There's been a lot of talk in the last few weeks in edu circles about whether the trad education movement has failed, what it needs to do next, etc. This article is just the latest in a succession of examples that shows how us edu-trads have not been nearly as successful as we hoped in altering elite consensus on education. We have obviously seen with all the Labour party policies that we completely failed to convince Labour. But actually, it's not like we've really convinced the Conservatives either. This is Dan Hannan, major figure in Brexit, major figure in Conservative politics, presumably has some idea of who Michael Gove is - and here he is in the Telegraph confidently asserting that we no longer need to know things because we can look things up. (The ironies in this piece abound, by the way. He argues for lessons in spotting bad bogus arguments at the same time as building an article around the argument that memory doesn't matter any more. He argues that "identifying improbable claims" is a generic skill that can be taught in the abstract, at the same time as claiming that handwriting and geography are obsolete. He says that you can always just look up what you need, whilst signally failing to look up any of the evidence on the role of long-term memory...I could go on.) I wrote a few weeks ago that there was some evidence journalists at the Financial Times were waking up to all the evidence on cognitive science, its implications for schools, the international test evidence. But the elite understanding of this is a very thin layer, absolutely skin deep. The mass of second-hand dealers in ideas are still distilling their frenzy from Romantic pedagogy. Depressing. I honestly don't know what else we can do. We wrote the books. We had the debates. We built the schools. We aced the tests. And then it turned out nobody cared. Right now it is definitely a bleak time to be a trad. It feels like we are on Athelney Marshes, beset by vandals without and dissension within. BUT we have to keep the faith. Reality is an undefeated champion. Despair is a sin! What we do works! It may well be that for now, the New World with all its power & might etc., is going to have to step in to save our bacon for a bit. Maybe the momentum is shifting to @ehanford and Sold a Story, @rastokke and Chalk & Talk, @jettybe3 , etc. We have got to dig in. As Declan Rice said, it's not done!

I was on Today programme this morning discussing PISA with Anthony Seldon. You can listen here from 2hr 44m mark. bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0031j…

I am getting so fed up with this narrative. It is so desperate, so full of bad faith, and so easily disproved. Basically, knowledge-based curriculums have succeeded. They work. We have so much evidence that they work. But now you have lots of people saying "oh well maybe it's worked in a narrow sense, but it's caused all these other problems like mental health, youth unemployment, attendance problems". No. Scotland and Wales did opposite education reforms to England and have the same or worse problems with mental health, youth unemployment, attendance. substack.nomoremarking.com/p… substack.nomoremarking.com/p…

I've just heard my MP @helenhayes_ has spoken at an event in the House of Commons blaming England's attendance problems on its "narrow knowledge-based curriculum". If a knowledge-based curriculum causes attendance problems, how come Scotland & Wales have a worse attendance problem than England when they have a skills-based curriculum?

The PISA 2025 results are out today. Some quick insights. - The major story is very significant global decline. The last PISA study was in 2022, and saw big declines in reading and maths scores from 2018. Obviously the pandemic played a part. - But this 2025 round has seen further falls even from the 2022 lows! Things haven't gone back to normal post-pandemic - they've got worse. Every generation thinks the generation below is less smart - but this time they might be right!