t Manifesto
The Citizen's Guide to Education
In the beginning.....
The comprehensive system has been around since the early 50s but took a strangle hold on education in the mid-60s following Anthony Crosland's diktat to Local Authorites - namely, Circular 10/65, 'requesting' that LAs switch to the comprehensive ideal forthwith. And following some financial arm-twisting, most did.
The rest as they say is history, a national education system that leaves citizens ill-prepared to go shopping and fills its job centres with social anthropologists and art historians - so much for a broad balanced education that enables kiddies to explore all their talents.
Here in lies the rub, politicians want to maintain the current comprehensive can of worms, as long as they can privatise most of it.
The Baronness Warnock suggests that the comprehensive system is past its sell by date and wants it replaced with a tripartite system, secondary moderns, technical and grammar schools all under one roof. Children would be threshed into wheat and chaff at age 12.
Warnock's rationale is that her arrangement might actually provide a citizenry able to supply the nation's workforce needs and make people happier due to the fact they are not continually questing for some illusory life-style leading to some form of neurosis or other.
Before State Education ruined the life chances of the masses
Crosland's diktat may well have been inspired by fears that the Brave New World of Aldous Huxley would come to pass. The post-war Labour arrangement (Education Act of 1944) imagined three grades of children, bronze, silver and gold.
Children would be colour coded at age 11 (the 11+ test) and sent to secondary moderns, technical, and grammar schools. Social harmony was guaranteed. Least ways one might summise this was the aim, being mindful that the previous hundred and fifty years of British social history had been anything but harmonious.
The key feature of disharmony is the certainty and honesty it provides. In that the combatants speak openly and stridently in promoting their views. For instance, when William E Forster proposed compulsory education in 1869, he was clear about the need for it:
‘We had this fearful state of things – a large portion of the nation growing up in our large towns without education, and ready to become members of the dangerous classes.’
Hence the 1870 Education Act compelled parents to send their children to schools, run mostly by sadistic child beating clerics, and so the key purpose of state education was set in place - keeping kids off the streets.
Sir James Kay-Shuttleworth, was made Britain’s first secretary of education in 1839 – it was his job to set up a state education system in Britain - he was a slow worker. Sir James is also clear about the need for State education:
‘If they [the working classes] are to have knowledge, surely it is the part of a wise and virtuous government to do all in its power to secure them useful knowledge and to guard them against pernicious opinions.’
‘Only by experience and education can the workmen be induced to leave undisturbed the controls of commercial enterprises in the hands of the capitalists.’
The pernicious opinions Sir James refers to are those of the socialists and threat their ideas pose for the owners of capital. And be in no doubt the threat was real.
Schools were set up by the working class themselves to study the radical ideas of the times, many Sunday schools were places where workers studied Tom Paine and William Cobbett, they also read Shakespeare and Milton. This sort of nonsense needed to be stamped out and it was.
The schools set up by the Chartists, the Co-Operative Societies and the likes of Robert Owen had a clear radicalising mission to raise working class consciousness - to provide some intellectual focus to the struggle between labour and capital. They arose spontaneously, unplanned, to meet local needs and the pressures and currents of a particular historical set of circumstances. They were not part of some national plan designed to meet social criteria or future economic needs.
Education as market place....
The last Tory regime introduced competition into the educational arena, to promote improvement. New Labour did nothing to challenge or change the Tory blueprint for State education, indeed they bought into it even more so, driven by an unrealistic market model based on production targets.
The model is based on the Siberian tractor factory system in which children are fed an over-dose of useless knowledge, and then fed some more, until we have an over-supply of uselessness and the Russians have too many tractors.
Only 'free' markets optimize. In this unfettered educational environment teachers are rewarded on their ability to inspire, encourage aspiration, innovate and make lessons enjoyable and relevant. Economic theory suggests that the allocation of resources will be optimized by the working of market competition but this can't happen in a highly inert market, i.e. education.
A business model that rewards individuals financially had no place in schools. In small schools, in particular, the scope for economic rewards are scarce. Further, working in schools is based on team performance, dis-entangling individual input and outcomes can be difficult and will inevitably rely on value judgements based on personality. Also, the opportunities for vertical movement are rare and generally leads to a loss of continuity as teachers move on in order to progress.
Props and pressures within the model
The tractor factory model of education came into being in 1989 as a result of the Education Reform Act of 1988. The central feature of the new system was measurement, in the shape of output tables that ranked schools in terms of the number of points achieved in national tests.
These tables, published for all to see, have done untold damage to the morale of staff and students in low performing schools.
The corollary of league tables is target setting. Obviously, poor performers would only be improved by being given a target to chase. But then the performers would need watching, hence the introduction of Performance Management for Schools and a new inspection regime in the guise of Ofsted.
The 1988 Act radically changed every aspect of school life. The introducing of the National Curriculum meant that children from 1990-95 were used as guinea pigs as the DfE constantly revised and tweeked the attainment targets for Maths and Science and struggled for at least 10 years to sort out the issue of testing, that is, what and how much to test beyond the so-called Core.
The model had many other props, to do with finance for schools and new types of management arrangements. The upshot, little or no improvement in attainment.
The roots of education failure
Individuals do not fail in the English education system, they are failed by it, let down, served poorly.
The poverty of New Labour's education policy is reflected in its outcomes. Apologists for New Labour might argue that they had invested heavily in classroom support for teachers via the introduction of an army Learning Support Assistants and other helpers. However, this has all been a part of New Labour's 'inclusion' agenda. Whereby whatever the transgression children must be kept in school and whatever their mental condition they must be taught in mainstream classrooms.
Another noble ambition but one that damages the educational chances of the vast majority of children who come to school to learn. In order to fund the 'inclusion' regime New Labour have closed Pupil Referral Units and Special Schools, places that schools would have previously off loaded disaffected pupils to. These extra-school sites provided schools with a safety net, New Labour removed it and the consequences have been dire for some schools.
Extra-school sites provided support for schools and freed the majority of children from the few who lack the social skills to engage in a civilized environment.
The roots of the inclusion agenda lay in the Canadian education system, where the idea was introduced to ensure disabled students access to a decent mainsteam education. The idea then took hold in the US and was expanded to include everyone with an acronym applied to their behaviour, e.g., ODD (that's Oppositional Defiant Disorder) or ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder). This trend caused a major panic in classrooms throughtout the land; drugs were offered as a cheap solution to the deranged behaviour of the 'included'.
Inclusion arrived here in the 1990s and schools were left in no doubt about how they would respond. Exclusions were capped by local authorities, inclusion (often described as 'internal exclusion') rooms were set up and the number of tablets being dispenced by school nurses grew exponentially. Swot up on Ritalin
With schools assuming full responsibility for the dysfunctional and disaffected youth of the land, the case was made to cut back on Pupil Referral Units and then vanish them completely.
This act of vandalism was based on the shaky assumption that schools, i.e. teachers could cope with this massive cultural change in educational practice. The biggest shock to schools was the speed of the transition, in less than ten years classroom management in many schools became a chore without reward.
Schools did not cope and this led to a massive influx of auxillary staff, i.e., the classroom helpers and classroom supervisors. New Labour claimed this as an improvement in provision.
Everyone's a winner
Throughout the land a key ingredient of educational policy under New Labour has been the policy statement, within school improvement plans, concerned with rewards and sanctions. By slow degrees the sanction element was frowned into insignificance. REWARDS became the mantra and everything needed to be celebrated, even when there was nothing to celebrate.
Bill Gates once famously said:
"Life's not fair; get used to it."
Winning and losing are facts of life, schools would have more chance of combating bullying if they focused on the positive aspects of competition, the need to be mentally and physically strong and stopped pretending that everyone can be a winner.
Winning takes guts, hard work, dedication. The new thinking on winning, introduced to schools under New Labour, worked on the power of suggestion. If I tell you often enough that you are a winner then you'll believe it and your performance will begin to improve - no effort required.
The purpose of education....
All we ever hear from our political masters is how valuable and important a good education is. Such statements are meaningless. A village idiot cares nothing for all the life chances he's been denied, nor does he care much for the concept of value; indeed he may well consider his contribution to community life to be substantial.
The key function of the English school system has always been to provide a child minding service. The school leaving age merely a function of general economic activity in the world beyond the school gates.
There's no empirical evidence that ever increasing educational investment provides greater social benefits like happier citizens and more productive workers....
....Or that education plays a vital role in reducing inequality and encouraging social mobility, the evidence says otherwise. How can individual equality be promoted by a system that is itself inherently unequal?
Education is frequently cited as a panacea to treat the scourge of poverty and provide the encouragement, support, self-belief and ambition required to climb the greasy pole of opportunity. But all schools do not supply the same degree assistance and the quality of provision in terms staff expertise, and physical resources vary widely across communities and across the nation.
From nurseries to universites, it seems that the whole fabric of British education needs to be overhauled. We need a statement of clarification about the purpose of education from the main political parties.
A New White Paper: "The Importance of Teaching" Nov 2010.
The Importance of Teaching White Paper Equalities Impact Assessment tells us:
"It is a unique sadness of our times that we have one of the most stratified and segregated school systems in the world, with a gap between our private schools and the state system wider than in almost any other developed country. In 2006, England came near the bottom of a list of 57 countries for educational equality in an OECD report, and the gap is still vast. It is simply unacceptable that in the most recent year for which we have data, of the 80,000 students in one year eligible for free school meals, just 40 went on to Oxford or Cambridge universities - fewer than some private schools manage to send by themselves."
Two Key Assumptions
The White Paper makes two key assumptions:
1. ‘that no education system can be better than the quality of its teachers’
So good quality teaching guarantees a good education. The problem is, there's nothing new in the White Paper to address the problem of less than quality teaching.
2. ‘Our schools should be engines of social mobility, helping children to overcome the accidents of birth and background to achieve much more than they may ever have imagined.’
This second assumption simply reaffirms the same old tired mantra about education as salvation.
This White Paper provides a clear blue print for the coming years for the English education system. Sadly, a purpose for education is still not set out - it cannot be salvation.
RA Butler the architect of the 1944 Education Act., told us:
"We should attempt to keep in our educational system openings and opportunities for different types and aptitudes." Butler spoke of meeting the aspirations of all children, be they "Gold, Silver, or Metal" - his terminology.
Butler identified the purpose of education thus:
"The government's purpose is to ensure for children a happier childhood and a better start in life and to provide means for all of developing the various talents with which they are endowed."
(Almost identical to the purpose set out in the 2010 White Paper.)
One of these days some genius will realise that the purpose of education is to make people smarter, just for the sake of it, with no deeper purpose. And good teachers will make that quest their life's work. In the meantime, a new type of school is called for, according to the Tories, schools free from local authority meddling?
FREE SCHOOLs - 2010
These new schools will enjoy the same freedoms as academies, which are publicly funded independent schools, free from local authority control. Other freedoms include setting their own pay and conditions for staff, freedom from following the National Curriculum and the ability to change the lengths of their terms and school days. All Free Schools will be accountable like other state schools via inspections and tests.
Evidence from Sweden, where over a 1000 free schools have been set up, suggests that benefits for low income, low attaining pupils are virtually zero.
The evidence from Sweden and the US tells us that free schools do not raise educational standards.
The government says it has received over 130 applications from groups wanting to set up free schools. (Oct. 2010)
A total of 16 have so far been given the green light.
Their main problem has been finding suitable property for the new schools. Now, the Government plans to let them have space in properties owned by the DfE.
What is University for?
From Mark Blaug in the 1960s to James Murphy in the 1990s, economists have argued over whether universities are an investment good rather than a consumption good, with consumption largely winning the day.
The idea of education as a consumption good, consumed for its own sake, without economic motives may have been true up to a point but the rationale for a university education has changed. Many politicians explain their advocacy for the expansion of the university system as crucial to securing the national future. No doubt based on the assumption that what goes on in universities will by some magical act fit the the future technical and social demands of the nation.
What we do know is that the growth of the university sector has been exponential and the sector is now saturated with sub-standard provision. This situation was created by the same Tory meddlers who introduced league tables to schools. Their HEI, 1992, initiative, which transformed every building in the land that had the word College above its door into a university devalued at a stroke the notion of a university degree.
Proof of this can be found in the Government's intention to end the awarding of degree certificates at different levels, 1st, 2.1 etc, in 2015, in favour of a record card to show future employers. Rationale? An in depth study has found that there exists little equivalence between the degrees handed out by one university and another. So, don't confuse yourself, a 1st from Oxford is not the same as one from Murky Water Academy.
For the 'new' universities the main entry requirement is the ability of the candidate to submit an application form, any old A-Levels will do; after all these places are where kids go to do media studies.
Willetts attacks the A-Level Curriculum (2010)
Universities Minister, David Willetts, said institutions will be compelled to publish the A-Level subjects taken by successful applicants
Willetts is concerned that poor children at comprehensive school are getting a raw deal because headteachers are manipulating the league tables.
Specifically, children in these schools are being encouraged to opt for 'soft' A-Levels to boost schools' league tables. Universities for their part are not selecting candidates with 'soft' A-Levels.
This all seems very bizarre, on the one hand civilized and on the other, absurd. That is, introducing a level playing field into a competitive market. Afterall, let's not forget, it was the Tory's who introduced the market into education, with league tables as the measure of success. Why feign astonishment that headteachers tried to gain a competitive advantage by opting for courses that guaranteed success.
And was it not a Government quango that sanctioned these 'soft' options in first place (i.e. the QCA)? Why didn't the exam quango just say no to Business Studies, Media Studies, ICT, Sociology, etc. Only a mad chef would complain, after putting junk food on the table, that people actually consumed it.
So the behaviour of schools is part of the problem according to Willetts.
Universities for their part are not being exactly open about which subjects they favour, it's a bit like insider trading. The best universities do not favour poor people, those kids on free school dinners. The Public schools know which subjects to select for their students to access the Russell Group*of universities but comprehensives don't appear to have the same degree of awareness. Don't believe it, headteachers would be negligent for not having a eye on their league tables but their subject choices are driven by other needs.
The reason that comprehensives choose a whole range of fanciful A-Levels is because they are providing a menu of choices to suit their market demographic. At a local level, if a school decide to reduce the number and range of choices on offer, the result would be the wholesale closure of school 6th forms.
It's also worth recalling that Zanu Labour's introduction of Curriculum 2000 created a good deal of confusion for schools. This new initiative encouraged a diverse approach to subject choices. Universities wanted and still want joined up choices, they want specialization.
It's by no means clear but we think that Willetts also now wants specialization?
In sum
Gove is attacking the GCSE curriculum, insisting on more academic rigour, Willetts's is attacking the A-Level curriculum insisting on more specialisation to meet the demands of the best universities.
No one is really confident in their view of the purpose of education but we can be confident in asserting that the English education system is a dunce.
Gove Goes to BETT: big changes to ICT in schools.
January 2012
Secretary of State for Education, Michael Gove, gave a keynote speech at the BETT show. Unusually, Gove had some interesting things to say about ICT in schools.
Specifically, Gove announced his intention to disapply the Programme of Study for ICT at Key Stage 3. Meaning that teachers would be free to teach what they wanted.... you know like they used to before they were forced to follow the schemes dictated by the Department for Education.
Ah, but now the Royal Society has joined forces with Ofstead to tell Gove that ICT lessons are boring, that both teachers and children are bored and things need to change. The very term ICT carries negative connotations, few children at 16 are choosing to pursue more rigorous IT courses post-16.
The main complaint against ICT in schools is that it has only ever taught 'digital literacy' due to the fact that it is mainly taught by non-IT specialists and that training for ICT teachers is non-existent.
The key conclusion of The Royal Society Report is that as presently constructed ICT in schools is not delivering for pupils or society, in terms of equiping children with worthwhile skills and supplying the skills that industry needs.
The Games Industry
At this point we find Gove also listening to the games industry; they too have produced a report, Next Gen. The games industry is an important player in the British economy, with global sales of £2 billion (2008).
The games industry have some strong views on ICT teaching in schools, which they describe as only teaching 'office skills'. In short, they want it gone; they want computer science in place as a National Curriculum subject and they want a GCSE Computer Science included into the new English Baccalaureate.
How to influence an Education Secretary
As you read through Gove's BETT talk it's clear that he almost had it written for him by the Royal Society and the authors of Next Gen. It seems Gove has been seduced by the marvels of video games and visual effects, at least twice in his talk he mentions how important it is for children to meet the challenges of 'set theory'. One can only wonder what Gove himself makes of Russell's paradox: "the set of all sets that are not members of themselves" - not a lot is probably the answer.
However, it is clear from Gove's talk that big changes are on the way for ICT in schools - watch this space.
Telegraph Hack Andrew Gilligan makes an amazing discovery... A Levels are a doddle.
Well actually Mr Gilligan made a couple of discoveries.
He 'uncovered' a dastardly plot by these exam boards to make it easy for its customers, i.e. schools, to pass the exams set at the highest standard - 'A' grades for everyone.
And how do the boards accomplish this amazing feat? They issue specifications that set out what children need to know in order to pass the exams. Gilligan complains about the detail of these specifications but surely the name 'specification' is a bit of a give-away. If the nation insists on making schools test the life out of its children then surely they have a right to expect some detailed guidance on what the tests will contain.
He also 'revealed' that the five major examination boards are in fact private companies, not an arm of the department for education (or what ever it's calling itself this week).
In fact, only Edexcel is a private company (owned by Pearson PLC) others are registered charities, OCR is run by Cambridge Assessment, a non-teaching department of the University of Cambridge. CCEA, based in Northern Ireland, is state controlled and the WJEC in Wales is owned by 22 Local Authorities.
So, the simple profit driven motivations of the exam boards that Gilligan supposes (for us) is not so straighforward. Today's examination arrangements are the product of politcal decision making of the last 20 years and more.. No doubt delivering exams is big business, Ofqual estimates the combined income of the big five at around £1 billion. (March 2010) However, does big business equat to collusion between the producer and the consumer. Such an arrangement would be a first in the annuls of business.
In truth, Gillian hasn't actually discovered anything that is not public knowledge. All he is doing is moaning about the an educational system that teaches to the test, and it does so because that's what everyone wants - otherwise league tables become pointless don't they.
Gilligan and the boss of Tesco might complain about low 'real' attainment among school leavers and university entrants but that's all the system is designed to produce. The part played by exam boards within this design is perfect - improved school results year on year.
Update: The 2010 A Level results are in and as predicted it's been another bumper year for results, in particular, the number of students achieving the new A* grade was well above expectations. What next? How about an A-star-squared?