Tuesday, 3 December 2013

Taking the 'P' Out of PISA?

It's that time of the year again (shortly after 'manic Monday') when the Pisa 'comparisons' between school systems in many (but far from all) of the world's countries are made on the basis of testing samples of selected students in mathematics, reading and science (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-25090033 ). In fairness, even the people who run the tests point out some of the problems (e.g. some languages are more phonetic than others, some countries show big geographical diversities in attainment, different levels of extra-curricular coaching is evident in some groups, happiness doesn't always equate with success in the tests, many subjects are not tested, the tests don't attempt to measure creativity etc, etc). Yet everytime these tables are published, the media and politicians of all stripes go bananas. The power of a table!

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Sandwich Island Saga 38. You Don't Need to be a Mystic!

There's a stark lesson to be learned from the loss of life (around 90 deaths confirmed) at on July 4th at Mystic Camp in Kerr County. In...