Schoolboy error

Settle down at the back, there. Today we’re going to learn basic numeracy.
Do pay attention, Sir Michael Wilshaw (Chief Inspector of Schools, head of Ofsted, the agency that inspects schools…) This will be on the test.
On Breakfast TV this morning, you said that UK schools were failing to keep up with the rest of the world, and that one in 5 ten-year-olds were failing to reach the average.
LOL, LOL again.
Nobody on BBC Breakfast challenged this. The discussion continued as if he had said something both meaningful and scary. (And, of course, nobody said – “Surely this slide down the world’s literacy league tables coincides with the past decade’s massive expansion of school inspection activity?”)
OK, I naturally assumed the “average” word was a slip of the tongue. I told quite a few people because I was amazed that the chief inspector of schools didn’t understand the concept of a mean. But, on the BBC website, some more savvy person (maybe someone who’d studied Maths at the age of 11, as Sir Michael clearly hadn’t) had changed the reported words to refer to expected standards. Maybe I’d dreamt it.
But it turns out that Sir Michael had said the same thing on Newsnight the night before.
As the Guardian reported, a flurry of well-earned Internet derision followed the Newsnight speech. Ofsted press office said it was just a “slip of the tongue”.
Impossible that he and his press office didn’t spot any twittered mirth. But, there he was on BBC Breakfast, this morning, with his tongue still slipping wildly and disgorging the same scare story, using the same silly “average” word.
To misquote Oscar Wilde, to misuse one statistical concept may be a misfortune, to misuse two begins to look a lot like innumeracy.
I’ll be charitable and take it that he “really” meant “expected standard” but was more interested in getting in a soundbite than in communicating meaningfully. (In that case, of course, he’s failed basic literacy requirements instead.)
As the Guardian blog showed, Sir Michael isn’t alone in his innumeracy. The Secretary of State for Education is equally challenged by the statistical concept of averages. This is priceless:

Chair: One is: if “good” requires pupil performance to exceed the national average, and if all schools must be good, how is this mathematically possible?
Michael Gove: By getting better all the time.
Chair: So it is possible, is it?
Michael Gove: It is possible to get better all the time.
Chair: Were you better at literacy than numeracy, Secretary of State?
Michael Gove: I cannot remember.

This sort of thing would normally inspire pity. He’s obviously not very bright but, in a fair world, he could probably get useful work that didn’t need academic skills. In the real universe, he’s Secretary of State for Education.
In which role, he’s hellbent on promoting the ludicrous Academies. These obviously make perfect sense if you’re a business person who wants to get your hands on public money that’s earmarked for education but make no sense to anyone else.
The process seems to be –

  1. Ofsted “inspects” a school
  2. They declare it to be “failing” and in need of “special measures”
  3. The school has to choose between becoming an Academy or being closed
  4. An Academy is set up, it gets the money that the local authority would have paid to the school
  5. The school becomes Outstanding in the next inspection

But there’s a hiccup. A few awkward schools are refusing.
Heads are rolling resigning or knuckling under. And now, intransigent (locally elected) school governors are being dismissed and replaced by government appointees – who by an amazing coincidence turn out to be very pro-academy. (Downhills Primary, Nightingale Primary):

“We have therefore decided to appoint an interim executive board to give the school the leadership and expertise it needs to improve.
“Those connected with the school will then be consulted on whether the school should convert into a sponsored academy under the leadership of the Harris Federation.”
The hand-picked interim executive board will be chaired by Les Walton, the chairman of the the Young People’s Learning Agency – the academies’ funding body.
Other members include the head of the Harris Federation, Dr Dan Moyniham, and Dame Sylvia Morris.
Dame Sylvia has just retired as head teacher of St Saviour and St Mary Overy Primary School in Southwark. She was made a dame in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours for services to education, and mentors new head teachers in four London boroughs….
At a parliamentary committee hearing in January, Mr Gove labelled campaigners against the academy plan for Downhills “Trots”, claiming they were politically motivated and linked to the Socialist Workers Party. (from the BBC)

One can only hope that Mr Gove is himself politically motivated. Otherwise, the whole operation looks a lot like straightforward theft.

Threatening teachers

Lord Hill (the Schools Minister, do keep up at the back there) has written to the heads of schools wanting to become academies to threaten them that they can’t become academies if they reach agreement with the NAS/UWT union.

Lord Hill has threatened headteachers that their bid for academy status is in jeopardy if they enter into any agreement with the NASUWT to maintain national pay and conditions of service.(from the NAS/UWT site)

Here’s the offending document. I can’t work out how to link to it so I’ve copied and pasted it here, with apologies to the NAS.UWT.
LORD HILL LETTER TO ACADEMIES JAN 2011.pdf

Lord Hill says in his first paragraph that “We consider the freedom to set the pay and conditions of staff to be one of the key freedoms of Academy status.”

If the reader is under any illusion that these “key freedoms” include “paying staff over the national rate”, he threatens that any school that reaches an agreement to keep to the national rate will not get Academy status.

Maybe my English Comprehension skills just aren’t up to the appropriate standard but this threat seems pretty clear. I never studied Fundamentals of English/European Law but the legality of this seems at least doubtful.

The NAS/UWT seem to be of the same opinion:

The letter also offers advice on academy conversion that, if followed, would place schools in breach of their statutory obligations, leaving them vulnerable to legal action.
Chris Keates, NASUWT General Secretary,said:
“Quite frankly, I am astonished that a Minister would commit to writing such threats and deeply flawed advice.
“For a peer and a Minister to encourage the flouting of the law is, I believe, unprecedented.

“Academies” aren’t exactly covered in glory, as it is, even before they are entered in an unseemly rush for the cheapest teachers.

On 12 January Sky News reported that

Around a quarter of the worst performing secondary schools in England are academies, according to the latest set of league tables.”

Quite how bad are these academies going to be when they only employ teachers on lower pay and conditions?