The grade inflation scam

Today’s OECD Economic Survey of the UK (download the complete pdf here ) contains some devastating passages about our education system. As it’s 148 pages in size, we thought CoffeeHousers might appreciate some highlights. Here’s your starter for ten:

“Despite sharply rising school spending per pupil during the last ten years, improvements in schooling outcomes have been limited in the United Kingdom.”

This is rather a staggering indictment of Tony Blair’s “education, education, education” policy. But what about the ever improving exam results that we hear about each summer? Again, the OECD:
 

“Official test scores and grades in England show systematically and significantly better performance than international and independent tests … The measures used by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) … show significant increases in quality over time, while the measures based on cognitive tests not used for grading show declines or minimal improvements.”

And:

“The  share of A–level entries awarded grade A has risen continuously for 18 years and has roughly trebled since 1980 … independent surveys of cognitive skills do not support this development.”

In other words: grade inflation. A con. As spending has been rising, educational standards have been falling — a huge betrayal of our young people. And one that has been covered up by grade inflation. The OECD have even produced a graph to show what’s been going on in both England and Scotland over the last decade:

As well as agreeing with Michael Gove on the problems, the OECD also backs his solutions:

“Increasing user choice would … induce stronger competition between schools which could provide better educational outcomes.”

And:

“Entry of new schools should be encouraged even if it, temporarily, creates some excess capacity. Decisions on whether a new school should be opened should rely on the quality of the business plan and should not be left to local authorities but to another appropriate body.”

As it happens, the Spectator held a schools conference yesterday, which was an inspiring and hugely instructive day. We heard from Lucy Heller, who runs ARK schools. She said that the percentage of pupils getting five decent GCSEs at the age of 16 is far worse amongst the poor kids (i.e. those who qualify for free school meals). The percentage of decent passes is 23 per cent lower for FSM kids than for the rest. Is this, as Neil Kinnock might ask, because all the poor kids are thick? Or simply that they are served badly? But the ARK schools have managed to narrow that gap to three per cent. Together with Harris (who have a staggering record at school turnaround), they nail the lie that it takes a generation to transform a bad school into a good one. With the proper management, it takes just two or three years.

One final stat, not from the OECD, for CoffeeHousers. We held yesterday’s conference in Church House, in the grounds of the beautiful Westminster School. About half of their sixth formers get into Oxford or Cambridge — some 82 pupils a year. Of the roughly 80,000 pupils on Free School meals in each year group, just 40 go on to Oxbridge. So this one school churns out twice as many Oxbridge candidates as the tens of thousands whom this welfare state is supposed to help.