IT is a seemingly benign word, “experimental”, but in the context of the national performance of primary pupils in literacy and numeracy, it is a troubling one. The fact that officially the latest set of national statistics on basic skills are “experimental” means Scotland currently has no credible national measure for standards of literacy and numeracy in primary schools. And that is a national scandal.
So how did we get here? It started with the announcement of the new standardised national tests for all pupils in primaries one, four and seven and the third year of secondary. The idea was that the national data from the tests would be published, which led the Scottish Government to scrap the Scottish Survey of Literacy and Numeracy (SSLN). What was happening was clear at the time: the SSLN was being scrapped on the understanding that the Government would publish the standardised tests.
However, as often happens when principle meets reality, that is not what happened. The unions were not only unhappy that the new tests could be used to judge the effectiveness of individual teachers, they argued the tests would cease to be a measure of pupil progress when, as inevitably happens, teachers start coaching pupils to pass them.
In the end, with the Educational Institute of Scotland threatening a boycott, the policy was watered down and the Government announced it was no longer going to publish the results of the tests. Instead, they would release school by school data based on the judgements of individual teachers on what level pupils have reached under the Curriculum for Excellence. That can work perfectly well for parents seeking a measure of their child’s progress, but it is not suitable for national benchmarking. Hence that word: experimental.
So the reasons we got here seem clear. We had a government proposing a new policy and then meeting the reality of trying to deliver it; they then realised the implications of what was happening, and attempted a fudge to achieve something a bit like they intended. Instead, they ended up with a compromise that does not deliver what was promised.
The main problem is around the SSLN. The opposition parties have suggested that the Government dropped SSLN because it was showing an embarrassing decline in standards. But it was dropped on the understanding that the standardised tests would be published in its place and the fact that did not happen is a scandal. The SSLN should not have been scrapped until there was something to take its place.
The question now for anyone concerned about educational standards in Scotland is what happens next. The latest set of national statistics on basic skills are “experimental”, but that cannot go on for much longer. If in a few years we are still looking at statistics that are unreliable, the Government will have to go back to the drawing board. Scotland needs a reliable national measure of literacy and numeracy in our schools and we need it soon.
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