Marketisation 1988 Education Reform Act

Question 1

Overview

Answer 1

Marketisation refers to the running of areas controlled by the state, such as the education and health systems, like businesses. Neoliberals & the New Right favour marketisation & argue that it means that schools have to attract customers (parents & pupils) by competing with each other in the market. Schools that provide customers with what they want - such as success in exams - will thrive, & those that don’t will ‘go out of business’ & this is said to drive up the standards of all schools, providing an improving education for every pupil.

Question 2

Improvements

Answer 2

• reducing direct state control over education (e.g. through increasing the number of schools becoming academies)
• increasing competition between schools (e.g. through the publication of league tables & Ofsted reports)
• increasing parental choice of school (e.g. successful schools being granted open enrolment to recruit pupils from outside of their catchment area)

Question 3

A03

Answer 3

The main criticism of marketisation is that rather than improving education for all due to increased competition & choice, it has actually led to the reproduction of inequality for the following reasons:

Question 4

Exam League Tables

Answer 4

These ensure that schools that achieve good results are in more demand, because parents are attracted to those with good league table rankings. This allows these schools to be more selective & to recruit high achieving, mainly m/c pupils.

However, the opposite occurs for less successful schools. These are unable to select & tend to be full of less able, mainly working class pupils. The overall effect of league tables is to produce unequal schools that reproduce social class inequalities.

Bartlett argued that marketisation has led to selective and more popular schools: 
• cream-skimming: selecting able pupils, who gain the best results & cost less to teach (e.g. middle class pupils). 
• silt-shifting: off-loading pupils with learning difficulties, who are expensive to teach & get poor  results (e.g. working-class pupils), to already underachieving or failing schools.

Question 5

Funding Formula

Answer 5

Funding is determined by pupil numbers – each pupil is worth money to the school. The more popular a school is the higher their funding. These schools can then afford to attract better-qualified teachers & better facilities.

Unpopular schools lose income & find it difficult to match the teacher skills & facilities of their more successful rivals. These schools are more likely to be attended by working-class pupils who do not have the money (e.g. for travel) or the knowledge (i.e. cultural capital) to gain entry into higher achieving, more popular schools.

Question 6

Parentocracy

Answer 6

It is the idea that marketisation has given more power & choice to parents & their sons/daughters. E.g. league tables, Ofsted & the competition between schools allows parents to actively make decisions about where best to send their children and they can ask relevant questions during open evenings

Critics of marketisation argue that it has actually increased inequalities between pupils, e.g. middle class parents are better placed to take advantage of the available choices. Therefore parentocracy is a myth as w/c parents lack the cultural & economic capital to take full advantage of  the system. 
Gerwitz argues that middle class parents have more economic & cultural capital & so are better able  to take advantage of the choice available, e.g by moving house into areas with better schools. She calls  professional middle-class parents ‘privileged-skilled choosers’