Friday, 26 April 2013

Hoaxes and deceits with exams eg GCSE English

People who design exam systems have special ruses to confuse and bewilder us.

1. Reliability vs validity

If you narrow down what you examine,  you can make an exam more reliable. That's to say it will come up with consistent marking, the curve on the graph of those sitting it will match the standard curve year in year out. However, what you are testing will not necessarily reveal eg the best of what the 'testee' can do, and will not necessarily encourage a wide and deep way of working leading up to the exam. At the end of the day, many people in government either don't know about this or, more likely don't care.  As I've mentioned before, the Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar test has been brought in on a lie about reliability ie the claim that there are right and wrong answers to questions in these three areas. The claim was made in the government's 'Bew' report and acted on but I have not seen anywhere that being taken on as an entirely false claim. It's the rush to reliability that has produced something invalid.

2. If certain methods of testing are producing the 'wrong' results, then that part of the exam producing those false figures, must be abolished.

This is the lie at the heart of the re-design of GCSE English. So, the claim is made that teachers cheating on the speaking and listening section are bumping their students up to A-C. The consequence say the critics is that there is a false picture of who is competent at English, so they are kicking speaking and listening out of the final grade. This is a hoax. Examiners have known for at least a hundred years that if you want to make a grade for which minimum criteria have to be reached in all its sections, then you simply control the marking that way. So, in this case, it would be simple to say that a student getting an A-C needs to reach 3 different minimum levels at the written section to be able to get A, B or C in the final mark. There is absolutely no need to abolish that section of the exam that is deemed to be lifting the final grade into what is thought to be the minimum requirement of being a competent - b good - c outstanding.

Alternatively, examiners dish out  a double mark, one for the written section, one for the oral - as we used to do with foreign languages back in the 50s and you had to pass both to get your 'certificate'. You don't need to abolish one section.

In other words, Ofqual have brought the abolition of talking and listening in off the back of a hoax.


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Thursday, 25 April 2013

Sit down, shuttup: it's GCSE English

This is Ofqual's consultation document for GCSE:

http://www.ofqual.gov.uk/files/2013-04-25-gcse-english-consultation-on-the-removal-of-speaking-and-listening.pdf


I think this represents the final break with liberal and humane ideas about 15 and 16 year olds' abilities. It is a clear attempt to say to teachers, parents and students that 'English' equals writing.

By demanding this, the government downgrades drama, film and media studies, talking and listening. In one stroke, this means eliminating a) co-operative and collaborative learning and b) a key area of the students' expertise and knowledge: film and media c) expressive and collaborative arts (ie drama)  in relation to language.

No English teacher will be in any doubt about the effect of this on the so-called 'less able' students. They will find the English course harder, they will find a great deal more of the course harder to do. When we look at the Ofqual document, they make this explicit. Fewer people will get A-C grades. This isn't some haphazard consequence: it is the precise objective of the whole 'reform'. This government wants fewer students to get A-C.

Why? Why should this matter to them? They will justify it with these bizarre, empty words like  'robust' and 'rigorous' but I don't believe this for a moment. Employers, colleges and universities don't have any problem about judging the abilities and skills of the people who apply to their institutions and firms. If they do, they can run their own tests - as indeed many do.

The real reason for all this is down to the point we have reached in society, the era we are in. We are living at a moment where the decision has been made that the UK can only survive financially in the world on the basis of having an extremely low wage economy, with no job security. One way to assist this process is to release on to the labour market each year, people with low grade qualifications or none. To bring this about, you have to produce a) a tiny elite b) a large cohort of failures.

That is what these 'reforms' are really about. Schools are being made into the servants of an economic imperative that is bringing poverty and hardship to millions while the superrich are increasing their wealth. The dynamic going on in the way people in this country receive money is that the sector of people who gain a living through wages are proportionately losing ground to the sector who make money through profits. The ratio of profits to wages is changing in favour of profits.

This is the hard grinding reality behind 'austerity', behind the cuts in the welfare state.

All that Ofqual have done is ensure that their 'reforms' fit into these changes. It represents how this government has made a strategic decision in relation to all of us and this has created the environment in which the government's willing slaves (Ofqual etc) bow to the wind.

Removing arts subjects from the way schools are measured, then removing talk from English is a clear attempt to turn schools into assembly lines for segregating school leavers for the sake of employers.

The 'reforms' won't 'raise standards', they won't make students more willing to learn, or more able to learn. Precisely the opposite. The curriculum, the teachers, the students and the parents will be squeezed into a process in which sitting on your own writing is the sole marker of your abilities.

This is a massively backward step to take.
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Sunday, 14 April 2013

Facebook question and answers: how to fight austerity


Michael Rosen
Yesterday
Could left-minded friends here please give a quick summary of the various 'unity' organisations resisting the cuts etc? I'm lost. Am I right in thinking there's TUSC, Unite the Resistance, Coalition of Resistance, the People's Assembly? Have I included any who don't exist anymore? Have I missed any out? Are these 'unity' organisations competing against each other?
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