Scrutable

plodder wrote: Mon Dec 23, 2019 4:52 pm Also I posted a link that mentioned how some English schools have reducing teaching hours to a half day on Friday due to funding shortages, mainly because of the significant increase in pastoral care costs they have to bear. That never used to be a thing. Can someone who thinks these schools are wealthier please respond to this please?

They are wealthier per pupil than when we were at school, that's just an objective fact. It could be that the money is being wasted on foolish ideas the teachers and former teachers in the educational bureaucracy came up with, however. That wouldn't be a surprise, would it?

Not sure it's an objective fact because I'm not sure you've shared where your numbers come from.

Silly additional spending like additional pastoral care (that presumably is due in part to cuts elsewhere)?

plodder wrote: Mon Dec 23, 2019 5:01 pm Not sure it's an objective fact because I'm not sure you've shared where your numbers come from.

The numbers are in the report everybody else in the thread is referencing. Real-terms per-pupil educational funding has massively increased since 1980.

Silly additional spending like additional pastoral care (that presumably is due in part to cuts elsewhere)?

You've made quite an assumptive leap there.

plodder wrote: Mon Dec 23, 2019 5:01 pm Not sure it's an objective fact because I'm not sure you've shared where your numbers come from.

Silly additional spending like additional pastoral care (that presumably is due in part to cuts elsewhere)?

There's also all sorts of other scope for increasing costs to schools while also increasing the headline funding to schools - moving capital expenditure from LEA budgets to individual school budgets, moving LEA shared resources to individual school resources, increased maintenance costs as buildings age, increased requirements on schools to teach expensive subjects (e.g. more computer lesson costs, higher costs for science lessons as equipment requirements are changed), things like selling off school playing fields that means higher costs in paying for access to PE facilities. Things like making schools into academies incur significant NRE that may take several years to amortize.

Which of these are active in any particular place, I don't know.

One particular one that my brother has to deal with as the cover supervisor/HLTA in an academy school is that the school's budget for staff has been cut by senior management, so that they have fewer cover teachers on hand. This means they have to buy in several agency staff at 2-3 times the price, practically every day of the school year. But it comes from a different line in the accounts.

All of these things are accounted for in overall education spending, which does show a small real-terms per pupil decrease from 2010-2018, but which has overall massively increased since the 1980s.

sheldrake wrote: Mon Dec 23, 2019 5:14 pm All of these things are accounted for in overall education spending, which does show a small real-terms per pupil decrease from 2010-2018, but which has overall massively increased since the 1980s.

No, they aren't all accounted for by looking at overall education spending. Several of them involve higher costs to provide the same services to pupils, such that a real increase in expenditure per pupil is required to keep the service at the same level. You can't measure efficiency of expenditure by looking at the total expenditure alone.

dyqik wrote: Mon Dec 23, 2019 5:20 pm

sheldrake wrote: Mon Dec 23, 2019 5:14 pm All of these things are accounted for in overall education spending, which does show a small real-terms per pupil decrease from 2010-2018, but which has overall massively increased since the 1980s.

No, they aren't all accounted for by looking at overall education spending. Several of them involve higher costs to provide the same services to pupils, such that a real increase in expenditure per pupil is required to keep the service at the same level. You can't measure efficiency of expenditure by looking at the total expenditure alone.

I'm not measuring efficiency of expenditure. I'm measuring inflation adjusted expenditure per pupil. One of the points I've made is that it's quite likely the additional funding isn't being used efficiently.

sheldrake wrote: Mon Dec 23, 2019 5:23 pm

dyqik wrote: Mon Dec 23, 2019 5:20 pm

sheldrake wrote: Mon Dec 23, 2019 5:14 pm All of these things are accounted for in overall education spending, which does show a small real-terms per pupil decrease from 2010-2018, but which has overall massively increased since the 1980s.

No, they aren't all accounted for by looking at overall education spending. Several of them involve higher costs to provide the same services to pupils, such that a real increase in expenditure per pupil is required to keep the service at the same level. You can't measure efficiency of expenditure by looking at the total expenditure alone.

I'm not measuring efficiency of expenditure. I'm measuring inflation adjusted expenditure per pupil. One of the points I've made is that it's quite likely the additional funding isn't being used efficiently.

And I'm explaining why expenditure per pupil is not a useful measure of the resources available to teachers.

sheldrake wrote: Mon Dec 23, 2019 5:09 pm

plodder wrote: Mon Dec 23, 2019 5:01 pm
Silly additional spending like additional pastoral care (that presumably is due in part to cuts elsewhere)?

You've made quite an assumptive leap there.

I'm just repeating what the headteacher in question was saying. He quoted numbers and all sorts.

sheldrake wrote: Mon Dec 23, 2019 4:57 pm It could be that the money is being wasted on foolish ideas

It could be, or it could not be. In the United States, a significant factor in the rising cost of public schools is the provision of better services for children with special needs. Is that foolish and wasteful?

bolo wrote: Mon Dec 23, 2019 5:27 pm

sheldrake wrote: Mon Dec 23, 2019 4:57 pm It could be that the money is being wasted on foolish ideas

It could be, or it could not be. In the United States, a significant factor in the rising cost of public schools is the provision of better services for children with special needs. Is that foolish and wasteful?

No, but we would expect 'better' to be objectively measurable in some way, wouldn't we ?

dyqik wrote: Mon Dec 23, 2019 5:24 pm And I'm explaining why expenditure per pupil is not a useful measure of the resources available to teachers.

Then what would you accept as a useful measure ?

A local set of parents applied for and were given funding for a Free School, which absorbed £12 Million of central government education funding.
There's no particular shortage of school places in our area, and the local Comprehensive School had recently been transferred to an Academy chain, and had been transformed in terms of its aspirations and outcomes for local pupils.

The Free School struggled to attract pupils - not least because many of its first couple of years of intake was of children who had struggled in primary schools and whose parents had been persuaded that there would be extra resources to support them. That meant that in later years, other schools in the area had a more stable mix of pupils, and were more attractive to parents looking for places post primary school.

Within about 5 years the Free School was put into special measures and was only allowed to continue on condition that it was taken over by a competent academy chain.

That sounds very much like £12 million that was largely wasted on a foolish idea

sheldrake wrote: Mon Dec 23, 2019 5:30 pm

dyqik wrote: Mon Dec 23, 2019 5:24 pm And I'm explaining why expenditure per pupil is not a useful measure of the resources available to teachers.

Then what would you accept as a useful measure ?

I don't believe there is a single number you can apply universally.

Similarly, I don't believe there is a single objective measure of performance. If you try to find one, it will be gamed.

sheldrake wrote: Mon Dec 23, 2019 5:29 pm

bolo wrote: Mon Dec 23, 2019 5:27 pm

sheldrake wrote: Mon Dec 23, 2019 4:57 pm It could be that the money is being wasted on foolish ideas

It could be, or it could not be. In the United States, a significant factor in the rising cost of public schools is the provision of better services for children with special needs. Is that foolish and wasteful?

No, but we would expect 'better' to be objectively measurable in some way, wouldn't we ?

That would be interesting - what objective measures of improved outcomes do you propose?

sheldrake wrote: Mon Dec 23, 2019 5:29 pm No, but we would expect 'better' to be objectively measurable in some way, wouldn't we ?

It would be nice, but I wouldn't necessarily expect it or require it. For some purposes, subjective measures are perfectly adequate.

For example: "exists and is generally ok at most schools" is clearly better than "barely exists at all at many schools".

Imposing artificial metrics on things that aren't easily measurable can be quite counterproductive.

sheldrake wrote: Mon Dec 23, 2019 4:35 pm

individualmember wrote: Mon Dec 23, 2019 9:26 am

sheldrake wrote: Mon Dec 23, 2019 8:40 am Yes. How do you think teachers could improve their productivity ?

This is an interesting question. How do you measure productivity in teachers? Going by my mother’s experience (a teacher, now retired) and my wife’s experience (school admin), the very best teachers are invariably the ones dealing with special needs. I’ve had a lifetime of anecdotes about the extraordinary achievements of some of those. And they are the ones who don’t get academic qualifications from their pupils. So exam results are obviously a terrible way of trying to assess productivity.

My father was a teacher. I have a son with special needs. I am not being cold when I say this; but the scientific part of you must see these are anecdotes from people who have developed emotional bonds with one another, rather than validations of the effectiveness of the techniques and opinions of present day teachers.

What’s wrong with emotional bonds? A recent anecdote from my wife is how one SEN child wasn’t responding to teacher A and was moved to teacher B and within a couple of months was making much more progress. No one knows why, there’s no particular change in methods so they’re assuming some kind of emotional connection between child and teacher. In real life no one knows what methods work with what pupils, there’s a lot of suck it and see. Theorising from outside has very limited value.

^ two additions to that have come to mind.

Are you assuming that teachers and school administrators have emotional bonds between them? That would be a difficult claim to substantiate, cliques who hate the members of other cliques is more normal from everything I’ve heard.

The other point is that the attitudes of parents are immensely important to the outcomes. Everything is rooted in the home. It may be as hard for you to fathom as it is for me but there are actually parents who regard the education of their children as the schools business and make no effort themselves.

dyqik wrote: Mon Dec 23, 2019 5:33 pm

sheldrake wrote: Mon Dec 23, 2019 5:30 pm

dyqik wrote: Mon Dec 23, 2019 5:24 pm And I'm explaining why expenditure per pupil is not a useful measure of the resources available to teachers.

Then what would you accept as a useful measure ?

I don't believe there is a single number you can apply universally.

Similarly, I don't believe there is a single objective measure of performance. If you try to find one, it will be gamed.

Then by that token, you've got no objective way of telling whether something is underfunded or already funded well enough.

The trick is to accept the gaming and design the game so that people have to do something useful to win.

individualmember wrote: Mon Dec 23, 2019 7:59 pm What’s wrong with emotional bonds? A recent anecdote from my wife is how one SEN child wasn’t responding to teacher A and was moved to teacher B and within a couple of months was making much more progress. No one knows why, there’s no particular change in methods so they’re assuming some kind of emotional connection between child and teacher. In real life no one knows what methods work with what pupils, there’s a lot of suck it and see. Theorising from outside has very limited value.

To be clear, I'm talking about the friendships between the staff, not the bonds with the children here.
Emotional bonds aren't wrong at all, but they make it less likely that you'll be getting an objective, scientific observation.

sheldrake wrote: Mon Dec 23, 2019 9:11 pm

individualmember wrote: Mon Dec 23, 2019 7:59 pm What’s wrong with emotional bonds? A recent anecdote from my wife is how one SEN child wasn’t responding to teacher A and was moved to teacher B and within a couple of months was making much more progress. No one knows why, there’s no particular change in methods so they’re assuming some kind of emotional connection between child and teacher. In real life no one knows what methods work with what pupils, there’s a lot of suck it and see. Theorising from outside has very limited value.

To be clear, I'm talking about the friendships between the staff, not the bonds with the children here.
Emotional bonds aren't wrong at all, but they make it less likely that you'll be getting an objective, scientific observation.

I don’t get objective scientific observation anyway. Friendships between staff are, as far as I can tell, just like friendships between people in any workspace. They mostly don’t extend outside the workplace. My mother’s friends mostly weren’t her teacher colleagues, just as mine mostly aren’t with people I work with. Too much baggage I think, all those rivalries and tensions based upon people’s positions in hierarchy.


ETA, the closest I’ve ever come to working in the public sector is the BBC. TBH that was no more conducive to forming cozy friendships than any other public sector job.

sheldrake wrote: Mon Dec 23, 2019 8:51 pm

dyqik wrote: Mon Dec 23, 2019 5:33 pm

sheldrake wrote: Mon Dec 23, 2019 5:30 pm

Then what would you accept as a useful measure ?

I don't believe there is a single number you can apply universally.

Similarly, I don't believe there is a single objective measure of performance. If you try to find one, it will be gamed.

Then by that token, you've got no objective way of telling whether something is underfunded or already funded well enough.

The trick is to accept the gaming and design the game so that people have to do something useful to win.

Nope. The trick is to not demand objectivity from things that aren't objective.

After all, you probably don't agree with most taxpayers and politicians on what school is for, let alone how to measure that.

dyqik wrote: Mon Dec 23, 2019 9:36 pm Nope. The trick is to not demand objectivity from things that aren't objective.

Would you abandon university examinations?

dyqik wrote: Mon Dec 23, 2019 9:36 pm After all, you probably don't agree with most taxpayers and politicians on what school is for, let alone how to measure that.

Is there anything else that school is for other than to turn potential monsters* into functioning adults who will be able to contribute to society?**


* yup, I’m the father of two.
** and one who left school at age 18 broken, entirely unable to communicate with other human beings, let alone function adequately in society.


ETA I think there’s a lot to be said for becoming an autodidact in ones 20s, but I wouldn’t recommend it as a plan if there is another alternative, there are too many interesting fields of interest which you can’t really learn on your own.

individualmember wrote: Mon Dec 23, 2019 9:52 pm

dyqik wrote: Mon Dec 23, 2019 9:36 pm After all, you probably don't agree with most taxpayers and politicians on what school is for, let alone how to measure that.

Is there anything else that school is for other than to turn potential monsters* into functioning adults who will be able to contribute to society?**


* yup, I’m the father of two.
** and one who left school at age 18 broken, entirely unable to communicate with other human beings, let alone function adequately in society.


ETA I think there’s a lot to be said for becoming an autodidact in ones 20s, but I wouldn’t recommend it as a plan if there is another alternative, there are too many interesting fields of interest which you can’t really learn on your own.

Now, define "contribute to society".

Also, you've left out the feelings, aims and goals of the person being educated.