While thousands of teachers strike this week, the three main parties’ Education ministers will be joined by their European counterparts to speak at the Education Reform Summit in London. The summit, running today and tomorrow in the spirit of ‘ambition’ and ‘inspiration’, will ‘celebrate England’s success in leading the world in education reform’. Members of NUT protesting around the country – and others - may well question the premise that this celebration is based on. It’s hard to argue, for instance, that England is leading in education reform where others follow; some of our structural reforms have trailed Sweden’s, a worrying omen given their recent fall from grace. It’s harder still to argue that England is a leading global player in standards, when in 2013, the country did not make the top 20 in the PISA tables for Reading, Maths, or Science.
So what can we expect at the Summit? With the election less than a year away, and the Westminster machine in full action, we can look forward to a showcase of manifesto policies from Gove, Laws and Hunt. The exclusively positive rhetoric of the Summit blurb suggests we might be in store for a fair amount of back-patting, and a sponsor-fuelled optimistic vision of the role of technology in education. We can also be fairly sure, judging by the last 5 years, of frenetic announcements and recommendations; teachers hoping for a brief respite to allow schools to catch up with policy, as recommended by the RSA, look away now.
In their summit endorsements, we get a preview of the topics; teacher quality, collaborative innovation, closing the attainment gap between rich and poor pupils. This is after all a meeting of what the Finnish educationalist Pasi Sahlberg refers to as the GERM (global education reform movement). Expect a series of twitter-friendly soundbites that deny the evidence of the limited impact of schools in comparison to other socio-economic factors. Yes, deprivation isn’t destiny. Yes, fatalism would betray our most disadvantaged pupils. Any buck passed on at this summit is likely to lie with schools and their ability to improve teacher quality– not with other areas of government policy.
While the debate around how we produce excellence in our education system in a way that is blind to background is an important one, there’s another important topic that is likely to be passed over. That’s the topic of the school admissions system, and its relationship with segregation between schools – by class, parental income, religious affiliation and ability. It is central to the question of how to narrow the attainment gap between rich and poor pupils, but also to the question of how to ensure our education system works for everyone in a way that is socially just.
Segregation between schools is produced and reinforced through the admissions system in multiple ways. Schools admitting pupils by residence favours those who can pay a premium for housing in an area with good schools. The sharp-elbowed middle classes may be able to utilise school choice systems better than their lower income counterparts. And, schools judged through high stakes testing face incentives to cream-skim the pupils who they expect to be easiest to teach through their admissions decisions. While changes to the School Admissions Code in the last decade have helped reduce the last of these mechanisms, in 2012 the OECD declared England’s school system one of the most segregated in the world. You won’t hear this discussed at the summit for three reasons: because it’s not glamorous, because responsibility for the system lies not with teachers but with government, and because it’s a challenge to market-oriented reforms that the GERM are fond of.
Two leading education figures have recently made public statements that illustrate why this issue can’t slip from the agenda. The first is Sir Peter Lampl, in his foreword advocating the recommendations from the Sutton Trust/Social Market Foundation research released last week. The research asserts that the state should pay participating independent schools the cost of a state school education and allow them to charge means-tested top-up fees. The figures and representation of the findings have been taken apart by critics, as even without considering system-wide effects, the expected earnings of pupils on the scheme would not exceed the cost to the taxpayer of funding the programme.
But there’s a broader problem as well with pulling the most able pupils out of state schools and using state money to fund their private education – and that’s the negative effect on all of the less able pupils in the system.
there’s a broader problem as well with pulling the most able pupils out of state schools and using state money to fund their private education – and that’s the negative effect on all of the less able pupils in the system
As it is, independent schooling confers a signal of class and to some extent ability as most are selective. But strengthening segregation in schools by ability, as this policy would do, labels children left behind as less able at the age of 11, and denies them the positive peer effects of mixed ability groups. Lampl tries to skirt around this issue by saying that while we have grammar schools we cannot argue against such a policy - but that’s not a philosophical or even a practical defence of his position. Why not question whether we should still have grammar schools, when they have been demonstrated by the Sutton Trust’s own research to segregate pupils by socioeconomic background as well as ability? Lampl himself has argued that ‘whatever the average ranking of English education, one thing is certain: we need to reduce social segregation in schools.’ Taking a long-term view, social class and ability are too closely linked to accept segregation in one but not the other.
A useful ally comes in the form of Sir Michael Wilshaw. Last month, he argued that ‘there is only one school model that can realistically educate all our children’ – and that’s a comprehensive system. He summarises the problem with allowing segregation by ability:
“'A grammar school in every town,' as some are calling for, would also mean three secondary moderns in every town, too – a consequence rarely mentioned. … If we have learned anything from those educational superstars in Asia and elsewhere it is that a country will only progress if it provides an excellent education for all of its citizens, not just some of them."
Wilshaw’s is an instrumental argument for socially mixed intakes in schools. It is supported by IFS research arguing that more mixed intakes partly explains London schools’ success, and research from Sweden and the US that increased segregation in schools leads to reduced average attainment, with the largest decreases for the disadvantaged and academically less able. Peer effects are not the only problem; if intakes become segregated, the schools may enter a cycle of decline as teachers and resources are attracted to the easier schools. The pupil premium, when first suggested by Policy Exchange and endorsed by the Coalition, aimed to reduce segregation by decreasing the incentives schools face to cream-skim. However, this aspect of the premium is not present in DfE’s policy rhetoric or evaluation. My MSc research this summer aims to begin to address this research deficit and establish whether the premium has the capacity to address the segregation problem in choice systems.
Sorting children into categories early in their lives directly contradicts a worldview at the RSA we have called the Power to Create
Sorting children into categories early in their lives directly contradicts a worldview at the RSA we have called the Power to Create; how we can enable people to be the authors of their own lives. Ethically and instrumentally, the Power to Create entails that we make what we see as a better life available to everyone, regardless of background but also regardless of prior ability or achievements. Rather than talking about how we allow the socially mobile to travel up the pecking order, we’re thinking about how to enable everyone to lead creative and fulfilling lives. The English school admissions system, based on residence and in some cases selection, is stacked against the economically disadvantaged, but also children whose abilities don’t fit our model of academic excellence. I’d like to see some discussion of this at the Education Reform Summit, but fear that talking about technological innovation and producing world-class teachers will keep delegates in their consensus-building comfort zones.
Carys Roberts is an RSA intern and MSc Social Policy (Research) student at LSE. @carysroberts
Join the discussion
Comments
Please login to post a comment or reply
Don't have an account? Click here to register.
The voice of the Finnish Teachers versus the voice of Pasi Sahlberg
Oxford- Prof. Jennifer Chung : ANINVESTIGATION OF REASONS FOR FINLAND’S SUCCESS IN PISA (University of Oxford 2008).
"Many of the teachers mentioned the converse of the great strength of Finnish education as the great weakness. Jukka S. (BM) believes that school does not provide enough challenges
for intelligent students: “I think myonly concern is that we give lots of support to those pupils who areunderachievers, and we don’t give that much to the brightest pupils. I find it a problem, since I think, forthe future of a whole nation, thosepupils who are really the stars should be supported, given some morechallenges, given some more difficulty in their exercises and so on. To not just spend their time here but to make some effort andhave the idea to become something, no matter what field you are choosing, youmust not only be talented like they are, but work hard. That is needed. “
Pia (EL) feels thatthe schools do not motivate very intelligent students to work. She thinks the schools should provide more challenges for the academicallytalented students. In fact, she thinksthe current school system in Finland does not provide well for its
students. Mixed-ability classrooms, shefeels, are worse than the previous selective system: “ I think this school is for nobody. That is my private opinion. Actually I think so, because when you haveall these people at mixed levels in your class, then you have to concentrate onthe ones who need the most help, of course. Those who are really good, they get lazy. “
Pia believes these students become bored and lazy, and floatthrough school with no study skills.
Jonny (EM) describes how comprehensive education places the academically
gifted at a disadvantage: “We have lost a great possibility when we don’t have
the segregated levels of math and natural sciences… That should be once again
taken back and started with. The goodtalents are now torturing themselves with not very interesting education and teaching in classes that aren’t for their
best.
Pia (EL) finds the PISA frenzy about Finland amusing, since
she believes the schools have declined in recent years: “I think [the
attention] is quite funny because school isn’t as good as it used to be … I
used to be proud of being a teacher and proud of this school, but I can’t say I
’m proud any more.”
Aino (BS) states that the evenness and equality of the education
system has a “dark side.” Teaching to the “middle student” in a class of
heterogeneous ability bores the gifted students, who commonly do not perform
well in school. Maarit (DMS) finds
teaching heterogeneous classrooms very difficult. She admits that dividing the students into abilitylevels would make the teaching easier, but worries that it may affect the self-esteem
of the weaker worse than a more egalitarian system Similarly, Terttu (FMS) thinks that the
class size is a detriment to the students’ learning. Even though Finnish schools have relatively
small class sizes, she thinks that a group of twenty is too large, since she
does not have time for all of the students: “You don’t have enough time for everyone
… All children have to be in the same class. That is not so nice. You have thebetter pupils. I can’t give them as muchas I want. You have to go so slowly in
the classroom.” Curiously, Jukka E.(DL) thinks that the special education students need more support and theeducation system needs to improve in that area.
Miikka (FL) describes how he will give extra work tostudents who want to have more academic challenges, but admits that “they canget quite good grades, excellent grades, by doing nothing actually, or verylittle.” Miikka (FL) describes
discussion in educational circles about creating schools and universities for academically
talented students: 3 Everyone has the same chances…One problem is that it can
be too easy for talented students. There has been now discussion in Finland if
there should be schools and universities for talented students… I think it will
happen, but I don’t know if it is good, but it will happen, I think so. I am also afraid there will be privateschools again in Finland in the future … [There] will be more rich people and
more poor people, and then will come so [many] problems in comprehensive
schools that some day quite soon …
parents will demand that we should have private schools again, and that is quite sad.
Linda (AL), however, feels the love of reading has declinedin the younger generation, as they tend to gravitate more to video games andtelevision. Miikka (FL), also a teacher
of mother tongue, also cites a decline in reading interest and an increase ofvideo game and computer play. Saij a(BL) agrees. As a teacher of Finnish, she feels that she has difficulty motivatingher students to learn: “I think my subject is not the … easiest one to teach. They don’t read so much, newspapers ornovels.” Her students, especially the
boys, do not like their assignments in Finnish language. She also thinks the respect for teachershasdeclined in this past generation. Miikka(FL) also thinks his students do not respect their teachers: “They don’trespect the teachers. They respect themvery little … I think it has changed anot in recent years. In Helsinki, it wasactually earlier. When I came here sixyears ago, I thought this washeaven. I thought it was incredible,how the children were like that after
Helsinki, but now I think it is the same.
Linda (AL) notes deficiency in the amount of time available for subjects. With more time, she wouldimplement more creative activities, such as speech and drama, into her
lessons. Saij a (BL) also thinks thather students need more arts subjects like drama and art. She worries that they consider mathematics as the only important subject. Shefeels
countries such as Sweden, Norway, and England have better arts programs than in
Finnish schools. Arts subjects, according to Saij a, help the students get to know themselves. Maarit (DMS), a Finnish-speaker, thinks thatschools need to spend more time cultivating social skills."
Putting the SE Asian education systems on a pillar as an example of how we're failing poor kids in the UK is a fallacy (stronger words deleted). Students of Chinese origin in the UK, rich or poor, in British schools, outperform all other groups here (including wealthy white boys and girls). This suggests that it isn't the education system itself that get's the good results, but rather external forces (likely parental). The more time spent picking holes in the British education system the less likely it is that people will take responsibility for their own actions. After all, it's much easier to point the finger of blame at someone else rather than take charge of your own future, particularly if that's backed up by constant whingeing from the press and others. I don't think the British education system is perfect, but this habit of blaming everyone else doesn't create an environment within which children feel empowered to succeed.