Blog 9: UK Education Standards Office Threatens Top Schools’ Status

This article addresses the social problem in education of should the better schools assist the failing schools. In the United Kingdom, the new head of Ofsted, Sir Michael Wilshaw, is considering forcing the schools with the best performance rate to be socially responsible and help out the nearby lower performing schools. A brief description of Ofsted follows: “Our specialist inspectors are experts in the type of service they inspect. When they carry out an inspection, be it of a children’s home, a nursery, a school, a college, or a local authority, they focus on the quality of the service for individual children, young people or older learners. During an inspection, inspectors collect first-hand evidence based on the practice they observe and what they learn from the people using the service. They use this evidence and other information available to make their professional judgements which we publish in inspection reports.” Sir Michael is threatening sanctions on the top rated schools if they do not comply with the new requirements. If a school with outstanding performance ratings does not give aid in the form of sharing resources and consulting, then that school will have its rating taken away. This concern arose from the poor testing results from over 2,000 schools in the U.K. Sir Michael is trying to appeal to the better schools’ sense of morality to encourage them to help others in need. One of the problems with this is that he is expecting teachers of these better schools to help without any compensation.

Once again, the responsibility for fixing problems in the education system falls to the underpaid, overworked teachers. It is certainly true that this is part of their job, but if an administration does not advocate for their teachers, then the teachers can only do so much. Maybe an answer is to do away with paying the high salaries of these administrative finger-pointers, and actually give more power and salaries for the ones that do: the teachers themselves. The teachers are there in the trenches and know exactly what the problems are and probably have a good idea about how to solve them. I disagree with paying someone to sit in his tower and pass down judgments based on testing scores. But that seems to be the way it is and it doesn’t appear that we will see a change in the right direction. The best teachers have a strong sense of morality already, so for Sir Michael to force them to do what he feels is best is an affront. Where is the encouragement and the support for the teachers of this world? I, for one, am in their corner.