Educational policy

• The tripartite system

  • Brought by 1944 Education Act
  • Children to be selected and allocated to 1 of 3 different types of secondary school - according to ability
  • Identified by 11+ exam
  • Grammar schools: offered academic curriculum and access to non-manual jobs and higher education. For pupils who passed 11+ (m/c)
  • Secondary modern: non-academic, pratical curriculum with access to manual work to those who failed exam (w/c)
  • Techinical schools: existed in few areas
  • Reproduced class inequlaity rather than promoting meritocracy
• Comprehensive school system

  • Aimed to overcome the class divide of the tripartite system and make education more meritocratic
  • 11+ to be abolished along with grammar & secondary modern
  • Local education authority did not all decide to 'go comprehensive'
  • Grammar and secondary modern divide still exists in many areas
• Role of comprehensives - theories

  • Functionalists see it as fulfilling essential functions such as social integration by bringing children of different social classes together in one school
  • They also see it as more meritocratic because it gives pupils a longer period to develop and show their abilities
  • Marxists argue they are not meritocratic as the continuation of streaming and lebelling deny w/c children an equal opportunity
  • 'myth of meritocracy' by making unequal achievment seem fair
• Markestisation

  • Introducing market forces of consumer choice and competition between suppliers
  • Created an 'education market' by reducing state control over education, increasing competition between schools and parental choice
  • Become the central theme since Education Reform Act 1988 introduced by Thatcher
• Marketisation policies

  • League tables and Ofsted inspection
  • Specalist schools
  • Tuition fees for higher education
  • Compete to attract pupils
  • Formula funding
• Parentocracy - David

  • Meaning 'rule by parents'
  • Power has shifted from the producers (teachers & schools) to the consumers (parents)
  • this encourages diversity amongst schools and gives parents more choice and raises standards
• League tables & Cream-skimming - Bartlett

  • League tables encourage:
  • Cream-skimming: 'good' schools can be more selective and choose the high achievers. Mainly m/c
  • Silt-shifting: 'good' schools can avoid taking less able pupils who are likely to get poor results and damage league table position
• Funding formula

  • Schools allocated funds based on how many pupils they attract
  • Popular schools get more funds so can afford better qualified teachers and better facilities
  • Unpopular schools lose income and find it difficult to match teacher skills and facilities of their successful rivals
• Parental choice - Gewirtz

  • Privledged-skilled choosers: professional, m/c parents who used their economic & cultural capital to gain educational capital for their children. Know school admission system
  • Disconnected-local choosers: w/c parents whose choices restricted by lack of economic & cultural capital. Found it difficult to understand admission system. School facilities more important than league tables or long-term ambitions
  • Semi-skilled choosers: w/c parents who were ambitious for their children but lacked cultural capital and had to rely on opinions
• New Labour 1997-2010

  • Aimed to reduce inequality
  • Desiganted some deprived areas as Education Action Zones and provided additional resources
  • Aim Higher to raise aspirations
  • Education Maintenance Allowances: payments to low-income students to encourage them to stay in education after 16
  • Reduced primary school class sizes
• Criticism - New Labour policies

  Benn:

  • Sees a contradiction between Labour's policies to tackle inequality and commitment to markestisation 'New Labour paradox'
  • Introduced EMAs to encourage students to stay in education but introduced fees for higher education which may deter them from going to uni
• Coalition education policy

  • PM Davd Cameron stated it was to encourage 'excellence, competiton and innovation' by freeing schools from the 'dead hand of the state' through policies (academies & free schools)
  • Cuts were made to the education budget as part of reducing state spending
• Academies

  • Schools encouraged to leave local authority control
  • Funding was taken from local authority budgets and given directly to academies and they were given control over their curriculum
  • 2017: 68% of secondary schools converted to academies (some run by private businesses & some state funded)
  • Removed focus on reducing inequality
• Free schools

  • Set up and run by parents , teachers or businesses
  • Giving them greater opportunity ti create a new school if they are unhappy with the state schools in their area
• Criticism - Free schools

  Allen:

  • In Sweden 20% of schools are free schools and shows they only benefit children from highly educated families
  • In England, evidence shows free schools take fewer disadvantaged students
  • 2011: Bristol free school only 6.4% eligible for FSM
• Fragmented centralisation - Ball

  • Argues promoting free scholls & academies had led to increased fragmentation and centralisation of control over edication
  • Fragmentation: comprehensive system being replaced by diverse provision leading to greater inequality
  • Centralisation: Central government has the power to allow schools to become academies or free schools. their rapid growth has greatly reduced the role of elected local authorities
• Policies to reduce inequality

  • FSM: for all children in reception, YR 1 & YR 2
  • the Pupil Premium: money that schools recieev for each pupil from a disadvantaged background
  • Criticism: Ofsted found Pupil Premium to not be spent on those it is supposed to. Only 1/10 head teachers said it signficantly changed the support for pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds
• Privatisation of education

  • Transfer of public assets such as schools to private companies
  • Education becomes a source of profit for capitalists 'education serices industry' (ESI)
  • Private companies in the ESI are involved in increasing the range of activities in education
• Blurring public & private boundary

  • Many senior officials in the public sector now leave to set up work for private sector education businesses
  • These companies then bid for contracts to provide services to schools and local authorities
  • Pollack: this flow of personnel allows companies to buy 'insider knowledge' to help win contracts
• Globalisation of eductaion policy

  • Many private companies in the education servies industry are foreign owned
  • Edexcel is owned by US testing giant Pearson
  • Ball: Some of Pearson GCSE exam answers are now marked in Sydney and Iowa
• Cola-isation of schools

  • The private sector is penetrating into schools indirectly (vendiing machines and the development of brand loyalty through logos or sponserships)
  • Molnar: schools are targeted by private companies because 'schools by their nature carry enormous goodwill and confer legitimacy on anything associated with them
  • Beder: UK families spent £110,000 in Tesco supermarkets in retun for a single computer for schools
• Education as a commodity - Ball

  • Policy is increasingly focused on moving educational services out of public sector controlled by the nation sate to be provdided by private companies instead
  • Education is being turned into a 'legitimate object of private profit-making'
  • More areas of education are subject to business practices and financial logics
  • Hall: Academies are an example of handing over public services to private capitalists. Privatisation and competition driving up standards is a myth as they are used to legitimate the turning of education into a source of private profit
• Policies on gender

  • In 19th centiry women were excluded from higher education
  • Under the tripartite system girls often had to achieve a higher mark than biys in the 11+ to obtain a grammar school place
  • Policies such as GIST have tried to reduce gender differences in subject choice
• Policies on ethnicity

  • Assimilation: focused on pupils from ethnic minorities assimilating into mainstream British culture as a way of raising their achievement
  • Multicultural education: aimed to promote achievements of ethnic minority children by valuing all cultures in school curriculum to raise their self esteem
  • Social inclusion: Detailed monitoring of exam results by ethnicity, amending Race Relations Act to place a legal duty on scholls to promote racial equality & voluntarily help 'Saturday Schools' in the Black community
• Criticism - Policies on ethnicity

  • Assimilation: Some minority groups who at risk of under achieving already speak English so cause of their under achievement lies in poverty or racism
  • MCE: Stone: Black pupils don't fail due to lack of self esteem. New Right: education should promote a shared national culture
  • Social inclusion: Mirza: it takes a soft approach rather than tackling structural causes of ethnic inequality like poverty or racism. Gillborn: institutional racism such as an ethnocentric curriculum, assessments & streaming disadvantage ethnic minorities