Policies

• Policy before 1988 - the tripartite system 


  
  

  • Grammar schools - academic curriculum for pupils who passed the 11+, mostly MC
  • Secondary modern schools - practical curriculum for those who failed the 11+, mostly WC
  • Therefore it reproduced class inequality by challenging the two social classes into two different types of school that offered unequal opportunities
• Policy before 1988 - comprehensive system


  
  

  • 11+ abolished along with grammar and secondary moderns
  • Replaced with comprehensive schools that all pupils in an area would attend
  • Left it to the local educational authority to transform, meaning the division is still present today
  • Parents had little choice of location, as it was argued that all schools offered the same
• Policy before 1988 - Marxism and comprehensives

  
  

  • Argue they are not meritocratic, rather they produce class inequality with labelling and streaming
  • Counter - 'Myth of meritocracy' justifies class inequality as it makes failure seem fair and places the blame on the individual not the system
• Policy before 1988 - Functionalism and comprehensives

  
  

  • Argues it promotes social integration by brining children of different social classes together
  • Argue it is more meritocratic because it gives pupils a longer period to develop their abilities, unlike the tripartite which tests them at 11
  • Counter - Ford found little social mixing between WC and MC pupils because of streaming
• Marketisation - overview

  
  

  • Neoliberals and New Right support it as competition gives schools an initiative to get better results
  • Started with Margaret Thatcher and the 1988 Educational Reform Act
  • Taken further in 2010 with the creation of academies and free schools
• Marketisation - parentocracy (David)


  
  

  • Power shifts away from the producers to the consumers
  • This encourages diversity among schools, gives parents more choice and raises standards
• Marketisation - policy examples

  
  

  • League tables and Ofsted reports to promote competition
  • Business sponsorships
  • Specialist schools to widen parental choice
  • Formula funding, receive funding for number of students
  • Tuition fees for higher education
• Marketisation - reproduction of inequality

  
  

  • Ball and Whitty - exam league tables and the funding formula reproduce class differences by creating inequalities between schools
• Marketisation - League tables (Bartlett)


  
  

  • Cream skimming - good schools are more selective, choosing their own customers and recruit high achieving, MC pupils. As a result these pupils gain an advantage
  • Silt shifting - good skills can avoid taking less able pupils who are likely to get poor results and damage the school's league table position
  • For bad schools, they cannot afford to be selective and take anyone, adhering to WC children and keeping them low in the league tables
• Marketisation - funding formula

  
  

  • Schools are allocated funds based on how many pupils they have
  • This allows popular schools to afford higher-qualified teachers and quality facilities
  • Unpopular schools loose income and find it hard to match bigger schools
• Marketisation - parental choice (Gewirtz)


  
  

  • Privileged skilled choosers - professional MC parents who used their economic capital to gain educational capital
  • Disconnected local choosers - WC parents restricted by their lack of economic and educational capital
  • Semi skilled choosers - ambitious WC parents, who were restricted but asked others for help
• Marketisation - the myth of parentocracy

  
  

  • Ball - marketisation makes it appear that all parents have the same freedom to choose which schools to send their children to
  • Gewirtz - MC parents are able to take advantage of the choice available
  • By disguising the fact that schooling continues to reproduce class inequality in this way, the myth makes inequality in education appear fair and inevitable
• Marketisation - new labour policies

  
  

  • Education Action Zones - providing deprived areas with additional resource
  • The Aim Higher programme - raises the aspirations of groups who are under-represented in higher education
  • Education Maintenance Allowances - payments to poor students to encourage them to stay in school after 16
  • Benn - sees a contradiction between Labour's policies to tackle inequality and its commitment to marketisation
• Polices since 2010 - academies

  
  

  • All schools encouraged to leave local authority control and become academies
  • Funding taken away from local authority and given straight to academies
  • By 2017, 68% of all secondary schools had converted
  • Counter - By the Coalition government allowing any school to become an academy, they removed the focus on reducing inequality
• Polices since 2010 - free schools

  
  

  • Set up and run by parents, teachers, faith organisations or businesses
  • Supports claim they improve standards as parents have the opportunity to create a new school if they are unhappy with the state
  • Counter - Allen found they only benefit children from highly educated families
• Polices since 2010 - fragmented centralisation (Ball)


  
  

  • Promoting academies and free schools has led to both increased fragmentation and centralisation of control over education
  • Fragmentation - comprehensive system is being replaced by a patchwork of diverse private providers, leading to unequal opportunities
  • Centralisation - Academies and free schools are a result of the Central Government and their growth has led to the reduced role of elected authorities
• Polices since 2010 - reducing inequality

  
  

  • Free school meals - for all children in reception, year 1 and year 2
  • The Pupil Premium - money that schools receive for each pupil from a disadvantaged background
  • Counter - Ofsted found that TPP isn't being spent properly, 1/10 heads said it helped disadvantaged students
  • Counter - Conservative government increased inequality with their austerity programme to cut costs:
  • Cut Sure Start centres
  • Cut Education Maintenance Allowance
  • Uni tuition tripled to £9,000 a year
• Privatisation - blurring the public/private boundary

  
  

  • Senior officials in the public sector leave to work for private sector educational businesses
  • Companies then bid for contracts to provide services to schools
  • Pollack - this flow of personnel allows companies to buy insider knowledge to help contracts
• Privatisation - globalisation of policy

  
  

  • Ball - Edexcel is owned by a US company, Pearson, and some papers are marked in Sydney
  • Buckingham and Scanlon - UKs 4 leading educational software companies are all global (Disney, Mattel, Hambro and Vivendi)
  • Nation-states are becoming less important in policymaking
• Privatisation - the Cola-isation of schools


  
  

  • Private sector is penetrating education directly, like with vending machines in canteens
  • Molnar - schools are targeted as they are a kind of product endorsement due to their natural goodwill
  • Ball - a Cadbury's sports equipment promotion was scrapped after it was revealed the kids had to eat 5,440 chocolate bares to qualify for a set of volleyball posts
• Privatisation - education as a commodity

  
  

  • Ball - education is being turned into a legitimate object of private profit-making
  • Hall - sees academies as an example of handing over public services to private capitalists
• Globalisation - comedication of students (Ball)


  • British universities compete to attract overseas students who pay higher fees
  • British students study in foreign universities that are seen as the best providers in certain fields, like Germany and engineering
  • 50% of students consider studying abroad
  • 70% of students argue British tuition is too high
• Globalisation - multicultural curriculum (Holborn)


  • Schools now have to teach other faiths and cultures other than dominant white (81% of population) and Christian (11%) culture
  • RE teaches world faiths and geography teaches indigenous culture and the threats they face
  • Counter - there has been a recent push to reintroduce British values as the dominant aspect of the curriculum
• Globalisation - competition (Kelly)


  • Policies are designed to promote competition with international students
  • The British economy is global, skilled workers are required to keep us in the G7 of richest nations
  • Gove and Coalition government used Britain's failing position on the PISA league table as justification for more rigorous primary and secondary school standards, using findings from Finland and Singapore's success
  • Led to the expansion of free schools and academies
• Globalisation - PISA league table

  • Since 2000, 70 countries have participated
  • Involves randomly selecting a group of 15 year olds and testing them
  • Success - Uk was 25th for reading in 2009, increased to 14th in 2018
  • Failure - 2/3 of UK students are unhappy with the constant amounts of testing