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The Scotsman today allows Ruth to emerge from the shadows with an ill-informed anecdotal rant attacking the Curriculum for Excellence in Scottish Schools. It’s an almost entirely evidence-free critique other than a single reference to unreliable international comparisons:
‘Time to end the chaos in the classroom. And, no-one has the faintest idea whether the curriculum has actually boosted standards. All we do know, 13 years on, is that Scotland has slipped down the international Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s league table for attainment and that those nationwide Scottish surveys which the SNP has not yet abolished show a fall in literacy and numeracy standards among children in both primary and early secondary school. ‘
https://www.scotsman.com/news/opinion/ruth-davidson-time-to-end-the-chaos-in-the-classroom-1-4657381
The problem for Ruth is that international comparisons like those undertaken by OECD or PISA are utterly unreliable estimates and meaningless across different cultures. Indeed, some of the more successful systems, in terms of these measures, have been described as forms of child abuse. If interested, you’ll find a fuller explanation of this at:
Scotland’s school’s PISA results ‘lean’ toward nothing meaningful. Finland’s success is not real. South Korea and China’s educational programmes amount to child abuse
However, you can reasonably compare Scotland with quite similar educational systems in England, Wales or Northern Ireland. These comparisons become more useful if you can, unlike OECD or PISA, use large representative samples or, even better, complete national results. See this for England in January 2016:
‘Almost half of English Primary School students failing to make the grade, says report.’
The above Guardian headline in 2016, slightly exaggerated, was based on a study by the CentreForum think-tank and the Education Data Lab research body. On page five we see that only 58.5% hit the target set for reading, writing and mathematics. I wondered how it managed to be exactly the same percentage across all three subjects but that’s what it says. Here are the Scottish equivalent percentages reaching the targets:
Reading 72%
Writing 81%
Mathematics 68%
Now I know that we are not comparing exactly like-for-like here but the two educational systems’ key concepts and standards in core subjects are unlikely to differ much given the cultural similarities, extensive history of collaboration and research, over decades.
Why are the Scottish results better? I can’t say for certain of course because educational outcomes are affected by so many factors that it’s almost impossible to pin down the causes of any change. However, there is one factor which governments can control, which virtually every expert recognises is likely to play a large part and that is the pupil-teacher ratio. The more teachers you have per child the more attention each child should get and rather obviously the better they should do. A very large, in-depth English study in 2000-2003 (CSPAR) was reported in a UK government report and this concluded on p.55:
‘The CSPAR study found statistically significant gains for smaller classes for all ability groups in both literacy and mathematics.’
Here are the 2016 pupil-teacher ratios for the four UK areas:
- Wales: 18.6/1
- Northern Ireland: 17.6/1
- England: 17.4/1
- Scotland: 13.7/1
Again, I know these ratios are not evidence of actual class sizes (head teachers regularly adjust these to suit ongoing circumstances) but it’s reasonable to assume that Scottish schools will be using these additional staff members either to reduce typical class sizes directly or to increase team-teaching, flexibly, within classes, with the same effect of increasing attention-levels for each pupil.
Finally, real gaps in attainment within a country are, to me, far more significant than unreliable suggestions of gaps between countries. Evidence of progress in Scotland, in reducing these, can be found at:
SNP Government increases teacher numbers to create far superior pupil/teacher ratios and much smaller attainment gaps than in England
Sources:
http://centreforum.org/publications/education-in-england-annual-report-2016/
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/183364/DFE-RR169.pdf
England: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/533618/SFR21_2016_MainText.pdf
Wales: school.stats@wales.gsi.gov.uk or http://wales.gov.uk/statistics-and-research/schoolscensus/?skip=1&lang=en
Scotland: school.stats@scotland.gsi.gov.uk or http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/Statistics/Browse/SchoolEducation
Northern Ireland: statistics@deni.gov.uk or http://www.deni.gov.uk/index/facts-and-figuresnew/education-statistics.htm
Finally, in terms of overall satisfaction with the extent to which membership lived up to expectations, SNP members were much more likely to fully satisfied than all of the others. See:
Talking-up Scotland 