Managing people to do things and knowing that they have delivered 'satisfactorily' - a term to which we will return - and that you have obtained value for money is not as straightforward as some believe. It is easy to convince yourself that 'they', the often invisible 'others', are indolent, inadequate, unimaginative slackers who are not engaging brain, working too slowly or sub-optimally; or are showing signs of sloping off at every opportunity. The truth is rarely simple. Here are examples from education where Ministers struggle to extract 'value' from their vast expenditure.
'Teachers delivered a stinging attack on the new Chief Inspector of Schools ... accusing him of introducing a 'climate of fear'
in schools', said a headline. One of us is a teacher who has been through many Ofsteds, another has had the dubious privilege of reading a detailed Ofsted report and came out spluttering not only at the poor quality of the piece of work but at the appalling way in which it drew conclusions on the most circumstantial evidence or from single examples.
Education is not a happy industry at the moment - mind you, nor are health or care professionals, the police ... in fact all except city bankers and politicians I guess. However, some of the noises coming out of Ofsted turn the clock back to the early 80s when those invisible others were slackers, scabs and surrogate anarchists (analogous to vegetarians as the
Telegraph once remarked).
'Satisfactory' is no longer adequate and should be replaced in Ofsted reports with
'requires improvement'. Hang on; is this satisfactory derived from the word
satisfacere in Latin meaning
'meet the expectations, needs or desires'. Surely, if a school is satisfactory it therefore meets the needs of the test or inspection. Back to your Latin lessons Ofsted. Stop trying to re-write meanings in the English language. Perhaps a maths lesson on averages would be useful as a way of reminding you that we cannot all be above average. It is politically desirable to sound macho, thrusting and driving for improved performance but it does make you look awfully silly.
The process of Ofsted is so flawed. A short sharp inspection is to meant to stand in for a real assessment in the same way that exam results are somehow meant to smooth out assessment of genuine value-added, ignoring the obvious realities that children grow up in fits and spurts and that life throws problems at different times in different ways which disrupt the smooth path to nirvana imagined by policy makers.
In a letter to a newspaper, a primary school head teacher said '
I have been through four
Ofsted inspections in my time at various schools and now live in dread of the
unexpected car in the car park in the morning which might indicate that they
have arrived for a snap inspection'. It sounds like a dawn visit from the Stazi or KGB. She went on to describe the inspectors as failed
teachers, one too old and another who only had experience of teaching languages in
a secondary school. '
I am watching good people leave this profession because of the way we have been treated'. she concluded.
'What a contrast', said another letter, '
to the inspections we used to have from HMIs who took each teacher aside for a quiet and confidential chat about ways in which they might change their approach, or new strategies for teaching. Each conversation was facilitative and useful, not judgemental.'
Another suggestion was that any Ofsted Inspector judging a school as below par should have to spend the next six months in the school, helping to put things right. I am not sure I would like to be the head teacher of that school with a disgruntled inspector under my feet but I bet that inspector would have a different view of reality at the end of that time.
You meddle with education at your peril as many Ministers of Education would attest, only one of them having ever had a meaningful career after passing through that department. Michael Gove is discovering this the hard way.
'Head teachers vote to reject Gove's new test for primary school pupils', said a headline. A teachers' union spokesman said,
'They have created a new monster to replace SATs. The tests will cost millions to introduce which would be better spent on professional development of teachers in accurate and reliable assessment. The screening test is inferior to what schools do already but if it is to happen it should be used as a diagnostic test and not a stick with which to beat schools'.
To this a DES spokeswoman replied that
'too little attention has been paid to spelling and handwriting over the past decade'. And what was her evidence? I bet it is was something a minister heard at a cocktail party: something which reinforced the view that those invisible others never do what you want them to in the way that you want them to.
