research

Dominic Cummings’ skunkworks

John Hodgson , , , , , , , , , , ,
Dom-Cummings_outside-No-10Photograph: John Sibley/Reuters

The Government is advertising for the head of a new “analytical unit” in Downing Street to be called 10ds.  “ds” stands for Data Science, but could, of course, mean Downing Street itself.  The role and person specification read as if written by Dominic Cummings:

   10ds is a pseudo start-up within Number 10 designed to drive forward the quantitative revolution. The current plan is to establish a data engineering team, data science team, a skunkworks and an analytical deep dive unit.  

A skunkworks, according to Everett Rogers, is an “enriched environment that is intended to help a small group of individuals design a new idea by escaping routine organizational procedures”.   The term originated during World War II when a small group of closely guarded Lockheed R&D workers working in Burbank, California had to endure the smell from a nearby plastics factory.  

The term typically refers to technology projects developed in semi-secrecy, and so it is surprising to be told that this unit will be at the heart of No 10.  It will bring together

a team which will focus on supporting number 10 to provide the best analysis and evidence; a data science team to help serve long time problems and empower its use across Whitehall; a data engineering team to provide high-quality timely data, creating more effective decision-making.  

Elsewhere in the document, the  term “skunkworks” appears to embrace the whole operation.  The vision of 10ds is “a skunkworks type organisation that builds innovative software to allow the PM to make data driven decisions and thereby transform government”.

It appears that the Head of the Unit will have privileged access to the Prime Minister “to advise on the PM’s priority decisions where analysis is critical, such as how to optimally achieve net-zero”.  He or she will also be expected to be creative, “to look through a different lens”.  A key part of this role is “working with multiple teams in coming up with modern innovative ways of solving the problem”.

Besides creativity, there must be scientific method.   “This role focuses on reaching the right answer based on the best available data. As such, this role prioritises data interpretation not data fitting.”   This sounds right, but data are never neutral.  The data available depend on who has provided them and for what purposes.  How will this new unit improve on existing procedures of data collection and analysis?

The document preserves an air of semi-secrecy by its vagueness.    What, for example, is the referent of “its” in “a data science team to help serve long time problems and empower its use across Whitehall” (the long quotation above)?   More importantly, what will be the relationship between the skunkworks and the existing Civil Service, which deals with public administration, and with the Office for National Statistics?  

Dominic Cummings clearly wants to reinforce his power base at the heart of government.  But it looks as if this new unit could be another distraction from the true business of government.

A new dynamic in education research

John Hodgson , , , , , , , , ,

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On a Saturday in May 2014, an educational research conference in a York secondary school was attended by well over a hundred people, the great majority of whom were practising teachers.   The conference organisers, researchED and the National Teacher Enquiry Network (NTEN), want to use research evidence to improve the quality of teaching and learning. More than twenty-five speakers addressed delegates in a programme that offered a wide choice of topics from ‘the learning brain’ through ‘classrooms as complex systems’ to ‘evidence-based teaching: making the prize a reality’.  All the presentations I attended were engaging and thoughtful, and I thoroughly enjoyed Debra Kidd’s drama-inspired way of demonstrating the complex systemics of the classroom (with respect to the teaching of reading, a particular interest of mine).

The means of communication and debate that united most of the delegates at the conference was neither membership of a professional association such as the National Association for the Teaching of English (NATE), nor an academic affiliation.   Whether or not they had met before, many of the delegates knew each other virtually through Twitter and shared blogs. Indeed, several used their Twitter hashtag to identify them on their name badge.   Most importantly, they were united by a commitment to learning how to become better teachers through grounded educational research. Prompt questions offered in the programme included: What is the evidence-base behind this speaker’s presentation? Is their point of view contested?   What further research do you need to undertake to ensure you have a balanced picture?

This is a world of virtual connection and debate by enthusiastic practitioners with a shared commitment to the well-being of their students. Existing networks need to consider how they can work with this new dynamic. Recently I have been working with Sarah Wilkin on the English in Education archive. The journal is 50 years old this year, and NATE has commissioned work to make the archive more readily accessible to members and others. Like the delegates at the York conference, the teachers and researchers who have written for English in Education over the last fifty years share a commitment to education as a means of supporting, developing and enhancing the lives of their students. The purpose of the journal is evident from its name: it is about language in education (not only the teaching of English), and many of the papers and debates have enduring relevance to the classroom. We shall shortly publish an account of the first fifty years of the journal and intend to supplement this by a new thematic database. We hope that this work will provide a source of ideas and evidence for teachers whose attachments may be less to traditional research and teacher networks than to the blogosphere.