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Education and the permanent revolution of reform: A journey to the
dark side
Dave HallManchester Institute of Education
University of ManchesterFebruary 2015.
Education and the permanent revolution of reform
• Characterising and analysing the nature of educational reform and modernisation over the past thirty years (focus upon schools)
• Examining it effects upon young people, educational institutions and those work in them
• Looking to the future and how the educational project might be re-enchanted and enlightened
The 1970s and the emergence of a new educational consensus – The New Right and
Education
Set within the context of a wider ‘crisis’ for social democracy and taking a particular form in education (William Tyndale and progressivism).
Series of Education Black Papers highlighting:• Lack of discipline in schools (linked to student unrest in
universities) • Dangers of progressive education• Producer captureProposals for:• Competition between schools• Education vouchers• Parental control of schools
The 1970s and the emergence of a new educational consensus – Labour
and Education
James Callaghan and the Great Education Debate"Some parents were expressing their concerns about whether children were being taught or not because of the child-centred approach . . . I was also talking to the Confederation of British Industry . . . they were complaining about the quality of schools.” •called into question the wisdom of comprehensive schooling•perceptions of falling educational standards•an education system that was viewed as contributing to the UK’s economic decline.
The new educational consensus
A heady mix of:•conservatism - (deeply hostile to progressive forms of education) seeking to control schools, teachers and pupils and to assert traditional educational values•Neo-liberalism (markets are THE solution) - enthusiasm for and/or agnosticism in relation to marketisation. Parental involvement conceptualised mainly through removing teacher control and marketised ‘choice’. The private replacing the public. •Removing/questioning the common/comprehensive school •All allied to calls for radical increases in central state involvement in education
The revolution begins: The Education Reform Act 1988 (1)
The neo-liberal:•Competition: Schools began operating within competitive local markets with individual schools competing for pupils.•Business: Schools set up as individual business units operating within local markets through the decentralisation of school finances.•Consumption and choice: Notions of parental ‘choice’ were stressed with an emphasis upon the accountability of schools via performance data linked to national pupil tests (school league tables appeared and rapidly became highly important in terms of judging school ‘success’). School diversity enabling ‘choice’ via the creation of independent state schools (City Technology Colleges)
The revolution begins: The Education Reform Act 1988 (2)
The neo-conservative:•Tradition: Schools to teach the ‘right’ knowledge through the creation of a National Curriculum centred upon a traditional model•Control: School performance through national tests and reform of school inspections via the creation of OFSTED under the leadership of Chris Woodhead (enacted in 1992). •Centralisation of powers and the sidelining of local authorities (LEAs/LAs)
The permanent revolution: New Labour 1997-2010
Determination not to be ‘outflanked’ by the Conservatives on education:
•Chris Woodhead remains as Chief Inspector•Education, education, education=standards, standards, standards; targets, targets, targets and tests, tests and tests•Re-doubling of efforts to centrally control school, teacher and pupil performance via attempted micro-management of classrooms (Literacy and numeracy strategies)•The independent state school becomes stronger via Academies, specialist schools and the denigration of the comprehensive •Reform, reform and more reform – Initiativitis, re-disorganisation and the English global education laboratory •Eleventh hour mediation via Every Child Matters – be healthy, stay safe, enjoy and achieve, make a positive contribution, achieve economic well-being
The Coalition Government 2010-2015
The Coalition Government 2010-2015
•Independent schools are best - Academies, academies, academies•Rhetoric of school and teacher autonomy, but system remains very tightly regulated within contradictory discourse (real British values, Secretary of State designating individual texts). 1968 and back to the future.•Paving the way for privatisation and the completion of the neo-liberal turn
Effects upon teachers, schools and young people
Schools and education professionals
• Anxiety and stress – high stakes testing and performance management (schools in challenging circumstances)
• De-professionalisation and autonomy – elites know best
• The cult of leadership
• The endurance of the permanent revolution and constant change
• Continued undermining of the remarkably resilient common school
Young people
•High stakes testing - anxiety and stress from young age
•Data rich and controlled environments – surveillance or security?
•The educational laboratory effect
•The dominance of the instrumental – 5 A*-C, ABB, 2:1 or 1st
•Education as economic performance and commodity
Moving forward1968 no longer seems like a promising basis for educational reform
•Focus upon teaching and learning embracing the progressive (e.g. student voice)
•Surveillance can be counter-productive
•The creation of a new collaboratively based teacher professionalism
•Lower the pressure – high stakes often doesn’t equal rich learning
•Celebrating the common school
•Beware further privatisation
•Less national reform!
Educational reform as a grand distraction from teaching and learning
•Schools as businesses – PR, marketing and loss of talent from the core activity
•Schools as performance machines confusing test preparation for learning
•Continued focus upon structural reforms deeply misplaced
•Education as economic performance and international / political prestige winning device
