Social Policy Flashcards

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1
Q

What did the 1870 Education Act introduce?

A

The 1870 Education Act introduced elementary education for children up to the age of 10. There was a focus on SRs (reasing, writing and maths). Introduced because: needed a literate workforce, for foreign competition and the need for people to take religious instruction. The Act was made compulsory in 1880 and it was passed by the government and operated by the local parishes.

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2
Q

What did the 1880 Education Act do?

A

The 1880 Education Act made education compulsory. Age range rose to 13.

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3
Q

What was the 1944 Education Act?

A

The 1944 (Butler) Education Act promised secondary education for all. The act attempted to achieve this by raising the school leaving age and dividing the all-age elementary education into primary and secondary schools. It also introduced the tripartite system where the which created three types of state funded secondary schools. The 11+ tests would determine which school the pupil attended.

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4
Q

What were the features of secondary schools?

A
  • Secondary modern schools had a budget of 1/3 than that of grammar schools.
  • Pupils in Secondary modern schools seen as failures and had low self esteem.
  • 4/5 failed.
  • More grammar schools for boys.
  • Gradual discontent among M/C parents for their children going to Secondary schools.
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5
Q

What happened in 1965?

A

In the majority of areas, comprehensive schools were introduced in 1965. The aim of the comprehensive system was to have one type which all pupils would attend. This would create a more meritocratic system as all students would would receive the same schooling regardless of social class and gender. The 11+ no longer existed in the majority of areas, and Secondary modern schools and grammar schools were replaced by comprehensives.

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6
Q

What were the advantages of comprehensive schools?

A
  • Philosophy of equality was a good thing about comprehensive schools.
  • W/C can now access good facilities.
  • Mixed classes so mixed ability.
  • Gave W/C people their first time/chance of getting to university.
  • Gave more children the opportunity for social mobility.
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7
Q

What were the disadvantages of comprehensive schools?

A
  • Decision to go comprehensive was down to each Local Authority.
  • In some areas, grammar schools were kept.
  • Some comprehensives began to stream.
  • Some comps were too big and too impersonal.
  • Low standards. No real checks on people. Lack of government check/control on teaching.
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8
Q

In summary, what did the 1944 Education Act do?

A

From 1944, education began to be influenced by the idea of meritocracy - that individuals should achieve their status in life through their own efforts and abilities, rather than it being ascribed at birth by their class background.

The 1944 Education Act brought in the tripartite system. Children were to be selected and allocated to one of three different types of secondary school, supposedly according to their aptitudes and abilities. These were to be identified by the 11+ exam.

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9
Q

How did the different schools function in the tripartite system?

A
  • Grammar schools offered an academic curriculum and access to non-manual jobs and higher education. They were for pupils with academic ability who passed the 11+. These pupils were mainly middle-class.
  • Secondary modern schools offered a non-academic ‘practical’ curriculum and access to manual work for pupils who failed the 11+. These pupils were mainly working class.
  • Technical schools existed in a few areas only, so in practice it was more a bipartite than a tripartite system.
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10
Q

What were the problems with the tripartite system?

A

Rather than promoting meritocracy, the tripartite system and 11+ reproduced class inequality by channeling the two social classes into two different types of school that offered unequal opportunities. The system also reproduced gender inequality by requiring girls to gain higher marks than boys in the 11+ to obtain a grammar school place.

The tripartite system also legitimatised inequality through the ideology that ability is inborn. It was thus argued that ability could be measured early on in life, through the 11+. However, in reality children’s environment greatly affects their chances of success.

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11
Q

Why did the conservatives want to change social policy?

A

When the conservatives came to power in 1979 they were ready to change social policy. They believed that the existing education system did not meet the needs of employers and industry closely enough, it was not reaching high enough standards, and was failing to benefit the most disadvantaged groups in society.

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12
Q

What is marketisation?

A

Marketisation is the process whereby services, like education or health, that were previously controlled and run by the state, have government or local authority (local council) control and support reduced or removed altogether, and operate like independently managed private businesses, subject to the free market forces of supply and demand, based on competition and consumer choice. Marketisation as a means of improving educational standards is rooted in the neoliberal approach and was originally an idea of New Right theorists like Chubb and Moe.

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13
Q

What did the 1988 Education Reform Act introduce?

A

The Conservative Part governed Britain between 1979-1997. In 1988 Margaret Thatcher’s government passed an education act that brought far reaching changes to the education system in England:

  • SATs at the end of key stage 1-3 Yr 2, 6 and 9
  • National Curriculum (very good for girls)
  • GCSEs replaced O levels and CSEs
  • Independent City Technology Colleges were established
  • Schools became Grant maintained - opted out of local authority control
  • Formula Funding - paid according to number of students in the school.
  • Parents allowed a free choice of schools (although catchment areas still operated).
  • 4 yearly inspections by OFSTED would ensure these recommendations were followed.
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14
Q

How was marketisation beneficial?

A
  • Independence - allowed schools and colleges to control their own affairs and run like private businesses.
  • Competition - compete with one another for customers (students).
  • Choice - giving customers (parents and students) a choice of schools.
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15
Q

What is parentocracy?

A

Parentocracy = ‘Parent Power’, with parents having more rights and choice of schools.

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16
Q

How has marketisation benefitted school diversity?

A

To satisfy consumer (parent) choice, since the 1988 there has been a growing range of different types of state-funded schools, offering parents more choice of schools than ever before. The promotion of school diversity is accompanied by encouraging ‘partners’ like private businesses, universities and colleges, community and parent groups and educational charities to become more involved in running schools, and to help to raise standards by using their expert knowledge or enthusiasm.

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17
Q

How has marketisation raised standards?

A

As consumers of education in a free market, parents could choose between a diversity of competing schools, rejecting some in favour of others. Schools would be forced to improve standards to attract students (and money). Schools or colleges that performed well would grow and improve even more, and poorly performing schools or colleges would risk losing money as student numbers fell, and would be forced to improve, or face being closed, or being turned into an independently managed academy or taken over by another academy. It was therefore thought these marketisation processes would lead to improvement of all schools, more satisfied parents and students, and a more efficient and effective education system, with higher standards.

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18
Q

What are the disadvantages of marketisation?

A
  • The myth of parentocracy
  • The Educational triage
  • Difficulties in improving schools and colleges
  • Dumbing down
  • Problems with the national curriculum and testing
  • Reduced quality control
  • Chaos in the education system
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19
Q

What is the myth of parentocracy?

A

The Middle class has gained the most. Ball et al. (1996) argue that parents are now encouraged to see themselves as consumers of education, with good parenting seen, at least in part, as taking on the on the responsibilities of school choice. However, they point out that parental choice follows a pattern related to social class differences, and contributes to the reproduction of the social class inequalities in education.

Tough and Brooks (2007) point out that better-educated middle-class families with higher incomes are more likely to make choices based on a school’s performance, while those from more disadvantaged working class families are more likely to choose schools that are near to their homes and which their child’s friends attend, rather than because of its position in the School Performance Table (league tables).

Parentocracy disguises the fact that not all parents have the same freedom to exercise this choice. Some of the highest-performing schools carry out covert selection, and deliberately try to dissuade poorer parents from applying.

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20
Q

What did Machin and Vernoit find about the myth of parentocracy?

A

Machin and Vernoit (2010) found evidence that the 2010 - 2015 coalition government’s new-style academies that opened from September 2010 onwards were significantly more advantaged than the average secondary school. These new-style academies contained lower proportions of pupils who were eligible for free school meals and were likely to reinforce advantage and make worse existing inequalities in schooling.

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21
Q

What are the middle class better placed than many working class parents to do?

A
  • Shop around and find the best schools
  • Understand and compare school league tables
  • Know more about how to assess Oftsed school inspection reports and what constitutes a ‘good school’
  • Afford more easily to move into the catchment areas of the hugest performing schools
  • Afford higher transport costs, giving their children a wider choice of schools
  • Know more about how popular schools allocate places, and to make more effective use of appeals procedures should they be refused a place at their chosen school.
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22
Q

How does the education system remain socially selective?

A

The education system remains socially selective, and the higher the social class of the parents, the better are the schools to which they send their children, and these schools stay better because they are supported by advantaged middle-class parents.

Those who have already benefitted from education the most will gain more, while those who are more disadvantaged may become further disadvantaged.

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23
Q

What is the educational Triage?

A

The competitive climate and the importance of school league tables mean teachers try to ensure the school’s survival within the educational marketplace through the educational triage. Teachers may allocate more resources and teacher time to brighter students, or those, for example, on the C/D grade borderline at GCSE, who are more likely to deliver the prestigious five GCSE A-C results or the six GCSEs A-C making up the EBacc, disadvantaging students who are less likely to achieve these standards.

A report by the House of Commons Education Committee of MPs (2011) suggested the introduction of the EBacc would lead teachers devoting more time to pupils who have a chance of achieving this standard, who are more likely to come from middle class homes and that there was a ‘serious risk that schools will simply ignore their less academically successful pupils’, who are more likely to come from working class homes.

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24
Q

What are the difficulties in improving schools and colleges?

A

Competition between schools and colleges for students, and therefore for money, may make it harder for poorer schools and colleges to improve as students go elsewhere. Less successful schools and colleges lose income and may therefore lack the resources to improve their performance to attract more students to match their successful rivals.

The pupil premium - extra money for poorer students - may not be enough to encourage higher performing schools to try to attract poorer students as they are often the hardest to teach.

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25
Q

What is dumbing down?

A

Retaining students may mean not punishing students too hard for fear of losing them and may lead to a ‘dumbing down’ of teaching and subject content.

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26
Q

What are the problems with the national curriculum and testing?

A

Testing, either by external tests or teacher assessment, has been criticised particularly at Key Stage (age 7), for putting too much pressure on young children, and possibly giving them a sense of failure early on in their schooling.

Teaching may become too focused on the content of the tests as a way to get the good test results needed for a a high position in the league tables, at the expense of the wider school curriculum.

27
Q

What does reduced quality control mean?

A

Evidence is emerging that OFSTED is not as independent as it needs to be, and seems to be vulnerable to manipulation by politicians. For example, in 2014, in inspecting Birmingham schools alleged to be part of an Islamic extremist plot to take over schools, OFSTED changed its criteria over a short period, with schools originally rated as ‘outstanding’ two years later earlier identified as being ‘inadequate’ (Ofsted’s lowest rating) and placed in special measure. This suggests Ofsted’s monitoring and quality assurance role is now less reliable.

28
Q

How has marketisation brought chaos into the education system?

A

Marketisation and privatisation, and particularly the growth of free schools and academies, has meant that there is now a lack of local oversight and checks and balances over what these schools do, and how they spend taxpayers’ money.

Parents are often not clear about who these schools are accountable to - do they make complaints to the headteacher, the local authority, the DfE, or the management of academy chains?

Examples of the consequences of this growing independence for schools include a series of scandals in 2013-14 ranging from financial corruption in academics and academy chains to fears of Islamic extremist takeover of schools in Birmingham. In 2014, there was some recognition of this lack of accountability, including proposals for regional school commissioners, more inspections of academy chains and new oversight of school governors, was announced.

Headteachers have frequently complained that the pace of educational change - particularly in the exams system and the national curriculum - the need to compete with neighbouring schools and the lack of support that used to come from local authorities has meant the quality and planning of schooling in England has become increasingly chaotic.

29
Q

Which policies focused around reducing inequality in society?

A

New Labour policies in 1997

30
Q

What did the New Labour government from 1977-2010 introduce?

A
  • Excellence in cities
  • Sure start
  • Academies
  • Further education expansion and Education Maintenance Allowance
  • Expansion if higher education
  • Policies influenced by New Right philosophy
  • Specialist schools
  • Use of league tables
  • New Deal for Young People
  • Vocational GCSEs and Alevels
  • Class requirements
31
Q

What is excellence in cities?

A

Extra resources provided for education in disadvantaged inner-city areas. Included learning centres with IT facilities, learning mentors, and units for children at risk of exclusion.

32
Q

What is Sure Start?

A

Sure Start provided extra help for pre-school children in deprived areas (e.g. play centres and home visits to advise parents on pre-school education). This creates more equal opportunity as by intervening early will boost the long term educational performance of deprived children.

33
Q

What are academies?

A

Academies are new schools, partly sponsored by big businesses, set up to replace failing comprehensive schools so no children, particularly those in poorer areas, were educated in a very ineffective school.

34
Q

What is Further Education expansion and Education Maintenance Allowance?

A

FE was expanded and participation rates increased. EMAs provided payments of up to £30 a week to children from less affluent homes continuing in education after school. To reduce drop-out rates by making it more affordable to stay on in education.

35
Q

What is expansion of higher education?

A

Number of places in higher education was increased rapidly, nearly doubling between 1990 and 2004. More people into university.

36
Q

How are their policies influenced by New Right philosophy?

A

Other policies introduced by New Labour drew on the philosophy of the New Right. These were more concerned with raising standards, making education more competitive and increasing apparent choice.

37
Q

What are specialist schools?

A

Schools could specialise in one of 10 areas (e.g. computing, science, sports, humanities) and select up to 10% of pupils according to aptitude in the specialism. Increased institutional diversity to meet the needs of individual pupils.

38
Q

How was the use of league tables continued?

A

League tables continued to be used and more details published, including ‘value-added’ scores based on progress. To drive up standards by fostering competition and to measure progress towards govern,ent targets. Value-added league tables intended to provide a fairer measure of schools’ performance by taking some account of class differences.

39
Q

What was the New Deal for Young People?

A

The New Deal provided education, training, voluntary work or subsidised jobs for unemployed young people as well as support from personal advisors.

40
Q

What were vocational GSCEs and Alevels?

A

NVQs were changed into vocational GCSEs and A-levels in 2001. It was done to improve the status of vocational qualifications, so they were not seen as second-rate compared with academic qualifications. For example, GSCE in plumbing.

41
Q

What class requirement was put into place?

A

No more than 30 in a class at KS1.

42
Q

What did New Labour introduce in 1998?

A
  • Literacy and numeracy hours was to be dedicated front of class teaching.
  • Tuition fees in higher education £3000.
  • EPA (Educational Priority Areas) were replaced by Education Action Zones which allowed local partnerships to develop imaginative approaches to raising educational standards in seriously disadvantaged areas.
43
Q

What did New Labour introduce in 2000?

A

AS/A2 (2 years of A-levels) introduced often known as the curriculum 2000.

44
Q

What did New Labour introduce in 2008?

A

The coursework was dropped for most A-levels, and 4 units instead of 6.

45
Q

What else did they introduce?

A
  • Additional money for school buildings, staff, and materials.
  • Free nursery places for all 3-4 year olds - half day.
46
Q

What did the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition Government (2010-2015) policies introduce?

A
  • New-style academies
  • Free schools
  • The pupil premium
  • The English Baccalaureate
  • Reform of the national curriculum
  • Reform of the examination system
  • Tougher performance targets for schools
47
Q

What are New-style academies?

A

All state schools were encouraged to become independent academies, free from local authority and the national curriculum. There was a huge increase in the number of academies , and poorly performing schools were forced into becoming academies, under the leadership of a high performing neighbouring academy. In January 2014, just over 56% of secondary and 11% of primary schools in England had academy or free school status.

48
Q

What are free schools?

A

Free schools are very similar to academies but set up in response to what local people say they want and need in order to improve education for children in their community. Generally presented as a way of improving standards and meeting parents’ wishes in disadvantaged areas where existing schools were seen by parents as providing inadequate education. Designed to be run by groups of teachers, parents, charities, faith groups, education experts or private companies to satisfy local demand. State funded and independent.

49
Q

What is the pupil premium?

A

Extra money per head allocated for pupils who come from poorer homes, defined as those eligible for free school meals. Aimed to encourage schools to attract and work harder for poorer pupils to reduce social inequalities in education. A change to the School Admissions Code proposed in 2014 would allow schools to discriminate in favour of children entitled to the pupil premium, to encourage the best schools to go out of their way to try and attract children from the poorer homes, and encourage their parents to apply for schools which in the past they may have thought their children would have no chance of getting into.

50
Q

What is the English Baccalaureate (EBacc)?

A

Ball and Exley suggested that ‘the old methods are the best’ when it comes to teaching, discipline and curriculum. This was shown by making the proportion of students achieving the EBacc a feature of school league tables in 2010, thereby encouraging schools to put an emphasis on teaching the core EBacc subjects of maths, English, the sciences, foreign languages and the humanities. A survey of schools conducted for the DfE in 2012 estimated that nearly half of those taking GCSEs in 2014 would be studying the academic subjects making up the EBacc, compared to 22% in 2010. In 2014, the EBacc effect was found in a surge in the numbers of AS students choosing to study traditional subjects like history, geography, languages and maths.

51
Q

What was the reform of the national curriculum?

A

The national curriculum was rewritten with more demanding programmes of study in English, maths, science, languages, computing, geography and history, and more rigorous and demanding National Curriculum Tests.

52
Q

What was the reform of the examination system?

A

Coursework was removed from GCSE, AS and A-level examinations, and all students were assessed in end of course exams, rather than individual modules during the courses. From 2015, AS and A-levels became 2 separate free standing qualifications, where previously AS counted towards 50% of an A level. The effect of these changes was to make GCSEs, AS and A levels more demanding.

53
Q

What were the tougher performance targets for schools?

A

A new ‘Progress 8’ measure for school performance was introduced, to begin in 2016, showing pupils’ progress in 8 subjects, and replacing previous 5 A*-C GCSE grades including English and maths.

54
Q

Evaluation points

A
  1. By encouraging schools to become academies the Coalition government served to reduce central control over schools. This meant that schools became less accountable to the government and caused a further disparity in standards between schools. In turn, a change in standards across schools could impact on the class gap in achievement with working class students more likely to end up in failing schools as a result of their parents being ‘disconnected-local choosers’.
  2. Higham (2014) suggested that the majority of proposals to start free schools focused on areas other than providing social equality, favouring middle class aspirations rather than those of working class families. As a result, Higham noted that he believed free schools to potentially have a ‘stratification effect’, reinforcing the class gap in achievement. Other research suggested that free schools are reluctant to take working class pupils.
  3. Spending cuts in the education system have served to create a less meritocratic education system. Many compensatory education policies have been removed or heavily impacted on in order to save costs. This will create a further gap in achievement between working class and middle class students.
  4. Marxists would suggest that the privatisation of schools simply allows opportunities for the bourgeoisie to exploit the working class and increase their profits. There is now a real level of confusion over who exactly is running state-funded schools. Some are controlled by parents and teachers, others operated by private businesses and some by the state itself. This fragmentation has caused further possible inconsistencies in the standard of education provided for students.
55
Q

What is the privatisation of education?

A

Privatisation is where services that were once owned and provided by the state are transferred to private companies, such as the transfer of education assets, management, functions or responsibilities to private interests, such as companies, religious institutions, charities or other non-governmental organisations. UK central government and local authority (local council) on education amounts to around £88 billion a year (2015 Treasury estimate), so there is an enormous potential market for private investors if this spending was paid to private interests to provide education.

56
Q

What are the two types of privatisation?

A

Ball and Youdell (2007) indetify two main types of privatisation in education:

  • ‘Endogenous’ Privatisation
  • ‘Exogenous’ Privatisation
57
Q

What is Endogenous Privatisation?

A

Endogenous Privatisation involves bringing into the day-to-day running of schools private sector values, like local management of schools (where schools manage themselves like independent businesses, with few external controls by national and local government); performance-related pay for teachers; and per capita funding, whereby schools are largely funded by the number of pupils they attract, encouraging them to recruit students in order to maximise their income.

58
Q

What is Exogenous Privatisation?

A

In this form of privatisation businesses design, manage or deliver aspects of education that were formerly run by the state (either central government or local education authorities - local county or city councils). This is a newer but rapidly growing form of privatisation, and Ball and Youdell suggest this involves both UK and international companies taking over things like:

  • school services, such as staff training and development, consultancy and advice, building maintenance, school transport, the provision of supply teachers, providing and managing ICT, school meals, cleaning, payroll and Human Resources (personal management). There is also a growing tendency for school business managers, secretaries, librarians and IT staff to be employed by private contractors rather than by schools.
  • the management of schools, as found in the recent development of privately managed chains of academy schools, like those run by the Academies Enterprise Trust, United Learning and E-Act, which run around seventy secondary schools (in 2014) as well as primary and special schools.
  • school inspections, with private companies, like Tribal Inspections (in 2014), the largest Ofsted contractor for schools inspections), running schools on behalf of Ofsted. In 2014, Ofsted announced it would stop using private contractors to carry out school inspections, following concerns over the selection, training and quality of the inspectors involved.
  • designing, building, financing and operating (DBFO) school buildings under the Private Finance Initiative (PFI), the private-sector finances construction and manages school buildings for up to about 30 years, during which time they are owned by the company.
  • branding of schools, with private companies selling to schools website construction, logo development and school prospectus designed to give schools a distinct identity enabling them to compete in the educational marketplace.
59
Q

What are two main examples of how globalisation has impacted on the education policy?

A
  1. The privatisation and marketisation of education.

2. International comparisons.

60
Q

How has globalisation caused the privatisation and marketisation of education?

A

Education is a multi-billion pound global market, and large, multinational companies are seeking to gain access to these vast markets. Hancock (2014) estimated exports from Britain by independent schools, sixth form and further education colleges, universities, professional colleges, education publishers and similar organisations, to ‘priority markets’ such as Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Turkey and the Gulf states were, in 2012, worth £18 billion to the UK economy each year. Globalisation and neoliberal policies mean such global educational markets are growing every year, and have had major impacts on UK education policy.

61
Q

How has globalisation caused international comparisons within education?

A

There is a huge range of international data available on all aspects of education, including various international student achievement surveys which compare the educational performance of a range of countries. The best known of these are OECD’s PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment), and TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) and PIRLS (Progress in International Reading Literacy Study) produced by International Association for the Education of Educational Achievement (IEA). These involve conducting tests in mathematics, science and reading among representative samples of between 325,000 and over 600,000 9-to 15 year old school students drawn from around 50-65 countries every 3 - 5 years. The data is then ranked in the form of league tables to show the relative performance of different countries. These results are used by participating countries to monitor their education systems in a global context, and are cited authoritatively in countless policy reports.

They often result in reassessments of existing policies to see whether they are working effectively, and the formation of new policies for educational improvement, including curriculum reform and improving teaching and learning.

62
Q

What are examples of policies that have resulted from International Comparisons?

A
  • The national literacy and numeracy strategies introduced by the Labour government which ran from 1998-9 to2010. These imposed in every primary school in England, a requirement to teach 2 hours of literacy and numeracy every day.
  • Slimming down the national curriculum. The 2010-2015 Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government slimmed down England’s national curriculum (from 2014) to ‘essential knowledge’ in English, mathematics and science and some other subjects, which was defined in 2012 by then Secretary of State Michael Gove as ‘the essential core knowledge which other nations pass on to their pupils’.
  • Raising the academic entry requirements for trainee teachers from 2012.
  • ‘Master teachers’: The Master Teacher position is an opportunity for a small group of educators to work closely with their school and/or district leadership to promote excellent teaching through purposeful sharing of effective practices, peer coaching, and creating a collaborative learning culture that enhances the instructional capacity of school communities. A Master Teacher may have responsibilities across more than one school in a district or may provide support to special citywide initiatives.
63
Q

What are 3 advantages of international comparisons?

A
  • They are useful to see whether education spending matches educational achievement.
  • They are useful for benchmarking (comparing p) standards internationally.
  • They provide evidence, for policy makers wanting to learn from other countries, on what policies seem to work best, and what policies don’t.
64
Q

What are 3 disadvantages of international comparisons?

A
  • PISA, TIMSS and PIRIS tests are based on a very narrow conception of education (literacy, numeracy and science) which can be measured.
  • Test results do not necessarily mean that the education received by students is better or worse in different countries, and there are concerns about the validity and reliability of the tests used.
  • They can have damaging and wasteful effects on policy.