Education Reforms Flashcards
Forster Education Act 1870 - Policies + Aims
Created elementary schools for 5-11 year olds
To provide Britain with an educated workforce and ward off the threat of revolution
Forster Education Act 1870 - Criticisms
Made little difference to the lives of w/c children as they only learnt basic skills required for factory work
Butler Education Act 1944 - Policies + Aim
Created secondary schools for 11-15 year olds.
Tripartite system: Three types of secondary schools: grammar, secondary modern and technical.
11+ exam was used to decide which school
children went to
To provide ‘equality of opportunity for all’ as all children sat the same 11+ exam thus being judged on merit.
Butler Education Act 1944 - Criticisms
‘Parity of esteem’ (the idea that one school should be considered to have the same ‘status’ as another) did not exist which led students to see themselves as failures if they didn’t go to a grammar school.
Unfair to girls as they were marked down on the assumption boys mature at a later age and most grammar schools were same sex and for boys only.
This did not create equality, it perpetuated inequality. W/c children failed because they were culturally deprived and could not afford tuition for the 11+ exam like how m/c children would.
Comprehensive education 1965 - Policies + Aims
Created comprehensive schools and catchment areas
Compensatory education - education priority areas - schools in those boroughs received extra funding
To break down class barriers and create a social mix in schools To improve the self esteem of 11 year olds by not labelling them as failures.
Comprehensive education 1965 - Criticisms
Catchment areas are usually class based so class barriers were not broken down.
‘Tripartite system under one roof due to setting and streaming - low set is equivalent to a techncal school in terms of psychological repercussions and no parity of esteem.
Education Reform Act (Marketisation) 1988 - Policies + Aims
Marketised education by creating FOOL policies: Formula Funding Open Enrolment Ofsted League tables
To run schools on the basis of free market economy principles [reduced government interference, choice and competition] so all schools compete and bad schools are closed down to lack of funding
Parentocracy - parents have the right to choose the best schools for their child david
Education Reform Act (Marketisation) 1988 - Criticisms
Gilborn and Youdell: A-C Economy - teachers carry out educational triage
Barlett: Cream skimming/Silt shifting
w/c are called disconnected local choosers - they send their child to the school closest to where they live without looking at league tables so M only benefits m/c with C+E capital
New Labour government and marketisation 1997-2010 - Aims + Policies
Marketisation -Different types of schools: specialist schools, city academies and faith schools.
Introduced uni fees and increased power for ofsted
Reducing social inequality - Education Maintenance Allowance - (money given to sixth form students to encourage them to stay in education post 16: ranged from £10-£30 based on the students financial background)
Education Action Zones
Curriculum 2000
Extended schools (free half term activities)
- Privation of education: private companies get into partnership with state schools. - Building schools for the future’
New Labour criticisms
Gewirtz: the increase in marketisation continues to benefit m/c as they have the cultural capital to select the good school for their children + home school contracts
Whitty: New Labour policies are cosmetic – they present a positive image, but in reality they are not following through with their aims e.g reducing class inequality - while EMA encouraged working class students to remain in post 16 education, the university fees put them off higher education. New Labour paradox [Benn]
Sponsors and investors for city academies can impose their own ideologies and agendas within the curriculum and school policies. This can be negative e.g. ethnocentric curriculum or institutional racism.
‘selection by the back door’ - faith schools/specualists schools have their own the right to select students on faith or talent in specialist subject so use this to select student by ability secretly = creates inequality
2010 - conservative aims + policies
Continued to marketise education through policies such as converter academies (outstanding schools that are given the right to run themselves with no government interference: get a one-off injection of cash to help run themselves) and free schools
Pupil premium and bursaries introduced after receiving backlash for abolishing the Harder national curriculum.
Aim - marketisation
2010 - conservative criticisms
Free schools wasted money as many closed down in the first year of opening and only benefited m/c who had the cultural capital to know about them
Pupil premium is meant to be spent on students however is being used to fill in the gaps of the schools budget.
Within converter academies, money is allocated to head teachers’ wages rather than on the school for students and resources, since they are free from government education, nobody can intervene.
sociologists that criticise marketisation
Callendar and Jackson - uni fees disadvantaged w/c – they fear debt and choose not to go to uni which demotivates them at school so they underachieve
C: Ball – myth of paretnocracy – w/c lack CandE capital to choose the right school
Gilborn and Youdell: A-C Economy - teachers carry out educational triage
Gewirtz: the increase in marketisation continues to benefit m/c as they have the cultural capital to select the good school for their children + homeschool contracts
Bartlett – the pressure to be top of the LT means schools cream skim and silt shift students – this means that in practice the bad schools will never be eliminated – w/c, e/m students reject by top schools have no choice but to go there.
Chubb and Moe
M raises standards because it introduces the free market principles – choice, competition and no gov interference – into the edu system and these improve schools. Parents have a choice of school, and schools are only paid based on the number of students they have. School therefore have to compete to attract students and they compete by working harder to be the best school. This results in failing schools closing down as no parent will choose those schools. This makes all schools good – all kids go to good schools and achieve
