William Alexander, Baron Alexander of Potterhill

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William "Bill" pecking Alexander, Baron Alexander of Potter Hill Kt (* 13 December 1905 in Paisley , Central Lowlands , Scotland , † 8. September 1993 ) was a British educator who from 1944 to 1977 Secretary of the Association of Education Committees ( Association of Education Committees ) and who became a Life Peer member of the House of Lords in 1974 under the Life Peerages Act .

Life

Alexander studied after school mathematics at the University of Glasgow and completed afterwards with financial support from a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation , a postgraduate studies of psychology in the United States . After his return to Great Britain he became an employee of the education administration and developed the Alexander Performance Scale Test , named after him, as early as 1935 , which was supposed to examine and show in performance scales which type of secondary school a child should attend.

In 1939 he was appointed director of the Sheffield Education Board . During the Second World War he did his military service in the Royal Air Force and was promoted to pilot officer on April 1, 1941 .

In 1944 he succeeded Percival Sharp as secretary of the Association of Education Committees and held this function until the body was dissolved in 1977. In this position, Alexander, who was promoted to Knight Bachelor in 1961 and has since had the suffix "Sir", headed an institution that represented the heads of local education authorities and chairmen of local school boards and was the third pillar of the UK alongside the Ministry of Education and teachers' associations Post-war education policy.

The Education Act ( Butler Education Act ) of 1944, named after the then Minister of Education ( President of the Board of Education ) Rab Butler , introduced free education up to the age of fifteen and formed three types of school: the grammar school with an academic focus, the technical school ( Technical Schools ), which was supposed to prepare for the subsequent vocational training, and finally the Secondary Modern School , which was supposed to accept students who could not be assigned to either of the other two types of school. As part of the assignment to one of these types of school, his Alexander Performance Scale Test was used to test at eleven-year-olds which of the types of school a child should attend. The test had three components: the Passalong Test , the Koh Block Design Test and the Cube Construction Test , in which children were asked to place patterns made of colored building blocks according to corresponding illustrations under time.

Alexander also wrote numerous non-fiction books such as Education in England. The national system-how it works (1954) and Towards a New Education Act (1969), in which he dealt with questions of education policy and the education system in Great Britain.

By a letters patent dated September 2, 1974, Alexander was raised to the nobility as a life peer with the title Baron Alexander of Potterhill , of Paisley in the County of Renfrew, and was a member of the House of Lords until his death. Its official introduction ( Introduction ) to the House of Lords was on November 19, 1974 with the support of Llewellyn Heycock, Baron Heycock and Edward Boyle, Baron Boyle of Handsworth .

Publications

  • Thanet Mental Tests: Handbook of Instructions for Administering and Scoring Tests, with Norms of Performance , University of London Press, 1937
  • The Passalong Test. A Performance Test Comprising a Box of Subjects, Set of Colored Cards, and Manual , 1937
  • Junior School Grading Test , University of London Press, 1937
  • Methods of Selection for Post-Primary Education , 1938
  • Intelligence, Concrete and Abstract: A Study in Differential Traits , co-authors Abdel Aziz Hamid el Koussy, Cyril Albert Richardson, Howard Littleton Philp, Lewis Fry Richardson, Maheshchandra Maneklal Desai, Christopher William Stokes, The University Press, 1939
  • The Educational Needs of Democracy , University of London Press Limited, 1940
  • The Education of the Ordinary Child: Lankhills Methods , T. Nelson, 1943
  • Some Problems Confronting Administrators Consequent Upon the New Education Bill: Address to National Union of Teachers, Conference, Easter 1946 , NUT, 1946
  • The Establishment, Maintenance and Management of County and Voluntary Schools Under the Education Acts, 1944 and 1946 , Councils & Education Press, 1946
  • The Education Act. A Parents' Guide , London, 1946
  • School Fittings in Aided and Special Agreement Schools , Councils & Education Press, 1950
  • County and Voluntary Schools , co-authored by Frank Barraclough, 2nd edition 1953, 3rd edition, London, 1963
  • Education in England. The national system-how it works , Newnes Educational Publishing Co, London, 1954, reprinted 1970
  • Four Salary Reports, 1956: Commentaries , Councils and Education Press, 1956
  • Where are They Going? On the Opportunities Under the Present System of Education , Newman Neame, 1957
  • Teachers' Salaries: Special Allowances for Teachers: an Analysis of the 1956 Burnham Report , Councils and Education Press, 1958
  • Education ... for What? , Newman Neame Take Home Books, 1958
  • What Teachers are Paid , London, 1959
  • Three Salary Reports, 1961 , 1962
  • Five Salary Reports, 1965: Salary Reports for Teachers in Establishments of Further Education, for Teachers in Farm Institutes, for Teachers in Colleges of Education, for Youth Leaders and for Inspectors and Organizers, a Commentary on These Salary Reports , Councils & Education Press, 1965
  • A Commentary on the Burnham Further Education Report, 1967 , Councils & Education Press, 1968
  • Education in Relation to the National Economy: The Arthur Mellows Memorial Lecture , Arthur Mellows Village College, 1968
  • An Encouragement to Colonies, 1624 , Da Capo Press, 1968
  • The Burnham Primary and Secondary Schools Report, 1969: A Commentary , Councils and Education Press, 1969
  • Commentaries on Three Salary Reports: Burham Further Education Report, 1969, Burham Farm Institutes Report, 1969, Pelham Report, 1969 , Councils & Education Press Limited, 1969
  • Towards a New Education Act , Council and Education Press, 1969
  • Education Acts Amended , Councils & Education Press Limited, 1969
  • The Future of Education in Local Government , London Borroughs Association, 1974

Web links and sources

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ London Gazette . No. 35151, HMSO, London, May 2, 1941, p. 2520 ( PDF , accessed October 29, 2013, English).
  2. ↑ Additional papers of the Association of Education Committees (Archives Hub)
  3. ↑ Alexander Performance Scale Test (Science Museum)
  4. ↑ Entry  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 77 kB) in The Edinburgh Gazette of September 6, 1974@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.thegazette.co.uk  
  5. ↑ London Gazette . No. 46352, HMSO, London, September 26, 1974, p. 7918 ( PDF , accessed October 29, 2013, English).
  6. ^ Entry in Hansard (November 19, 1974)
personal data
SURNAME Alexander, William, Baron Alexander of Potterhill
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Alexander, William Picken, Baron Alexander of Potterhill (full name); Bill Picken (nickname)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British educator and educational reformer
DATE OF BIRTH December 13, 1905
PLACE OF BIRTH Paisley , Central Lowlands , Scotland
DATE OF DEATH September 8, 1993