Educational Policy and Inequality

1944 Education Act

• introduced meritocracy, individuals should achieve status through their own efforts and ability - not status and wealth
• children were selected to go to 1 out of 3 secondary schools
• they were identified by the 11+ exam

3 secondary schools

• Grammar                                 Secondary Modern                 Techinal
  • academic                            non academic                        vocational skills
  • top 20%                              practical                                 5%
  • middle class                        75%                                       tech ability
  • did classic GCEs                 working class                        working class

Advantages

• tailored education - suited student needs - e.g academic ppl did academic subjects
• choice and diversity - variety of choice and experience depending on ability

Disadvantages

• Low self esteem - being selected for low status schools effected how kids saw themselves
• False results - girls achieve better then boys - changed the 11+ test so that the girls had to get higher pass mark then boys - worried that more girls at grammar schools then boys
• intelligence test - questionable - was 11+ an intellegence test made as an appropriate way of dividing children
• No parity (equality) of esteem - all three schools shouldve had equal status - eg similar standards of buildings teachers and facilities - not the case - barely any techinal schools built - secondary modern seen as inefrior - only failures went
• Social class division - should be based on equality - however a disproportinate number of w/c students went to secondary modern

As a result of criticisms, comprehensive schools were developed

• One type of secondary school for everyone
• aimed to overcome the class divide of the tripartite system and make education more meritocratic

• in 1965 
  • comprehensive intrdouced by labour government
  • by 1974, 80% of students attended comprehensive
  • only advised that you did, some grammar schools still remained 

Main Ideals

Advantages

• better exam results
• more cating, social environment
• improved discipline
• higher motivation
• equal opportunity
• educational standards higher for all
• bright kids do just as well in comprehensive as grammar

Disadvanatages

• comprehensive set+stream based on ability
  • m/c in one set w/c in the other
  • reproduces inequalities
• catchement areas = similar classes
  • reinforces class division

Marketisation

the process of introducing market forces of consumer choice and competition between suppliers into areas run by the state, e.g. education.

Marketisation has created an education market by:

1988 Education Reform Act

• follows new right / neoliberals
  • schools have to compete to attract
• Introduced to raise standards in failing schools and give parents more choice
• schools that provide customers with what they want, such as exam success, will thrive, those who don't are defeated and could lead to closing down

Policies to promote marketisation

• Publication of league tables and ofsted reports
• allowing parents to set up free schools
• pupil funding formula
• specialist schools to widen parental choice
• business sponsorships of schools to attract parents
• open enrolement - successful schools gain more pupils
• schools able to opt out of local authority control - e.g. become academies
• schools having to compete to attract pupils
• tuition fees for higher education

Parentocracy = "rule by parents"

In marketisation, power slips from producers (teachers, school) and goes to consumers (parents) 

• Encourages diversity among schools
• parents get more choice
• raises school standards

The myth of parentocracy

Parentocracy reproduces and legitimates inequality by concealing its true causes and by justifying its existence

BALL belives = a myth

It makes it appear that all parents have the same freedom to choose which school they send their kids to ......... THEY DONT!!!!!!!

m/c = easier to take advantage of avaliable choices, e.g. able to afford to move catchment areas of better schools + understand the school system

League Tables

Publishing league tables ensures that schools that achieve good results are more in demand (parents will be attracted)

This encourages...

• Cream-skimming - GOOD PPL
  • "good" schools can be more selective, choose own customers, recruit high achieving m/c pupils
• Silt-shifting - BAD PPL
  • "good" schoolcs can avoid taking less able pupils failing exams which may damage league table position

Pupil Funding Formula

• schools get funds based on how many pupils they get
• popular schools get more pupils, therefore more money, so they thrive
• whereas unpopular schools lose income - find difficult to match teachers + facilities of rivals

Gerwitz found that differences in parents economic and cultural capital lead to what schools they choose / go to

She identified 3 main types of parent

• privelliged skilled choosers
• disconnected local choosers
• semi skilled choosers

She concludes that in practive, middle class parents possess cultural and economic capital, therefore have more choice in what schools they send their kids to 

Priveliged skilled choosers

• middle class
• well educated
• use economic+cultrual capital to gain educational capital for kids
• confident
• prosperous
• know how schools work - visit them and research their options
• economic capital means afford to move to catchment areas and travel to better schools
• take advantage of their opportunities 

Disconnected local choosers

• working class
• lack cultural + economical capital - therefore cant travel, have to go to nearest schools
• dont understand school admission procedures
• less confident - less aware of avaliable choices
• less able to manipulate education system for their own advantage 
• found safety more important than league tables

Semi-Skilled Choosers

• usually working class
• ambitious for their kids tho
• lack cultural capital
• cant make sense of education marker
• rely on others opinions about school
• they get frustrated at their inability of not getting their kids into the best schools / the schools they wanted them to get into

New labour governments of 1997 to 2010 introduced a number of policies aimed at reducing inequality

Educational Action Zones

aims were to raise standards in deprived areas so that young people can become higher achievers, by doing things such as providing them with additional resources

Education Maintenance Allowance

payments to low income students to encourage them to stay on after 16 to gain better qualifications

AimHigher

raise aspirations of low income pupils who are under-represented in higher education

Raising School Leaving Age

government changing age requiring pupils to stay in school until they're 18

Problems, Criticisms and Evaluations with new labour policies

EAZs

• inner city schooling (deprived) failed to raise standards since EAZs introduced (ofsted said)
• amounted to v little
• criticised the government for pursuing too many initiatives at the same time w/o evaluating them

EMAs

• labour introduced tuition fees for higher ed that may deter them from going to uni
• lib dem+conservative vriticised - argued too expensive and wasteful
• canelled in 2010

Raising School Leaving Age

• people criticise that the intro of law will not solve problem of people out of work overnight
• requires effort from young people and the government

Policies strongly influenced by neoliberal and New Right ideas about reducing the role of the state in education - throughout marketisation and privatisation

Academies 

• all schools encouraged to be academies in 2010
• given control over curriculum
• by 2010 over half of all secondary schools were academies
• by allowing any school to become an academy, they removed the focus on reducing inequality

Free Schools

• funded by state but set up and run by parents, teachers, businesses, rather than local authority
• improve educational standards by taking state control away - giving to parents
• give parents and teachers opportunity to create new school if unhappy w/ schools in area

But Allen[2010] atbues research from sweden where 20% of schools = free - shows only benefit kids from highly educated families. also take fewer disadvantaged students. 

Coalition government introduced policies to reduce inequality

• free school meals
  • for all kids in reception,yr1 + yr2
• pupil premium
  • money that schools receive for each pupil from a disadvantaged background

CRITICISM

• ofsted found
  • pupil premium wasnt helping people that it shouldve been helping
  • only 1 out of 10 head teachers said it significantly changed how they supported pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds