brown doesn't listen. He's notorious for being a stolid arrogant pussbag.

keep to the Fen Causeway

Both Mick Brookes, general secretary of the NAHT, and Christine Blower, the NUT leader, have declared that "the end is nigh" for SATs tests in the wake of their conference votes in favour of a boycott ballot. They argue a boycott will free teachers from having to "teach to the test" to ensure a good showing in exam league tables - and therefore provide pupils with a broader and more balanced curriculum.

I'm not so plugged into the Brit scene but this sounds an awful lot like the criticisms of Bush's "No Child Left Behind" program, i.e. that it promotes teaching children to perform well on standardized tests, rather than facilitating learning of creative or critical thinking (I have read that in some US school districts, they even cut out physical education and recess and physical education to allow more time for programming the poor kids to take the standardized tests).

In the US at least (and the article seems to imply that it is the case in the UK as well), a general poor performance level of a school's pupils tends to be interpreted solely as a failure of the school, and not as an indication of social deficits.

The fact is that what we're experiencing right now is a top-down disaster. -Paul Krugman