7/20/2008 10:03:00 PM
TEST MARKING FIASCO 'WILL LEAD TO RECORD NUMBER OF APPEALS'
The Independent 19 July
The crisis over this year's national curriculum tests deepened yesterday with headteachers warning there would be record numbers of appeals over marking this year. Worries about the quality of marking of tests for pupils aged 11 and 14 threaten to cast a shadow over the results – which are due to be announced officially early next month.The crisis is leading to growing demands for the tests for 14-year-olds to be scrapped altogether because the system is under such a strain. Yesterday, when the first results of the 14-year-olds' tests were given to schools, it emerged that one in four papers still had to be marked.John Dunford, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders – which represents secondary school headteachers, said the number of appeals was "almost certain to rocket". He added: "The Government and Ofsted [the education standards watchdog] use the SATs [national curriculum test] results to make judgements about whether schools will fail their inspections and heads can lose their jobs as a result. The results need to be accurate and schools will be much angrier at lack of accuracy than delay."Mick Brookes, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said his office had been "inundated" by more than 100 emails from members who had not had their results or were worried about the quality of the marking.He has written to Christine Gilbert, chief schools inspector and chief executive of Ofsted, asking her to tell inspectors not to rely on this year's test results in reaching their judgements on schools. Latest complaints from schools include one from Richard Lane, a headteacher in Tamworth, Staffordshire, who said that markers had incorrectly totalled the marks on two maths papers. According to the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, the national curriculum watchdog, one in five primary schools is still missing results. Earlier in the week, Ken Boston, its chief executive, told MPs marking was "100 per cent complete in all subjects".
Independent
WATCHDOG WARNS 1M SATS RESULTS COULD BE SCRAPPED
The Guardian 19 July
The results of more than 1m Sats tests are today called into question by the head of the exams watchdog, who warns that if they are proved to be as inaccurate as reports suggest the government should move to annul them. Kathleen Tattersall, head of Ofqual, said it is monitoring the quality of papers marked in this year's disastrous round of national tests by the American company ETS. If they are found to be faulty or there is a significant rise in schools appealing over the results it would make a "judgment" and the education secretary, Ed Balls, would have to scrap the results. Further questions have emerged over the future of the national tests sat by 11- and 14-year-olds after two of the three major exam boards confirmed they had not bid for the five-year £165m contract to run the Sats because they did not believe there was a strong enough educational rationale for them. Last night, as most schools closed for the summer, more than 90% of pupils in primaries had their results along with pupils in all subjects in secondaries other than English, where 29% of marks are still not returned, raising new questions over the government's league tables. The first data is due to be published on August 5. Tattersall said: "If it transpires that both the anecdotal information and the appeals point to a real doubt about the quality ... then the responsible thing for Ofqual to do, because its core business is quality, is to look more closely at that."
Guardian
SCHOOL TESTING NOT SATISFACTORY
Leader; The Guardian 19 July
Education is at the heart of progressive government. There is a danger though in its very prominence, for the more important it is to the government, the more the government will want proof that its policies work. As a result, tests intended quite sensibly to measure progress have become a curse, a stress for the children that sit them, a much-hated constraint on the teachers that teach them and, when processed into league tables, a controversial way of informing parents about how good schools are. Now their administration has overwhelmed the company contracted to mark them. The fiasco offers a chance to find a better way of doing things. The lights have been flashing red over the American-owned firm ETS Europe for months now - long enough for the commissioning body, the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, to exercise "to the maximum" (as the chief executive told MPs earlier this week) its power to advise and warn in the run-up to the publication of the results. Ken Boston described such a hair-raising catalogue of administrative failings to MPs last Monday that any parent hearing it would fear for the future of a whelk stall in the company's hands. Yet despite the evident failure, it is reported to be too costly to rescind the contract, making a mockery of the idea of management accountability. Ed Balls, the secretary of state, has yet to explain why, or apologise.Devastating as children, parents and teachers will be finding the non-arrival of results for key stage 2 and 3 Sats, or (worse) the arrival of the wrong results, however, this is merely a sideshow in the larger argument against what the National Association of Head Teachers has called the "hopelessly cumbersome and monolithic" national testing regime. Like school heads, MPs on the cross-party schools committee are calling for a slimmed down, more focused system of national testing. They say it is not possible to test pupil attainment, teacher effectiveness and school accountability through one device. The key stage 3 test for 14-year olds has few supporters and could surely be replaced by in-school teacher assessment.
Guardian
DEADLINE FOR APPEALS OVER SATS RESULTS IS EXTENDED
The Times 19 July
The number of appeals over national curriculum test results for 11 and 14-year-old pupils is expected to soar this year, amid concerns that marking has been rushed to deal with a massive backlog of unmarked scripts. The National Assessment Agency has agreed to push back the deadline for appeals until September 10 – or ten days after the start of the autumn term – to deal with an avalanche of expected appeals. This will mean that final marks for many papers are unlikely to be delivered until well into the autumn term, causing difficulties for pupils who are trying to make decisions about which GCSEs to study in the next academic year. The latest marking figures show that more than a quarter of 14-year-old pupils will not get their Key Stage 3 results before the end of term. According to ETS, the private contractor at the centre of the marking debacle, 29 per cent of English results were still not ready for publication yesterday.
The Times
US EXAM FIRM TO GET THE SACK
Sunday Times 20 July
The American testing firm responsible for the exam marking fiasco is expected to lose its £156m contract, potentially landing the taxpayer with a multi-million-pound compensation bill. Lawyers for the government’s Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) are this weekend negotiating with ETS to ensure the firm’s deal ends, if possible by mutual consent, once the debacle has been resolved. Ed Balls, the schools secretary, is not intervening directly but sources say he is keen that the talks should extricate him from the embarrassment of having to compensate ETS for ending its five-year contract early. Such a deal could also mean that ETS escapes having to pay compensation for the delays in marking standard assessment tests (Sats), taken by 1.2m pupils aged 11 and 14.
Sun Times
FEARS OF NEW CRISIS AFTER EXAM FIASCO
The Observer 20 July
Angry teachers are fearful for next year's tests and call for compensation to be paid to schools Fallout from the school exams fiasco could plunge next year's tests into chaos, headteachers said yesterday, amid calls for schools to be financially compensated. As teachers prepared to sacrifice part of their summer holidays to sort out the mess, ETS, the American firm at the centre of the debacle, is said to have privately admitted full responsibility. Barry Sheerman MP, chairman of the Children, Schools and Families select committee, said compensation should help those worst hit by the crisis. 'It is obvious that things have gone pretty wrong, and someone should be paying compensation to someone for the mistakes that have been made,' he told The Observer. 'If anyone should get it, it should be the schools and the pupils who have had all the stress.' He also demanded that schools should not to be charged for any papers they send back to be re-marked, adding: 'I am fearful for next year unless people really get their act together.'
Observer
DELIVER US, MINISTER, FROM YOUR DREADFUL INCOMPETENCE
Minette Marrin Sunday Times 20 July
‘Delivering on” is one of the worst of the ugly new expressions of the new Labour era. However, as with most of Labour politicians’ promises, “delivering on” is something that they don’t actually do. It seems they can’t.This past week jaws everywhere must have been dropping at the school exams fiasco. Hundreds of thousands of children broke up for the summer holidays on Friday without knowing their Sats results – due on July 8 – because they aren’t ready. Some papers haven’t been marked, some haven’t even been collected and it now seems that many have been lost or wrongly graded by examiners of doubtful quality. All 1.2m papers may have to be remarked. Children, teachers and parents must be beside themselves with disappointment and anger.Sun Times
Lead Story | Curriculum / Quality Assurance
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