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What has happened to education standards?
For
a generation we have heard a recurring theme from conservatives:
education results are going up only because the standards we set for
achievement are going down. Instinctively a "progressive", I have
tended to take the other view: things have got better overall because
we are dropping the idea of education as serving only an elite, and
modernising how we define achievement.
When Prospect magazine
asked me to take a long, hard and neutral look at the evidence and
arguments, I came to a more balanced view than I had expected. In some
ways we have spread the benefits of education, but in trying to do so
we have sometimes neglected to challenge students sufficiently because
we're so desparate for them to succeed. To any parent, these are
familiar themes.
In my article,
which was the Prospect cover story in June 2009, I argue that we need
to abandon the simplistic debate about whether standards are going up or
down and discuss the much more important issue of what kind of
education we want for our children in the future. Too often by judging
them by the standards of the past we distort what is on offer.
Theme: Education