The beeb is carrying a story on the head of Ucas declaring schools should be measured by pupil destinations. There is so much that troubles me in this it's hard to know where to start...
First up is the continuing obsession with Oxbridge. An alien landing tomorrow could be forgiven for thinking that there are only two universities in the UK. Maybe I'm biased because I only got to go to a run-down, second rate Russell group uni, but Oxbridge are elite universities and the clue is in the label. They have limited places and I don't think a child's life chances are totally ruined if they go to uni outside of the top two.
Next up is the practicalities of judging schools based on what their pupils go on to do later with their lives. On the one hand I think this is a great idea, but on the other I can't see how it can work. Many schools send their kids on to sixth form colleges where sometimes things improve for the child and sometimes it gets worse. Whilst GCSE performance is obviously essential for getting into sixth form and is also factored in by university admissions tutors, A-level performance is largely out of schools' hands so is it right to be measuring schools on this?
Finally the DfE spokesman claiming that the key to parental choice is giving as much data about schools as "every area of their lives" is the really scary bit.
For a start there is already tons of data published about schools, plenty more than any other area of life I can think of just now. Then to think that throwing yet more statistics at parents means they will reach the promised land of "choice" is nonsense.
Education professionals don't agree on much, but most will tell you that school and pupil data only poses questions. It does not give answers. Data which shows that a certain group of pupils is struggling means we ask "why? Who are these kids? What can we do to address this?".
Throwing yet more numbers at parents will not enable choice. At best it will just confuse people even more, at worst it will lead to completely unfair judgements being made of pupils, their teachers and their schools.
