Thursday, November 27, 2008

Meanwhile real education nosedives

As another study finds that, contrary to government myth, education standards have declined disastrously.

In a study, 1,300 of the brightest 16-year-olds were presented with questions from old O-level and GCSE papers.

An average of one-in-seven questions from tests taken in the 60s and 70s were answered correctly. Even pupils awarded elite A* grades in corresponding GCSEs this summer struggled with traditional questions.

Another liberal progressive lie exposed by fact based evidence. No doubt the progs will be rushing to assure us that the results prove how great education is. Oh - here we go ...

A spokeswoman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families said: “Standards in science have improved year on year thanks to 10 years of sustained investment and improvement in teaching and the education system - this is something we should celebrate, not criticise.”

Blah blah blah - more money than ever - blah blah blah - results prove - blah blah blah. Change the record will you? Why should we celebrate declining education standards? The "spokeswoman" then lets slip the truth.

“We want all young people to have a thorough grounding in chemistry, physics and biology, but also to be able to apply it to the science of climate change....."

Oh, right. In other words you teach science badly so that kids can apply it to bad science.

4 comments:

Dark City said...

“Times have changed - it is unlikely that pupils from the 1960s could answer questions set today, given that the role of science in society has changed so much in the last 40 years."

The principles of math, chemistry and physics haven't changed in 40 years. Science is still the same, it's just that actually learning the science isn't stressed as important anymore.

The reason pupils from the 1960s wouldn't be able to answer the questions of today is because the questions of today don't address actual science, just the political ideas surrounding science. It would be useful to see what these difficult questions actually were.

In a world where even math has been infiltrated by "social justice" (http://www.radicalmath.org/main.php?id=SocialJusticeMath) it is hardly suprising that students don't actually know anything anymore.

Anonymous said...

The books of 'O' level questions are available at bookshops and from the genius publisher Michael O'Mara books.

O'Mara realized that some of the material in the National Archives is available for re-publication and has made a tidy sum from re-printing various titles such as "Eating for Victory" and identifying other popular trends.

The O Level Book: Genuine Exam Questions From Yesteryear

Anonymous said...

See also:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1080791/Dimming-How-brainpower-todays-14-year-olds-slipped-radically-just-generation.html

Very similar.

I would like to see the actual studies themselves rather than what was said about them in the media.

What neither of these articles mentions, and I dont know if the actual reports do, is race.

There, Ive said it!

You see one thing has definitely changed over the period - and thats the racial makeup of the school population concerned.

A rigorous study would have made sure that an attempt was made to replicate the demographics of the '60s & '70s to compare with now.

Then we would could control for educational practice, video games TV etc and the other folk devils invoked in the articles.

The racial egalitarians of the left (and right) would then either be vindicated or have some torturous logic mangling explanations to invent. Im suspecting the latter.

Anonymous said...

Sorry that Daily Mail link, forgot to do it properly, 1976-2008 dumbing down