We Can't All Make the Grade

October 2008

I haven't the space to present the technical evidence that teaching to the test and dumbing down of test content explain these increases. I refer you to the websites of the Curriculum, Evaluation and Management Centre (CEM) at Durham University and the think tank Civitas for an impressive array of such evidence. Put those two issues aside and consider just the results whenever English students have been tested by people who are not connected with the government.

In reading, the CEM has conducted independent studies using its Performance Indicators in Primary Schools (PIPS) examination and found a meaningless one-point increase in reading scores between 1997 and 2002, the same five years when the Government's Key Stage 2 showed a large increase in the percentage of primary school students reaching Level 4 or above. The Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (Pirls), a sophisticated and rigorous testing survey covering large samples from 40 countries, showed a statistically significant decline in reading scores among English nine-year-olds (Year 4) from 2001 to 2006, years when the Key Stage 2 continued to show improvement.

In maths, the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), conducted by the same organisation that administers Pirls, tested English 13-year-olds (Year 8) in 1995, 1999 and 2000. During that period the Government's Key Stage 3 test shows the percentage of students scoring at Level 5 or above as rising impressively from 58 to 71 per cent. The TIMSS results? The scores for 1995 and 2003 were identical (498, on a test with a mean of 500). In 1999, the score had dipped trivially to 496.

To sum up, I have been unable to find an independent assessment of the achievement of students leaving secondary school that shows the increases in test scores since 1997 that the government figures show. Once again, I hope this article will unearth evidence to the contrary that we can all examine carefully.

There is some good news in the TIMSS maths scores: English nine-year-olds showed a large and statistically significant increase. And therein lies a story that has also bedevilled attempts to raise maths scores in the United States. Maths in the early years is based on simple concepts (how many sides to a triangle) and on arithmetic - rudimentary skills that almost all children should be able to learn. When the schools begin to put more emphasis on drill in arithmetic, and make sure that the curriculum does indeed teach children about the shape of triangles, test scores can show large improvements. But when mathematics moves beyond the simplest concepts and arithmetic to the abstractions of algebra and the logic of geometry, large numbers of children fall by the wayside - they are just not clever enough in logical-mathematical intelligence to keep up. That's the reason why a test at the age of nine (Year 4) can show improvement while a test at 13 (Year 8) does not.

Tags:

Political Correctness

UK Politics

Like this article? Share, save or print using the icons below:

Anonymous

September 30th, 2008
1:09 PM

Mr. Murray presents real information, not fantasy based wishes. His thoughts dramatically call into question NCLB and its ramifications. I can only hope political correctness will not stifle his words s they need amplified. Our children's development to potential is at national risk.. and too many are quiet.

Tom Burkard

September 30th, 2008
11:09 AM

In most respects very fair article, but it appears that Charles Murray believes the American fallacy that there are discrete 'reading' skills. In the early years, learning to read is simply a matter of learning to decode letters to sound. Until the age of 8 or 9 , most children can understand a lot of words they can't read. After that, vocabulary takes off, and what one reads becomes the major determinant of vocabulary growth. Hence, reading scores past the age of 9 are mostly scores of verbal intelligence--that is, of course, assuming that the child can decode letters to sound. Efforts to teach 'reading comprehension skills' dominate American schools, as they try to close the gap between rich and poor, black and white. Unfortunately, there is very little evidence that such skills can be taught. The American psychologist Dan Willingham has done a lot of very good work on the futility of similar efforts to teach 'critical thinking skills'. Another area which Murray doesn't explore fully is the concept of moral development. As a psychologist, no doubt he is uncomfortable with such concepts. However, I once observed a Detroit charter school which had 600 pupils between K and 5th grade--all but two of them black. That their performance on basic skills was excellent would not, I am sure, surprise Murray. But the important point which stood out a mile was the ethos of the school. The children were all polite, enthusiastic and well-behaved. At the time I was teaching at a lily-white suburban school in Norwich, and quite frankly we would have died for kids who were so considerate and--well--likable. They had clearly imbibed some of the moral qualities of their teachers, nearly all of whom were very able and committed blacks. No doubt many of these children have since gone astray, but I would be very surprised if the sound education they received has not stood the great majority of them in very good stead.

Anonymous

September 30th, 2008
3:09 AM

Charles Murray speaks common sense. The notion that all have academic ability is true and untrue. The idea that 'everyone can get a degree' is like the idea that 'everyone can run a marathon'. Well, yes. In theory. But it rather depends on what you start with. If you have a heart condition, are confined to a wheelchair and have no legs, well, it's going to involve absolutely huge input and support from the rest of society to aid you, and it's going to require huge committment from you, and it's going to take a long, long, long, long time. And guess what? At the end of it, in the race, you're going to come last. But well done you, you completed a gruelling ordeal for which you were fundamentally unsuited. And what did you gain from it? Discipline, certainly: that's worth having. Pride in achievement? That too is worth having. But what practical good in terms of a living did it do you? I have taught at university level for 15 years and I have witnessed the pain and frustration of mediocre students strain financially and emotionally to reach the goal (which has been brought closer to make it easier for all to have prizes). But guess what? In the race, they're still, well, mediocre. Being concerned for their spritual, moral, financial and emotional welfare, I have to agree with Valerie M Jenner that they would have been better off directed to a practical education.

John Harvey

September 29th, 2008
12:09 PM

IQ is a measure of intelligence. MunsterFellow's dismissal at the top of these comments of the "extremely dubious and unproven concept that a IQ gene or gene combination exists," is quite remarkable. How else does he imagine that humans are more intelligent than sea anemonies: social conditioning perhaps?

Valerie M Jenner

September 29th, 2008
9:09 AM

I've been teaching for nearly 40 years and have seen the utter nonsense perpetrated in the name of academia. It is obvious to any teacher that there are huge numbers of pupils who have difficulties accessing the curriculum. So figures are massaged and invented to please the Dept of Education - or whatever the title is at any given time in the political calender. Pupils not given the help they need and put into entirely inappropriate classes to add another number to the list of A -G passes at GCSE. Lads not allowed to go on college taster days to investige a possible career as, for example, electricians as "he could get 5 GCSE's and become an accountant, you know". "But Miss, I don't want to be an accountant". No Matter. I have seen skills ignored, not nurtured, because they were 'practical'so automatically accorded less value. Some of the things that go on in education are disgraceful and all designed to disguise the fact the we are all different, have different abilities, but guess what? each of these different abilities is equally valuable.

Andrew West

September 29th, 2008
4:09 AM

As a chartered occupational psychologist, I accept that Charles Murray's article is probably correct. The problem is this. Left wing politicians earn their living asserting that there is a large and unfair gap between middle and working class children and that they can rectify this situation through taxing the middle class and spending the money on better education for the working class. If they accepted for one moment that there was little point in trying to 'redress the imbalance' then their whole reason for existing would be swept away. Right wing politicians usually do believe that 'We can't all make the grade' but, if they said that, they too would be swept out of office as the number of working class exceeds the number of middle class. There we have it.

Emma K

September 28th, 2008
4:09 PM

I agree with some of what Charles Murray says; that not everyone can be academic, and that exams are undoubtedly getting easier. However, what he is proposing will serve to maintain the status quo at a time when mobility between the social classes is already extremely low. If teachers have children in their schoolroom from single parent families, or from lower social classes, by Murrayâ€™s assertions, perhaps they should be expecting less from their students. And although I am not a researcher, I am aware that children's academic success can be correlated with the expectations placed upon them. That sounds to me as though many children would be written off academically. Going back to the grammar school model isnâ€™t desirable, but I donâ€™t buy it that intelligence is concentrated in the upper echelons of society. IQ has never been seen to be an excellent measure of intelligence (please see Gouldâ€™s excellent â€œMismeasure of Manâ€™ â€“ yes I know itâ€™s old!) Maybe more needs to be done to identify and support all academically able children, whatever their family background and whatever dreadful inner city school they attend, rather than supposing they will only be found winging their way to the local public school, with mum and dad at their side. (I am a bit sensitive to children from truly appalling inner city states schools being written off in this way, as I attended one myself) The â€˜gifted and talentedâ€™ program, which is supposed to recognise the brightest children in the school system and support them accordingly, has apparently not been adopted by some schools. My guess is that some of the schools who do not use this program are those very â€œworst inner-city schoolsâ€ described by Murray. If we want all children to have equal access to academic success attempts need to be made to redress inequality as far as possible. Or maybe we can leave things as they are and continue to expect that only children from â€˜goodâ€™ backgrounds can succeed academically. Well never mind, perhaps the others can achieve by representing their country in athletics. Plenty of opportunities there.

Ocham

September 28th, 2008
12:09 PM

Mr. Murray's cogent piece is no pyscho-babble (although it might seem like that to MunsterFellow, perhaps that assessment lies in his mind only). Mr. Murray provides a measured and open minded assessment which addresses a reality that dogma and convention keeps sweeping under the carpet.

W. H. Driver

September 27th, 2008
8:09 PM

Charles Murray does offer some thoughtful and intelligent material concerning the possible variations in academic success among students from various levels of society and from various levels of intelligence. To deny his plausible conclusions is continue the fallacy that all people are equal in all respects that has permeated education since the time of Rousseau and Guizot. MunsterFellow - your statistical refutation of Murray, while a romantic diversion - has nothing to do with the gist of his argument. For all we know, your statistics could just as easily prove his points.

Anonymous

September 27th, 2008
5:09 PM

One aspect the writer does not mention is that making every child academically talented is a counterproductive goal. If theoretically EVERY member of a society is academically talented, who will feed that society? Who will cloth it? Who will protect it? The importance of academic talents is a conceit of the intelligentsia. The academic class improves quality of life by providing cultural and scientific endeavor. However it is non-academics who provide life itself. No academic could discuss his Important Things at a coffeeshop, if it were not for the peasant who grew the coffee. And assuming that every child should be gifted in the academic field at the necessary expense of other areas is folly.

Post your comment