Good news! Michael Gove has today challenged teachers about the under-marking of Black and other minority ethnic pupils in exams. This debate about low teacher expectations of BAME kids has been around for decades but at least the education secretary highlighted the problem. He now has to deliver it.
Low teacher expectations, particularly towards boys of African and Caribbean heritage, is a very real one, so taking the job of exam marking – or ‘controlled assessments’ to give it the proper jargon - provides a concrete solution to the problem, especially if the exam markers cannot see the name of the pupil. In fact studies show that when the pupil’s identity is removed from papers Black and Asian children do 12 percent better in their results. Clear proof that discrimination is endemic in the school system.
The idea of name-blind marking actually came from the Liberal Democrats! This Observer article (29 July) notes:
It is understood that the Liberal Democrat communities minister, Andrew Stunell, with support from Clegg, wants to introduce a series of radical policies in the coming months, despite the opposition of some of their government partners.
Stunell is set to endorse proposals in a report to be published soon by Liberal Democrat peer Baroness Meral Hussein-Ece on race, including the introduction of anonymous marking across all student assessments.
A study by Ofsted in 1999 showed that students with a typically African or Asian-sounding name were likely to be given up to 12% lower marks in institutions where anonymous marking was not in place. However, Leeds University found that after changing its system to introduce anonymous marking, the scores of black minority ethnic students and women rose by up to 12%.
A source said the Lib Dems believed that similar changes to other assessment procedures would ensure that everyone was marked fairly. A spokesperson added: “Some, including [education secretary] Michael Gove, believe policy should be colour-blind. But that is not the reality of what is happening in schools.”
So while Gove scores top marks for adopting the idea I’m afraid he might get marked down slightly for not referencing his sources!
The report mentioned in the Observer piece is being written by the Liberal Democrat Race Equality Taskforce, which was set up by Clegg and of which I am a member. The taskforce is also set to call for name-blind job applications to be extended beyond Whitehall departments to cover every employer with more than 100 staff when the report is published in the very near future.
A BBC London News today shows the kind of denial that afflicts some in the teaching profession when it comes to deal with racial biases within schools. Sarah Harris’s report featured Kenny Frederick, headteacher of the multicultural George Green’s school in Tower Hamlets, as saying:
“I think bringing race into this discussion is nonsense. This is absolutely nothing to do with racism and to suggest that teachers in this country are racist is absolute rubbish.”
Unfortunately for Frederick there is a wealth of research to suggest that race and teacher expectations of Black and Asian pupils is a major factor when it comes to exam success, not least when teachers rely on value judgements to decide which ‘set’ or ‘stream’ to place a particular child into.
In September I wrote a blog piece highlighting the achievement gap in good GCSE results between African and Caribbean pupils and the white average, and streaming or banding is a significant part of the problem. To quote myself (!), I wrote:
The 28-point gap between African-Caribbean pupils and the White average should be a badge of shame for the education system. It should be one of the subjects that dominates education debates. There is nothing inevitable about that gap. It can be explained, and with political will it can be tackled.
The issue of streaming needs to be dealt with simultaneously along with promoting name-blind marking, a point that was missing from Gove’s speech but one that needs to be recognised.
Tackling this issue will require the teaching profession, and heads like Frederick, take their heads out of the sand when it comes to unequal outcomes for BAME pupils. And it also requires a degree of political consensus about the need to take action.
Regarding consensus, I was a bit disappointing to see the Guardian ignore the story about Gove’s speech and instead run a story about how cuts in his own department are disproportionately hitting BAME, disabled and older staff.
An important story on any other day of the week, but today it has the air of a spoiler. A sense that the business of partisan politics has trumped a recognition of the value of dealing with teacher expectations of Black kids, and that one ‘race issue’ is being pitted against Gove to counteract his efforts to deal with another.
That disappointment aside, it was pleasing to see Gove grasp an issue that has been ignored by successive governments. If only he could have credited the Lib Dems with the idea!
By Lester Holloway @brolezholloway
