Interesting discussions in Birmingham around stats, their manipulation and the place and limitations of charismatic school leaders in sustainable change.
More the practical end whereas in London I’ve been talking with researchers and policy people.
The English have some very rich statistics but an unacceptable tendency to blame colour or class for a lack of progress of some students.
While we have a way to go in NZ it has been a some years since anyone used ethnicity as an excuse for a lack of progress to me.
The Brits are quicker to intervene than we are and that might not be a bad thing. Then again they have plenty to intervene about. Some of the teaching and school leadership is truly awful.
Yeah that’s pretty bad about blaming the ethinicity thing. I’m glad you’re learning stuff though.
The UK, and I would say England in particular, has a huge chip on its shoulder over the race issue. I was brought up in a racially diverse former industrial area (Oldham) and the tension there was palpable (and has often boiled over into full scale riots and isolated racial attacks). Indeed, the BNP (please insert your own “spitting on ground” sound effect) wouldn’t gain any traction without this English chip on the shoulder. There is probably a good discussion to have there about the ‘English’ culture feeling threatened by more distinct and vigorous external cultures (even the Scots and Welsh)(seriously, other than Morris Dancing and Cornish Pasties, can you pin down English culture)?
However, looking at class as a cause of poor educational attainment in the UK does hold some weight with me, and probably more so due to the experiences of my brother who teaches in a school in the largest council estate (State Housing equivalent) in Northern Europe. There he is working with an entire community (the size of a medium NZ town) primarily made up of second and third generation unemployed. Ambitions are few and far between and limited in their scope. Is this a class issue, yes, it is now? Should it have been allowed to develop into a class issue all those years ago, no, but you can only play the cards you have been dealt?
Interesting though all this may be, this is not the real point I wanted to make. The reason that Trevor found the excuses of ethnicity and class being given for stats is because of the huge reliance the UK places on stats and league tables. What worries me is the recent trend for stats being introduced, and worse still, published, with regard to DHB’s and schools here in NZ. No good can come of this. You cannot measure real outcomes and achievement (whether with a low decile school or a local hospital) by stats alone. Schools and hospitals deal with real people, and real people (as opposed to a statisticians Jo Average) have a strange habit of not conforming into a bean counters rigidly fixed view of the world.
One of the biggest issues the UK will have in the coming decades is moving away from this reliance on stats and back to a world where outcomes are based on people and their individual needs and experiences. It is much harder to manage a system that way, and you can’t place schools/hospitals/police on unreliable league tables, but then what use are they when they don’t reflect the realities of the situation, and where poor results generate excuses (race and class) rather than solutions.
Mmmm pasties
Yeah the league tables aren’t good, pitting one DHB against another. 
Chris I mainly agree with you – and poorly developed stats can lead to real problems. I’m transiting at the moment and can’t do full reply but a quick summary of my view is that there is more potential for progress with kids from lower social economic backgrounds and we must always take care to identify and teach to that potential.
Having recently spent seven hours waiting in the emergency department for a triage 3 injury, I applaud the public release of DHB stats.
And sure enough, the stats reveal that my particular DHB didn’t perform too well in that area.
And there you hit the nail squarely on the head Bea. Those stats in isolation tell you nothing in comparison to the Emergency Department 50kms down the road. Was the night you were in a particularly busy night, does your DHB get more emergencies than their neighbours (caused by a more densly populated area or dominance of a specific demographic), does the ED you went to give patients a more thorough examination and follow up (better care) which takes more time?
The problem with stats is that they encourage providers to compete, but competition tends to drive down standards (particularly in areas such as health care or education where you do not exist in a true commercial market). All your local DHB ED would have to do to be top of the league table would be to set a limit on time spent on each patient and either discharge or ship them up to an admissions ward. How many people would get worse treatment and lower standards of care because they were pushed through the system so a DHB can reach its targets?