School league tables do not help

When I read the Helena Lachartre interview Bring in School League Tables (Connexion May 2008), as a former teacher, my heart sank.

Over thirty years ago there was a great deal of concern about English education and rightly so. But the short sighted response was to test anything that moved, and make education into a

competition.

As a result, schools began to “teach to the test” and league tables were introduced as a way of “encouraging schools to do better.”

League tables do not encourage anybody - they threaten and there is no hard evidence that any progress that has been made in the UK is due to league tables.

In the frantic pursuit of higher grade averages and better league table positions, British schools have persuaded students to take courses unsuitable to their talents and wishes, severely

delaying or arresting future success.

Some have also refused to accept their own students into their sixth form courses, because they only achieved a B+ instead of an A, wrecking self-confidence in many cases. League tables are

simplistic, imprecise, misleading and like smoking, can damage your health.

So Madame Lachartre should continue to promote league tables if she wants an education system that encourages schools to think more about the competition with each other and less about the

needs of the students in their care.

She should promote league tables if she wants an education that forces everybody through the same academic hoops, in spite of individual and community differences.