries we can understand as often career progression is a euphemism for the latter but the most straightforward of jobs doesn’t need the imaginary, hierarchical levels of bureaucracy that it is currently subjected to.

Allowing teachers greater independence to make decisions for their pupils and schools will reduce bureaucracy. It may up the workload but compensation for this would be higher wages funded with the money saved from cutting back on administrators and managers.

Another benefit of this is bad teachers will have nowhere to run. Where currently they can hide behind systems and the failings of managers, a more transparent, simplified and self-reliant teaching profession will see a teacher live or die by their own efforts, with responsibility for the well-being and successes of the classes.

So, the ICM study does not show that teaching as a profession is under-rated but that as a structured career it is. However, we think this is no loss. Those who join teaching initially for a career in management later on are not those who enter teaching for the right nor best reasons. Teachers teach, and managers manage.

The culture of choice is really an excuse to employ more civil servants – how very convenient for them. Nothing wrong with choice but how about cutting costs first. And how about addressing the school run and middle-class advantage while their at it, too?

Is this what children really need or will remember? Psychologists tell us that our automatic, non-conscious behaviour starts early on in life but we, as humans, have the ability to adapt and change life course – of course, only if our environment lets us. In other words, rather than telling yet more kids that being a builder, plumber or mechanic is not as good as being a lawyer, slippery servant or management consultant, shouldn’t they being doing something about creating ANY job opportunities and tackling child deprivation?

These reforms sell the line that it is OUR fault for not getting a job when where you live and who you live with is by far the greatest influence on how your life pans out.

Another clue regarding the real motivation for this initiative is contained within the following passage: “The Department for Children, Schools and Families wants teachers and parents to build on this to get children thinking about higher education, especially those from homes where no members of their family have been to university before.” This is saying the Government is recruiting numbers for university so that the young, especially of poorer families, can be saddled with debt, pay fees and keep the status quo going.

Eventually childhood will disappear altogether and ‘children’ will be known as ‘pre-adults’. Children aren’t here to serve the wishes of slippery serpents and the incumbent Government. Leave them be.

It seems sensible to encourage ‘high-flying’ graduates to join the teaching profession so that they can pass on their skills and experience.

However, we would argue that this scheme is not the answer to teacher recruitment and retention. Improved working conditions especially eradicating all paperwork and restoring lesson planning freedom and creativity are.

We would also argue that Teach First is public-private initiative (sorry, ‘charity’) that line the pockets of former civil servants and business people while hiding behind slogans and bold statements of intent (“a powerful social change initiative aimed at tackling educational disadvantage in challenging schools around the UK”).

Cherry-picking 500 teachers on the condition that they can leave after a few years is a joke. What does that say to the other ‘inferior’ teachers? That teaching, if you have enough ability, is simply a stepping stone to better paid, more suitable career? Morale is low enough as it is without rubbing this in.

And what about these high-fliers? Is there a correlation between being good academically and being a successful teacher? Where’s the research and proof?

Lastl, it is hardly value for money to train teachers up and then suggest they leave.

This and similar schemes have been latched onto by the political parties because they’ve given up. They’ve decided that reform can only come from outside. Government famously is addicted to outside consultants and this is just one more example

Reduce bureaucracy, allow teachers to teach, stop changing things for change sake and trust new and existing teachers to do a good job. That’s the answer.

“Union leader calls for review of mobile phone ban in classrooms”, says the Observer. Really? Perhaps so. After all, the article later declares: “In schools where children were provided with handheld computers with phone and internet access to use in lessons, teachers have reported very little misuse, according to David Whyley, the headteacher consultant for Learning2Go, a scheme that has been run for five years at 18 primary and secondary schools in Wolverhampton.”
Organisations like Learning2Go still peddle the idea that mobile devices and other new pieces of technology will better engage and motivate students. How so? As part of the post-technological generation, we are fully aware that the IT revolution has often promised more than it can offer and have seen how new electronic devices have become a nuisance and, in the case of mobile phones, a danger to the public.

However, what is the evidence for Learning2Go’s claims? The website’s Evaluation and Impact sections breaks down into 4 sections.

“* Critial (sic) friend – external evaluation and ongoing project consultancy
* Local Authority – Monitoring support and evaluation of impact
* External evaluation – project evaluation by external agencies
* Partner and press reporting – investigating and reporting by the press

“Right from the outset, evaluation of the Learning2Go initiative has been absolutely essential.” And so it ought to be. Looking at this critically,

“Critial (sic) friend – external evaluation and ongoing project consultancy

This has been provided throughout the project by David Perry of David Perry associates. David was author of the BECTA Handhelds report in 2003 and has provided external evaluation reporting and arms length consultancy in order to enable the project to learn dynamically from its successes and challenges. 2 reports are available for download from the download page.” Okay. Let’s take a look at those reports…well, we would if they were there but they aren’t. How about David Perry associates website? There is a link to a BECTA report (more on them later) but it’s dead. A quick Google search led to the report. The methodolgy section, if you can call it that, says the following:

“There have been two phases to the project. In the first phase, which began in April 2002, leadership teams in a mixture of 27 schools were equipped with Compaq iPAQs using PocketPC and asked to keep a monthly log of their use. The schools were chosen from those
whose headteachers had participated in the pilot of the course, ‘The Strategic Leadership of ICT’ jointly organised by Becta, NCSL and NAACE. There were 16 primary schools, seven secondaries, two infant,
one special and one middle school in this initial phase. Each of these schools was equipped with a set of accessories including detachable keyboards, PC jackets and ‘presenter-to-go’ attachments for
connecting to data projectors.

Research activities were carried out on Becta’s behalf by Questions Answered of York. This comprised: desk research to identify other relevant initiatives; an analysis of the project participants’ work logs;
a telephone survey of PDA users in companies, government and various strands of education; a second telephone survey of Becta project schools; and finally, interviews in selected project schools.”

Before we get to the research carried out by Questions Answered, let’s just scrutinise this methodology. Ideally, we would like it to be radnomised and placebo-controlled.

Okay. Was the study randomised? “Schools were chosen from those
whose headteachers had participated in the pilot of
the course” doesn’t sound randomised.
Placebo-controlled? Not at all. Telling your participants about the study and why your conducting it beforehand is certainly not a means of nullifying the cultural effects of the research. The Hawthorne effect, in other words, is not countered.

Okay. How about a control group i.e. something to compare it with? No. Nothing.

Let’s look at Questions Answered’s website. Anything there? No becaue they don’t exist. No website. We have a record of what they were said to have completed but as the study was neither randomised nor placebo-controlled it leaves a lot to be desired.

It makes you wonder what on earth is going on at the other 3 sources of evaluation and impact: the Local Authority, external evaluation and the press.

You may ask why be so critical of such projects when we live in the technology era and young people of the future will have to fully incorporate IT and the Internet into their daily lives?

These projects cost a LOT of money. They also demand a lot from parents, with those on low incomes perhaps pestered into buying devices that their children could do without. On Learning2Go, the source of financing is spelt out as:

” * Device – Joint funded by Parents / school over 2 years or 100 payments
* Content/ Memory card – Funded via e – learning credits
* Wireless infrastructure – School funded
* Insurance – included in device price and joint funded as above.”

Unbelievably, this expensive educational fantasy is still being promoted by interested parties even though there is no reseearch on this view at least that suggests it makes any LONG-TERM difference that can be attributable to the introducation of electronic devices.

Anyone interested please contact them using the e-mail address below:

“Hi,

Sorry to bother you.

I work for the BBC’s Today programme and we were wondering if you’d be able to help us.

There was a story in the news yesterday (11 March 2008) that some schools were breaking the rules when it came to admissions policy.

According to the government the schools were allegedly asking parents banned questions about their marital status or financial background, and some were even asking for financial donations to the school.

As your blog is read by parents and teachers we thought it would be a good place to try and find people who might have experienced this and get them on the programme to tell us their story.

So we’d like to track down anyone who has had experience of this type of behaviour and is prepared to discuss it with one of our reporters.

We guarantee that all communication will be treated in the strictest confidence.

Would you be prepared to put up a blog post asking any of your readers with knowledge of this type of behaviour to get in touch with us?

They can get in touch by emailing .uk (ideally with ‘schools’ in the subject header).

We’ll try and get back to anyone today.

You can read more about the story here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7289642.stm

Thanks for your help”

Or these: