Vocational education review looks bad for diplomas

 The announcement that Professor Alison Wolf will lead a government review into vocational education looks like bad news for the diplomas.

Professor Wolf is an independent and original thinker but she has a very clear pre-existing position on vocational education, so Michael Gove knows exactly what he's going to get from choosing her to lead the review (she is the second member of the family to be advising the government, since Wolf's daughter, Rachel, used to be a Tory education policy advisor and now runs the New Schools Network). 

In particular, Professor Wolf believes that vocational education should be genuinely practical. She has been scathing about the hybrid approach of diplomas and their failure to deliver practical instruction alongside the academic element of the courses.

In the past, Wolf has described diplomas as 'devoid of educational purpose and coherence' . By contrast, Wolf is an enthusiast for high quality apprenticeships that also offer a route into higher education.

She is also a critic of bureaucratic structures and big government.

Professor Wolf's biography is here: www.kcl.ac.uk/schools/sspp/mgmt/people/academic/wolf/

09 Sep 2010 3 comments - read and reply.

Sofa bans, extreme religion and dismay on US campus

 It's the start of the new academic year at the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor, one of the top public universities in the USA. Parents in giant 4x4's are dropping off their kids. The shops are busy selling 'UofM' sweatshirts and student text books and college football is back on TV. 

So, here's a flavour of what's in the air in US campuses like this.

The age-old tradition of students sitting out on the porches of their houses is under threat as the city council wants to ban the use of upholstered furniture outside. Seems a shame to me - it's what being a student is all about...'porching it up with the guys' as one student put it.

On 'the Diag' - the centrepiece of the campus - an evangelical street preacher berates the crowd of wide-eyed and amused new students. His supporter holds a placard telling 'lesbians, homosexuals, fornicators, fraudsters and the godless' that they will 'burn in hell'. Surprisingly the campus police don't turn a hair at this vicious message ... but then this is a country were it would be legal for a Florida pastor to burn the Koran in public. 

The start of the new university year has brought growing questions about whether it is a good investment to go to university. Fees have gone up again. Prominent on the bookshelves in Ann Arbor are two books reflecting this mood. Their titles say it all:

 'Higher Education? How colleges are wasting our money and failing our kids'  and

 'The Five Year Party - How colleges have given up on educating your child and what you can d about it'

09 Sep 2010

Measuring teachers' effectiveness - Obama's school reform

 The current buzz in American school reform is 'teacher evaluation'. According to President Obama's Education Secretary, Arne Duncan, measuring teacher effectiveness and using it to raise the esteem of the profession is  'the big game-changer'.

But it is controversial as teachers fear the judgements will be made on imperfect or narrow data and will be used to determine job security and pay.

The whole issue was given a electric shock recently by the Los Angeles Times which took seven years of student achievement data, did a value-added analysis, and then linked the results to individual teachers. Readers could search a database on the paper's website to see how well individual teachers scored. latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/08/meet-las-most-effective-teachers-and-find-out-how-your-childs-teacher-performs.html

The newspaper was only doing - albeit rather more publicly - what several US states have started to do with the active encouragement - and financial support - of the Obama government through its 'Race to the Top' programme. 

This involves giving $4.3 billion of federal grants to states which best make the case for reform. Its a competitive grant and of the 46 states which applied only 11 so far have been awarded money, usually for programmes which seek to raise targets, collect  achievement data and turn-around low-achieving schools. Several of the successful states have included plans for using student achievement data for teacher evaluation.

It's a big turn around for a country which, until recently, steered clear of monitoring teacher quality. For example, there is no equivalent of the inspectorate Ofsted in the USA and, until quite recently, teachers reacted with horror to the idea of anyone coming into their classroom to monitor their teaching. 

One state, Louisiana, is even tracking students' scores to teachers and then tracking those teachers' performance back to the training college they attended.

In a speech marking the start of the new school term, Education Secretary, Duncan, said 'every state and district should be collecting and sharing information about teacher effectiveness with teachers and...with parents'. 

While accepting that such data should include meaningful context, he argued it should be 'tied to opportunities for advancement and bonuses'.

Arne Duncan's full speech can be read here: www.ed.gov/news/speeches/secretary-arne-duncans-remarks-statehouse-convention-center-little-rock-arkansas

The Race to the Top grant announcements is here: www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/nine-states-and-district-columbia-win-second-round-race-top-grants

07 Sep 2010

UK and USA both falling down graduate league

 Just as the OECD figures confirm that the UK is falling down the international league table for the proportion of young people graduating from university, a similar pattern is causing concern in the USA

Britain has fallen from 3rd to 15th in the OECD table between 2000 and 2008. www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-11203790,  

Over much the same time, the USA has fallen from 1st to 12th in terms of the proportion of young adults with degrees.

President Obama has set a target of returning to number one position by 2020 - a target reaffirmed in a speech recently by his Education Secretary, Arne Duncan.

Will David Cameron's government set a similarly ambitious target -- or is it content to led us slide down the international higher education table?

07 Sep 2010

The £400 million new 'academy-style' school

 It's a story that's been running in all the media in the USA -- the new school that has cost almost $600 Million (£400 million) and is due to open next week.

 It's been dubbed education's 'Taj Mahal'  and 'the most expensive school in history'. It even outstripped the cost of the Beijng Olympic stadium. It has a huge swimming pool and an impressive auditorium and has been cited as outrageous extravagance. 

 But, in fairness, it's not that simple. The school - or more accurately schools - are intended not only as community schools but also as a memorial to Robert F. Kennedy who was assassinated on the site where the new schools have been built.

There will actually be six schools on the educational campus, serving 4,200 children ranging from nursery school students to sixth-formers. They have been built on the site of the former Ambassador Hotel, where Kennedy was shot 42 years ago. Parts of the hotel have been preserved as part of the memorial aspect of the schools. It has been argued that it was better to build  real schools as a tribute to Kennedy than to build a large, non-functional monument.

Nevertheless it has been highly controversial, particularly as the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) - which runs it - has a $640 million budget shortfall and it has laid off 3,000 teachers over the past two years. 

The schools are Los Angeles' version of  England's academies. Known as 'pilot schools', they have autonomy over their budgets, curriculum, assessment and even the school year. For more on  LA's 'pilot schools' and the Robert F. Kennedy Schools see: rfkcommunityschools.org/about-the-complex/rfk-zone-of-choice 

06 Sep 2010

College football crowd record broken

 The University of Michigan football team (where I had a season ticket many years ago while on a fellowship there) set a new college football crowd record this weekend with a whopping 113,090 fans packing the Michigan Stadium for the opening game of the season against the University of Connecticut. 

Michigan regularly drew around 111,000 for each home game when I used to watch them a decade ago but after a renovation of the university's stadium the capacity has grown.

Moreover, as well as the thousands in the stadium, many more will have followed the game live on TV. The whole state comes to a standstill during football games, which encourage a community involvement with the local university which British universities can only dream about.

Unlike in the UK - where no-one follows university sports except the players themselves - American college sport is big and lucrative business. It is also a valuable marketing tool, encouraging both admissions and alumni giving.

However, with college athletics programme budgets growing - while academic budgets re being cut - the sports obsession is being questioned by some. For more see my earlier blog:  www.mikebakereducation.co.uk/blog/268/us-universities-spend-on-sports-while-cutting-elsewhere

05 Sep 2010

'Free schools' likely to remain tiny minority

 Michael Gove tried to sound upbeat about his prediction that some 16 'free' schools will open over the coming year.

Opponents have rightly pointed out that this falls far short of the earlier rhetoric. It also raises serious questions about the programmes that have been cut to release money for this experimental policy. 

However, I think we should be grateful that this  project is starting on a small scale. It means that by the end of this government's first term, 'free' schools will continue to be a tiny minority of the total, not unlike the City Technology College experiment of the late 1980s.

If they prove their worth, then it may be worthwhile building on the experiment -- if not, it can be quietly dropped without too much damage to the system.  

05 Sep 2010 2 comments - read and reply.

US schools pioneer use of iPad in classroom

What is the next step in the use of technology in schools?

My eye was caught by the 'back to school' story here in the local newspaper in Lewes, Delaware, where pupils start the new academic year next week.

The Cape Gazette interviewed the new superintendent of the Cape Henlopen School District about what was new this year. He highlighted the use of Apple's iPads in the district's schools.   www.capegazette.com/storiescurrent/201009-01-15/03004-cape-year.html 

 No doubt, this is not the only school district to be pioneering the use of the iPad -- indeed I see that a school in Greenock in Scotland is reported to be the first anywhere to deliver all lessons via the iPad.  www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/2010/08/31/scottish-school-becomes-first-in-world-where-all-lessons-take-place-using-computers-86908-22525988/

However, what was interesting was that schools are now seeing some very positive possibilities for the iPad. The appeal seems to be the relative cheapness, the lightness, and the easy-to-use qualities of the iPad -- all important factors when issuing hardware to pupils. 

For the Cape Henlopen school superintendent, the use of technology is the way to raise achievement levels, particularly in maths. So all 'freshmen' in the district's schools will be issued with iPads, complete with special software to help teach mathematical concepts.

Meanwhile elementary school pupils in the same district are being issued with iPod Touch hand-helds. During the last weeks of the summer holidays teachers in the district were given special training in the use of the devices as education tools, with help from Apple professionals.

Of course, it may be that this is just a novelty. The iPad doesn't offer anything radically different from a laptop. But it may also be that this is a way to harness the obvious enthusiasm of young people for the latest technological device and to use it to encourage learning.

Mind you, with Becta being abolished in England, I'm not sure who is going to be advising schools on the best deals on iPads and the best way to adapt them to educational use.

04 Sep 2010

USA education season on Mike Baker's blog

 I'm in the USA for the start of the new academic year, so will be blogging on some North American education stories for the next 10 days or so -- that's if I survive Hurricane Earl which is blowing up around me in Maryland at present. The Weather Channel is getting very excited about it...but it looks as though it will be doings it's worst out in the ocean not on the eastern seaboard.

The US school system has just gone back and I'll be picking up on some of the changes around charter schools, the testing debate, Obama's reforms  and the effects of recession on state spending.

Universities will be restarting soon and, later on, I'll be at the University of Michigan and commenting on the start of the new academic year there.

Normal coverage of the UK education scene will resume from September 14th

03 Sep 2010

US universities spend on sports while cutting elsewhere

 Interesting front-page article in today's New York Times about how US universities are boosting their spending on sports at a time of general cutbacks because of its value as a marketing tool.

The article focuses on a case-study of the University of Florida,where the athletics director has a budget of $95 million, the use of three private planes, and a personal salary of $1.2 million. It says Florida has raised its sports budget by 6% even though it has been through a $150 million reduction in state funding, which has seen 139 faculty and other staff laid off between 2007-2010.

Because university sports are shown on local and national TV they offer an important show-case for recruiting campuses. According to the NY Times, the TV focus is now spreading beyond the big sports, like football and basketball, to 'minor' sports such as lacrosse and softball.

When I was on a fellowship at the University of  Michigan a few years back, the university's (American) football team used to attract crowds of well over 110,000 for home matches. They were also shown on TV, which brought in useful income as well as showcasing the university.

Any chance of Oxford and Cambridge televising its 'varsity soccer, hockey and croquet matches?. 

More at: www.nytimes.com/2010/09/03/sports/03cup.html

03 Sep 2010

Help needed for able but disadvantaged students

I'm a trustee at Villiers Park Educational Trust, a charity that seeks to help very able young people from disadvantaged backgrounds to get into good universities.

The Trust does wonderful work, by supporting gifted and talented provision in schools and colleges and by offering residential courses at its Cambridgeshire centre. It is now actively running a new scheme: the Villiers Park Scholars Programme.  Working initially with schools in Bexhill & Hastings and Swindon, the programme aims to level the playing-field for bright pupils aspiring to get into the most selective universities. For more see: www.villierspark.org.uk/vphome.php

The work the charity does should really be financially supported by government - but sadly it is not. Moreover - as we know - the history of government support for gifted and talented pupils has for many years been a litany of missed opportunities.

So Villiers Park is trying to make a difference and to address the social mobility agenda. However, although the charity has been running for many years,and has developed unrivalled expertise, it will not be able to continue to do so without significant new financial support.

So, following a restructuring, Villiers Park is now seeking to appoint a Director of Fundraising, based at its Cambridgeshire headquarters. This is a chance to really make a difference.

If you think you - or someone you know - would be interested in, please follow the link to see the job specification: jobs.thirdsector.co.uk/job/328164/development-and-external-relations-director/

31 Aug 2010

BBC's schools season

 Well done to the BBC for putting  a 'schools season' on BBC2 to mark the start of the new school year.

While the BBC doesn't always get it right on education coverage (it's a shame that since the demise of The Learning Curve, formerly on Radio 4, there is not a single dedicated education programme while cars, business, gardening, law, and medicine all merit their own programmes), this deserves praise as an imaginative move at a time when millions of parents are focusing on school choices. 

The schools season includes documentaries and dramas and films including of Alan Bennett's 'The History Boys'  (5th September) and Richard Eyre's 'Notes on a Scandal'  (18th September).

24 Aug 2010

A Levels and university entrance

It's interesting to note how many of those newspapers and commentators which decried the 50% university participation target in the past are now working themselves up into a lather of indignation over young people being denied a place this year.

Judging by their past rhetoric, they should be celebrating the fact that university entrance has become more competitive and that not everyone will be heading towards our campuses.

Instead, they have picked up the parental anxiety of their readership and conveniently forgotten their past opposition to university expansion.

Like so many summer education stories, this has been over-played. (Like for example all the headlines about a 0.1% percentage point increase in the A Level pass-rates...how many other topics would  be considered so newsworthy with such a small  increase?).

UCAS figures show that 383,230 students have been offered a place. This is some 10,000 more than at this time last year, when the figure was just over 372,620.

It is true that there are more applicants eligible for clearing (183,000 compared to 135,000), so there will be more disappointed applicants. But remember the increase in applications includes overseas students, and re-applications as well as UK-based school leavers.

Remember too that every year, for some years, there have been a large number of applicants who did not get in (if everyone got in there would be the usual outcry about university being too easy and standards being lowered).

In fact, last year 158,000 candidates were left without a place. This year it will be higher but it is worth remembering that every year large numbers do not get in. This is not a new phenomenon. As in the past, some of those who do not make it this year will reapply and get in the following year. 

Of course, there would be 10,000 more places if the coalition government had not halved Labour's plans to create an extra 20,000 places. Mind you, that increase - made in the dying days of the last government - came too late for many universities to implement and it never looked to be fully funded for the long term.

As for the usual questions about A levels being too easy, people forget that the current system will - logically - lead to virtually a 100% pass-rate. That is because the AS level provides a half-way marker. So,  if students are not on course for a pass, they (or their school/college) will ensure they do not continue just to fail at A2. 

Would we really want students to plough on for a second year only to fail?

Meanwhile, let's not forget the Advanced Diploma students who also achieved  their results today. They have worked hard for their pioneering qualifications but must now be worried by the government's lack of enthusiasm for diplomas.

19 Aug 2010 1 comments - read and reply.

Website redesign

 Many thanks to my nephew Joe Herbert for the expert redesign of this website. He comes highly recommended by me (and it's not just because he's family). See for yourself at: www.royalparkstudio.com/

After many requests, it is now possible to receive email alerts whenever I add to the blogs or to the articles pages.

There is also the facility to go straight to themost popular blog posts and you can follow my Twitter feed here too.  I almost feel modern and cool ...well, not really.

I hope you like the new look.

Let me know what you think using the 'post comment' facility on the blog page. Your email is only needed to verify you are not 'spam' - it will not appear on the site.

I would like the site to be more interactive and I am always open to suggestions and blog ideas.  

01 Aug 2010 2 comments - read and reply.

Academies

 Analysis of the schools that have applied for academy status shows that a large proportion are foundation schools, which already have considerable freedoms.

The analysis, which was conducted by 'SchoolDuggery',* also shows there is a high proportion of selective grammar schools.

Of the 153 schools on the list, 51 are foundation schools,  8 are voluntary-aided, and 3 are voluntary-controlled. All these schools are already largely free of local authority 'control'. 

26 schools are selective grammar schools (it is not clear whether these are community or foundation schools, so they are not included in the list of Foundation, VA and VC schools).

The figures suggest that academy status is attractive to those that already have the freedoms it offers - and perhaps that some grammar schools see it as protection for their selective status (not that there is really any threat).

Perhaps academy status is a badge of honour rather than a genuinely different level of freedom?

You can follow SchoolDuggery on Twitter.

30 Jul 2010 3 comments - read and reply.

Exclusions fall - what crisis in behaviour?

Despite the sense of crisis in school discipline created by the Conservative Party's election campaign - and reinforced by the recent announcements on disciplinary powers -  it appears that the number of permanent exclusions from schools is falling fast.

The latest official statistics show  a 19.4% fall in the number of permanent exclusions across all types of schools in England. 

The Schools Minister, Nick Gibb, said that 'despite the fall in exclusions, poor behaviour remains a significant problem'.

But experts say the fall is evidence of the success of behaviour partnerships and 'managed moves', whereby pupils at risk of exclusion are moved - by agreement - to neighbouring schools, giving pupikls a 'fresh start'.

They fear that the growth of the new academies  will mitigate against this cooperation over behaviour as academies are not required to be part of behaviour partnerships.

29 Jul 2010 1 comments - read and reply.

Academy rush - what rush?

The prospect of a large number of schools taking the new route to academy status by next term now looks to be fading.

A new list of schools that have applied for academy status has been quietly slipped out by the Department for Education (posted in an obscure part of the DfE website with no accompanying press notice -- what happened to transparency?) 

It includes only about 120 secondary schools, some 20 of which are grammar schools.  There are also some 45 primary schools.

This compares with the much larger number of schools that had 'registered an interest' in the process.

 The list does not say how many, if any, of these schools will open as academies in September.

The Academies Bill received Royal Assent this week. The government justified the rush in passing the Bill by saying a 'significant number' of schools wished to become academies by September.

The deadline for applications to open this September was June 30th, although the list published by the DfE runs up to 23rd July, so some schools on the list may have missed the deadline.

The Shadow Education Secretary, Ed balls, said Mr Gove 'must explain why he rushed this Bill and misleadingly claimed that more than one thousand schools had applied'.

29 Jul 2010

New university college - sign of things to come

The granting of university college status to BPP is an interesting sign of radical changes ahead for higher education in the UK. It lends status to the offshoot of a huge US-based, for-profit  company that is looking to expand in Europe. 

 This is the first time that university college status has been awarded to a private provider since the creation of Buckingham University College (later Buckingham University) in 1976.

 BPP is part of the Apollo Group, a market-listed US company which owns and operates the University of Phoenix, a private university in the USA which offers degrees through distance-learning. 

In 2004, the University of Phoenix was fined $9.8 million by the US government for unethical practices in recruiting students. web.archive.org/web/20071007232951/http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/education/39028  At the time, the Apollo Group denied any wrongdoing.

BPP College of Professional Studies runs law, business and accountancy courses at several sites in the UK. It says it now plans to expand into other areas, providing a wider range of courses. 

It focuses particularly on postgraduate vocational courses,  where students pay high fees which are often subsidised by, for example, law firms sponsoring new entrants. However many students pay their own fees.

The growth of private providers will pose a challenge to public-sector universities that run the full range of courses. The loss of lucrative post-graduate students to colleges like BPP would, in particular, affect the bottom-line at many institutions . 

If BPP University College expands at anything like the pace of the University of Phoenix the UK won't know what has hit it. Starting in 1976, Phoenix now has a staggering 476,000 students currently enrolled on its courses. 

However Phoenix -  which provides part-time distance-learning to many low-income, federally-supported undergraduates - aims at a rather different market than BPP. Phoenix has been controversial and has faced criticism over its academic standards. www.nytimes.com/2007/02/11/education/11phoenix.html

The University of Phoenix has often been the subject of media investigations but it has rejected  many of the media claims made against it. See, for example: www.phoenix.edu/about_us/media_relations/for-the-record/Fact-Check-of-New-York-Times-Article.html

26 Jul 2010 2 comments - read and reply.

New skills minister

The decision to add Skills Minister, John Hayes to the ministerial team at the Department for Education seems a good move.  He will continue to be a minister at Business Innovation & Skills but will look after apprenticeships for 16 - 18 year-olds and careers education at the DfE. 

The move is welcome because links between the two departments need to be strengthened (it has always seemed odd to have 16-19 education split between two departments).

But more importantly Hayes will bring to the DfE an appreciation of technical and vocational education. By contrast, Schools Minister Nick Gibb seems to be only really interested in the traditional academic curriculum.

22 Jul 2010

Diploma students left to dangle in wind

The government's approach to Diplomas continues to leave students in a terrible limbo. The qualification is being neither supported nor abolished - but all the signs are that it is being left to die from neglect.

This must be terribly depressing for students who will be getting their diploma results this summer - they must be wondering how much longer their qualification will be around and recognised by universities and employers.  And what about those students who are in the middle of their courses?

The latest blow to the reputation of the diploma is the news that the Gateway process (the quality control for schools wanting to embark on teaching diploma courses) is being abandoned. This is how the government has justified the announcement:

"There is considerable expertise now after four Gateways in local authorities, schools and colleges.  So, for starts from 2012 onwards, there will be no requirement to obtain approval from the Department for Education before delivering new Diploma subjects."

The government is also relaxing the requirement for schools to collaborate on diploma teaching. One of the good aspects of the diploma has been the spread of co-operation between schools and between schools and FE colleges. However, it seems reasonable to let this happen where schools wish to do so, not to require it. 

All other changes, however, suggest - at best - indifference to the fate of a qualification which many schools have invested in with large amounts of time, effort and money. It is also a qualification that thousands of students have chosen after reassurances by the last government that this would be a recognised pathway to employment or HE. While the new government can legitimately say they did not introduce the diploma, equally they did not say at the time that they would fail to support it. Students will feel they are being cut adrift; teachers will feel let down.  

While declaring neutrality towards the diploma, ministers are actually cutting it back and removing support, including:

• ending the 'entitlement' to diplomas for all students that was due to come into effect from 2013;
• stopping support provided through Consortium Advisers from the end of July 2010;
• scaling back the offer of bespoke training to focus on areas where Ministers consider the learner experience may otherwise be at risk, e.g. Diploma administration;
• stopping central support on the assessment of Diplomas;
• removing funding for Diploma Development Partnerships;
• axing the Extended Diploma

This means that the centrally funded 14-19 workforce support programme is coming to an end in its current form from the end of August 2010.   The closure of the programme also means that the services that have been provided by the regional field forces, such as the Consortium Advisers and Regional Advisers, will also finish by the end of August.

Commenting on the changes, Chris Keates, General Secretary of the NASUWT said: "It is nothing more than a cowardly way of abolishing diplomas and the thousands of young people who would have had their life chances enhanced by them."

22 Jul 2010 1 comments - read and reply.