Video: Ed Balls ‘dumbs down’ Tory opposite number

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Video: Ed Balls ‘dumbs down’ Tory opposite number

By Labour Matters ⋅ November 19, 2009 ⋅ Post a comment
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Conservative education spokesperson Michael Gove, who repeatedly claimed the reason GCSE exam results have consistently improved with Labour was because GCSE exam questions were getting easier, was left dumbstruck after Ed Balls turned the tables on him.

As you’ll see in this recording of the Commons, Ed Balls asks Michael Gove to answer just three GCSE questions, but answer came there none. Enjoy:

It turns out GCSE exams aren’t as easy as the Tories would have us believe, after all!
(h/t Cheryl Smith)

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http://www.esterson.org/ Allen Esterson

You must be joking! The first question requested the name given to a biological process about which presumably the students must have been told during their two year GCSE course. The second was dead easy, and was answered by Gove when he replied to Balls’ speech:

“We all know that atoms, whether fluoride or otherwise, are made up of protons, neutrons and electrons. And the way you transform an atom into an ion is either by adding or taking away an electron.”

And the third was a simple mixed fraction subtraction of the sort school students used to be able to do when they were twelve years old: (3 and 3/4) – (12 and 2/5)

That the Secretary of State in charge of education actually thinks that’s a “hard question” is absolutely astonishing – and a disgrace.
http://www.esterson.org/ Allen Esterson

Correction: I had trouble with the fractions. The subtraction should have read:

(3 and 3/4) – (1 and 2/5)

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