EDU- Education Policies Flashcards
Education policy
‘Educational policy’ refers to the plans and strategies for education introduced by government. The government spends a great deal of time and money on education policies. Examples include: Pupil Premium where schools receive more money for enrolling students from low income families, Free School Meals, and the introduction of linear GCSEs and A Levels.
Political views on education
Left-wing (Labour/Social Democratic)
What is the role of edu?
The role of education is to reduce social inequalities and focus on underachieving groups.
Political views on education
Left-wing (Labour/Social Democratic)
All children should have equal opportunities to do well in education.
Labour policies target students from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Policies should tackle inequalities in education and make sure that the education system becomes more meritocratic.
Political views on education
Right-wing (Conservatives/New Right)
What is the role of education?
The role of education is to provide choices e.g. different types of schools and parental choice (parents’ can choose which schools to send their children to).
Political views on education
Right-wing (Conservatives/New Right)
Belief that the education system should look to the private sector as a good example and try to incorporate their approach in state schools.
If students do not do well in education, it is their responsibility.
Marketisation (schools run like businesses) is an important part of education today - it raises standards and gives parents’ choice.
5 main issues:
- Selection policies: Should schools be able to select their students?
- Marketisation and privatisation: Should state schools be run like businesses within an ‘education market’? Should they be given to private companies to run?
- Policies to achieve greater equality of opportunity: How far do government policies help to achieve equal opportunities for all students? Or do government policies make inequalities greater?
- The impact of policies on the achievement of social groups: To what extent have government policies improved the achievement of students in terms of their social class, gender and ethnicity?
- The impact of globalisation on educational policy
Selective policies
What is selective education ?
Selective education refers to the entry criteria that students need to meet in order to go to a particular school e.B. passing an entrance exam or IQ test.
Many schools prefer to select, if given the opportunity, the brightest, best-behaved and best-motivated students. Schools generally prefer students with well-off and well-educated parents (middle class) who encourage and support their children’s progress at school, consequently having a positive impact on the school’s image and exam results.
3 main types of selection
- Selection by ability
- Selection by aptitude
- Selection by faith
Selection by ability
Give polices that helped enforce this
Schools select students according to their academic ability.
For example, the 1944 Butler Act introduced the tripartite system (3 types of secondary school). All 11 years old sat an IQ test called the 11+ exam.
Secondary schools selected students according to their performance in this exam.
If you passed, you went to a grammar school (academic education with access to University and professional jobs).
If you failed, you went to a secondary modern school (less academic with more practical based subjects e.g. cooking for girls, bricklaying for boys) or a technical school (learn skills and trades).
Selection by ability
Evaluation of the tripartite system and the 11+ exam
• Middle class bias - questions in the 11+ exam were based upon middle class knowledge (e.g. classical music, Shakespeare, poetry), giving middle class students an advantage.
• Reproduced social class inequalities; grammar schools were full of middle class students, while secondary modern and technical schools had mostly working class students.
• Reproduced gender inequality; there were few grammar school places for girls, which meant that girls had to achieve higher marks than boys in the 11+ exam to gain a place at grammar school.
Selection by ability now
Selection by ability is now banned in all state-funded schools (except for a small number of state-funded grammar schools). Although, most private schools have selection by ability e.g. sit an entrance exam.
Criticisms of selection by ability (403):
• Late developers benefit - students’ whose intelligence and ability improves at a later stage (e.g. at GCSE
or A Level) will do better in a non-selective system (if they’re judged at 11 years old, their opportunities
would be limited).
• Reduced risk of negative labelling and the self-fulfilling prophecy - children are less likely to be labelled as failures at an early age, which would lower their self-esteem.
• Benefits all students of all abilities - when all students, regardless of their ability, are taught in the same type of school and in the same classroom (mixed-ability teaching), the more able students can have a positive influence on the less able students. Even more able students benefit e.g. explaining difficult concepts/work to less able students helps them to consolidate and revise what they’ve learnt.
Selection by aptitude
This is where students are selected on the basis of their ‘aptitude’ or potential to be good in certain subjects.
Specialist Schools, which now include nearly all state-funded secondary schools, are allowed to select up to 10% of students on the basis of their aptitude in specialist subjects, For example, a school with a sports specialism can select up to 10% of its students for being gifted in sport. Although many schools have chosen not to use such as selection process.
Selection by faith
Faith schools - those of a religious character e.g. St Mary’s College in Hull is a Catholic school - may select a proportion of their students on the basis of the religious beliefs and commitment of their parents.
Evaluation of selection policies (A03):
• Despite selection by ability being banned in all state-funded schools, sociologists have found evidence of ‘cream skimming’ in the most popular, high-achieving schools. These schools select students they see as more able and hardworking (typically middle class students, female or from Chinese backgrounds) because they will achieve excellent exam results for the school.
Where does Marketisation and privatisation root from?
Neo-Liberalism, an economic approach that suggests resources are more efficiently managed by private businesses. They wish to move public services like education and healthcare into the private sector.
Marketisation and privitisation
Neo-Liberals claim that
the best way to deliver and improve the quality of public services is through making them operate like private businesses. Neo-Liberalism is a feature of the New Right approach to education, underpinning Conservative education policies.
Marketisation
Marketisation is the idea that market forces of supply and demand based on competition and consumer choice, should be introduced into the education system.
New right view on Marketisation
The New Right argue that in order to improve education each school should be run like a business, and parents should have a choice in the school they send their children to.
Parents should be consumers, ‘shopping around’ for the right state school for their children. Marketisation creates competition between schools for new parents and students. The New Right believe that this competition will raise standards because only the best schools with excellent exam results will attract new parents and students.
Consequently, every school works hard to improve teaching and exam results to appeal to new parents and students. This means all students leave school with better exam results.
1988 Education Reform Act
The idea of marketisation was first introduced in the 1988 Education Reform Act by the Conservative government (The New Right). The Act introduced 3 marketisation policies - parental choice, league tables and formula funding.
What did the 1988 Education Reform Act introduce?
The Act introduced 3 marketisation policies - parental choice, league tables and formula funding.
1988 Education Reform Act
Parental choice
Until the 1988 Education Reform Act, parents tended to send their children to the local school, this Act offered parents the chance to decide which school they felt best suited their children.
Parents became consumers,
‘shopping around’ for the best state school for their children e.g. attending open days, looking at Ofsted reports and prospectuses.
Schools that provide consumers (the parents) with what they want (e.g. excellent exam results) will be successful, while schools that don’t will ‘go out of business’. There is now parentocracy - all parents have a say in the school their children attend.
The New Right claim that if parents (working class) don’t get their children into the best schools, it is their own fault
- they should research schools, take an interest and be in paid work (so that they can afford to send their children to better schools further away).
1988 Education Reform Act
Parental choice
Evaluation
• Marxists argue that parentocracy is a myth (it doesn’t exist) - only middle class parents are able to take advantage of greater choice because they have capital:
-Economic capital - pay for transport to better schools further away or move house into the catchment area of a Good school (selection by mortgage). Whereas, working class parents suffer from material deprivation and cannot afford the costs to secure a place in a Good school.
-Educational capital - middle class parents are confident talking to teachers at open days and know what kinds of questions to ask. Whereas, working class parents often feel embarrassed talking to teachers (as they speak the restricted code/don’t share the same habitus). Also, ethnic minority parents who do not speak English as a first language (e.g. Pakistani, Bangladeshi) won’t be able to understand the teachers or the application forms.
League tables
For the first time, exam results of all schools were published in league tables.
League tables encourage parentocracy, helping parents to make an informed choice by comparing the ‘success rates’ of different schools.
League tables encourage competition between schools for the best exam results and highest positions in the league tables (so new parents and students will want to come to their school).
League tables
New Rights view
The New Right believe that league tables would make it easy to identify the best schools and shame (or humiliate) the worst schools into improving their standards or face closure.
Evaluation of league tables
• League tables have led to cream-skimming: To reach the top of the league tables, the most successful schools ‘cream-skim’ their students, selecting middle class students and girls who will achieve excellent exam results (so the school stays at the top of the league tables).
• League tables have created an educational triage: Gillborn and Youdell argue that in order to achieve as many A-C grades as possible, teachers allocate more resources and teacher time to students on the C/D borderline in order to turn as many Ds into Cs as possible e.g. extra revision sessions, breakfast revision on exam days. While students in the ‘hopeless cases’ category are given no extra support, as they are unlikely to achieve a grade C or higher. These students are put in the bottom sets with behavioural issues and the weakest teachers. This disadvantages less able students and reproduces social class inequalities because most of the ‘hopeless cases’ are working class
Formula funding
Formula funding refers to the money schools receive for each student enrolled. The more students a school has, the more money they will receive.
Formula funding is a way of rewarding successful schools that attract lots of new students, these schools will be able to expand and improve further e.g. afford new facilities, better qualified teachers. Schools that don’t attract new students risk being closed down.
New right view on formal funding
The New Right claim that formula funding will raise standards in all schools by forcing failing schools to improve, otherwise they will be closed down. The fact that some schools have more funding than others reflects the economy - some businesses do better than others.
Making schools compete and act like businesses will raise standards.
Evaluation of formula funding
• Competition between schools for students, and therefore money, may make it harder for poorer schools to improve, as students go to the more popular schools with better qualified teachers and better facilities. Less successful schools lose money and lack resources to improve.
This results in a polarisation of schools; high performing schools with good exam results and middle class students become more and more popular, while underperforming schools with largely working class and ethnic minority students fail to attract new students and their funding is further reduced. Thus increasing educational inequalities.
Subsequent governments and 1988 education reform act
Subsequent governments have continued many of the marketsation policies introduced by the Conservative government in the 1988 Education Reform Act. And creating an education market has remained a priority.
The coalition government
The Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government promoted school diversity (different types of schools).
There are now many different strat-funded schools including grammar schools, community schoolS, faith schools, academies and free schools. This gives parents (the consumers) more choice in the education market.
Free schools
The Coalition government introduced Free Schools - a new type of state school that is free from control of the local authority e.g. The Boulevard Academy in Hull is a free school which is not controlled by Hull City Council.
Coalition govt beliefs on Free Schools
The government believed that Free Schools would improve educational standards by taking control away
The Boulevard Academy from the state and giving power to parents. Free Schools continue a system of parentocracy - they are set-up in response to the demands and wishes of parents and local people who are not happy with the current schools in their area.
Thus market forces of supply and demand underpin Free Schools; parents demand better schools and free schools are built to meet the demand.
Evaluation of free schools
• Free Schools increase educational inequalities - Free Schools are full of White middle class students (as their parents have all types of capital and will demand a better education for their children).
• Some Free Schools have been set up in Muslim areas, offering an Islamic-focused education for ethnic minority students such as Bangladeshis. However, the freedom Free Schools have over their daily running contributed to the Trojan Horse scandal - a small number of Free Schools in Birmingham were teaching Islamic extremism.
Academies
From 2010, the coalition government encouraged all state schools to become independent academies, fovernment encourarity control. Schools that became academies were given more from local a control over the running of their school e. g. they could change the length of the school day, set their own staff thy and conditions. They no longer had to do what the local authority told them to do, instead they received funding directly from the government and were largely left to they received funding d management of their school. Thus running much like private businesses, corresponding with marketsation.
Converted academies
they are succestful schools that choose to become academies for the freedom it brings.
Sponsored academies
failing schools that are turned into academies to raise standards e.g. Sirius Academy North and West are examples of sponsored academies in Hull
Evaluation of Academies
• As these schools are not controlled by local authorities, there has been concern over the lack of local oversight and checks to see what these schools are doing.
For example, the Trojan Horse scandal in 2014
- there were fears of an Islamic extremist takeover of academy schools in Birmingham.
Privatisation
Privatisation refers to private companies taking over the running of education.
Examples include exam boards (e.g. AQA, OCR, Pearson Edexcel) and supply agencies. The Conservative government believes that privatisation will make education more efficient, cost effective and raise standards.
Exam boards
Profit-making businesses - they charge for everything e.g. re-marks, to get your exam paper back, teacher training.
For example, it costs around £50 to re-mark one A Level exam paper.
Evaluation of exam boards
Marxists
argue that exam boards reproduce social class inequalities - working class students suffer from material deprivation, so they cannot afford re-marks.
They do not have the opportunity to challenge their A Level grades, which means that they may lose out on a place at University or have to go to their insurance choice. Whereas, a middle class student can use their economic capital and has a greater chance of going to University and/or to their top choice.
Supply agencies
Profit-making businesses- they charge schools around the £180 per day for a supply teacher
Evaluation of supply teachers
• Many schools canot afford the high es of supply agencies (particularly those lower down the league tables), so these schools often employ cover supervisors to cover lessons when teachers are sick.
Cover supervisors are usually unqualified, making them much cheaper compared to supply teachers.
However, being unqualified means that they often lack classroom management skills and student behaviour is often poor in cover lessons. The learning is often very limited too as they cover all subjects, they are not subject specialists.
