Month: December 2010
PISA has Gove leaning Eastwards
The reverberations from the PISA bombshell continue with the New York Times picking up the story. The relentless improvement of education results in countries like China, Singapore and South Korea are undoubtedly exercising the minds of our politicians.The NYT article quotes Andreas Schleicher, director of the OECD’s testing programme, as describing Britain’s performance as ‘stagnant… Continue reading PISA has Gove leaning Eastwards
No excuses! All children can learn to read and spell
Despite the lame excuses of Michael Welsh yesterday on Radio 4 and Dr Bethan Marshall today in the Telegraph, there are plenty of examples of schools situated in poor areas having huge success in teaching all children -that’s boys as well as girls! – to read and spell. Michael Gove says that the Coalition is… Continue reading No excuses! All children can learn to read and spell
Wuns mor deer frends, …
How enormously irritating it was this morning to listen to Mike Welsh of the National association of Head Teachers talking to John Humphrys on the Today programme about new government figures showing that one in ten boys leaving primary school at eleven have a reading age of seven or below.‘There’s nothing new here,’ declared Welsh.… Continue reading Wuns mor deer frends, …
“The countries that out-teach us today will out-compete us tomorrow.” Barack Obama
Following the publication of performance tables by the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) today, the blogosphere in the USA is a-buzzing with debate about the decline in standards over there too.‘Your child left behind’ is one of the latest postings on Kitchen Table Math, a clearly ironic response to the US government’s ‘No… Continue reading “The countries that out-teach us today will out-compete us tomorrow.” Barack Obama
More news of falling standards from PISA
I hesitate to put this posting on the blog because it feels like, well, here we are again! What do you know? Britain is still falling behind in the world rankings in literacy, maths and science.The latest performance tables, based on the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa), shows… Continue reading More news of falling standards from PISA
‘The truth will out’
For advocates of phonics, it can be especially galling to see reputable newspapers and magazines giving space to the claims of the Whole Language lobby, whilst denying advocates of phonics a right to an adequate reply. The question is: what to do about it?In ‘The truth will out’, published in the New Scientist (15/05/2010), Michael… Continue reading ‘The truth will out’