As Bridget Phillipson seeks to increase testing in schools (again) with a new reading test for 13 year olds, as a way of combatting the problems in literacy among school children, which is clearly a serious issue, I'm reminded of the phrase:
'You don't fatten a pig by weighing it'
What is needed is more investment in schools & staff to enhance the environment in which children learn & to help them discover the joy of learning... more testing just sucks the joy out or education!
“When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meager and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarely, in your thoughts advanced to the stage of science.”
-- Lord Kelvin
""What you measure improves."
-- Peter Drucker
@Stinson_108
Careful not to fetishise measurement, especially in social contexts.
See also Goodhart's law: "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodhart's_law
If we could only sit down over a beer, not 280 characters.
I believe the *measurement* is important.
When you add a target, that's when the gaming begins.
Switch contexts. We absolutley need to measure inflation. When the fed sets a 2.0% target, that's when people start redefining the measure.
@Stinson_108
Indeed, we probably agree!
Measurement **is** important but comes with caveats that are often ignored, as they are easily taken for a neutral and objective property of the natural world, when in fact every measure carries with it a specific, subjective model of reality, and can also be influenced (and manipulated) by us in return.
So, yes to measurement but let's keep mindful of its origin and limits.
@ChrisMayLA6
Emeritus Prof Christopher May
Robert H
Koantig