The significance of education policies

• The 1988 Education Reform Act was based on the principles of making schools more competitive (marketisation) and giving parents choice (parentocracy)
• Marketisation


  • Creating an "education market" where schools compete with one another for pupils and government funding
  • Schools that provide parents and pupils with what they want – such as good exam results – will thrive
  • The better performing schools will attract more pupils and more funding and be able to expand
  • Those schools that don't perform so well will go out of business and either close down or be taken over by new management who will run things more efficiently
• Parentocracy


  Giving parents the choice over which schools to send their children to
• The New Right believed that marketisation would improve efficiency in schools, which should automatically be achieved by making schools more competitive, therefore reducing the education budget
• Another aim of the New Right in education was to ensure that education equipped children with the skills for work, thus contributing to economic growth
• Policies introduced by the 1988 Education Reform Act


  • League tables
  • The national curriculum (and GCSEs)
  • Formula funding
  • Open enrolment (parental choice)
  • OFSTED (in the early 1990s)
• League tables


  Schools were ranked based on their exam performance in SATs, GCSES, and A levels to allow parents to easily assess which schools in their local areas are the best
• National Curriculum


  Required that all schools teach the same subject content from the age of 7-16, including the core subjects English, Maths, Science etc at GCSE level
• OFSTED


  The government organisation that inspects schools, with the aim of driving up standards
• Open Enrolment


  Parents are allowed to select multiple schools to send their children to, but only specifying one as their 'first choice'
• Formula Funding


  Funding to individual schools was based on how many pupils enrolled in that school
• The 1988 Education Act gave more power to parents to choose which school to send their children to and more power to heads of school to manage their own budget, which meant that Local Education Authorities lost a lot of their control over how education was managed at the county level
• Probably the strongest piece of supporting evidence for the New Right's policies on education is that GCSE pass rates have improved nearly every year for the last 30 years
• An important point to keep in mind is that correlation doesn't necessarily mean causation – GCSE results may have improved over the last 30 years WITHOUT marketisation policies
• Criticisms of the 1988 Education Act


  • League Tables distort teaching and learning
  • SATS harm children's mental health
  • Rich Parents have more Choice of Schools
  • Cultural Capital gives the middle class more choice
  • The best schools cream skim
  • Polarisation
  • The experience of schooling becomes very negative for failing students
• Successive government has actually changed the fundamental foundations of the act, which suggests it's working
• The principle of competition has been applied internationally, in the form of the PISA league tables
• GCSE pass rates have improved from 1988 to 2016
• Correlation doesn't necessarily mean causation


  GCSE results may have improved over the last 30 years WITHOUT marketisation policies
• Powerful governments have expanded marketisation on a global scale
• This doesn't necessarily mean it works for everyone
• There are plenty of criticisms of the negative consequences of the 1988 Education Act
• League Tables


  • Distort teaching and learning
  • Give no indication of the wider social good a school is doing beyond getting students results
• The curriculum in schools has become more narrow over the years
• Schools devoted more time to teaching core subjects which are assessed in SATs such as English and Maths and less time teaching creative subjects such as music and art
• Schools increasingly 'teach to the test'
• This may stifle children's ability to think critically and laterally
• SATS harm children's mental health
• Focusing on exam results and league table position causes stress for pupils as more pressure is put on them to perform well in SATS
• More than 90% of primary school teachers think SATS impact negatively on their pupils' well-being
• Rich Parents


  • Have more Choice of Schools
  • The Middle Classes have more effective choice because of their higher incomes
  • Selection by mortgage - houses in the catchment areas of the best schools are more expensive, meaning those with money are more likely to get into the best schools
  • Transport costs – middle class parents more able to get their children to a wider range of schools because they are more likely to own two cars
  • Cultural Capital gives the middle class more choice
• Middle class parents as 'skilled choosers'


  They are more comfortable dealing with schools and use social networks to talk to parents whose children are attending schools on offer. They are also more used to dealing with and negotiating with teachers. If entry to a school is limited, they are more likely to gain a place for their child.
• Working class parents as 'disconnected choosers'

  Lacking cultural and social capital they tend to just settle for sending their children to the local school, meaning they have no real choice.
• Schools become more selective - they are more likely to want pupils who are likely to do well
• School/parent alliance

  Middle class parents want middle class schools and schools want middle class pupils. In general the schools with more middle class students have better results. Schools see middle class students as easy to teach and likely to perform well. They will maintain the schools position in the league tables and its status in the education market.
• Inequality of Education Opportunity increases - the best schools get better and the worst get worse
• The best schools become oversubscribed - often with four or more pupils competing for each place
• This means that these schools can 'cream skim' the best pupils - which means they get better results and so are in even more demand the next year
• Schools are under pressure to cream skim because this increases their chance of rising up in the league tables
• The next best school then skims off the next best students and so on until the worst schools at the bottom just end up with the pupils who no one wants