Education: 1988 – 1997 Education Reform Act 1988 Marketisation of education

Question 1

Overview of Marketisation

Answer 1

Introduced buy the conservative gov inspired by NR Chubb and Moe

Schools to be left to the market forces and therefore be run like businesses. Schools have to attract students to receive more money known as formula funding, this makes schools more competitive as to attract more students grades need to be good.

Marketisation came with:

• Formula funding
• League tables
• Open enrolment therefore parentocracy
• SATs
• New types of schools CTCs and GM
• National curriculum

Question 2

National Curriculum

Answer 2

The National Curriculum is a proscribed set of subjects all students must study between the ages of 5 to16.
Shifted responsibility for what was to be taught away from teachers to central government.
Created three core and seven foundation subjects.
Introduced coursework as an examination technique.

C: c/w scrapped, ethnocentric curriculum

Question 3

National testing - Standardised Attainment Tests (SATs) and GCSEs

Answer 3

These are tests in English, Maths and Science at the age of 7, 11, 14 and 16 to check if the students have reached the attainment targets.
They were introduced to drive up standards and show which schools are doing the best, to give parents the information to choose a school and to encourage schools to compete against each other.
These are published annually in league tables

Question 4

Open enrolment

Answer 4

Catchment areas were abolished.
Parents could send their children to any school that had places.
David calls this ‘parentocracy’ – rule by parents – as they are the ones with power to choose a school for their children. This forces schools to be outstanding with high grades in order to attract parents.

C: School still have control Bartlett cream skin and silt shift

Question 5

Formula Funding

Answer 5

Schools received funding according to the number of students they had.
It was introduced to reward the schools which attracted the most parents by having good results.
Failing schools would not attract many students, their funding would therefore be low and they would close down, while successful schools would expand

Question 6

Local Management of schools (LEA)

Answer 6

The LEA lost control over schools. The power was given directly to schools eg control of finances and employing teachers etc.

Question 7

City Technology Colleges

Answer 7

A new type of school was set up in the inner cities - City Technology Colleges specialising in technology, Maths, Science and vocational education.
CTCs were independent of LEA and were intended to be financed by local industry.

Question 8

OFSTED

Answer 8

Gov agency for inspection of school could put schools in special measures

Question 9

Criticism of Marketisation of education

Answer 9

• Bartlett – marketisation has led to selection policies by good schools through cream-skimming and silt-shifting.
• Gillborn and Youdell – marketisation of education contributes to widening the gap in achievement between working class and middle class students through the A-C economy and educational triage.
• Gewritz – schools use home-school contracts to attract the ‘right sort of parents’. Also, middle class parents can use their economic, educational and cultural capital to select better schools for their children. This creates a blurred hierarchy of schools with high achieving middle class schools at one end and low achieving working class schools on the other.
• Ball – schools spend money on advertising themselves, not on resources, in order to attract middle class parents.
• Ball - ‘myth of parentocracy’ – marketisation gives the impression that parents have a choice, but in reality, middle class parents have more economic and cultural capital which gives them an advantage in choosing a school.
• Too much stress is placed on students with excessive testing. Also, teachers focus more on preparing students to pass the test, than on actually getting them to learn and enjoy learning.
• League tables are not an accurate indicator of a school’s performance. For example, a school with many working class, low ability students may have excellent teaching, but the students will still get low results so the school will be placed in a low position in the league table. Also, in order to maintain a high position in the league tables, some school do not enter low ability students for exams.