Britain's education policy determined by UKTV Gold, London Mums, Premier Inn surveys

scorza

scorza

scorza

Caporegime
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/may/13/michael-goves-claim-teenagers-ignorance

Old Gove was a bit full of himself last week when he claimed that children think Adolf Hitler is one of the Mr Men, but it looks like he might actually be Mr Sloppy when it comes to doing his own homework.

Gove said in a Mail on Sunday article in March: "Survey after survey has revealed disturbing historical ignorance, with one teenager in five believing Winston Churchill was a fictional character while 58% think Sherlock Holmes was real."

The comments prompted Janet Downs, who describes herself as a grandparent and retired teacher, to send a Freedom of Information (FOI) request to the Department for Education asking for the evidence to support Gove's claim.

Three weeks later, the department wrote back to say "unfortunately, I am not able to provide you with the details of the survey as it was commissioned and conducted by UKTV Gold".
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Nothing like evidence based politics is there?
 
I see that hulme was released today after serving 8 weeks of an 8 month sentence. They say a week is a long time in politics, looks like its a month for the rest of us.
 
Mr Jack said:
We must do something. This is something. We must do this.
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as opposed to a perfect solution fallacy?

The real problem is that the evidentially correct solution, academic selection, is not politically popular.

mind you, the whole treatment of this issue smacks of an ad hominem fallacy in that the company that commissioned the survey is not a reason to disregard the results...
 
Dolph said:
... in that the company that commissioned the survey is not a reason to disregard the results...
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The company that commissioned the survey implies a degree of selection bias. As the selection bias is strongly in favour of people watching daytime TV, it seems reasonable to believe that the results will not be representative of the UK population. Or at least, reasonable to hope.
 
scorza said:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/may/13/michael-goves-claim-teenagers-ignorance

Old Gove was a bit full of himself last week when he claimed that children think Adolf Hitler is one of the Mr Men, but it looks like he might actually be Mr Sloppy when it comes to doing his own homework.



Nothing like evidence based politics is there?
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Just look at Twitter feeds from teenagers to see that this is more then true, they didn't even ****ing know who Anne Frank was :rolleyes:
 
Dolph said:
The real problem is that the evidentially correct solution, academic selection, is not politically popular.
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Go on, then, what's the evidentially correct solution?

Dolph said:
mind you, the whole treatment of this issue smacks of an ad hominem fallacy in that the company that commissioned the survey is not a reason to disregard the results...
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Commissioned and conducted. Do you think UKTV Gold or Premier Inn are credible polling bodies likely to conduct unbiased polls? Besides as the article itself points out there is no evidence these polls meet the standards set out by the British Polling Council.
 
JonJ678 said:
The company that commissioned the survey implies a degree of selection bias. As the selection bias is strongly in favour of people watching daytime TV, it seems reasonable to believe that the results will not be representative of the UK population. Or at least, reasonable to hope.
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given that selection, systemic and interperative bias can be identified from the sample method, polling questions and analysis respectively, we dont need to show our own biases by implying anything.
 
RDM said:
Well my reading comprehension would suggest Dolph was alluding to academic selection being the solution, that being in the very sentence you quoted! :D:D:D
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I really worry about reading comprehension by members of this site given how many times I end up repeating myself.
 
Mr. Gove is extraordinarily arrogant.

*edit* What makes me laugh is the whole 'using Mr. Men to teach GCSE students about the rise of Hitler' has been taken completely out of context.

The teacher wasn't presenting the information to his students in the form of a Mr. Men book, he was asking them to write their own Mr. Men book to teach younger students about the rise of Hitler and to reinforce their own knowledge.

As scorza says, don't let evidence get in the way of a good teacher bashing. :rolleyes:
 
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RDM said:
Well my reading comprehension would suggest Dolph was alluding to academic selection being the solution, that being in the very sentence you quoted! :D:D:D
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...and yet the best school systems, like Finland, do not have academic selection. Kent, which does have academic selection performs poorly compared to the rest of the country in some KPIs. The actual evidence is the direct opposite of what Dolph said.
 
or is it more of a case that peopel when asked stupid question in hte street on online are likely to (on purpose) give stupid answers?
 
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