Meet the new targets – same as the old targets?
First, the good news. Michael Gove has told me he will be replying in September to the questions I posed in my blog a few weeks ago. Hopefully we can generate some wider coverage for what is an important debate.
Today I want to pick up an another point raised by the Sir Richard Sykes review for the Conservatives of school and pupil assessment, which Michael briefed to the press at the weekend. The Conservatives intend to tighten up on assessment in a number of ways. More points will be allocated to pupils and schools for attainment in ‘hard’ topics like maths and physics than ’soft’ subjects like sociology and media studies. Also, there will be no recognition of attainment in the new 14-19 diplomas, which should pretty much ensure they are killed off.
But the proposal that received most coverage, and was the subject of positive comments on this site, was to remove the focus on the number of secondary school pupils reaching the target of 5 or more A-C grade GCSEs, including Maths and English. There are two grounds for this reform. First, that the current system encourages school to focus undue resources on those just around the 5 A-C’s borderline. Second, Michael has made clear that he thinks that in some subjects it is just too easy to get a ‘C’ grade (he has also said that in future those who want to become primary school teachers will be expected to get a ‘B’ grade rather than just a ‘C’ in maths).
I suspect Michael’s critique is valid. There is no doubt that schools, especially thsoe worried about being branded ‘failing’ do obsess about the 5 A-Cs target. Also, I suspect there have been steps to make it possible for less able students to get a ‘C’ in subjects like maths as long as they make a reasonable effort.
However there are some other points worth bearing in mind. The existing target is not simply a creation of ministers. Way back in the day, when I was at school, pupils and schools were very focused on the criterion for being able to enter sixth form, which was then 4 A-C ‘O’ levels (for the record I just scraped through). The Government itself recognises the problem with the GCSE target so from next year it will move to a balance scorecard approach compressing all the data about schools (there is a lot of it) into a single A-E score. I am not sure it will work. Parents will still focus on the area of school performance they care most about, and going on to do A levels will continue to figure highly.
In fact, Labour was told very early on in its administration (when David Blunkett was Education Secretary as I recollect) that the target was skewing resources. The response was to create a new target to minimise the number of pupils leaving school with no qualifications at all. The problem was that no aspirational parents cares about this target and for any school to admit that any pupil leaves with no qualifications would be a PR disaster. So this new target achieved little traction.
If the Conservatives move to a system that favors absolute performance in hard subjects it too will have a skewing effect. More students will be encouraged to do ‘hard’ subjects even if they aren’t very interested in them, but in fairness Michael may think that is a good thing. Moe problematic is the the likelihood that resources will be channeled to the most high achieving. This is simply because it is easier to get a bright pupil to attain a higher grade, or take an extra subject, than it is to achieve more with a less able child.
All targets have their drawbacks. I was reminded of this by what is happening in the police service. I was very much in favour when the Government announced that it is was moving to a single measure of policing; public satisfaction. After all, policing is the only service in which public satisfaction ratings actually decline after direct contact with the service. But I should have realised what would happen. Across England police forces are now spending hundreds of thousands of pounds employing consultants to advise them on what it is that drives public satisfaction. In this way a single national target quickly turns into multiple local targets, and resources get driven to those things that make us happier with the police even if they may not actually be the best way of ensuring law and order.
I believe public services need targets. Without them there are real problems about transparency, accountability and performance management. But all targets have their drawbacks. It is a matter of risk. The Conservatives clearly think the risk of more resources being channelled to the brightest is less worrying than that they are concentrated on those in the middle. Are they right?
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Comments
8 Comments on Meet the new targets – same as the old targets?
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Martin Robinson on
Thu, 20th Aug 2009 1:29 pm
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Jamie on
Thu, 20th Aug 2009 3:51 pm
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Graham Jeffery on
Thu, 20th Aug 2009 4:16 pm
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Michael Story on
Thu, 20th Aug 2009 5:15 pm
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Marbury on
Sat, 22nd Aug 2009 5:45 pm
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oldandrew on
Tue, 25th Aug 2009 10:54 am
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matthewtaylor on
Tue, 25th Aug 2009 6:09 pm
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oldandrew on
Tue, 25th Aug 2009 6:23 pm
I’m really interested to hear that Michael will be responding to the stimulating discussions on this blog.
I think a points score system for all passes will be better than the A*-C that we currently have. It could, maybe, have a value added component factored in (though this is fraught with problems). In my blog I talk about how disastrous and completely flawed the idea about labeling some subjects ‘hard’ and others ’soft’.
The objection I have to the current target of 5 A* – Cs is qualitative. Resources in terms of time and effort are focused onto a number of C/D borderline students by hardworking staff. However this does not result in educating them to a high standard. Much of what occurs is about spoon feeding and dragging confused and over ‘course-worked’ kids through coursework and exams. Unfortunately this results in students not able to absorb ideas, not able to use knowledge and not open to developing their skills. The staff seem more stressed than their charges and students become more dependent and unable to learn under their own volition.
More resources need to be targeted on developing a love of learning, motivation, focus, self discipline, and all the soft skills I keep banging on about rather than entirely focusing on the one blunt instrument of 5 A*-C passes. We should all care about quality in depth and breadth more than simply judging everything through quantity of achievements in one annual measurement.
Matthew,
“Across England police forces are now spending hundreds of thousands of pounds employing consultants to advise them on what it is that drives public satisfaction.”
There are lots of issues with the single confidence target but I would have thought the above is a good thing? Don’t we want agencies to find out what people want from their services?
Best,
This notion of ‘hard’ and ’soft’ subjects is utter garbage and deserves to be consigned to the bin as such. The idea that an A level in dance or music is somehow ‘easier’ than one in maths or physics demonstrates a wilful misunderstanding of the different cognitive/physical/intellectual processes that underpin knowledge and skills development in different disciplines. Howard Gardner tackled this head-on in ‘Multiple Intelligences’ as far back as 1983 and it is utterly depressing that the Conservatives are still recycling this sub-Daily Mail ragbag of prejudice and elitism.
We need a proper, grown up debate about how we value all the skills, intelligence and knowledge needed for survival in this complicated world. And we need to stop this obsession with pen and paper testing, where the answers are largely pre-determined, ‘correct’ or ‘incorrect’ and thus schools end up drilling students in the skills to jump through hoops,. That’s not a decent measure of achievement or educational value. And I haven’t even mentioned the academic-vocational divide! Back to the 1980s/90s where we got the bizarre hydra of a highly prescriptive, bureaucratic National Curriculum and some token gestures in the direction of ‘vocational’ education? If that’s Tory policy it’s more than depressing, it’s completely unintelligent/unintelligible. What about trying to build an education system that is able to learn and adapt?
Jamie-
There is a need for police to focus on serious crimes which are hidden from view and therefore unlikely to appear in satisfaction surveys, domestic violence and incestuous child abuse being two examples. Confidence targets are also very problematic when the public are poorly informed and perception of crime changes as a result of hysterical news coverage and rumours.
This is why the Conservatives’ proposal for locally elected police chiefs was quietly dropped. How safe would you feel going to Barking and Dagenham if the BNP had appointed the head of police?
Matthew-
I am interested that you find a proposal which might lead schools to spend more resources on the most able pupils to be ‘troubling.’ Why should this be? We already only spend tax revenues on higher education after having first selected the most able candidates. Why should our schools be any different?
Isn’t this what the gifted and talented funds were supposed to achieve, and isn’t it only sensible to recognise that the cost to society of the most able pupils being passed over in favour of their less academic but target-pleasing peers might be huge?
It could well cost the brighter ones their university access and therefore professional career opportunities, and since our economy is increasingly reliant on high level knowledge workers (whose innovations can provide employment for a multitude of less skilled people) it must be in our interest to ensure we educate as many of them as possible?
Graham: I can’t find any evidence that Gove or the Tories regard music as a “soft” subject. Perhaps you know of some? As far as I can tell, Gove’s objection is not to subjects like music or drama but to the growth of subjects like media studies that are less valuable or useful than subjects like maths and physics, but which increasing numbers of pupils are being encouraged to take because they are easier, and schools know it will get their grades up. Hence “soft”. I get the feeling a few people throwing mud at the Tories here haven’t watched Gove’s speech to the RSA. Have a look, it’s interesting and serious, even you might not agree with all of it, as I don’t.
The problem with targets is that professionals are, at least in theory, trained to make complex judgements about what should be done.
Targets override this judgement. For teachers, they tell us to spend time and effort on certain children for certain tests. For the police, they tell them to pursue certain types of crime and certain criminals. In reality there are actually a large number of factors to be considered and chasing the target is often going to be counter-productive.
Ultimately, professionals do have to be trusted to make their own judgements if you want them to do a good job. Statistics might be useful for idenitfying failure, cases where people aren’t doing their jobs, but finding people who are already doing a good job and telling them that they should be ticking this or that box is always going to be destructive.
I agree Andrew. But the question is this how do you have targets that disclose under performance but don’t proliferate and constrain everyone in the system. It really is hard, believe me. Take for example the stats released this week about coasting schools. They aren’t failing but surely parents deserve to now that they are also failing to improve?
I would suggest that a set of minimum acceptable standards could be set instead of targets. They should all be things that should be achieved by any reasonably competent organisation, but should be wide enough to catch both absolute and relative failure, and marked decline.
(I am assuming here that “coasting schools” are ones that are underachieving relative to their intake but not relative to national figures, as opposed to ones that simply aren’t improving. “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it” might seem complacent, but schools are already overwhelmed with “fixes” which turn out to make things worse.)
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