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Fair to compare? : Comments
By Jennifer Aberhart, published 29/3/2006Dunce’s hats and public disclosure of rank disappeared from classrooms because they were deemed unfair, so why is it now fair to pit schools against each other?
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Unmentioned in this discussion is that making a paradigm shift to benchmarking needs skill, preparation, good will and, above all expertise.
Moving school education system to a market-based model could (like the preschool system) resemble Russian experience, where, like ABC, a few rich companies snare most of everything.
Or it could be like introduction of the market model into China, where, despite everything, there is still strenuous state control.
Or it could be like Mugabe in Zimbabwe, where chaos reigns.
Surely it will not be as bad as any of these, but it will still be painful. (Think Maggie Thatcher performing the Restructure That Britain Had To Have.)
So the Teachers Federation has a very well-founded belief that any major change will create a humungous mess, and probably has no desire to see it sooner rather than later.
I read somewhere, years ago, that it takes 50 years for a new teaching concept to reach 75% of American schools, and 75 years for it to reach all of them.
Atomic scientist Max Planck put it another way. He observed, "science advances funeral by funeral".
There is good stuff that student teachers (my daughter-in-law is one) need to learn.
With good will and firm resolve, Amanda Challita will probably see these changes for her grandchildren, and perhaps - even - her children.
For the avoidance of doubt: I am in not defending bureaucracy, nor am I part of it. I simply note that the rate at which social values change is related to the rate at which one generation overtakes the next.
Paradoxically, in a society where change is supposed to be happening faster than ever before, people are having children later and living longer, so generational change is slower than ever before.