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Ministers of Education may choose to demonstrate in support of their own prejudices, says Estelle Morris. Work would do well to show a commitment to use evidence well

The government claims that the development of an educational policy based on evidence, to be a good thing. But we can be sure that you can trust to do the right thing? Ministers constantly refer to national and international sources of evidence to justify their decisions. So much so that announcements of Pisa (OECD Programme for International Student Assessment), Timms (Trends in International Mathematics and Science) or management consultants McKinsey Ofsted now appear to exceed its importance to education . How do we know that Michael Gove draw the right conclusions from the data available? What is to prevent the selection of evidence to support its political point of view and reject the rest?

Take some of the government's statements in support of its key policies. Charter schools in the United States are used to justify the policy of free schools. And when moutiers about the success of charter schools, such as the Harlem Success Academy in New York, do not do this. There are some truly exceptional charter schools should inspire us all.

But the subject of research at Stanford University, shows that over three-quarters of charter schools offer similar or worse than traditional public schools? What do we actually do the test?

So you can see that the policy of another flagship - academies. The government likes to cite the success rate of chains of academies and schools in southern Harris London. Again, this is true. Based in difficult areas, schools have produced outstanding results and Harris are a true example of what can be achieved. But so are the results of schools in Tower Hamlets, the poorest countries, which now regularly exceeds the national average - not the academies. What is the evidence tell us?

Then there is the use of the curriculum in Singapore Michael Gove thinned as evidence of its review of the curriculum, but it is less likely to cite national manuals that come with teaching in Singapore. It is also misleading to cite evidence in support of Pisa of charter schools, but fail to add that the same organization believes that competition among schools does not necessarily lead to better results?

No one will believe that the government is serious about being guided by the evidence, provided that the ministers are free to choose and interpret the data as they please. It is difficult to detect a successful school and use it to justify what they already believe. It is much more difficult to determine exactly what makes a successful school and ships in a policy based on evidence that can affect all schools. This is why quality testing and proper use of it are so important.