Education dumbing down (part xx)

I note that The Telegraph report that:

"Since 1996, 11 and 14-year old children, who narrowly fail Sats tests, have their papers automatically reviewed, a practice that has led to an estimated 300,000 pupils being upgraded.

The practice known as "borderlining" applies to pupils whose score is three marks or less below the passmark.

Those who scrape through their exams just above the passmark are not subjected to the same review. None of the pupils reassessed have been down-graded.

Ken Boston, the chief executive of the Government-sponsored Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, wrote to Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, saying that the system had "flaws".

Borderlining is to be removed this year, a move which is expected to see children's scores in English, maths and science fall by up to two percentage points.

Michael Gove, the Shadow Children's Secretary, said: "The credibility of the exam system has been put in danger by this whole process. The Government constantly talks up its own flawed method of measuring its performance but international league tables show that we are slipping behind in maths, English and science.

"Ministers cannot escape their responsibility for tests which parents and teachers say they can no longer trust.""

Of course the "powers that be" haver an explanation, and most convincing it is too:

"A spokesman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families said: "The decision to discontinue the process of checking test scripts that fall close to grade boundaries, known as borderlining, was made in 2005 following advice from the QCA to ministers.

"It is being implemented this year and markers and schools were told about new processes to improve marking quality. The decision was made public as part of normal DCSF and QCA business. QCA's job is to continually seek to improve its administration and monitoring of standards in national curriculum testing. This is a matter for them."

A QCA spokesman said: "The new measures this year will lead to more accurate marking.""

So the Labour government and their henchmen, not content with making the syllabus smaller and the exams easier, had to make the marking of exams easier as well. Their casual attitude to truth and reality sicken me.