12. ANALISIS DE DATOS
12.1 Entrevista padres de Familia
Denis Lawton wrote that the two dominant cultural features in the evolution of English education have been “the importance of social class in the structure of society and thus in education” and “the suspicion, in the nineteenth century, that education should not be entrusted to the government.”3 This short review of the development of the English education system up to the election of Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister certainly supports Lawton’s assertion. It also demonstrates how the education reforms implemented by the Conservative government from 1979-1997 were a continuation of an ideological struggle between Conservative traditions of preserving educational practises for the elite and those who wished to “better themselves” through “hard work” versus Labour traditions of breaking down social class barriers through educational systems and structures. It reflects ideological tensions between a belief in the ability of educational administrators and teachers to know “what is best” for students, more typically associated with the Labour Party, and the belief that parents ultimately have the right and
responsibility to choose what is best for their children—a point of view most often
supported by Conservative Party discourse. Finally, it helps explain the complex structure of the English school system, which is necessary to understand the scope, complexity, and underpinning discourse of Conservative education reform from 1979-1997.
The roots of public education in England lie within organized, Christian religion. Beginning in the early nineteenth century, churches began building schools and
administering education to poor children. In 1833, Parliament voted to grant funds to the two main national religious societies organizing schools (the Church of England and Non-Conformist) in order to build more schools and improve their programs.4 A state- wide system of education for all students was slowly legislated throughout the 1870s to 1943 with (1) the Elementary Education Act (1870), which created school boards— transformed in 1902 to Local Education Authorities (LEAs)—that were meant to facilitate the expansion of schools into under-serviced areas; (2) the establishment of
3 Denis Lawton, “Education Reform in England and Wales,” in Secondary Education at the Crossroads:
International Perspectives Relevant to the Asia-Pacific Region, ed. Phillip Hughes (Dordrecht: Springer, 2006), 69.
compulsory education up to a specific school leaving age (10 in 1888, 11 in 1893, 12 in 1899, and 14 in 1918); and (3) an increasing amount of the fiscal burden for public education falling on the government.5
The early developments of English public education led to three main
underpinning traditions in its modern education system. First, it entrenched the policy that the state would not own schools or be responsible for their day-to-day operations or provision. State funded schools in England have thus developed as owned and operated by (1) churches and affiliated charitable organizations, whose schools are known as
voluntary-aided schools when they are run by a governing body outside of a Local Education Authority (LEA) or as a voluntary-controlled schools when they are run by an LEA; (2) other governing bodies, whose schools are known as foundation or trust schools; and (3) LEAs, whose schools were called county schools, but which presently go by the name of community schools.6 In each case, property, facilities, and control of staff and provision of education are owned or managed by either the governing body (which may or may not have a religious affiliation) of the school, by the LEA, or by some combination thereof.
A second repercussion of the development of the English education system is that England has always included religious education in its public schools, even if they are not affiliated with a particular religion.7 The third repercussion is the development of what would later be formally named “Her Majesty’s Inspectorate for Education” when, in 1839, Parliament assigned two inspectors to ensure that any money granted for education was spent according to government stipulation. Thus, from the early inception of state-funded schools, the English government served a primarily fiscal function in education and respected popular opinion that it should support the educational agenda of the LEAs and/or governing bodies that founded and operated the schools.8 The entire system was
5 Paul Trowler, Education Policy, 2nd ed. (New York, Routledge, 2002), 1-2.
6 Directgov, “Types of School,” accessed June 20, 2012, http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Parents/ Schoolslearninganddevelopment/ChoosingASchool/DG_4016312.
7 For example, an entire section of the first Chapter of the 1988 Education Reform Act is dedicated to religious education. See Education Reform Act, 1988, c. 40, s. 6-13, accessed June 21, 2012,
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1988/40/contents/enacted. 8 Lawton, “Education Reform in England and Wales,” 69.
designed to be responsive to local needs and has given rise to the common description of England’s state education system as “a national system, locally administered.”9
In addition, roughly 7% of today’s English children attend Independent Schools. These private educational institutions, such as Eton and a wide variety of other private educational institutions, were established to cater to the children of the upper classes at a time when no state-funded education was available and which continued to flourish alongside the state-funded schools. Some cater to the nation’s monetary and academic elite, often feeding into Oxford or Cambridge and, as Nigel Knight noted, educating a disproportionate number of those who would go on to the English civil service (i.e., those who helped reform education in the 1980s and 1990s).10 Others cater to the aspirational middle classes or to specific religious or cultural groups. The quality of education provided and received varies as do the higher education destinations of students.
Compulsory secondary education was established in the 1944 Education Act, commonly known as the Butler Act, as it was introduced by Conservative Education Secretary R. A. Butler. This act established the “norm” for much of the structure of England’s schools during the twentieth century, including the division of compulsory education into primary (ages 5-11) and secondary (ages 12-15, but later raised to age 16) and the non-compulsory advanced level (16-18).11 The Butler Act also introduced the tripartite division of secondary education into secondary modern, technical, and grammar schools as well as a testing system designed to “discriminate between pupils with
essentially practical skills and those with intellectual skills.”12
This “11-plus” test, as it was called, was given at the age of 11 in conjunction with an IQ test. Those who failed the test were assigned a place in a secondary modern or technical schools, which focused respectively on early departure from the educational system into a trade or those destined to become middle managers and engineers. Students who passed were enrolled in
grammar schools that were geared toward the academically elite. While lacking the
9 Geoffrey Walford, “The 1988 Education Reform Act for England and Wales: Paths to Privatization,”
Educational Policy 4, no. 2 (1990): 128.
10 Nigel Knight, Governing Britain Since 1945 (London: Politico’s Publishing, 2006), 95. The 7%
statistic has remained fairly constant since the middle of the twentieth century.
11 Trowler, Education Policy, 2. 12 Knight, Governing Britain, 95.
prestige of Independent Schools, grammar schools were considered the most desirable form of schooling for middle class parents who could not afford a private education for their children.13 Students in grammar schools undertook the General Certificate of Education exam (CGE), while those in the technical and secondary modern schools generally undertook the Certificate of Secondary Education Exam (CSE), both of which were given at the age of 16 in subjects that students had chosen to study in their final year of schooling. This remained the practice until they were combined into the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) in 1986.14 Placement in schools was determined by catchment area—a designated area in proximity to each school—and so school choice was limited by perceptions of measured intelligence and geographical area.15 Thus, from an early juncture, the Conservative government has been associated with programs of high-stakes testing meant to determine the ability or merit of students and thus assign them a suitable place in the economic (and social) hierarchy of English society. In Lawton’s words,
throughout the twentieth century, education was closely related to the social class structure . . . And although access to secondary education was improved for all children, there still existed a strong association between Independent Schools and upper class children, as well as grammar schools and middle class children. The vast majority of 11 year-old boys and girls were allocated to secondary modern schools which were inferior in many respects. 16
The Butler Act and the 11-plus system of selection of testing and placement fell under criticism in a series of reports during the 1950s and 1960s while the Conservative government remained in power. These reports focused on issues of retention and
accommodation in specific relation to the disadvantages of students in living in socio- economically challenged areas and the failure of the 11-plus test to account for this.17 By the time Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson was voted into office in 1964, research showed that almost 80% of students failed the 11-plus test (and thus most were placed in secondary modern schools) with a disproportionate number of those from lower socio-
13 Ibid., 95-96. 14
Martin McLean, “‘Populist’ Centralism: The 1999 Education Reform Act in England and Wales,”
Educational Policy 3, no. 3 (1989): 235.
15 Ibid., 96.
16 Lawton, “Education Reform in England and Wales,” 72. 17 Trowler, Education Policy, 3.
economic classes. At the same time, parental opinion questioned whether or not such a test was even effective in terms of designating career paths at such an early age.18 Wilson’s government restructured educational financing in 1965 so that the LEAs were encouraged to change their focus from the tripartite systems to one focused on
comprehensive schools: Schools would accept all students from their catchment areas without a placement test and so cater to the abilities and interests of many different types of students.19 Comprehensive schools grew in popularity throughout the 1960s and 1970s and the 11-plus exam was eventually abandoned. However, as incentives to move from grammar schools to comprehensive schools were financial, many grammar schools controlled by LEAs whose elected governors were Conservative refused to make the change.20
Interestingly enough, when the Conservative government was voted back into power from 1970-1974, Margaret Thatcher served as Prime Minister Heath’s Education Secretary. One of her first decisions was to withdraw the previous Labour Party’s request for LEAs to submit plans to build or convert grammar schools to comprehensive schools. However, because the government had no authority over the LEAs in regard to their decision to support either a grammar or comprehensive system, Thatcher found herself in the position of being legally required to approve more LEA conversions to
comprehensive schools than any other Education Secretary before her term in office.21 Furthermore, although she had adopted a discourse of parental choice and a return to traditional standards in education (the implication being a return to what the elite
Independent Schools were teaching) and even touched on the idea of curriculum reform, Thatcher was not able to affect much change in England’s state-funded education system due to her lack of experience both as a Secretary (in general) and with education (more specifically), as well as her lack of time in the position during this one-term
government.22
18 Knight, Governing Britain, 96. 19
Ibid.
20 Ibid.
21 Lawton, “Education Reform in England and Wales,” 3.
22 Denis Lawton, Education and Politics in the 1990s: Conflict of Consensus? (London: The Falmer
One very important outcome of Thatcher’s time as Education Secretary, however, was her interest in education once she was elected Conservative Party Leader in 1975. Indeed, the Centre for Policy Studies, which she had helped establish with Keith Joseph (who would later become an Education Secretary in Thatcher’s government) in 1974, contained a sub-group devoted to education.23 Throughout her time as Education
Secretary, Leader of the Opposition, and Prime Minister, she was advised by a variety of right-wing think tanks and individuals, including the authors of the Black Papers
(discussed below), the National Council for Educational Standards, the Centre for Policy Studies, and Stuart Sexton (also discussed below) on the merits of such neoliberal reform concepts and reforms as vouchersystems, educational excellence, standards, publishing examination reports for accountability, and the benefits of returning to a traditional “English” curriculum.24
In the history of England’s state-funded education, the comprehensive/tripartite debate of the 1960s to mid 1970s reflected the ideological tension between Labour and Conservative governments regarding the role of schooling in relation to the structure of traditional English society. These tensions are also related to the neoliberal concepts of
meritocracy and parental choice. The Conservative argument against comprehensive schooling focused on a lack of excellence and standards, stating that schools that mixed all abilities did not allow children to succeed based on their innate abilities or to cater to individual preferences. This argument also implied a natural stratification of academic ability. In the 1975 publication The Crisis in Education, Conservative Member of Parliament and member of the National Council for Educational Standards Rhodes Boyson invoked the concepts of centralization of standards, parental choice, standardized curriculum and testing, and accountability when he wrote that
The present disillusionment of parents arises from their resentment that their children’s education now depends upon the lottery of the school to which they are directed. Standards decline because both measurement and comparison are
impossible when aims and curriculum become widely divergent . . . . These problems can be solved only by making schools again accountable to some
23 Clyde Chitty, The Education System Transformed (Manchester: Baseline Books, 1992), 20. 24 Lawton, Education and Politics, 36-39.
authority outside them. The necessary sanction is either a nationally enforced curriculum or parental choice or a combination of both.25
Rather than all children succeeding, such arguments suggested that standards had been lowered to accommodate less able students and no comparison could be made between students and schools.26 Conservative discourse also suggested that parents should have the right to choose where and what kind of schools their children attended, including those outside of the public system.27
The “Black Papers,” published by Labour critics and Conservative supporters from 1969-1977, exemplified Conservative ideology of a “stratified educational system as the natural and efficient consequence of . . . a distribution of intelligence,” where “individuals at variance with the general social class pattern could be selected out and promoted into appropriate schools.”28
Labour Party initiatives during the 1960s, however, focused on comprehensive schooling as a way to facilitate pupil success and lessen the social stratification of society by mixing children of different abilities within the comprehensive system.29 Conservative policies focused on the need for choice and the right of the student to not be impeded in her education (a negative rights argument) and the advantages of an informed, competitive meritocracy, while Labour policies focused on equality of access and equal levels of education for all students, regardless of social class (i.e., positive rights). The argument surrounding the tripartite vs. comprehensive systems, then, is related to neoliberal “individual vs. collective” discourse.
Related to these ideological debates was the question of educational control and the role of government in making educational decisions, particularly those surrounding curriculum and teaching methods. Due to the emphasis on local control of schools described above, the English education system evolved in such a way as to support the notion that “teachers knew best and that the ignorance and incompetence of parents
25
Rhodes Boyson, The Crisis in Education (Woburn Press, London, 1975), 141, quoted in Chitty, The Education System Transformed, 22.
26 Chitty, The Education System Transformed, 34-35. 27 Ibid., 37.
28
Walford, “The 1988 Education Reform Act,” 130. It is important to note that not all Conservatives agreed with the entire content of the Black Papers. It is clear, however, that Conservative ideology strongly supported the tripartite and Independent School systems over the comprehensive system because they felt the latter was anti-egalitarian. For a more in-depth discussion, see Lawton, Education and Politics, 35.
threatened true education.”30
That is, teachers were considered professionals; “outsiders,” such as parents, had no business interfering with decisions made by school administrators and teachers. This distrust of “outsiders” extended to the government.31
Because the government had no official power over what was taught and the manner in which it was delivered, schools were able to develop their own curriculum and teaching methods relatively free of interference. This meant that there was rarely uniformity in curriculum development and implementation throughout an LEA, never mind the entire system, except perhaps in age 16 courses, as students were required to take the state-administered GSE or the CSEE exams.32
In the mid-1970s, however, the government was criticized by the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) for its failure to facilitate co-
ordination among the various types of schools and LEAs and to have an educational vision for the country. Its lack of voice in curriculum development was particularly noted.33 In addition, the growing criticism from the right-wing think tanks and the Conservative Party (mentioned above) began to specifically point to the progressive teaching practices utilized in many comprehensive schools as allowing too much freedom in the classroom, resulting in discipline problems and outrageously low standards. This included a published inquiry about a school that let its students choose whether or not to learn to read, which was held up by the Conservatives as an example of the failed progressive “experiment.”34
By the time Labour Prime Minister James Callaghan was installed in office in 1976, the Conservative discourse of falling standards and lack of discipline, coupled with England’s economic crises35
and OECD criticism, prompted Callaghan to steal “the Conservative thunder” by giving a now-famous 1976 speech that expressed his concern
30
Ibid., 235.
31
See fn. 3 above.
32 Lawton, “Education Reform in England and Wales,” 82.
33 Bob Morris, “1944-1998” in Central and Local Control of Education After the Education Reform Act
1988, ed. Robert Morris (Essex: Longman, 1990), 14. As noted in Chapter Four, the OECD had created an education branch for its research in the hopes of improving global economic prosperity through improving state systems of education. See Chapter Four, pp. 130-31.
34 Lawton, Education and Politics, 37-38. 35 See Chapter Three, pp. 96-97.
over many of the educational areas at which the Conservatives had been taking aim.36 The Ruskin Speech,as it became known,37 specifically mentioned the need to raise educational standards in the face of a changing and expanding society and made it clear that there was “nothing wrong with a non-educationalist, even a prime minister talking about [education].”38
He asked that a dialogue be opened among “parents, teachers, learned and professional bodies, representatives of higher education and both sides of industry, together with the government” regarding “formulating and expressing the purpose of education and the standards that we need.”39 This dialogue was later referred to by the media and historians as “The Great Debate.” He also expressed the need to