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.

We all know the drill. Some self-appointed ‘expert’ speaks out in public about some perceived problem, statistics at the ready, and either one of the political parties is there ready to lend support. This time, Barnaby Lenon, the headmaster of Harrow school, said state schools were opting for “soft” A-level options (e.g. media studies, always the whipping-boy!), and pupils had no chance of getting into elite universities because of it.

The meaningless statistics: ‘39 per cent of those with three grade-A passes including chemistry and maths had attended private schools, as had 54 per cent of those with three As including a modern foreign language.’

It was also Mr Lenon’s duty to warn against giving top priority to improving social mobility as a government policy as it ‘inevitably’ led to a “dumbing down” of standards.

He added that if children are educated well – the main aim – then social mobility will follow.

Even Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrats’ Treasury spokesman (not Education, lest we forget!) got in on the act and questioned whether Britain was sending too many youngsters to universities, arguing they should be channelled into further education colleges to take apprenticeships instead.

This whole very familiar story can be understood in several ways. The ‘crisis’ in education besetting UK society, declining standards in education, classical education is best, education being used as a tool of government policy rather than a good in itself, the uppity lower classes getting above their station, independent schools are better etc.

We wonder, of course, whether elite universities – whatever that means – really reject a student with an A* in media studies?

Also, how can social mobility improve without qualifications – however soft – in a managerial society so fixated by them and grades?

And, would Vince Cable advise a young relative or teenage child of a friend to go to one of the FE colleges that he so admires?

Snobs.

Let’s take a look at this ‘research’. The report, ‘Leadership Aspirations and Careers of Black and Minority Ethnic Teachers’, was commissioned by the NASUWT and the National College and compiled by Manchester University and Education Data Surveys.

The methodology section has more than enough to get our teeth into.

1. Sampling Strategy

There is no control group so it isn’t possible to compare responses. The sample isn’t randomised either. The participants have been selected from those that are available. Two databases were used – one from National College and the other from NASUWT.

The survey uses self-completion questionnaires. Questionnaires record the perceptions of respondents at a given moment of time. They are not records of the world as it is but of the world as it is experienced. Experiences depend on perceptions, and these depend on education, culture, and whole host of factors. In other words, questionnaire responses are never given in a vacuum and reflect the historically-situated, contingent views rather than the objective truth of existence.

2. Returned Sample

Only 10% of questionnaires were returned by the NCLSCS BME sample, 16% by the NASUWT. This is a fairly low rate of return. It could be surmised, also, that surveys like this are more likely to attract those with grievances rather than those without which is why a mandatory and/or supervised questionnaire would greatly improve response rates and add some balance.

3. Analysis

The main finding of the survey is NOT that schools are racist. The main finding is that to BME teachers, “The greatest barrier to leadership aspirations overall was workload.” Workload NOT racism. Now if this survey had included a broader, randomised sample we could compare these findings but we can’t. However, that these teachers work too many hours is the perception.

So why, then have the mainstream media outlets carried the racism angle? Racism sells papers, and is of topical interest in the UK. The reaction to Nick Griffin would have been noticed by newspaper owners eager to up their circulations. What better way to do this than to latch on to anything with racism involved?

The sadness of this is not that some BME teachers feel that racism has held them back – albeit tragic – but that the issue of workload hasn’t been dealt with or taken seriously. There is no shortage evidence of teachers doing too many hours. These are the words of the NUT. Any search engine will also reveal numerous articles and reports on the subject. This is why there is such a high turnover of teaching staff especially among the young. Until a cap is placed on the number of hours worked, teachers will continue to burn out, suffer from stress and leave the profession altogether. This harms pupils, costs the taxpayer money, and is so easily avoidable if only the press were not so irresponsible.

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.

Why is it costing so much? External agencies holding educational establishments to ransom? A National Qualifications Framework with too many levels? An obsession with examinations as a panacea? Education being run by people without education backgrounds?

We hear the new body, OfQual, will conduct a review. Bit like Bernard Matthews, turkey farmer, voting against Christmas, we think.

PS. We propose a new regulating authority, OfGov, which will assess whether UK voters are getting value for money!

Widely reported in the past week, it seems independent, fee-paying schools and their rivals have implemented the Cambridge Pre-U. Of 30 schools only 6 are from the state sector and the headteachers fear that it will lead to an educational divide. But, yet again, the DfIUKUHJJJ and the DfSCUTHEI aka the Department of Education has not listened to those who know best and has gone ahead. Critics have also attacked the move for further compilcating the existing examinations system that will now have to contend with the new diploma.

Choice is not always best, especially when the goal of education should be to alleviate as much as possible the inequalities and injustices in the country. All these new exams will do is allow those with money to jump the queue while state schools play catch-up, allowing the rich to regain some of their monopoly over education. Ed Balls-Up and his other Yes Men/Women should instead concentrate on simplifying the current exam system and address the issues that determine success or failure i.e. poverty, supportive teachers, healthy studying environments. This smacks of class war. Marx would turn in his grave.

The following response is indicative of the rest:

“I would have thought that it was quite obvious what makes a good teacher in this day and age. The ability to cope with enormous amounts of administrative paper-work including individual lesson plans for every lesson of every day taken down to individual targets for each child in the class. Ability to enjoy pointless and meaningless paper chases to satisfy regulators and local authorities. Ability to be able to ignore all legislation relating to European Working Hours Directives. The ability to accept criticism from failed teachers and advisors who populate a self-sustaining OFSTED system. The ability to accept continuous and unfounded criticism of everything they do by people who always know better, no matter how poorly qualified. The ability to be able to adapt to every ill conceived and poorly thought through initiative. There are certainly enough Teachers willing to be creatively subversive, but OFSTED is not. All of this before they even get anywhere near children, who after all are now secondary to league table results in the exam factory mentality which now exists. But still they do get such lovely long holidays and good pay.”
Orlando F.Stead, Manchester, UK

We have a great idea: why not ask 16+ boys and girls what they want to study and allow them to do it. Perhaps that why school is so unattractive to so many: they don’t get to choose! Like having to listen to your parent’s old music when you’d rather not.