Saturday, 15 August 2015
Friday, 14 August 2015
With hundreds of thousands of new supporters, Labour is on the verge of something big – what a complete disaster!
Mark Steel in The Independent
It’s easy to see why those in charge of the Labour Party are so depressed. They must sit in their office crying: “Hundreds of thousands of people want to join us. It’s a disaster. And loads of them are young, and full of energy, and they’re really enthusiastic. Oh my God, why has it all gone so miserably wrong?”
Every organisation would be the same. If a local brass band is down to its last five members, unsure whether it can ever put on another performance, the last thing it needs is young excited people arriving with trombones to boost numbers and raise money and attract large audiences. The sensible response is to tell them they’re idiots, and announce to the press that they are infiltrators from the Workers’ Revolutionary Party.
The Labour Party in recent years has insisted that it’s a party that understands business. But if it were running Apple, it would employ a novel approach. A report could come in that a new product was so successful that customers were queuing up to see it, and the sales staff were having to stand on fire engines to address the crowds eager to buy it. So Labour would say: “We’ll scrap that for a start. Let’s promote our other models that have initiated no interest from anyone whatsoever, such as a digital table mat. That’s how to make money.”
The fervour around Jeremy Corbyn is extraordinary, but it wouldn’t be fair to suggest he’s the only Labour politician who can bring large crowds on to the streets to greet him. Tony Blair is just as capable. In his case the crowds are there to scream that he should be arrested for war crimes and to throw things at him, but that’s being pernickety; he can certainly draw an audience.
Blair made another contribution to the leadership debate this week, and his prose is worth quoting. It goes: “The party is walking eyes shut, arms outstretched, over the cliff’s edge to the jagged rocks below. This is not a moment to refrain from disturbing the serenity of the walk on the basis it causes 'disunity'. It is a moment for a rugby tackle if that were possible.”
It’s fitting this was published on the day that A-level results were announced, as it’s hard to imagine how any examiner would have marked this. It’s possible he didn’t even write it himself, and he’s stolen it from the lyrics of an obscure prog rock band from 1975. Maybe there’s another verse: “As we float across Narnia in a bubble of tadpoles, an iguana with a beard threatens to make us anti-business by renationalising the railways, and we cry in a golden canoe that no one will vote for us in Nuneaton.”
Or he was simply trying to convey the scale of apocalypse that will result from Labour electing a leader who stands for something. Tomorrow he’ll add: “Our great party is literally climbing into the mouth of a lion, as it stands unaware of an American dentist poised behind, dozing as it climbs into a ride at Alton Towers that hasn’t been checked since 2008, placing our economy in a shopping mall in America just before a teenager goes berserk with a machine gun. Is THAT what you WANT?”
His accomplice of old, Alastair Campbell, has been just as coherent, insisting Jeremy Corbyn would lead the party to disaster beyond imagination. Maybe there’s still time for Alastair to prove his point by compiling a dossier explaining in detail exactly how Jeremy Corbyn would cause this disaster, showing beyond doubt that the disaster would be caused within 45 minutes, so that the only rational response is to invade Jeremy Corbyn.
This week, I was lucky enough to enjoy at first hand this calm approach of Labour’s leaders, when my application to register as a supporter was turned down on the grounds that: “We have reason to believe that you do not support the aims and values of the Labour Party.” I suppose it’s encouraging that they’re being so thorough, although it could be argued that leading your country into a disastrous invasion, having justified it with a set of premises it turns out you made up, is also slightly at odds with the aims and values of the Labour Party. So, presumably, Blair and Campbell and their supporters will have received the same email as me?
Or there’s Simon Danczuk, the MP who has pledged to do all he can to overthrow Jeremy Corbyn from day one of his leadership. I wonder if publicly committing yourself to bringing down the democratically elected leader of the Labour Party could give someone a reason to believe you didn’t support the aims and values of the Labour Party?
If not, this could lead to a whole new way of running organisations. When someone joins the Scouts they should have to pledge to bring down the Scouts from day one, otherwise they’re not allowed to join. If a new member applies to join a bowls club, they should be asked if they’re prepared to abide by the rules of the elected committee, and if they are, they should be told to sod off and never come back.
Then there’s John McTernan, the former adviser to Jim Murphy, who insists that Corbyn will be a catastrophe, and that the party should continue with the strategy he devised in Scotland, which took the party’s MPs from 41 to a much more manageable one, making it far easier to deal with admin.
These are the types you want to make a party successful, not crowds of young enthusiastic people eager to change society. Isn’t it obvious?
It’s easy to see why those in charge of the Labour Party are so depressed. They must sit in their office crying: “Hundreds of thousands of people want to join us. It’s a disaster. And loads of them are young, and full of energy, and they’re really enthusiastic. Oh my God, why has it all gone so miserably wrong?”
Every organisation would be the same. If a local brass band is down to its last five members, unsure whether it can ever put on another performance, the last thing it needs is young excited people arriving with trombones to boost numbers and raise money and attract large audiences. The sensible response is to tell them they’re idiots, and announce to the press that they are infiltrators from the Workers’ Revolutionary Party.
The Labour Party in recent years has insisted that it’s a party that understands business. But if it were running Apple, it would employ a novel approach. A report could come in that a new product was so successful that customers were queuing up to see it, and the sales staff were having to stand on fire engines to address the crowds eager to buy it. So Labour would say: “We’ll scrap that for a start. Let’s promote our other models that have initiated no interest from anyone whatsoever, such as a digital table mat. That’s how to make money.”
The fervour around Jeremy Corbyn is extraordinary, but it wouldn’t be fair to suggest he’s the only Labour politician who can bring large crowds on to the streets to greet him. Tony Blair is just as capable. In his case the crowds are there to scream that he should be arrested for war crimes and to throw things at him, but that’s being pernickety; he can certainly draw an audience.
Blair made another contribution to the leadership debate this week, and his prose is worth quoting. It goes: “The party is walking eyes shut, arms outstretched, over the cliff’s edge to the jagged rocks below. This is not a moment to refrain from disturbing the serenity of the walk on the basis it causes 'disunity'. It is a moment for a rugby tackle if that were possible.”
It’s fitting this was published on the day that A-level results were announced, as it’s hard to imagine how any examiner would have marked this. It’s possible he didn’t even write it himself, and he’s stolen it from the lyrics of an obscure prog rock band from 1975. Maybe there’s another verse: “As we float across Narnia in a bubble of tadpoles, an iguana with a beard threatens to make us anti-business by renationalising the railways, and we cry in a golden canoe that no one will vote for us in Nuneaton.”
Or he was simply trying to convey the scale of apocalypse that will result from Labour electing a leader who stands for something. Tomorrow he’ll add: “Our great party is literally climbing into the mouth of a lion, as it stands unaware of an American dentist poised behind, dozing as it climbs into a ride at Alton Towers that hasn’t been checked since 2008, placing our economy in a shopping mall in America just before a teenager goes berserk with a machine gun. Is THAT what you WANT?”
His accomplice of old, Alastair Campbell, has been just as coherent, insisting Jeremy Corbyn would lead the party to disaster beyond imagination. Maybe there’s still time for Alastair to prove his point by compiling a dossier explaining in detail exactly how Jeremy Corbyn would cause this disaster, showing beyond doubt that the disaster would be caused within 45 minutes, so that the only rational response is to invade Jeremy Corbyn.
This week, I was lucky enough to enjoy at first hand this calm approach of Labour’s leaders, when my application to register as a supporter was turned down on the grounds that: “We have reason to believe that you do not support the aims and values of the Labour Party.” I suppose it’s encouraging that they’re being so thorough, although it could be argued that leading your country into a disastrous invasion, having justified it with a set of premises it turns out you made up, is also slightly at odds with the aims and values of the Labour Party. So, presumably, Blair and Campbell and their supporters will have received the same email as me?
Or there’s Simon Danczuk, the MP who has pledged to do all he can to overthrow Jeremy Corbyn from day one of his leadership. I wonder if publicly committing yourself to bringing down the democratically elected leader of the Labour Party could give someone a reason to believe you didn’t support the aims and values of the Labour Party?
If not, this could lead to a whole new way of running organisations. When someone joins the Scouts they should have to pledge to bring down the Scouts from day one, otherwise they’re not allowed to join. If a new member applies to join a bowls club, they should be asked if they’re prepared to abide by the rules of the elected committee, and if they are, they should be told to sod off and never come back.
Then there’s John McTernan, the former adviser to Jim Murphy, who insists that Corbyn will be a catastrophe, and that the party should continue with the strategy he devised in Scotland, which took the party’s MPs from 41 to a much more manageable one, making it far easier to deal with admin.
These are the types you want to make a party successful, not crowds of young enthusiastic people eager to change society. Isn’t it obvious?
Thursday, 13 August 2015
Your students’ A-level results could easily be wrong
Students may not be getting the exam grades they deserve due to the inconsistent marking. Photograph: Alamy
Anonymous in The Guardian
Thursday 13 August 2015 07.00 BST
Anonymous in The Guardian
Thursday 13 August 2015 07.00 BST
Congratulations. Your students have got their grades, university beckons and you can bask in the warm glow of a job well done. Parents, colleagues and students salute you. But are the results accurate? As a senior examiner with more than 20 years’ experience, let me share my doubts.
Perhaps you picture genteel examiners sitting in Oxbridge common rooms, languidly resting on armchairs as they earnestly discuss whether Chloe’s essay merits an A* or merely an A. Maybe you imagine seasoned professionals kindly donating their holidays to mark in the garden over Earl Grey tea and lemon drizzle cake? Wise up. Examining is a ruthless multi-million pound business. There are two types of examiners: the quick and the dead. The faster we mark, the more we get paid. If we’re slow, we fall foul of exam cheat No 1: the exam board.
Take it from an examiner, your students’ A-level results could easily be wrong
It doesn’t matter whether you teach economics with ABC board or further maths with XYZ, they are as rotten as each other. My board ask for two qualifications from their examiners: they are alive and they need the cash.
Mr Simpson turns up year after year marking different papers in my subject because the exam board doesn’t cross reference sackings with recruitment. Think of him as a zombie – we declare them dead, but they reappear. Simpson is “aberrant”, in examiner parlance. This means that when we look at his marking, some scores are too generous, some are too mean and there is no pattern. Fancy having him mark your students’ papers? Ms Griffin, however, is merely a “lingering doubt”. These markers make big mistakes, but there is a consistent generosity or meanness that we can correct.
Speaking of consistency, here’s exam cheat No 2: Ofqual. The quango is charged with ensuring compatibility between the exam boards but its heavy-handed, ruthlessly statistical approach makes everything much worse. Unless exam boards give 80% of their marks to Ofqual by early July, they face severe sanctions, including public naming and shaming. Senior examiners therefore have to apply the thumbscrews to their juniors, with predictable consequences for accuracy.
In a recent report exam boards confessed to “guesstimating” grades. The only shock for me was that they admitted it. I’ve seen a chief examiner (top of the tree in exam terms) take a set of papers from an aberrant marker and come back minutes later with new grades. Usain Bolt couldn’t have moved at that speed. The examiner had clearly just looked up the school’s predicted grades and scribbled them on top of the papers. The moral of the story is to check the grades your centre sends to the board. They are used more than you think.
If in doubt about a result, always go for a re-mark – the numbers of requests are booming. It’s hardly a surprise; some examiners are not even standardised. In standardisation, they are given a sample of pre-marked papers and tested on how well they can match the agreed marks. If they cannot, they are not allowed to continue marking. But there are thousands of orphan scripts left unmarked every summer and my board was so desperate that it summoned the zombies, the lingering doubters and other barrel scrapings to a special centre to mark against the clock. Several of these worthy souls had failed standardisation but were allowed to carry on (paid at several times the normal rate).
It gets worse; there are gangsters out there. I’ve seen papers given the green light despite major reservations about how it’s been graded because an examiner needed to move on to their next marking gig. Exam cheat No 3: examiners.
Secret Teacher: marking exam papers exposes the flaws in teaching
I get paid £4 per script. There’s an adage about peanuts and primates. We genuinely don’t do it for the money, but no one likes to be exploited. Meanwhile, remarks cost £40, so someone is making a lot of money. Markers are poorly motivated and often poorly qualified. My examiners once needed several years of teaching experience, now I’ll take a PGCE student. What unites us is a genuine love of the subject we are marking and respect for the students who are producing the answers. For me, reading a good script is an emotional and resonant experience. Students deserve nothing less than my best, and I try to give it. I cannot say the same for the examining process. Your students’ marks may be right, wrong or anywhere in between.
Unexpected exam hero No 1: former education secretary Michael Gove. He was unpopular, but he had some good ideas, one of which was to reduce the exam boards to one. A single board with consistent standards, fair rules and fair results. One exam envelope. And no more zombies. Full marks, I say.
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