SATS

Teachers, and now a right wing think tank, are arguing against SATs - and in light of the shambolic administration of the current round of tests, it would seem a no-brainer to say ban them and re-introduce teacher set testing in schools - get rid of those nasty league tables while you're at it (probably bring back grammar schools and workhouses too if you're a Civitas member).

The thing is, SATs are a handy way of finding out whether schools across the country are achieving a good education for the money spent. We know the council spend and we know the results of that spend. Using that information,extra money can then be targeted to where it is needed - none of that post code lottery stuff.

I realise that the point of the league tables was to allow parents to vote with their feet - bad schools would close under pressure from falling rolls and good schools would benefit from having too many kids in their oversubscribed classrooms... that was the point wasn't it? It was a Tory idea after all. Parental choice was pretty popular with the Labour Party too - equally wrongheaded to my mind - much better to stick with catchment areas.

But then if you have catchment areas, poor schools in poor areas tend to get poorer - the parents don't give a rats ass about the kids performance (no vociferous PTA) and prospects for betterment through further education are stunted by lack of visible role models and local successes.

Aha, but if you use the SATs to measure success and failure of education authorities you can improve this state of affairs - measures to improve the performance of the poor schools, funded through central government.

Schools and teachers have been using (or abusing) SATs as a beauty show to attract parents - teachers have been busily coaching their kiddiwinks through the tests (which should of course be a randomised snapshot of performance) and encouraging the kids to evaluate themselves using the results too. Hence the anxiety the children were supposed to be feeling due to the lack of results at term end (in my experience - the children were not especially anxious - but I gather that a local private school in Bolton had worked itself up into torrents of tears over the lack of SATs).

Teachers don't like SATs because it provides a standardised record of their teaching - if they set their own tests and mark them - they can of course (but wouldn't I'm sure) teach what they are good at and mark according to their whims. SATs have become bloody hard work (what with all the coaching and pre-testing) and naturally teachers find it a bit irksome to put in the labour, bless them.

So here's my plan of action

Retain SATS - encourage schools (sternly) to refrain from coaching and pre-testing, and with primary school children, work testing into normal day.

Introduce a proper taxation system which re-distributes wealth fairly through society, use the money to ensure that all schools are good, that all pupils have access to further education and that social mobility is not a myth.

Easy, ain't it?