Dear Editor,
Now that the CSEC and CAPE results are out and the usual ranking of schools showing the pass rates of each, what I would ask of those who do this is that they tell us the weaknesses of the schools that have been ranked low and the relative strengths of those above them.
If the aim is to educate parents as to the relative quality of each school, then this needs to be done. We need to know if low pass rates are due, for example, to frequent absence by teachers or students, lack of proper planning by teachers, lack of sufficient knowledge base of the teachers, a failure to teach the subject conceptually, or poor relationships between administration and staff.
My own informal research, admittedly with a limited sample, suggests that there is a strong co-relation between PTA involvement and results. Assessment should always done so that those assessed can learn from it and improve.
The validity of the data used has never been in question, but how it has been used is another matter. But for researchers to have us draw conclusions about schools from that data is unreasonable. In fact, the only conclusion that can be drawn from the data is that students can go to all schools and achieve passes.
What we need to find out is what is it in the experience of students that enables them to perform at a satisfactory level, and what in the experience of other students in the same schools with the same teachers and the same facilities causes them to perform unsatisfactorily.
Too many parents put their children under pressure to attend name brand schools far from home and end up being consumed with efforts to find the subsistence necessary. What is worse is that they take the place of other students at those schools, who then have to travel the same distances to some other school which may even be in the neighbourhood from which the other student comes. They both end up spending hours on the road and in taxi stands, unsupervised.
If the outcomes are to improve, we must try to identify precisely where the main source of the problem lies. So please let us use the data we have intelligently.
R Howard Thompson
howardthompson507@yahoo.com
Let's use the research to help
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Now that the CSEC and CAPE results are out and the usual ranking of schools showing the pass rates of each, what I would ask of those who do this is that they tell us the weaknesses of the schools that have been ranked low and the relative strengths of those above them.
If the aim is to educate parents as to the relative quality of each school, then this needs to be done. We need to know if low pass rates are due, for example, to frequent absence by teachers or students, lack of proper planning by teachers, lack of sufficient knowledge base of the teachers, a failure to teach the subject conceptually, or poor relationships between administration and staff.
My own informal research, admittedly with a limited sample, suggests that there is a strong co-relation between PTA involvement and results. Assessment should always done so that those assessed can learn from it and improve.
The validity of the data used has never been in question, but how it has been used is another matter. But for researchers to have us draw conclusions about schools from that data is unreasonable. In fact, the only conclusion that can be drawn from the data is that students can go to all schools and achieve passes.
What we need to find out is what is it in the experience of students that enables them to perform at a satisfactory level, and what in the experience of other students in the same schools with the same teachers and the same facilities causes them to perform unsatisfactorily.
Too many parents put their children under pressure to attend name brand schools far from home and end up being consumed with efforts to find the subsistence necessary. What is worse is that they take the place of other students at those schools, who then have to travel the same distances to some other school which may even be in the neighbourhood from which the other student comes. They both end up spending hours on the road and in taxi stands, unsupervised.
If the outcomes are to improve, we must try to identify precisely where the main source of the problem lies. So please let us use the data we have intelligently.
R Howard Thompson
howardthompson507@yahoo.com
Let's use the research to help
-->