My response to Michael Gove’s response to my response to his speech

January 20, 2010 by matthewtaylor
Filed under: Uncategorized 

Overall, Michael Gove’s response to my seven questions is being interpreted as a more moderate defence of his traditionalist perspective on teaching and learning. This is a relief to some, a disappointment to others. Here are some of my thoughts.

I do think Michael adopts a more conciliatory tone than in his speech at the RSA and than other traditionalists. This may be because he has tempered his views or it may be simply to reassure progressives like me.

My concern – one have shared with Michael – is that if he is the Secretary of State the position ‘this is what I think is right but, hey, it’s up to schools and parents to decide’ will be hard to sustain. The powerful traditionalist lobby will expect a sympathetic Secretary of State to stamp down on those progressive practices which they are convinced are damaging children and society. There will be orchestrated pressure and Michael will need to be strong and subtle if he is to espouse his beliefs without becoming prescriptive.     

There is a very specific charge that Michael makes, and which is repeated by Joe Nutt. This is that schools are encouraging pupils who could achieve good passes in ‘more challenging’ GCSEs to take media studies (or other non traditional subjects) because it is easier for the school to get a pass and thus improve its league table position. The Conservative response to this is – as I understand it – to introduce qualification weighting so that ‘hard/traditional’ subjects have more value in terms of assessing school assessment.

If Michael and Joe are right that schools are encouraging children to aim lower so as to improve their scores this is a depressing reflection on the ethical standards of school leaders. If heads are only driven by self interest the danger is that one set of perverse incentives is replaced by another, so that someone who is potentially brilliant at media studies or sociology is forced to spend a miserable two years being crammed to achieve a ‘C’ in further maths or additional science.   

There aren’t many facts or stats in Michael’s reply. In some ways this is a relief as a lot of ‘evidence’ in educational debates is anecdotal or tendentious. However, I find the reliance on the words of a social democrat educationalist, who apparently agrees with Michael on the curriculum, interesting but unconvincing; as if I tried to make Michael into an enthusiast for the European Union by quoting Ken Clarke or Chris Patten.

At an event here yesterday the Young Foundation’s Geoff Mulgan (someone who immerses himself in the evidence) asserted that there was now overwhelming research support for the importance of interventions at schools designed to develop the emotional and social competencies of children. This too is what I hear from employers (but this isssue is well covered in yesterday’s comments).

In other areas, like community engagement, project based learning, schools as part of the broader fabric of children’s services, Michael seems less opposed as indifferent, which I guess is fair enough.  Some heads seem to be hostile to the idea of wider community engagement (a stance which dismays other heads and public agencies); I guess they will feel their stance is validated. I believe schools need to be active, both bringing the wider community in and seeking to instill a culture of learning in that community. There are reasons to believe these strategies work and the RSA aims to explore this further. If we do develop some successful practice, let’s hope Michael will be receptive.

My final reflection concerns question 7, on which no one else has yet commented. Over the last thirty years (under Conservative and Labour governments) participation rates in higher education have risen sharply (a higher ratio of children go to university now than went to sixth form when I was at school). There is evidence that over this time underlying attainment (measured for example in IQ scores) has also risen, but not nearly as fast. So, being logical (as Michael insists) rising participation relies on a  combination of raising attainment and a deliberate policy of making it easier for moderately bright young people to go on to higher education (this, by the way, is the explicit strategy in most developed and many developing nations). And, in this combination, it has been the commitment to increasing participation that has been the main driver

My question – which I think was pretty clear – was whether Michael intends to abandon this policy. His answer is that he will increase participation purely by raising attainment. This is a fine ambition but it is also long term and very challenging. The question is whether in the meantime a Conservative Government will abandon a policy of making it easier for young people to get into university. I interpret Michael’s answer as a ‘yes’. Which, again, is fine, although, as I have suggested before, it doesn’t seem to be quite the position being espoused by Conservative HE spokesman David Willets.

Anyway, that’s enough of that. Thanks again to Michael Gove for taking to time tor reply and now I think I’ll give education a rest for a few days.

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11 Comments on My response to Michael Gove’s response to my response to his speech

  1. oldandrew on Wed, 20th Jan 2010 9:27 pm

    2. “At an event here yesterday the Young Foundation’s Geoff Mulgan (someone who immerses himself in the evidence) asserted that there was now overwhelming research support for the importance of interventions at schools designed to develop the emotional and social competencies of children.”

    What?

  2. mas on Wed, 20th Jan 2010 11:23 pm

    3. lol I wonder if that was “empirical”? ;-)

    “introduce qualification weighting so that ‘hard/traditional’ subjects have more value in terms of assessing school assessment” … and then more pressure for students to study subjects that bore the crap out of them – not so moderate afterall!

  3. mas on Wed, 20th Jan 2010 11:35 pm

    4. ps in the blogroll should the link to Future Lab be to: http://www.futurelab.org.uk/ ?

    at the mo it’s http://www.futurelab.net – maybe it’s as it’s supposed to be I was just expecting the former!

  4. Matt Grist on Thu, 21st Jan 2010 11:10 am

    5. I wonder why entry to university is the holy grail of so-called social mobility. Studies that show graduates earning more over a lifetime don’t tell the whole story. Those with so-so degrees from below average universites may not do too well earnings wise. There are a mass of graduates at the moment competing for jobs in a shrunken service sector, many unemployed, many doing menial jobs. These students will have massive debts they won’t pay off for years. Perhaps there is some social benefit to their education but there is probably no financial benefit. We should at least be honest about this. Is the best way to give such students opportunities always university? We need to be more imaginative about vocational qualifications but also less snobby about what constitutes a valuable education.

  5. Tessy Britton on Thu, 21st Jan 2010 8:29 pm

    6. @Matt Very good points – It is depressing at the moment considering the amount of graduates finding it hard to get jobs, and living with educational debt. As you suggest ‘be less snobby about what constitutes a valuable education’ … perhaps we also need to more attentive to the wider/long term value of education.

    The social benefits are hard to measure … but I was inspired by the recent article in the The New York Times about Costa Rica, and the results of their decision in 1949 to dissolve its armed forces and invest instead in education. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/07/opinion/07kristof.html

    Do we have measures and lines for the societal impact of wider participation in higher education – gender equality, environmental responsibility, informed living, overall economic progress, tolerance?

    There are studies emerging which suggest that a higher education (at degree level) can be one of the important elements that can lower the risk of cognitive decline (memory loss, dementia etc) later in life.

  6. Louis Coiffait on Sat, 23rd Jan 2010 1:43 am

    7. Making sense of the modern world is only going to become more important and more necessary. Media studies may well be one of the best tools for that job.

    And as for the wider role of schools within communities, they absolutely need to integrate more with other parts of people’s lives (learners, parents, local businesses etc) and to explore partnerships with other services or organisations. The silo approach to society and community just won’t cut it these days, something many Tories fundamentally struggle with.

  7. oldandrew on Sat, 23rd Jan 2010 5:26 am

    8. “And as for the wider role of schools within communities, they absolutely need to integrate more with other parts of people’s lives (learners, parents, local businesses etc) and to explore partnerships with other services or organisations.”

    The more we pile on objectives and aims for schools that are nothing to do with educating, the more seriously they fail to educate. The accumulation of ever vaguer aims is the recipe for bureaucracy.

  8. Livy on Sun, 24th Jan 2010 9:28 pm

    9. Hey TB,

    “There are studies emerging which suggest that a higher education (at degree level) can be one of the important elements that can lower the risk of cognitive decline (memory loss, dementia etc) later in life.”

    Don’t suppose you can tell me more or point me in the right direction? (onajev@gmail.com)

    MT,

    This isn’t just about pushy heads.

    Your take on qualification weighting is bang on, but the reason the right have no counter argument is that they have a peculiar obsession with the (comparatively) poor mathematical ability of British pupils on a global scale, and strongly believe in addressing it. As I understand it, skewed marking arrangements have existed for some time and it’s possible to sit the foundation version of Maths GCSE where even a 100% score gets you a grade C. It didn’t drive up participation at A Level.

    Ideally, the right would love a D in A Level Maths to be publically regarded as equivalent to an B in French; there’s just no damn way in hell (excuse me..) that any kids having to sit those exams will ever shoot themselves in the foot by choosing subjects where they know they are weak.

    Tories also tend not to comprehend the nature of a scientist. Probably because so many of them did PPE at Oxford and can barely calculate VAT. Like musicians, a mathematician is born not made.

    For the record, I dropped Maths when I was 16. When I left school at 18 I got a job training as a fund accountant with 3 A Levels in arts subjects. Nothing close to what I’m doing now, but it gave me valuable, practically applicable accounting skills that school never did.

    The Tory draft education manifesto makes for some interesting reading too. Underling most of the policy initiatives is a fundamental belief that it is ‘power’ rather than wealth that should be redistributed. This can be open to the rather obvious rebuttle that money is power. A selective use of evidence inevitably follows many of the paper’s more strident remarks, although some are well founded. It is regrettable that sensible observations on falling attainment in the more academic subjects are wrapped up in the same sentence with tenuous links to social ills or classroom violence.

    Truancy levels “up by more than a third, despite government spending of over £1 billion to combat it” carries an unfounded deduction of cause and effect. A “post hoc ergo propter hoc” argument will often be reliant on logical fallacy, and some of the manifesto’s comments would simply be offensive to many in the teaching profession, such as a need for schools with teachers “who know children’s names”.

    The reoccurring subtext carries a desire to redefine an epoch of history in the Conservatives’ own image, and a “post bureaucratic age” is as easy to sell now as “class sizes under 30″ was in 1997. The attainment gap between rich and poor students in the coming Cameroon era is promised to be closed by higher standards and increased choice (as well as ‘shaking things up’), but with the self-confessed reluctance to act on the part of a future Tory government, it is difficult to foresee consequences if indeed they arise.

    “The success of our plan to mend Britain’s broken society depends less on the actions that a Conservative government will take to give people more power and more on society’s response”

    I never fail to smirk any time they begrudgingly use the “S” word.

  9. mas on Sun, 24th Jan 2010 9:36 pm

    10. Nobody in my year at school was able to gain higher than a C grade in maths for the reason you’ve given Livy. I didn’t understand the logic then and still don’t – how is it in any way possible to compare the actual abilities of students? That was in 1990

  10. Livy on Sun, 24th Jan 2010 9:49 pm

    11. For sure.

    I’d go one further; how is it in any way possible to compare the actual abilities of students based on a testing system that primarily measures how fast somebody can write?

    I’d be interested to know if anybody ever toyed with the idea of scrapping exam times altogether.

  11. mas on Sun, 24th Jan 2010 10:18 pm

    12. ha – I’d ‘win’ that – except that nobody could read it :-/

    For me a lot of the debates around education on here really miss that point – exams as a method of assessing ability are useless. They are good for indicating whether a student can go on to pass harder exams – and then ultimately for choosing the ones who are best at exams to then teach children to pass more exams – and then those that are taught well to pass exams can go on to do harder exams, and…..

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