Thread: Michael Gove not fit for purpose Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.
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Posted by leo (# 1458) on
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Education minister Michael Gove has written an open letter, published in the new radio Times, to one of his former schoolmasters.
Three of his sentences begin with 'Because'.
Four with 'But'.
Five with 'And'.
One sentence has no verb.
Having taught English Language to O'level, CSE and GCSE, and having been ranked 'most normal marker' in moderation trials, I can assert confidently that Gove would not pass O'level, not CSE Grade 1, not GCSE grade C (and that, before the bar was raised.)
What confidence can we have in him to do his job?
Posted by Angloid (# 159) on
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I've no time for Gove and think he's a disaster politically. But although it's a long time since I marked a GCSE English paper I would never have criticised such usages. They are not 'wrong', just offend certain pedants' ideas of what is correct English. The tragedy is not Gove's English style but his Gradgrindian policies. If he has incorporated these into rules for GCSE marking he is even more of a hypocrite than most Tories. But then we knew that.
Posted by Nicodemia (# 4756) on
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I didn't have any confidence in him to do any part of his job before you posted that!
But how do you get rid of him? ![[Confused]](confused.gif)
(Answers on a postcard, please)
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Nicodemia:
I didn't have any confidence in him to do any part of his job before you posted that!
But how do you get rid of him?
(Answers on a postcard, please)
The Ripley Doctrine?
Posted by alienfromzog (# 5327) on
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No he's not.
I'm having a hard time deciding who's worst, Gove or Hunt...
On the other hand, he fits right into to this government as none of them are fit for purpose.
AFZ
Posted by the long ranger (# 17109) on
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But..but..but..but..and..and..and..and..and..
Because..
Maybe he is just making up time for being ignored as an annoying little shit all his life.
Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on
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I have mixed feelings about Gove, but I agree with Angloid that none of those things are errors. Bad style perhaps.
Posted by Garasu (# 17152) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
I have mixed feelings about Gove, but I agree with Angloid that none of those things are errors. Bad style perhaps.
Tolkien's committed them all, I think...
Posted by Dal Segno (# 14673) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
I have mixed feelings about Gove, but I agree with Angloid that none of those things are errors. Bad style perhaps.
Not even bad style if he communicates his ideas clearly.
On the other hand, a sentence without a verb?
Posted by Ariel (# 58) on
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quote:
Originally posted by leo:
Three of his sentences begin with 'Because'.
Four with 'But'.
Five with 'And'.
One sentence has no verb.
Two of yours don't have verbs either, sorry to have to point this out.
Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on
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I use sentences with all sorts of wrong grammar, and I'm a filthy pro writer.
Gove, however, is not, and should be sent to the Tower forthwith.
Posted by Edith (# 16978) on
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It's not the 'ands' that I object to, but the so called apology which makes it clear that he still considers his former self so clever that he was able to interrupt lessons, sabotage a young teacher and on the way stop others from learning. Loathsome toad.
Posted by saysay (# 6645) on
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quote:
Originally posted by leo:
What confidence can we have in him to do his job?
I don't know this character and clearly there's some history here, but this is what you're objecting to?
Are you sure he wasn't a product of the American educational system where you're sometimes not allowed to teach what a complete sentence is?
Posted by Angloid (# 159) on
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This is the man we're talking about. He displays the arrogance one has come to expect of Tory politicians, and appears to want to bring back the Britain that Charles Dickens challenged 150 years ago. He is one of the worst examples in the present Cabinet, demonstrated by his many self-contradictory proposals. For example, he seeks to prescribe in more and more detail what should and should not be included in the national curriculum, and at the same time wants to see more (he would prefer all) schools opt out of state control altogether.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
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Pic here: Michael Gove
[ 24. October 2012, 20:42: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]
Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on
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Because I am a great fan of Michael Gove you might think anything I say is worthless. And I haven't read Gove's letter. But so what?
I have every confidence in Gove to do his job though the idea of the open letter is a little cringeworthy.
I'm not sure about this line, though:
quote:
I can assert confidently that Gove would not pass O'level, not CSE Grade 1, not GCSE grade C (and that, before the bar was raised.)
Can you? When I were a lad (in the mid-1990s) somewhere between 5 - 10% of GCSE English Grades were for Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar, which is not to be sniffed at, but not the difference between an A and a D. And I doubt that all of those marks would have been deducted for starting a sentence with 'and' (which is arguably perfectly acceptable). Care to elaborate on why you are so confident?
Posted by saysay (# 6645) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Angloid:
For example, he seeks to prescribe in more and more detail what should and should not be included in the national curriculum, and at the same time wants to see more (he would prefer all) schools opt out of state control altogether.
Ah. I assume he's one of those politicians who is just obnoxious. In the US that would actually be a decent policy recommendation.
Posted by Angloid (# 159) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Pic here: Michael Gove
And here.
Posted by Trudy Scrumptious (# 5647) on
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"Don't start a sentence with 'Because,' 'And,' or 'But' are rules that we teach children to avoid them making sentence fragment errors. It's like telling them you can't subtract a larger number from a smaller one -- a rule they will learn isn't really a rule once they're more familiar with the subject. Any grown-up writer knows that you can write a perfectly acceptable sentence beginning with any of those words so long as it contains a subject and predicate. (I agree about the sentence with no verb, though; that's not a sentence. But there are places where sentence fragments can appropriately be used for effect).
If writing sentence fragments were the worst thing your Minister of Education had ever done it would be trivial. But I rather gather it's not, at least in your opinion, his worst offense.
Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on
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It is a pity he does not seem to regard it as his duty and mission to take on and revive the Conservatives in the Scottish Parliament. Their need is greater than ours.
Posted by Ondergard (# 9324) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
But I rather gather it's not, at least in your opinion, his worst offense. [/QB]
Or even offence, writes Mr Pedant...!
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on
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Several of the supposed errors in the OP aren't actually errors at all, but stylistic preferences. The idea that you can't start a sentence with a conjunction is a myth.
Posted by Trudy Scrumptious (# 5647) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Ondergard:
quote:
Originally posted by Trudy Scrumptious:
But I rather gather it's not, at least in your opinion, his worst offense.
Or even offence, writes Mr Pedant...!
[/QB]
True; I plead guilty to the awful Canadian habit of using British spelling most of the time but occasionally using the American for no apparent reason other that it was the first spelling that occurred to me.
Posted by Jonah the Whale (# 1244) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Dal Segno:
On the other hand, a sentence without a verb?
I saw what you did there.
Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Dal Segno:
quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
I have mixed feelings about Gove, but I agree with Angloid that none of those things are errors. Bad style perhaps.
Not even bad style if he communicates his ideas clearly.
I have an anally retentive objection to sentences that start with 'and' because they seem to me a lazy way of making your prose sound dramatic without actually doing any work for it. But I've less objection to 'but'.
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
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I would trust Gove to do his job far more than I would trust someone who thinks using "but" at the start of a sentence is sufficient to disqualify someone from high office.
Seriously, which of those two is more likely to be an elitist snob who doesn't want anyone from the lower echelons of society to ever get near the reins of power? I'd say it's the linguistic pedant, myself.
Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on
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Now, now, Marvin, just because leo picked on a pedantically nitpicking reason to point the finger at Michael Gove doesn't mean that Michael Gove is doing a good job.
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
Now, now, Marvin, just because leo picked on a pedantically nitpicking reason to point the finger at Michael Gove doesn't mean that Michael Gove is doing a good job.
Such was not my suggestion.
Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on
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Just making sure that was clear ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on
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I've no great problems with Michael Gove's grammar. It's him that is the problem.
Posted by Charles Had a Splurge on (# 14140) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Angloid:
He is one of the worst examples in the present Cabinet, demonstrated by his many self-contradictory proposals. For example, he seeks to prescribe in more and more detail what should and should not be included in the national curriculum, and at the same time wants to see more (he would prefer all) schools opt out of state control altogether.
No, no, no. He wants schools to opt out of local authority control, the better to control them himself. There is no contradiction.
Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on
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It's the Tory paradox, isn't it? They want a smaller state, and decentralization, except for those bits that they want to control with an iron fist from the centre. Makes perfect sense.
Posted by Anglican't (# 15292) on
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The Tory frustration I imagine (and it's probably one the likes of David Blunkett felt too) is that having been elected to office they can't do anything to the education system because left-wing Local Education Authorities constantly get in the way. I don't blame him for wanting to brush them aside.
Posted by leo (# 1458) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
Because I am a great fan of Michael Gove you might think anything I say is worthless. And I haven't read Gove's letter. But so what?
I have every confidence in Gove to do his job though the idea of the open letter is a little cringeworthy.
I'm not sure about this line, though:
quote:
I can assert confidently that Gove would not pass O'level, not CSE Grade 1, not GCSE grade C (and that, before the bar was raised.)
Can you? When I were a lad (in the mid-1990s) somewhere between 5 - 10% of GCSE English Grades were for Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar, which is not to be sniffed at, but not the difference between an A and a D. And I doubt that all of those marks would have been deducted for starting a sentence with 'and' (which is arguably perfectly acceptable). Care to elaborate on why you are so confident?
I no longer have the marking schemes but coursework has grade descriptors. A candidate could not achieve anything higher than a D (in the Language or the combined, not the Literature) without proper sentence construction.
Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Anglican't:
The Tory frustration I imagine (and it's probably one the likes of David Blunkett felt too) is that having been elected to office they can't do anything to the education system because left-wing Local Education Authorities constantly get in the way.
But, since LEAs are a function of democratically elected local councils, surely their left-wingness reflects the wishes of the local people?
Posted by leo (# 1458) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Ricardus:
I have mixed feelings about Gove, but I agree with Angloid that none of those things are errors. Bad style perhaps.
Gove says he wants to root out bad style. he hates anything 'modern' or casual.
quote:
While using a conjunction at the beginning of a sentence can add emphasis, it’s an informal means of doing so. You can use it in creative or personal writing, but it’s not recommended for formal writing.
says this 'advice'
He has put Latin in the EBaC BUT quote:
It may offend the stipulations of Latin prose composition to begin a sentence with a conjunction..... More often than not, the author simply doesn't seem comfortable writing a compound or complex sentence.
says this advice.
If he cannot write a 'complex sentence', how dare he tell teachers how to teach English?
Posted by leo (# 1458) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Ariel:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
Three of his sentences begin with 'Because'.
Four with 'But'.
Five with 'And'.
One sentence has no verb.
Two of yours don't have verbs either, sorry to have to point this out.
Guilty - I should have have ended the first (current) sentence with a semi-colon and the next two should have been a list.
Gove's bad (or weak) grammar is obviously contagious.
Posted by leo (# 1458) on
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quote:
Originally posted by the long ranger:
But..but..but..but..and..and..and..and..and..
Because..
Maybe he is just making up time for being ignored as an annoying little shit all his life.
Indeed - according to this, quote:
A sentence beginning with and or but will tend to draw attention to itself
. So Gove is an attention-seeking as well as a nasty piece of work.
Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on
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If the man is genuinely doing a bad job (as many UK shipmates seem to think), your best method of proving this does not involve being petty about sentence structure.
Posted by leo (# 1458) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Dal Segno:
On the other hand, a sentence without a verb?
"As teaching and learning get better - year by year - in our schools."
There IS a verb but starting the sentence with 'As' shifts subject and object in such a way that it doesn't read correctly.
Why not substitute 'improve' for 'get better'?
I may appear pedantic, perhaps because I did my PGCE in 1974 (second subject English) and it has been seven years since I taught English but fourteen out of his twenty-sex sentences start with a conjunction.
Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on
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quote:
Originally posted by leo:
quote:
Originally posted by Dal Segno:
On the other hand, a sentence without a verb?
"As teaching and learning get better - year by year - in our schools."
There IS a verb but starting the sentence with 'As' shifts subject and object in such a way that it doesn't read correctly.
Why not substitute 'improve' for 'get better'?
I may appear pedantic, perhaps because I did my PGCE in 1974 (second subject English) and it has been seven years since I taught English but fourteen out of his twenty-sex sentences start with a conjunction.
The sentence doesn't read correctly because "as" introduces a subordinate clause, so there's no main verb in the sentence itself.
Posted by leo (# 1458) on
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Thank you - I thought there was a proper description of what he had done.
I had coffee with a friend of mine who is a basic skills adult ed. teacher on his way home from work.
He agreed with my alleged pedantry. On his checklist from the dept. of ed., Gove's letter would be subject to multiple redrafting before they'd even enter someone for GCSE.
Posted by Angloid (# 159) on
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quote:
Originally posted by leo:
fourteen out of his twenty-sex sentences start with a conjunction.
Now, now. Even I don't believe that Gove deserves imprisonment for perverted practices, certainly not twenty times.
Posted by Sioni Sais (# 5713) on
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quote:
Originally posted by leo:
Thank you - I thought there was a proper description of what he had done.
I had coffee with a friend of mine who is a basic skills adult ed. teacher on his way home from work.
He agreed with my alleged pedantry. On his checklist from the dept. of ed., Gove's letter would be subject to multiple redrafting before they'd even enter someone for GCSE.
"Teacher agrees that Michael Gove has shortcomings".
Clearly the latest from the "No Sh!t Sherlock" files.
Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on
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The Grauniad has some interesting things to say about Gove
Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on
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I haven't seen the full letter, only excerpts. Gove is three years younger than me, so would have followed the same English syllabus, and sat his Higher English three years after me. IIRC, starting a sentence with a conjunction was permissible, provided it was a complete sentence; not a fragment. Repeated use of conjunctions at the start of sentences would have been frowned upon, but occasion use was acceptable.
Originally posted by Enoch:
quote:
It is a pity he does not seem to regard it as his duty and mission to take on and revive the Conservatives in the Scottish Parliament. Their need is greater than ours.
I suspect Gove knows a lost cause when he sees one! Reforming the education system south of the border should be a piece of cake compared to reviving the Tories north of it.
Posted by leo (# 1458) on
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Most of his sentences are, indeed, fragments.
Spoke with a PGCE trainee today who also agrees with me.
[ 26. October 2012, 13:55: Message edited by: leo ]
Posted by dv (# 15714) on
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"What confidence can we have in him to do his job?"
Plenty, if he's allowed to. Gove seems the best person we've had at Education since before Shirley Williams and her ilk began the wrecking.
Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on
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So dv, you think that someone who is so out of touch with education in many UK schools that it can be said that:
quote:
[f]rom the age of 11, Gove never shared a desk with anyone who struggled to read and write, or who experienced school as an intimidating trauma instead of a golden ticket. "His prime concern is to make sure that there are safe schools in cities for people like him," says a columnist who has followed his career closely. "All this nonsense that free schools are free – they are not, they are Michael Gove schools. He is trying to create a system in which middle-class parents like him can make uses of the state system without having to mix with the rough boys."
and
quote:
"He is a High Tory control freak who wants to run every school in the country," counters the critic of Gove's "free" school rhetoric. "He hasn't got a localist bone in his body."
(from the Guardian article linked above)
Do you think Gove's policies are creating a system to provide a good universal education?
Or are you happy with the teaching of an elite of middle class children and leaving the rest to muddle along with the dregs?
Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on
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Gove came up through a different system. He went to a state primary, then passed the entrance exam to Robert Gordon's College, which is an elitist school academically, but which isn't entirely middle class. If it were middle-class, Gove wouldn't have got in. Ok, there aren't any "rough" children at Gordon's; but you don't have to be posh to go there.
My kids are state-educated, and I'm a firm supporter of state education, but I know kids who go to Gordon's and I don't think of them as "an elite of middle class children."
Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on
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North East Quine, part of the problem with Gove's policies for education are another quotation from that article:
quote:
"The trouble with anyone's own experience of school," the teacher points out, "is that it's so formative that it informs all your ideas about education. That's very natural, but not necessarily a good thing."
If the Scottish system is so different, and we all know it is, are these formative ideas going to necessarily convert to the English system?
I know that working in a range of different schools has changed my views on education from those formed from my own schooling.
[ 26. October 2012, 16:02: Message edited by: Curiosity killed ... ]
Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on
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I'm very glad Gove isn't here. I don't really see how he can understand the English system when he didn't experience it himself. If I were in England, I'd be outraged.
I find it odd reading descriptions of his education which don't really square with what I would have expected his experience to be. For instance, bafflingly, the Guardian describes Gordon's as resembling a "Soviet-style Eton" What is that supposed to mean? This is what it looks like; why does the Guardian regard this as "Soviet-style"?
[ 26. October 2012, 17:17: Message edited by: North East Quine ]
Posted by dv (# 15714) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
Do you think Gove's policies are creating a system to provide a good universal education?
Or are you happy with the teaching of an elite of middle class children and leaving the rest to muddle along with the dregs?
Gove is starting to deal with the hopeless system he has inherited which has seen the UK tumble down the international league tables for core subjects like maths and languages (including English). We have a system of low expectations and the ludicrous notion that all must have prizes. The main barrier to success will be the teachers, sadly, who are themselves largely products of the "good enough, that'll do" comprehensive system. It's a shambles and Gove is its best hope of reform.
Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on
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And your experience in schools is?
Posted by dv (# 15714) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
And your experience in schools is?
Been to a couple; worked in a couple. I count myself a survivor of my state education.
Posted by Justinian (# 5357) on
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quote:
Originally posted by dv:
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
And your experience in schools is?
Been to a couple; worked in a couple. I count myself a survivor of my state education.
And this compares to the old Secondary Modern schools how?
Posted by Spawn (# 4867) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
And your experience in schools is?
Well my experience of schools is as a husband of a teacher, a parent governor of a primary academy, a user of education (though some time in the past) and a parent. Through these various lenses I experience Gove's reforms as being overwhelmingly good. The reforms are definitely localist - far less micro-management by the DofE than the LEA. In my personal experience, the effect of a potential free school in the area is driving up standards in my childrens' secondary school. In the primary academy of which I am a governor, teachers have had their pay and conditions confirmed and have found the experience of running their own ship far more rewarding. The number of activities they are now offering to the children is truly exceptional. Thankyou Gove.
As I remember it, Gove was an excellent writer on The Times. There isn't a link on this thread to his infelicities in the Radio Times. I think Government-speak rubs off on even the most able people.
I can't be the only one who has noticed the irony in Leo's complaints about Gove's grammar. I'd forgive Leo his repeated mistakes with basic English (in every single post for as long as I can remember) if he hadn't just confessed to being an English examiner in the recent past. His period as an examiner coincides with a dramatic decline in standards. I am not surprised.
Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on
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I have worked in a number of schools, primary and secondary, and was a governor of the local secondary for two terms of office. I trained for KS2/3 teaching. For my sins, I worked in one of the inspirations for the Big Society and Free Schools.
As always, these things are never as black and white as sound bite politics suggest. Some schools and teachers were settling for good enough, but many more are pushing students to achieve the best results they can.
Having worked with students in "challenging circumstances" who struggled to achieve GCSEs for a number of reasons, the EBac is out of many children's reach and will remain so. When we had O levels we also had CSEs and for all those people like Gove who succeeded passing the qualifications to get to the grammar school or equivalent there were many others who did not. All the plans look to be pushing the grammar school contingent upwards and onwards, but not providing for those that aren't going to pass that entrance exam.
How do children like my daughter fit into this system? Extremely high IQ but severe dyslexia (specific learning difficulties). She's now working as an engineer, having achieved a 2:1 MEng from a Russell group university, but she'd have struggled to pass the English component of any grammar school entry at 10 or 11.
Trapping children in schools for longer and longer where they are not achieving is not going to solve anything.
Sadly, yes, leo completely blew any discussion about Gove by starting with nitpicking pedantic opening post, and subsequent posts haven't improved matters.
Posted by Spawn (# 4867) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
As always, these things are never as black and white as sound bite politics suggest. Some schools and teachers were settling for good enough, but many more are pushing students to achieve the best results they can.
I'm with you. The vast majority of teachers I encounter are doing their best and always have done under difficult and ever-changing circumstances.
quote:
How do children like my daughter fit into this system? Extremely high IQ but severe dyslexia (specific learning difficulties). She's now working as an engineer, having achieved a 2:1 MEng from a Russell group university, but she'd have struggled to pass the English component of any grammar school entry at 10 or 11.
I don't see how Gove's reforms would affect your daughter? They may have given her the choice of an academy or free school. Gove's reforms aren't about a return to the grammar/secondary modern system but about improving comprehensive education. If I was going to improve on the idea of an academic qualification like the EBAC, I'd take up Labour's idea of a Technical Baccalaureate for those children who are not gifted academically (though I guess that given your daughter has a 2:1 she doesn't need it). We have got to be practical, rather than ideological, in improving education. Gove's offer of autonomy for schools is important but there are other things as well that government, parents, governors and teachers can do and are doing.
Posted by Moth (# 2589) on
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I always think that the problem often lies in the fact that most successful people, almost by definition, thrived in the education system they experienced. This convinces them that whatever they experienced 'works' and should be imposed on everyone else.
Those who did not thrive in that system don't often reach the top, so don't have the chance to say that it didn't work for them.
The system worked fine for me - working class girl, grammar school, Oxbridge, qualified as a barrister but happily teaching law. It certainly wouldn't work for the students I now teach, particularly as the competitive elements in education have increased so much. When I got into grammar school, no-one was privately tutored for the entrance exam. When my son got in (2001) almost three quarters of applicants were privately tutored. Now, everyone who can afford it pays for private tutoring and almost everyone who gets in has been tutored.
The students I teach come mostly from very deprived backgrounds. They have got into studying law by the skin of their teeth. Some drop out, but those who succeed are very good. However, since we are not a Russell group university, they will still be fighting a difficult battle to get the job they deserve.
I wish we could be more meritocratic, not less, to be honest. To ensure that bright children from any background can succeed, as they were able to in the 1950s and 60s. To ensure that the less able middle class kids didn't steal good school and university places from brighter working class kids. I just don't quite see how we get from where we are now back to that situation, but I strongly doubt that more competition is the way to go. I am middle class myself now, and know just how much better equipped I am to succeed in any competitive system than the parents of my students are.
Quite honestly, what we want is a good school within walking distance of every child. One that can stretch the brightest and support the weakest. Other countries can do it - Finland for example. Why can't we?
Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on
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Thank you for that Moth. It makes a lot of sense.
One thing I find quite disturbing is that nobody these days seems have the same assumptions about education as were taken for granted 50 years ago. In those days, even most people who were stretching themselves to give their children a bit of a leg up, thought it was a good thing that there should be a ladder, that everyone should be encouraged to climb it if they could or wanted to, and that by the time you got to the top, you should be different. I suspect a lot of people no longer believe that.
I think Educating Rita embodies a lot of the assumptions and dreams of my parents and my generation about what education used to be about. I suspect a lot of people now would think a selection of:-
1. The film's patronising towards a working class culture that has a value of its own and to which Rita/Susan should have been faithful.
2. She's just a chav and should have stayed with Denny and had a baby.
3. Hair dressing is just as cultured as literature. Why couldn't she have stayed there?
4. Why should she have studied literature and not something more useful like business studies that she could have used in a salon, and would give her more prospect of paying back her enormous loan?
5. Why should public money be wasted on anybody anyway?
6. Why should anyone want or be expected to become educated or bourgeois? The original Susan was just as good as Frank.
7. She's taking a place that my Tristram or Andromeda could have had.
Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on
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One problem is a failure to understand the normal distribution and what average means. We have to expect that most schools, pupils and teachers will be average - because that is literally what average means. Expecting every school to be above average is insane. Satisfactory is supposed to mean that something satisfies thee conditions it is supposed to meet - something OFSTED apparently doesn't understand.
We have become confused between minimum acceptable standards; we want 99% literacy, and evaluative standards - we want to group people by ability/performance. The same goes for schools.
Essentially - for evaluative examination you should be using a grade curve, the top x% get an A, (the next y% get a B etc) in any given year regardless of the difficulty of the exam as they are still the best performing x%. So the rate of particular grades should not change from year to year. How big the percent bands are reflect how fined grained you need your analysis to be to be useful (and how good your measuring tool actually is.)
You show improved standards by the difficulty of the assessments and the nature of the minimum requirements.
We what we mean when we say we want everyone to have access to "a good school", is that we want an average school to have standards we think provide a sufficiently good standard of education.
[ 27. October 2012, 12:35: Message edited by: Doublethink ]
Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on
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quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
One problem is a failure to understand the normal distribution and what average means. We have to expect that most schools, pupils and teachers will be average - because that is literally what average means. Expecting every school to be above average is insane.
Yes, I'm puzzled by that one. Admittedly I last did Maths in 1963, but I was quite good at it. I'm also puzzled that anybody can sell that to a profession that is supposed to include a lot of people whose job is supposed to be the teaching of basic Maths. Or has that gone the same way as we are always being told Grammar and Spelling have gone?
quote:
Ditto:
Essentially - for evaluative examination you should be using a grade curve, the top x% get an A, (the next y% get a B etc) in any given year regardless of the difficulty of the exam as they are still the best performing x%. So the rate of particular grades should not change from year to year. How big the percent bands are reflect how fined grained you need your analysis to be to be useful (and how good your measuring tool actually is.)
I can see the argument, but don't accept your dogmatic 'should'. I think though you've got to be clear what you are trying to measure, and whether your mechanism will measure it.
If you say 10% will get an A, 20% a B, 20% a C, 10% a D and 40% will fail, you are saying that in any particular year there are bound to be those calibres of people, irrespective of the quality of the syllabus or the teaching. It measures everybody in relation to their competitors, but makes no measure of quality. It is based on a belief that statistics is a good enough tool to do this.
There may be some defence for this if you have a really huge sample, but it cannot be defended for a small or ordinary sized sample.
It would be dishonest to publish the pass mark as 40%, but to have hidden beneath your hand a policy that what decides whether you reach that isn't marking your paper, but where it stands in relation to everyone else's.
It is also provides no intellectually legitimate basis for employers comparing people who took their examinations in different years or from different boards, or for educators comparing the calibre of students, syllabus or teaching in different years.
What has been the problem is a widespread suspicion that grading to a standard, rather than a grade curve has been massaged to produce an impression that 'every day and in every way, things are getting better and better'.
If one is grading to a standard, there has to be some reliable way of ensuring that each year and each board is grading to the same standard. Testing results against a grade curve may be a useful way of checking examiners' marking standards - if there are dramatic discrepancies between years, or recently, half years, that does suggest somebody is getting something wrong. But there has to be a clear idea what standard = A, B, C, D etc. and how one measures this. Otherwise the examination doesn't really have any credibility at all.
Posted by leo (# 1458) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Spawn:
I can't be the only one who has noticed the irony in Leo's complaints about Gove's grammar. I'd forgive Leo his repeated mistakes with basic English (in every single post for as long as I can remember) if he hadn't just confessed to being an English examiner in the recent past. His period as an examiner coincides with a dramatic decline in standards. I am not surprised.
My 'mistakes' are usually over spelling and capitalisation because I type too quickly.
Remember that Gove started 14 out of 26 sentences with a conjunction. My written style is not that unpolished.
How do you define 'recent past'? I started marking English in 1975.
You may like to blame me for the supposed decline in the English education system but bear in mind that we all have to work to a mark scheme rather than impose so called pedantry. In all mark schemes that I have seen since the 1970s, Gove would not get an O'level nor its equivalent. He certainly wouldn't under the recent tightening up in England (and Wales before they decided to remark).
Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on
:
Enoch, the way that O Levels and GCSEs in the early days were marked was by using the bell curve, - the top 10% got an A - and the marks to pass each grade changed every year. This was seen as the way of balancing out the differences between papers.
More recently GCSEs have been working on pass marks as being grade boundaries - so 80% plus gives an A* or whatever. And because people know exactly what they have to achieve, more candidates are achieving higher grades - otherwise known as grade inflation and the source of all the stories in the Press.
Posted by leo (# 1458) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
leo completely blew any discussion about Gove by starting with nitpicking pedantic opening post, and subsequent posts haven't improved matters.
The discussion about Gove which followed my Op wasn't what i intended.
My point, (if it is pedantic to query someone who writes 14/28 sentences ungrammatically) was that if he cannot write a sentence, he shouldn't be in the post (even if his policies were good - which they are not.).
[ 27. October 2012, 16:54: Message edited by: leo ]
Posted by leo (# 1458) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Spawn:
There isn't a link on this thread to his infelicities in the Radio Times.
There is none. Radio Times online does not include correspondence.
The only links I could find were to newspapers' summaries of what he wrote. The full text is not (yet) online.
Posted by leo (# 1458) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Curiosity killed ...:
Enoch, the way that O Levels and GCSEs in the early days were marked was by using the bell curve, - the top 10% got an A - and the marks to pass each grade changed every year. This was seen as the way of balancing out the differences between papers.
More recently GCSEs have been working on pass marks as being grade boundaries - so 80% plus gives an A* or whatever. And because people know exactly what they have to achieve, more candidates are achieving higher grades - otherwise known as grade inflation and the source of all the stories in the Press.
Bell curves were the best way to get grade inflation.
If you entered 50 pigs into the exam, or 50 functionally illiterate pupils, then the other 50 children got median marks or above.
So all the children passed.
Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
One problem is a failure to understand the normal distribution and what average means. We have to expect that most schools, pupils and teachers will be average - because that is literally what average means. Expecting every school to be above average is insane.
Yes, I'm puzzled by that one. Admittedly I last did Maths in 1963, but I was quite good at it. I'm also puzzled that anybody can sell that to a profession that is supposed to include a lot of people whose job is supposed to be the teaching of basic Maths. Or has that gone the same way as we are always being told Grammar and Spelling have gone?
quote:
Ditto:
Essentially - for evaluative examination you should be using a grade curve, the top x% get an A, (the next y% get a B etc) in any given year regardless of the difficulty of the exam as they are still the best performing x%. So the rate of particular grades should not change from year to year. How big the percent bands are reflect how fined grained you need your analysis to be to be useful (and how good your measuring tool actually is.)
I can see the argument, but don't accept your dogmatic 'should'. I think though you've got to be clear what you are trying to measure, and whether your mechanism will measure it.
If you say 10% will get an A, 20% a B, 20% a C, 10% a D and 40% will fail, you are saying that in any particular year there are bound to be those calibres of people, irrespective of the quality of the syllabus or the teaching. It measures everybody in relation to their competitors, but makes no measure of quality. It is based on a belief that statistics is a good enough tool to do this.
There may be some defence for this if you have a really huge sample, but it cannot be defended for a small or ordinary sized sample.
It would be dishonest to publish the pass mark as 40%, but to have hidden beneath your hand a policy that what decides whether you reach that isn't marking your paper, but where it stands in relation to everyone else's.
It is also provides no intellectually legitimate basis for employers comparing people who took their examinations in different years or from different boards, or for educators comparing the calibre of students, syllabus or teaching in different years.
What has been the problem is a widespread suspicion that grading to a standard, rather than a grade curve has been massaged to produce an impression that 'every day and in every way, things are getting better and better'.
If one is grading to a standard, there has to be some reliable way of ensuring that each year and each board is grading to the same standard. Testing results against a grade curve may be a useful way of checking examiners' marking standards - if there are dramatic discrepancies between years, or recently, half years, that does suggest somebody is getting something wrong. But there has to be a clear idea what standard = A, B, C, D etc. and how one measures this. Otherwise the examination doesn't really have any credibility at all.
Well, we do have a very large sample - tens of thousands take the exams each year. Say you have a hard exam one year and the most able score in the 70s to 80s, the following year it is easier and the most able score 80s to 90s. Meanwhile the least able score 5-10 in the first exam and 15 to 0 in the second exam. They are still going to be scoring less than the more able pupils. The assumption is that if the pupils who took the exam in the harder year would have got higher marks in the easier year - just as those who did take it.
This comes back to the purpose of the exams,do you want to know if the pupil has learnt a specific list of things - or do you want to pick the most able pupil ? If you grade according to the specific list of things, you will gradually get more and more people in your top grade as people teach closer and closer to the syllabus and cram and whatever else to achieve that.
Ideally employers should not just be looking at exam grades to choose their employees.
Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
This comes back to the purpose of the exams,do you want to know if the pupil has learnt a specific list of things - or do you want to pick the most able pupil ? If you grade according to the specific list of things, you will gradually get more and more people in your top grade as people teach closer and closer to the syllabus and cram and whatever else to achieve that.
On that logic, and taking into a/c what Leo has said - with which I agree - if nobody has learnt anything at all, the person who blagged their way through best would get an A. You would regard that as both a sound guide and proof that the grade curve works.
That may not matter too much with classics. Nobody dies if none of the students have learnt the fourth conjugation pluperfect properly. But it doesn't do for medicine. Nor does it do for basic maths. What the grading system should be measuring is the competence and calibre of the students' achievements in the subject they are supposed to have been studying.
Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on
:
Which is what is happening now - pass mark is 40-45% in many exams, certainly the Functional Skills Maths, English and ICT.
Posted by Ramarius (# 16551) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
Education minister Michael Gove has written an open letter, published in the new radio Times, to one of his former schoolmasters.
Three of his sentences begin with 'Because'.
Four with 'But'.
Five with 'And'.
One sentence has no verb.
Having taught English Language to O'level, CSE and GCSE, and having been ranked 'most normal marker' in moderation trials, I can assert confidently that Gove would not pass O'level, not CSE Grade 1, not GCSE grade C (and that, before the bar was raised.)
What confidence can we have in him to do his job?
It's worse than you think Leo. Highly likely that one of his officials wrote it. Govt house style and all that. This sort of thing works fine when spoken, but makes you look like a 24 carrat chump when submitted as written prose.
[ 27. October 2012, 21:10: Message edited by: Ramarius ]
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on
:
I'm confused. Why is it a sin to start a sentence with "But" or "Because"?
Because I am a writer and editor, I know that these rules are not hard and fast.
But for my personal knowledge, you might have convinced me.
And even sentence fragments without verbs can be effective writing on occasion. Like this.
Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
This comes back to the purpose of the exams,do you want to know if the pupil has learnt a specific list of things - or do you want to pick the most able pupil ? If you grade according to the specific list of things, you will gradually get more and more people in your top grade as people teach closer and closer to the syllabus and cram and whatever else to achieve that.
On that logic, and taking into a/c what Leo has said - with which I agree - if nobody has learnt anything at all, the person who blagged their way through best would get an A. You would regard that as both a sound guide and proof that the grade curve works.
That may not matter too much with classics. Nobody dies if none of the students have learnt the fourth conjugation pluperfect properly. But it doesn't do for medicine. Nor does it do for basic maths. What the grading system should be measuring is the competence and calibre of the students' achievements in the subject they are supposed to have been studying.
I think this is why you need minimum standards or perhaps what would be better termed mastery standards, quality evaluation of your assessment tools, good curriculum design etc. I suppose I am saying that bit is a process issue you shouldn't be trying to fix by fiddling with the outcome assessment.
Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on
:
To put it another way, I shouldn't need to know whether you got grade a to c in your English GCSE to know that you can read. Literacy should be a mastery/minimum standard. The same goes for the equivalents in other subjects.
I am not sure if a one off sit down exam is the best way to assess minimum/mastery standards but that is another issue.
Posted by Curiosity killed ... (# 11770) on
:
Labour were trying to fix that with Functional Skills - which are supposed to be covered within GCSEs but are also standalone qualifications. Not sure where they will end up with the current Gove review.
Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on
:
Interesting.
Typically when you take this type of approach you expect everyone to pass and require 95% or above on the assessment - it being pass/fail only. It is the way the European Computer Driving License used to work(don't know if that is still going) and its the way a standard driving test works now basically.
Its no use for discriminating between applicants who have the qualification - but it guarantees a certain skill set.
Posted by Ricardus (# 8757) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
Well, we do have a very large sample - tens of thousands take the exams each year. Say you have a hard exam one year and the most able score in the 70s to 80s, the following year it is easier and the most able score 80s to 90s. Meanwhile the least able score 5-10 in the first exam and 15 to 0 in the second exam. They are still going to be scoring less than the more able pupils. The assumption is that if the pupils who took the exam in the harder year would have got higher marks in the easier year - just as those who did take it.
I think the issue is that some subjects are optional, so you can get vicious cycles like this:
- Subject (say, Geography*) is perceived as a soft option for some initially arbitrary social reason.
- Weaker pupils are disproportionately entered for Geography on the grounds that it's not as hard.
- The median mark is lowered.
- The grade boundary for a C comes down.
- Go to 1.
* I don't think Geography is a soft option: that's just an example.
Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on
:
quote:
Originally posted by Doublethink:
Expecting every school to be above average is insane.
I would have gone with 'contrary to the laws of mathematics', but your version works just as well.
quote:
Originally posted by Leo:[/qb]My point, (if it is pedantic to query someone who writes 14/28 sentences ungrammatically) was that if he cannot write a sentence, he shouldn't be in the post (even if his policies were good - which they are not.).[/qb]
Leo: if that was your point, MY point (and the point of several other people) is that the man can indeed write a sentence. There is nothing 'ungrammatical' about starting a sentence with certain words, no matter how many times you claim otherwise. In which case you'll have to find some other, more substantive reason for kicking him out of office. You could try the mathematical conundrum for starters.
[ 29. October 2012, 08:07: Message edited by: orfeo ]
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