Bare Necessities: Measurement

Remaining within the obvious, this post is concerned with measuring the state of the whole system of education against its goals. I will leave the issue of measuring the progress of individuals to a later stage, when I am happier tackling disputable issues.

"You Can't Manage What You Don't Measure" - a quote attributed to Peter Drucker, who had a wonderful ability to present ideas of great importance and show how obviously true they are.

Another statement that should be evident is that if you want to move from here to there, you need to steer yourself from here to there. This is simple enough when "here" is the living room and "there" is the kitchen; but when "here" is the state of the education system in your country, and "there" is your inevitably complex goals, then the "steering" becomes a full blown case of Management. With education, we need to manage our progress in relation to our lofty goals, to how we expect future society to look like, to what society sees as valuable, to what the teachers want, to what the students want, to what technology enables, economy, geography, health... and this is a very partial list which doesn't even take into account that many of these are moving targets: Our goals can - and must - change as society changes. Our future expectations and present preoccupations change. We need to account for politics and fashion, and we need to mitigate their erratic impact. So, quite a few balls to keep our eyes on - not a trivial management challenge. Does anybody think it can be done without keeping track, I.e., Measurement?

So, we need to measure the education system's state order to improve it - whatever the direction of improvement we seek. We also need to measure relevant aspects of the environment in which the education system is functioning - society at large. How do we measure complex internal and external states? How do we quantify that which is most quantification-resistant, that is - human? How do we reach agreement about which methods of measurement are reliable or even relevant? I will think about it another time.