Measures for good measure

Durham University Professor Carol Fitz-Gibbon has been very critical of the Office of Standards in Education (OFSTED) which she feels is using inadequate evidence to make decisions about schools. She is supportive of the notion of value added to performance evidence because it gives the type of information schools need in order to develop their future plans. Fitz-Gibbon is very unhappy at the way OFSTED inspections are carried out and has set a group to monitor their performance. Some 17 researchers work with Fitz-Gibbon evaluating results and value added data from schools.