I heard George Osborne, for the Conservatives, saying on the radio yesterday that his party would improve schools by giving them independence. He would give back schooling to teachers.
I am not fully up to speed with current Conservative policy on education. But I would observe that giving independence to schools and giving power to teachers would - if that were the only change - be very risky and potentially damaging. If you give untrammelled power to the producer interest (teachers, in this case), then the consumers (the parents and their children) are likely to suffer. Teachers could indulge their pet theories regardless of exam performance or achieving what the parents want schools to achieve.
Independence and autonomy can be very important in causing schools to do better. But it is vital that is combined with consumer choice. For consumer choice to be a reality, instead of just political talk, the schools would have be 100% independent and capable of going bust.
Schools should be free but they need an incentive to be good and to do what the parents want. That requires competition between them and choice for the consumer. Politically, it is almost impossible for a school to go bust in the state system. So to ensure real competition, we would need, essentially, the end of most state schools and the replacement of state ownership by the ownership of independent trusts, charities and commercial companies.
Posted by James Bartholomew • Indexed in Education
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James,
As you know, I completely agree with you on this.
Similar arguments apply to the NHS. The calls for the running of hospitals to be left to medical professionals (rather than 'managers') would only put even more power in the hands of the producers than is the case at present. This is why the government has introduced a huge bureaucracy and a target culture to try to get results - it doesn't work if you leave it in the hands of the producers. Of course, the government's solution is wrong - the producers need to be made directly answerable to users in the way James suggests for schools.
Incidentally, in doing some research recently on Primary Care Trusts, I came across the following sentence on the Berkshire West PCT web site: "We are accountable to the South Central Strategic Health Authority". Doesn't this just say it all? They're accountable to a higher (governmetn authrity" not to the users of their service.
Posted by: HJHJ at December 7, 2006 09:49 PM
Careful James. You are advocating a conservative (with a small "c") policy. Such a measure, or any policy for that matter likely to split the centre ground, is anathema to Cameron. His ambition is to be all things to all men (and all women). Unfortunately for Britain he's not as good as Blair in this role so I fear we face another six years of central control of education, politicians tinkering on the margins, more spin, and continued failure.
Posted by: John East at December 8, 2006 12:15 AM
I see the point.
What Osborne may have meant - to some extent - is removing the control freakery part of it ; classic New Labour.
It isn't , at present, an issue about Producer Capture, Teachers doing their own thing or any of that nonsense that has caused problems in the past - though those are issues for concern. It's about removing absolutist state control.
This means teachers are doing the exact same thing in many cases - with the same materials in the same way. I've visited several schools recently and in ICT they are - almost all - quite literally - doing the exact same tasks - which are tedious in the extreme.
These are changed at the whim of OFSTED/DfES and enforced by OFSTED's jackbooted mob of bureaucrats. This includes stupid things like ; say ; marking in red pen being bad.
The utterly infuriating thing for teachers is they are lectured/bollocked/threatened/manipulated into doing exactly as the Government wants, then when it all falls apart totally then it's always the teachers fault for not following the wonderful plans well enough.
The plans are frequently absolute rubbish, embarrassing magic thinking based on what some nitwit in the DfES thinks is happening in schools rather than what actually is happening in schools.
What is happening in schools ?
- Discipline is collapsing rapidly ; there are no effective enforceable sanctions.
- Pupils cannot do even the most basic tasks.
- Pupils expect the answers given to them on a plate ; teachers comply with this because of threats from SMT/OFSTED etc ; virtually no teachers *want* to do this.
- Almost every school games the wonderful statistics - often blatantly cheating, which is ignored by QCA/DFES et al who play the same games.
- We are producing an ill educated, lazy, selfish generation who expect things on a plate and throw violent tantrums when they can't have it.
... and much more.
One criticism of the webmasters book is that the education chapter is far too generous towards current schooling. It's actually significantly worse than he says !
Posted by: Paul at December 9, 2006 10:26 AM
But what about all the bad teachers who'd get sacked? And what about all the officials likewise? Also: what're you going to do with all the Depts of Education in universities? And the entire certification process?
Posted by: Sudha Shenoy at December 9, 2006 04:18 PM
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QED - What more is there to say?
Posted by: Peter Crombie at December 7, 2006 08:10 PM