Parents who don't like SATs should be able to do more than answer a survey 3

TaxPayers Alliance Better Government

Today the Telegraph reports that nine out of ten parents want to see the SATs system scrapped:

"More than 85 per cent said exams for 11-year-olds should be abolished, said the study. The majority want them to be replaced by a system of teacher assessment – when staff judge pupil performance by checking their work through the year. It will pile pressure on the Government to drop the controversial tests, which are taken by 600,000 pupils in England every year."

We need an education system where parents can do more than express their distaste for SATs in a national survey. If parents were given control of the education system, by allowing them to choose between different competing schools, then they could make sure SATs are scrapped by refusing to send their children to a school which ran the exams. They wouldn't be left waiting for the government to catch up.

TaxPayers Alliance

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http://benefitfraud.blogspot.com John Page

Wouldn’t parents then choose the schools which gave the softest teacher assessments of their children to help them get into the best secondary schools and streams?
What price then honesty in assessing?
Tim W

Though presumably, John, the secondary schools would know the differences as well as the parents, and would be able to select accordingly – in the same way as employers differentiate between graduates based on quality of university, for example.
http://benefitfraud.blogspot.com John Page

That’s a fair point, Tim. So’s mine, though. The local knowledge would take time to build up, and a desirable school with a wide catchment area would find it hard to calibrate the assessments from all the possible feeder schools.
Cue parental complaints, Susie got in from school X with worse assessment than my Jimmy from school Y etc.
Not obvious this could fly in the real world.