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Roger Warren Evans
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You are in the company
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item0020D 507, 508 11 November 2002Pupils
should ...but those assessments should play no part in determining a teacher's remuneration. I remain opposed to performance-related pay for teachers and lecturers, if purported to relate to "the classroom". There are many other ways in which teachers are to be motivated, and given the prospect of better rewards. I favour special-responsibility payments, out-of-school commitment payments and other ways of remunerating the above-average teacher. I also like the idea of developing a cadre of specialist examiners, those with the ability and temperament to assume such responsibilities. But not "super-teacher super-pay" systems. I remain unconvinced that there is any system of objective evaluation which could possibly command professional respect. All such systems reinforce the excessive autocratic authority of "the Head" in UK schools, and make "Headteacher's Pets" out of every member of staff. On the other hand, pupil/student assessments would enrich our educational system. Inspections would be better informed, school profiles and reputations enhanced, and new elements added to teaching careers. Ill-judged "performance pay" would impoverish it. What do you think? Drop me a line
11 November 2002
What Lula wants, Lula gets... The victory of the Left in Brazil's presidential elections has focused attention, quite dramatically, on the question of social justice. The two most powerful themes of global democratic politics are proving to be managerial effectiveness and social justice - and it looks as if South America may lead the way in strengthening perceptions of social justice.
Monbiot is right to highlight the cosy relations between modern democratic Governments and the international corporations - for the grim truth is that they both combine to meet the requirements of the consumer - electorate has conflated with consumerate - indeed, Governments have become the guarantors of last resort of the very goods and services which the corporations provide. That generates the new concentrations of power with which contemporary socialists have to contend.
What do you think? Drop me a line
11 November 2002 Keeping busy Writing in this week's newstatesman, John Gray explores the preoccupations of a bored, affluent society - read his article "Ulrika is a sign that we've got it all". His theme is closely related to my interests in Perpetual Innovation. Bored citizens in the affluent society, he argues, become obsessed with matters of celebrity, fame, public preeminence of all kinds. And the thesis is difficult to deny. I agree that the challenge to the world's leading affluent societies is to chart a way ahead for the human spirit. Materialist consumerism is certainly not enough. After affluence, what? And although technological innovation will remain important, its relative value will decline. My view is that we shall all put more and more of our time and energies into simply governing ourselves. Of the proper study of mankind is man, then the challenges of organising civic society will engage the talents and imagination of our most able people for generations to come. There is no lack of interest in the civic order. The problem is that the political cadres (and I include myself) have not yet found the right ways of engaging our fellow citizens in the most intriguing and difficult challenges of all, those of democratic governance.New worlds of personal interest will open up, in the governance of our own communities - their schools, their roads and pavements, their parks, their libraries, their cleanliness, their ecological richness, their overall amenity for work and residence.
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What L. Brazil's presidential elections has focused attention, quite dramatically, on the question of social justice. The two most powerful themes
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New
Lula
was also George Monbiot's inspiration