When you start measuring things in education, what you get collapses onto what you are measuring, like a wave function collapsing in quantum mechanics. Everythi

When you start measuring things in education, what you get collapses onto what you are measuring, like a wave function collapsing in quantum mechanics. Everything else goes out the window. In the UK, we have a Parliamentary Committee for Education, the leader of which is Graham Stuart, a Conservative MP who has shown on a number of occasions that he is prepared to challenge the education minister, Michael Gove, when the committee sees an issue developing. One morning on the radio he said something like 'if you set targets for schools, don't be surprised if schools do what they have to do to achieve the targets'. I didn't have time to get the quote down verbatim. In the UK context this particular incident would be impossible for a variety of reasons, but we do see very heavy resources being concentrated on students expected to get a C (pass) on GCSE exams to the detriment (arguably) of weaker students and students at the top of the ability range. Triage may help manage casualties on a battle field but it is not so good for school children. Most schools call the students they focus on 'DtoC' students. Gove is trying to hack the measurement system to remove the incentives for schools doing this. Same as OA, it might be better to have a system where percentage pass scores are not mechanistically used in this way. I don't know what the answer is!