In normal business, staff who have performed well get a bonus or something at the end of the year; the English civil service use this as an excuse to award each other bonuses every year "to attract talent from the private sector", so far so bad.
They have an interesting variant on this in Wales:
The lowest-ranked secondary schools in Wales have been promised more funding to improve standards.
Schools in the bottom two bands of a performance-grading system will receive £10,000. In return they must submit action plans with targets on improvement, says Education Minister Leighton Andrews.
Secondary schools have been placed into one of five bands based on GCSE exam performance and pupil attendance. The money will be available to schools in bands four and five, which are subject to action plans setting out how they intend to improve....
So if you are in it for the cash (is that £10,000 per pupil, which is way too much, or per school, which is such a tiny amount as makes no difference anyway?) then your optimum position is somewhere in the top half of Band Four, you get the money but none of the real hassle, which will hopefully be directed at the schools performing even worse than yours. Or maybe the authorities will focus their attention on the upper half of Band Four, in which case you quietly drop down the bottom half of Band Four etc.
Oh yes, in case there was any doubt:
... The Welsh government denies that banding is a return to league tables, which were scrapped in 2001. In a speech in Cardiff, Mr Andrews said banding had already proved valuable by showing which schools need extra support.
It doesn't look very iconic
6 minutes ago
5 comments:
I'm a fan of payment by results in general and meritocracy also but in schools, this has implications. While there must be quantifiable assessment of teachers, there is also a danger of turning schools into factories.
I've been on for years about standards in schools but this big stick stuff is fraught. For a start, the govt itself or Ofsted are the last ones on earth who should be determining it. In Australia, there are organization which oversee teacher registration and they're filled with people from all walks of life, including educators.
Vastly better way to get this "results" thing quantified.
JH, with the government judging government-run schools, the whole thing is doomed to failure, whatever you do.
I've nothing against 'schools as factories' though, as long as the syllabus is relevant and the exams fair. It was all the "sports" and "extra-curricular" shite which I didn't like about school - I found sitting there learning stuff was the most fun.
We could argue over vouchers, government schools or no interference in education all night, but if there is one thing that speaks for no involvement at all it's the relative difference between motivation in showing up in these containment devices we call school as of current and what would be if an education had to be purchased/arranged for by parents. I was also relatively good in curriculum-things early on, but progression beyond what was the curriculum was something to be done on your own time...
Why is it that lefties/bureaucrats and similar love reinforcing failure?
A bit of good old competition enabled by education vouchers would pretty soon sort out all this bollocks.
Lola,
Why is it that lefties/bureaucrats and similar love reinforcing failure?
Because it's a source of their power and wealth. Replace the state with vouchers and the bureaucracy disappears. Have schools competing for pupils and the useless leftie teachers will find themselves looking for another job.
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