New Right on Education

The new right:

• Is less of a sociological perspective and more of a politcal ideology
• Developed functionalist ideas of social solidarity and the teaching of specialist skills.
• Additionally thinks parents should be given choice in their child's education.
• Argues Local Education Authority's are inefficient, instead they prefer a free market approach

• Generating competition between schools to ensure standards would be raised
• The most successfull schools would be the most attractive for parents
• Parents need to be informed on which school is best for their children, with easy comparison at hand.
• Parents should be given the option to enroll their children in Schools outside of their local area or have open enrolment
• Schools should be free to attract additional funding, by developing links with businesses and universities and having financial independence

Intoduced

-National curriculum: the same coursework covered by all schools.

-Standardised testing: the same tests held by all schools.

-Formula funding: funding dependent on how many students a school has. This encouraged schools to try and attract more students

-Open enrolment: allowed parents to have a greater choice in their childs education

-OFSTED: who compiled inspection reports on schools, to give parents informed choice

-League tables: ranked school on the performance of students in standardises tests. This increased student competition and helped parents with informed choices

Because of the New Right:

Marketisation has been a dominant approach to education for 30 years.

One issue has been the covert selection of students, despite open enrollment.  For example: High performance schools happen to be located in high mortgage areas. Also, over schools ignore problematic pupils in order to maintain high standings in league tables.

Sharon Gewirtz argued the level of cultural and social capital a parent has can influnce their childs likeliness of being accepted into an oversubscribed school - The education market favors the middle class.