Some of the older members of the National Union of Educators might remember the song, 'Killing me softly with his love' - or was it his 'song'? Whatever - as they say these days. At any rate, the title of this article could serve as an update on the original. The similartities are quite apparent: In both cases, there was a killing; and the killing occurred as a result of what was meant to be something positive. (Whoever thought that CASS and love - or music - would be regarded as kissing cousins? A sign of the crazy world in which we live!) The only differences are that, in the original, only one person was suffering - now we have thousands; while the original was probably in her twenties, we now extend the misery to people of all ages; and the cause of the demise was a person - now we have a faceless bureaucracy.

Since I am based in the high school sector, I will illustrate my argument from the demands that CASS makes on high school teachers and pupils - or if you prefer, high school 'educators' (a stupid term, since there are many more people who educate than teachers) and 'learners' (an equally stupid term, since there are many more people than schoolchildren who learn - and there are many schoolchildren who are not learners).

THE FACTS

What are the facts?

• THE PUPILS

Firstly, it is killing the pupils. This means that a pupil in Grade 8 - his/her first year in high school - has to do 72 formal assessments. This means about 18 assessments per term - nearly two a week. And the situation in the other grades is not much better.

• THE TEACHERS

Secondly, it is killing teachers. Let's take an average teacher in a high school. He/she teachers, say, five classes of 35 (= 175 pupils - some will have fewer and some more). An English teacher, then, for example who teaches two Grade 9's, two Grade 10's and a Grade 12, has to evaluate 3045 tasks - more than 75 a week. This is on top of preparation (which could involve preparing for a new curriculum), checking homework, marking other tests, extra-murals, admin work, cluster meetings, training meetings, etc.

But there's more! It's not just a matter of assessing tasks - there is the whole issue of getting them in - especially from the alienated pupils and the boys. So you call for work to come in today from two classes, and (if you're lucky in some classes) you get in 60 of the 70. You remind the other ten to hand theirs in tomorrow - but you don't see them tomorrow, so you have to wait until the next day, by which time so have forgotten, and you still have to chase 5. In the meantime, your next lot is in from another class - and there are 6 missing. So you remind them to bring them in next weeks, because it's Thursday and you don't see them till Tuesday. What about the five from the first classes? They're still not in. So you punish them or send home an 'intervention' letter. Then two don't do the punishment or return the intervention letter signed. So you refer them to the Grade Head (who puts them into DT, and then one doesn't go, so there's more follow-up). In the meantime, the whole cycle is continuing with the second set of work, while you are calling for work from a third group - and so the vicious, maddening circle goes on and on.

And in the middle of all of this, the teacher is still meant to have a life!

The question which arises is: Why could the authorities not see this? Or did they see it and not care?

• TEACHING

Thirdly, the system is killing teaching. There is nothing wrong with the concept of CASS - it's in the implementation that it goes awry and becomes a monster that threatens all in education. The first problem is the number of items, as mentioned above. Not only is it a burden to teacher and pupil, but it is also a barrier to good teaching. This is ironic, because it was meant to improve teaching - to provide continual feedback on learning to both pupil and teacher. It was meant to get away from the system whereby teaching occurred and then, at the end, an assessment was done and decisions made about whether anything worthwhile had happened and whether the pupil may proceed to the next grade or not. In practice, it becomes a list of little summative assessments, because there is no time to use the information gained - one must move on to the next 'thing'.

Yes, one must accept that, unless the assessments 'count' and are recorded, there are teachers who won't do them. And, yes, one must agree that, if they are going to count as a sizeable chunk of the over-all assessment, there needs to be a good number - otherwise, the accusation will be levelled that 'standards' are dropping. But the fact of the matter is that the system interferes with teaching. Whereas in the past, a good English teacher, for example, might have done a series of writing exercises involving brief paragraphs on short passages read, with continual feedback, this is likely to be dumped, because these little things won't count - and the curriculum guidelines suggest a letter and a journal and a poem, which these are not.