paul and corinna and lucas' blog

You just can't win can you. You're either failing kids by putting too much emphasis on literacy or not enough.

I understand what they're saying though: Literacy and Numeracy get the big points in the game of School League Table places, so as a result other subjects will be detrimentally affected. But I also understand that it's difficult to measure how 'good' a school is. Using grades is a natural but poor metric: do we define how 'good' a child is by what grades they achieved at school? Grades may be a partial indicator of employability, so is 'employability' the main aim of the education system?

The whole league table thing is basically just trying to evaluate in a highly simplistic way something that is far more complex. I highly doubt there is a way of evaluating such a complex thing as how 'good' a school is so that they can be listed in order in a single table. Perhaps they should use multiple tables? But some things are very, very difficult (if not impossible) to measure. And even if they could be measured, in order to capture all important aspects of a school, I suspect you would have to use at least 20 tables (some would say 100) at which point the whole thing becomes totally unusable. So no simple solution to comparing schools exists really. People are fooled if they think one school is better than another because it is higher in the league tables. And if that is the case, what's the point of publishing them at all? Parents should spend some time at potential schools before sending their kids there. Granted, schools should publish their grades, but what's the point in putting them in a league?

I'd hate to be a politician. It's impossible to please everyone. I guess that's why they have to be so vague. I thought Howard's "I believe ..." statements were pretty good, but then I wonder what he actually means by them. They have an air of genuineness, but they're still quite vague and open to a lot of interpretation. For example, his way of implementing what he's said may be (or will be if the 'you can't please everyone' axiom proves true) very different to what other people would want. He may not even do anything at all (saying "I believe" in something doesn't mean he's actually going to do anything about it).

And I just have a hard time believing politicians anyway. It just all seems like a big game. All you hear is "I'm right, you're wrong", "no, I'm right, you're wrong", "no, I'm right, you're wrong" and so on. More like a pantomime we should be laughing at than people to look up to for making massively important decisions. Every little thing becomes an event over which someone in government "must resign!" How does sacking someone really help anybody anyway? The problem I have with 'The Opposition' is how they (no matter which party they are, or which party is in power) define all their policies as the exact opposite of the government's: they chose to say A, SO we say Z. They want to integrate us with Europe, SO we don't. They are a vote for this, SO we are a vote for that. It's all a joke. If only they would be honest... And why not (horror of horrors) agree with the other party over some things. As Sun Tzu would say, the good warrior knows which fights to fight.

Why wasn't one of the statements, 'I believe in honesty'? Instead, Howard's beliefs are evaluated according to their contribution "to human happiness" - a very popular 'end' indeed. Honesty isn't hedonistic enough, so it doesn't make the cut. The more I read his statements, the more I conclude that he wants to lead by following.