Marketisation and Privatisation

• marketisation

  education policies from the 1980s where schools were encouraged to compete against each other and act more like private businesses rather than institutions under the control of local government

  • reducing direct control over education
  • increasing competition between schools
  • increasing parental choice
• who favours marketisation?

  New Right and Neoliberals

  believe that increasing competition, increases school standards, increasing parents applying to the best schools so thriving schools don't go out of 'business'
• Miriam David (1993)


  Marketisation leads to parentocracy

  parents hold the power, power has shifted from producers to consumers

  this encourages diversity in schools by offering parents a choice, raising standards
• myth of parentocracy - Ball et al (1996)


  parents are now encouraged to see themselves as consumers of education, with good parenting seen as taking part on the responsibilities of school choice

  points out that parental choice follows a pattern related to social class differences and contributes to the reproduction of social class inequalities in education
• myth of parentocracy - Tough and Brooks (2007)


  better educated middle-class families with higher incomes are more likely to make choices based on a school's performance

  disadvantaged working-class families are likely to choose schools closest to them

  not all parents have the same freedom to choose schools

  high performing schools carry out covert selection
• covert selection - Tough and Brooks (2007)


  attempts to dissuade poorer parents from applying by giving the impression that their school is 'not for the likes of them'

  discourages them from applying by:

  • long application forms
  • making school literature hard to understand
  • where the advertise
  • expensive uniforms
• parental choice - Gerwitz


  studied 14 London secondary schools

  found that differences in parents' economic and cultural capital led to class differences in how far the can exercise choice of secondary school

  identified 3 main types of parents:

  • privileged-skilled choosers
  • disconnected-local choosers
  • semi-skilled choosers
• privileged-skilled choosers

  had cultural capital

  knew how school admissions system worked

  had time to visit schools

  skilled to research options
• disconnected-local choosers

  don't see the point in choosing - want their kids to be happy with friends

  less aware of choices available to them

  lack cultural, social and material capital
• semi-skilled choosers

  ambitious for the children

  lack cultural, social and material capital

  rely on other people's opinions about schools

  don't know the system
• direct evaluation of Gerwitz

  • generalised statements
  • doesn't recognise that individuals may have had negative impacts on parents experience and their lasting effects
• how might marketisation policies lead to inequality?

  Barltett (1993) - cream skimming and silt shifting

  • league tables encourage cream skimming and silt shifting
  • good schools can be more selective - recruiting high achieving pupils and middle class pupils - cream skimming - gives these pupils an advantage
  • can avoid taking less able pupils who are likely to get poorer results and damage their league table positions - they as silt shifted to schools with poorer league table positions
  • working class pupils and late bloomers miss out
• how might marketisation lead to inequality

  Machin and Vernoit (2010)

  • found that coalition academies had pupils of higher advantage than average secondary schools
• 1988 Education Reform Act policies

  • formula funding
  • open enrolment
  • league tables
  • national curriculum
  • OFSTED
  • business sponsorship
  • opting out of LEA control
• post-1988 policies


  Coalition Government

  • specialist schools
  • academies
  • free schools
  • EBacc
• formula funding

  schools are allocated funds based on how many pupils attend

  schools receive the same amount for each pupil
• how formula funding contributes to marketisation

  popular schools get more funds - can afford better quality teachers and better facilities - allows them to be more selective and attract more able/ambitious generally middle class applicants
• open enrolment

  parents are allowed to select multiple schools to send their children to but only specifying one as their 'first choice'
• how open enrolment contributes to marketisation

  some schools where able to select pupils according ta a certain criteria if they were oversubscribed

  increased parental choice

  increased competition
• league tables

  publishing each school's exam results in a league table that everyone can access
• how league tables contribute to marketisation

  parents will be more attracted to schools with good league table rankings

  increases competition

  gives parents the information they need to choose the right school
• national curriculum

  all schools teach the same subject content from the ages 7 to 16
• how the national curriculum contributes to marketisation

  easier for parents to compare and choose between schools

  increases competition

  increases parental choice
• ofsted

  government organisation that inspects schools

  all reports are published online
• how ofsted contributes to marketisation

  increases parental choice

  increases competition

  raises standards
• business sponsorships

  business sponsors and private financers help build, maintain and run some state schools
• how business sponsorships contribute to marketisation

  raises standards
• opting out of LEA control

  allows state schools to move from local education authority (lea) to being directly funded by the central government - conversion to Academies
• how opting out of LEA control contributes to marketisation

  increases competition within local schools as schools don't have to follow national curriculum
• specialist schools

  made schools a more attractive proposition

  10% of students could be selected by aptitude - parents may apply even if they don't meet other entry requirements like catchment area
• how specialist schools contribute to marketisation

  increases competition for best schools

  increases parental choice
• academies

  introduced by New Labour in 2000

  state funded schools with more autonomy that LEA controlled schools

  can still receive funding from central government rather than local
• how academies contribute to marketisation

  any school can be an academy

  as of 2010-2018 72% of secondary schools were academies

  decreases direct control

  increases competition
• free schools

  introduced by the Coalition government in 2010

  like academies but not set up by the state

  run by parents, teachers, faith organisations etc
• how free schools contribute to marketisation

  increases parental choice

  increases competition

  movement away from state schools
• EBacc

  the English Baccalaureate (EBacc) performance measure

  shows proportion of secondary schools who achieve a grade C or more in core academic subjects
• how the EBacc contributes to marketisation

  increases parental choice

  increases competition
• evaluating academies and free schools

  mixed results:

  • some academies have improved, others have worsened
  • difficult to tell if academies have raised standards
• evaluating academies and free schools

  Allen (2010)

  • shows research from Sweden
  • 20% of schools are free schools - only benefits children from educated families
  • research from USA supports this - charter schools (free schools) only raise attainment when strict selection policies are implemented
• evaluating academies and free schools

  Ball (2011)

  • centralisation of control means that issues are not identified quickly enough
  • academy bosses being paid significant salaries
  • inadequate free schools being closed down by ofsted due to being so inadequate that it could not continue to operate