Concerning the recently published applications to a school in Brighton, better coverage by others deduces fewer conclusions using a greater number of the facts available. Graeme Archer, however, has jumped straight to his preferred conclusions using almost none of the facts. He has decided that all of this proves what he knew all along, that teacher training is the cause of bad teachers. Fine. Had Archer presented, say, statistical evidence that an unacceptably high proportion of NQT teachers in 2012 were 'semi-literate' after their training, then he might have a point. He has done no such thing.
Had Archer presented evidence, say, that while training at some providers was excellent this year, it was below acceptable standards at others, then he might have a point. He has done no such thing.
Rather, he is giving us just one second hand, filtered anecdote for his evidence that PGCEs are 'producing' 'semi-literate' teachers. (I should say 'one-and-a-half', for Archer is careful to mention he has a teacher-friend - with a PhD - who also has concerns.) This is an extraordinary claim, which seems to confer upon PGCEs the power to undo literacy in adults, and which requires extraordinary evidence to prove. As a statistician, he would probably know that twelve job applications is no evidence at all.
We know little about these twelve 'semi-literate' teachers, who stand for an entire profession. We know nothing, for instance, of when the applicants trained. This is important, for if there is a spread of years in which the applicants qualified, which seems likely given that the advertised post was for deputy-head, then it hardly tells us anything about teacher training today. We do not know where the applicants trained, which is important because there have always been a variety of training models and providers, which cannot all be assessed in the same breath. Some of them might not have done a PGCE.
We learn from elsewhere that the applicants in question had poor A-Levels and poor degrees, which instantly dates their training to before Michael Gove's new statutory degree requirements (a 2:2 or better) and, by default, rules out the PGCE as the cause of their inadequacies. Without seeing the forms themselves, it is not possible for us to judge whether the problem be poor literacy or typographical errors, (some of the recited examples could easily be typos), which would prove not poor literacy but inattention and carelessness, a cause for concern indeed but not the subject of accusation. Most of the information which would make a sample of twelve even remotely informative about the broader profession is missing.
The final paragraph is so naff as to be comedy, and worth quoting:
Those 12 semi-literate state-school applicants … [sic] I wonder how many of them possessed a PGCE? All of them, I expect. All of them out there, somewhere, teaching children how to think.Like ghosts, or child-snatchers, or communists, lurking out there...somewhere...But a least he admits he does not know, he just 'expects' them all to 'possess a PGCE'. That's quite a glaring admission. If you're going to denounce the PGCE on a sample of twelve job applications, it pays to know if they did it or not.
Finally, and I speak as one who used to work in politics, and who owes no loyalty to Labour, it really isn't edifying to see the bashing of an entire profession serve as a proxy offensive on a political party. As a point of fact, Labour don't insist all teachers do the PGCE, they insist all teachers have QTS, which is not the same thing. While it is natural always to be vigilant about standards, and proper for a publicly-funded profession to be subject to political oversight and debate, we may still expect commentators to maintain standards of their own, including respect for evidence and a commitment to truth over ideology.
