Desmond,
small correction, not Joh (joe) but Wayne, Peter & Anna.

As my children - who are now young adults - went through school, I hoped only that they would emerge undamaged. I never hoped it would foster intelligence, critical thinking, creativity or social skills that really matter. The industrial model of teaching, the endless rejigging of curriculum while failing to look at the essential dysfunction of the structure of education; the notion that children learn in a single way or speed and only in certain age groups...It truly astounds me that we are so implacably stupid when it comes to education. I home schooled both my daughters for several years and I'm convinced that they both learned far more, explored far and were far more prepared to adventure into the world as a result of time out of school, not inside it.

You cannot control what you don't measure.

The exams and testing I have seen, while testing memory, also tests the ability to apply the knowledge. Without it the teacher is only guessing as to their progress and any problems.

As retention is greatly enhanced by repetition, for the kids that bother to revise, the learning is reinforced, and they can move onto the next stage with a solid foundation.

Those "well rounded" children brought up in a carefree schooling environment are seldom equipped for skilled employment, and their prospects forever constricted.

Until Education is accepted as a discipline by Parents , Students ,Teachers and Governments nothing more than Slush Results can be anticipated .

Introducing "New Curriculum" always results in abstract BS that cannot be explained or understood .

The malaise we suffer in our children's education must have been understood by the ancient Scots one commenter of those times suggested that it would be easier to move a Cemetery than to change the Curriculum ; perhaps we need to go back wards rather than for wards !

Testing and measurement is important so we can know if we are learning. The problem arises not from the test themselves but because testing outcomes are treated as the goals rather than learning as the goal. The difficulty becomes one where testing is seen as a form of punishment rather than testing being seen as a way to show how much you have understood and been able to apply.

We do not put nearly enough effort into establishing how we can test for learning outcomes and how to cater for individual differences.

The system is set up to reward the strong as they get confirmation of their success but at the expense of punishing the weak. Ideally learning success should be measured against the innate ability of the person being measured. Did they do as well as they could have rather than it being a comparative measure.

This is hard to do but not impossible.

Dear Fickle Pickle
"Ideally learning success should be measured against the innate ability of the person being measured. Did they do as well as they could have rather than it being a comparative measure."
In my primary and secondary years (1950s and 60s)the quantitative information provided on the trinnual Report Card for the respective subjects consisted of: grade achieved for each subject(marks out of 100), position in class for each subject and overall class position across all subjects. However the Report Card also allowed for the teacher(s) to comment on how he or she thought the student was performing relative to the student's ability. Of course it was a subjective evaluation but nevertheless provided the parents with some idea of their son's or daughter's "innate ability". Sometimes the comments could be critical eg "Tommy is not performing up to his ability" or encouraging "Billy finds Mathematics difficult but he is trying very hard to improve"
Unfortunately EXTERNAL testing does not allow for this useful feedback.