Testing times

I've written this post on the NUT/NAHT test boycott for the Public Finance blog:

News that the National Association of Head Teachers and the National Union of Teachers plan a boycott of the tests for 11 year-olds in English and Maths may be cause for immediate celebration on the part of some pupils and teachers. But it should worry the rest of us – and any teachers genuinely concerned with improving standards.

The unions say the tests require excessive workload and force teachers to drill pupils in English and Maths when they could be doing other things. Yet, independent experts found the tests to be ‘educationally beneficial’ while reminding teachers that they could teach the basics more effectively through good teaching rather than drilling for tests. Since there is still a 22 point gap between the achievements of poor and better off children, the boycott will have a disproportionate effect on the disadvantaged, those who were failed most by schools before the increase in accountability in the nineties that included testing and performance tables. National test data are vital in raising teacher expectations as well as revealing where primary schools need to improve.

It was interesting to note the lack of enthusiasm even among the unions’ own members for this boycott (which is opposed by other unions). Most members of both unions chose not to vote in the ballot, which meant that only a third of NAHT members and a quarter of NUT members actually voted in favour of this action. This may make it a lot harder to enforce the boycott.

Of course, there is room to reform the tests. But it is absurd to suggest that a single set of tests in English and Maths at the end of primary school – the only independent measure of primary schools – is excessive. Equally, at a time when we have seen the adverse effects of self-regulation in parliament and banking, it is untenable to suggest that teachers should mark themselves. Whatever happens, it is vital that whoever becomes education secretary after the election makes clear that testing is here to stay.

A reasonable way forward on testing?

Reports about the likely recommendations of the expert group on testing have focused on the plans to replace the Key Stage 2 science tests with assessment. Since this blog recommended this as a way forward - and it has been welcomed by the science teachers' association - this is a sensible way of reducing the amount of testing whilst focusing on the basics.

Of course, it is the primary responsibility of primary schools to ensure that children know how to read, write and add up properly by the age of eleven. And the state has a duty to parents and taxpayers to make sure that they are doing so. Of course, there may be different ways of doing this - and the expert group seems wisely to be urging more piloting of the so-called progress tests that pupils would take as they are ready - but such tests must be externally set and marked. And they should be taken at least once by every pupil in every primary school.

Of course, the NAHT and NUT don't like this. But the NAHT general secretary - fresh from trumpeting his dodgy 'poll of parents' - told Today this morning that the scrapping of science 'narrows the curriculum too much'. So, he is no longer concerned to reduce the 'burden of testing'? Logically, then children should be tested in every subject, not none, as Mr Brookes admits that the presence of tests concentrates teachers' minds on getting children to pass them.

In truth, the revision that pupils do for tests in English and Maths can and should be a time to ensure that they have learnt how to read and write, and that they know their grammar, spelling, punctuation and mathematical rules. How does Mr Brookes imagine these children will get on in secondary school if they can't?If there is too much pressure on pupils, that is the fault of schools and parents, and not the tests.

But there is one respect where the expert group and those teachers' leaders who oppose a boycott may be being disingenuous, if advance reports are right: with respect to the publication of results. As a general principle in a society where freedom of information is the norm, it would be intolerable not to publish the test results. So, the results would appear in school report cards. Fine.

But there is a suggestion that the government might stop publishing the results on the same day, to avoid newspapers compiling league tables. We did, in fact, leave publication to individual local authorities in 1998 precisely for this reason, and apart from inconveniencing the education correspondents, it made no difference. The Press Association had to work a bit harder. There was less celebration of good and improving schools. So we returned to national publication.

With report cards, the newspapers will still publish the results. Surely, the DCSF must continue to make it easy for parents and others to search for any school's results on its website?

Of course, the real reason why these unions don't want the tests is not that they really think they 'damage' children. It is that they don't like the scrutiny that their publication brings. But such scrutiny has spurred so many of them to improve in recent years. The tests should stay; and their results should remain easily accessible to all.

The NAHT 'poll' that shows why we need independent testing in primary schools

I listened to NAHT general secretary Mick Brookes telling us this morning that we could trust his members to do their own assessments of how good their own schools were, without any need for troublesome tests or pesky performance tables.

In the midst of the discussion, Mr Brookes informed us that his stance enjoyed the overwhelming backing of parents, according to an opinion poll that his union had done. Given that an independent Ipsos MORI survey for the DCSF showed a rather different result - and it was conducted using a representative sample of parents by a reputable polling company - I thought this a bit fishy.

So I checked the NAHT's website for more details of this 'poll.' In fact, there is no independent opinion poll. Instead, the NAHT has pulled together a self-selecting 'sample' of parents' views collected by NAHT members and collated with no attempt at weighting.

The press release issued in February even suggests that embarrassed NAHT press officers know the whole thing is a crock. "Whilst we recognise that this is not an independent survey, it represents a substantial body of opinion," they plead.

So, let's get this straight. The union which tells us that we can trust its members to tell parents exactly how well their child's school is doing in English and maths without independent national tests or published results is quite happy to defy the rules of statistics to get the data it wants, and to pretend that its data is of some value even though it shows results exactly the opposite of properly conducted independent research.

And we are supposed then to take their word that we don't need any independent look at how primary schools run by its members are performing?

Boycotting tests would be a slap in the face to taxpayers and parents

The fairly predictable decision of the National Association of Head Teachers to ballot its membership on a boycott of national tests for eleven year-olds is nothing to do with the absurd notion that a single set of externally marked and set tests in the first fifteen years of a young person's life is 'damaging' and everything to do with the view of some professionals that it is impertinent of parents and taxpayers to wish to have a degree of accountability that is independent of individual schools. After all, it is up to individual NAHT members to decide how much they want to 'pressure' their pupils, and to pretend this is all the fault of the tests is not only disingenuous but is disproved by the many successful schools that manage to get the balance right.

The issue here is not whether the existing tests might be improved; they can. The Government is already reviewing them, and it is likely that the conclusion will be more tightly focused English and Maths tests. There is also merit in doing much of the testing online. Rather it is the growing view that professionals should be accountable to nobody but themselves, despite the fact that the taxpayer foots the bill (the Tories have already swallowed this view in their plans to leave doctors free of any patient-focused targets).

Having seen what happens with excessively light-touch regulation in the private sector, it is extraordinary that public servants should demand the same for themselves. Politicians of all parties should make clear that anybody boycotting the tests is in breach of their legal obligations and their duty to parents; they should do so quickly and without equivocation, and explain the consequences. Otherwise, all the gains in openness in our schools system over the last two decades will be endangered, and parents will once more find themselves excluded from a secret garden in which their enquiries are unwelcome and there is no external check on the assessments being made by teachers about their child's progress before GCSEs.

Mick tries it on in over testing

Mick Brookes, the anti-testing leader of the National Association of Head Teachers declares that because this year's national test results are late to schools, the whole exercise should be abandoned completely. But then Mr Brookes wants to scrap the tests anyway. He would prefer that his members judged their own results, without any external audit. But surely it is better that schools get the results late than never, not least for the youngsters who sat them. But a nice try, anyway.

Beverley Hughes is right to defend tests and tables

Beverley Hughes stood her ground well against the heckling of an audience of NAHT activists on Monday, when she defended tests and tables. Headteachers have been one of the biggest recipients of improved pay since Labour came to power. It is extraordinary that their activitists should turn around and demand the abandonment of the main tools of accountability in return. Bev has been a good children's minister, bringing a harder edge to a notoriously woolly area of policy. Her strong defence of testing and tables should earn her the gratitude of parents, pupils and anyone who cares about education standards.