"We are fixing the problem with a more rigorous curriculum, better teaching, higher standards and tougher discipline".
His famous 1976 Ruskin College speech, launching the 'great debate' on education and outlining plans for a national curriculum and more rigorous inspection of teaching standards was the first stirrings of what was to become mainstream thinking about educational policy: as Blair said last night, it 'still bears reading today'.
That effort dates to 2005, when 13 states agreed to work together to develop better definitions of what students need to know to be ready for college, more rigorous courses to teach those standards and tougher examinations to test them, said Michael Cohen, president of Achieve, a Washington-based organization that is coordinating the effort.
The PAR approach is a win-win: while addressing concerns about the quality of teaching through more rigorous evaluations, the counseling by experienced teachers helps ensure that all educators, as a matter of course, learn how to deepen learning and help children meet high standards -- which is exactly what the end goal of any evaluation system for teachers should be.
The Department for Education said Mr Gove was determined to make English teaching at primary schools "more rigorous" and was publishing the draft programme of study now for informal consultation.
We want to empower heads with more powers to enforce discipline, enhance teachers' security with anonymity when facing malicious allegations, liberate all teaching staff with a less prescriptive curriculum and reduce teaching to the test with fewer, more rigorous, exams.
Working with Harold taught me to be more rigorous in terms of one object's relationship to another".
No 10 said tests in primary schools were "not a new concept", and the government had made them more rigorous to reflect the higher standards being taught.
The poll is part of a project to help schools teach the faith in a more rigorous way.
While many were opening their minds to a new way of teaching and dealing with their students, others were comfortably set in a more rigorous approach, trying to "fix" wrongs rather than -- as VanBergeijk words it -- "teaching to the strengths" of the child.
