Why the testing always?

Why do politician seem obsessed with audits, and getting 'Little Johnny' to sit exams, have you ever wondered why?....I was wondering why when I was looking at a Estyn Report into the state of Education on Ynys Môn back in 2012, and .....they started to talk about 'outcomes' which in my book can only mean one thing - economists, you know the people that try to turn the 'real world' into a 'model' based on 'rational decisions and thoughts.'

So I can imagine at some time in the past Estyn will have organised a seminar, and at that seminar Professor Posh Name Loads of Titles will have been invited

And Professor Posh Name will have studied some schools in a thesis which allowed him to reach a conclusion..and suppose...they just happen to agree with your already preconceived ideas. You know the 'bloody hell I knew I was right all along' moment.....And you might forget to question the validity of what Professor Posh Name is saying, you assume his conclusions are correct - take for instance the Nobel Winning Economist Milton Friedman whose ideas are in the large now discredited. So there is a possibility that might say policy was determined on preconceived ideas and a flawed model.

Now further in the report they also talked about costs per pupil, and that means 'accountants'. They are the Auditors and they measure everything. And Terry Pratchett has them spot on in his Discworld series of books.

Let me give you an example: think apple trees - Auditors will ask how does your apple tree compare with the neighbours apple tree. And they'll invent the juice ratio - how much juice per apple. Whereas we might ask how do the apples taste?

And in the world where we measure things, to justify the monies we all are spending 'Little Johnny' needs to be tested, so we can all clap yourself's on the back and say look how good they did....aren't they clever. In a way we are measuring 'success' how successful a school was compared to the 'average' success of all other schools.

But how can you quantify success? - especially if it's a common measure of success for kids, all of whom will have different abilities, who also will have different ideas what success means. It shouldn't mean that just because all the clever kids go to the clever school, the other schools are somehow less successful.

In say a world where success is quantified by height and one day a year they measure height of kids, and have the height model, to compare against to see how much the kids have grown, does is make sense that a school is said to be failing because on the day of the test the tallest kid was off ill. Not forgetting that as Head Teacher it makes sense only to encourage the tall kids to come to my school.

To me it makes no sense putting pressure on primary kids to sit exams, for us to find out something that in the real world is meaningless, you know what's the saying one size doesn't fit all. If I had kids (I don't by the way before you ask) and wanted to know how 'Little Johny' was doing I'd ask the teacher, I'd trust them more than some auditors who visit the school once a year. Or dare I say I'd actually ask 'Little Johnny'. And we know this approach works because it works in Finland, where the key to success is trust in teachers.

For the record of the subjects I talk about above, education and economics I'm an expert in neither - which to some is probably stating the 'bleeding' obvious..

Education on the island.

A recent Estyn report on the quality of local authority education services for children and young people in Cyngor Sir Ynys Môn concluded:

Overall judgement: Unsatisfactory

The local authority’s education services for children and young people are unsatisfactory because:

• standards for children and young people are below what could be expected at all key stages;
• attendance rates in secondary schools are unacceptably low;
• the school improvement service is inadequate
• not enough progress has been made in planning for school places;
• operational leadership in the delivery of education has not driven improvements in areas of under performance and schools and officers have not been held to account; and
• business planning and risk-assessment processes have not been robust enough to identify and address the slow pace of progress in education services and schools.

Capacity to improve: Unsatisfactory

The local authority has unsatisfactory prospects for improvement because:

• there has been long-term under performance at service level;
• the pace of action to bring about improvement has been too slow in the past to assure inspectors that improvement can follow this inspection without external challenge;
• self-evaluation processes have been patchy and progress against recommendations made in previous inspections has been limited;
• school leaders have not been held to account; and
• service level lines of accountability are unclear.

There is only one thing you can say - it's another damning indictment of the piss poor leadership the Councillors of the island have given us. I for one think that since power was taken away from the under performing councillors things have actually started to improve at the council. It's less me me, and more about us.

Want more evidence as to the lack of leadership - Mike Barton in his report to review the future management strategy of property assets says:

An ongoing programme of revisions to condition surveys indicates a worsening situation with regard to building conditions and the maintenance required to retain premises in good order.. .. And...

No budget allocation is available to cover other categories of maintenance, for example painting and decorating.

Yes 'what the fuck' indeed, oh and don't forget that many of these so called Councillors are Governors as well, and that many of them are still prancing around as if this had nothing to do with them.

I think Councillor McGregor got it right, when he said this morning that this was another nail in the coffin of Ynys Môn Council.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, the next logical step is a merger with Gwynedd County Council and possibly others, as we were in the good old days, when someone standing as councillor did so for the benefit of the community and not as it now seems to gain advantage for themselves and friends.