We need quantitative assessments of the success of education. We need certification and qualifications both for teachers and for pupils. It is not a choice between quantity and quality, between access and excellence. Both of these will happen together if people really do believe in the importance of education to change lives.
I am very proud of the quality of public education in Nebraska, but I believe we have an obligation to continually assess whether our system is meeting 21st Century education needs.
The one size fits all approach of standardized testing is convenient but lazy.
If you could lead through testing, the U.S. would lead the world in all education categories. When are people going to understand you don't fatten your lambs by weighing them?
I believe Ofsted measures poverty. It measures deprivation. It doesn't measure excellence.
Unfortunately, the real achievements of children on the ground became debased and devalued because Labor education secretaries sounded like Soviet commissars praising the tractor production figures when we know that those exams were not the rock-solid measures of achievement that children deserve.
It's hard for parents just to measure schools.
Profound question is how do you measure the non-skills component of what goes on in schools: values, curiosity, critical thinking, and so on. That's very tough. Maybe everything worthwhile can't be measured.
