2022 was a ‘disaster for living standards’ as the Resolution Foundation said in a recent report. But it was a disaster for most other things as well.
Putting aside the well-rehearsed statistic of (now more than) seven million people waiting for elective health treatments, the best we can say is that there are no signs of the UK economy itself returning to growth of any kind. The last decade is widely portrayed as ‘lost’ in terms of investment and productivity, and the likely proceeds of any future increase in wealth are unlikely to be shared equally.
The UK has been becoming more and more unequal geographically as so-called ‘levelling up’ funding remains tiny and arguably not distributed according to need. And meanwhile, there were three million people living in destitution before the pandemic exacerbated existing inequalities. So-called ‘excess deaths’ (more than would be expected in ‘normal’ times) are the highest for 50 years.
So – on the first day of the teachers’ strikes – it is not surprising that some teachers are now joining those other occupational groups (nurses, ambulance staff, railway workers, postal workers and so on) who have seen their salaries held artificially below inflation for a decade or more. They find current economic realities extremely difficult to deal with on a day-to-day basis.
That the English government appears not to be able to respond to so many heartfelt demands is, I would argue, unsurprising. To confine my comments just to schooling for now, although they echo across the public and private sectors, a 30-year process of ‘reform’ based on more and more London-directed centralisation has increasingly led to decisions being exercised solely on a narrow range of outcome measures without any understanding of how any of these might be achieved or who is likely to achieve them. Teachers and others become more and more excluded. Leaders know less and less – in education and everywhere else. Lack of understanding is endemic.
While ministers may argue ideologically that government’s job is to ‘get out of the way’ of teachers, in fact the very opposite now happens. Based on a generalised historical contempt for local decision making and makers – a contempt that even government officials themselves acknowledge – the lack of trust has led through detailed prescription, real-terms budget cuts at all levels and aspects of the education service (if we can still reasonably use that phrase) to school governance reforms that have created an absolute muddle that can be reshaped by ministerial fiat, without consultation or legislation.
What began as a governance change – ‘academisation’ – imposed to raise ‘standards’ has led to a very mixed system of schools: (mainly primary) ‘maintained’ by their elected local council; small (with five or fewer schools) multi-academy trusts (MATs); and those very large ones with tens of schools. These are ‘overseen’ (but not really) by regional central government offices which, while staffed by competent individuals trying their best to make the muddle work, report to distant national officials and politicians who, while often professing their ‘passion’ for education, have become what they are through a narrower and narrower experience of the education service. So now, central government acts and speaks as though all teachers are there to ‘serve the secretary of state’.
Meantime, the behind-closed-doors methods of decision making endemic in central government have become the predominant culture in all levels of school governance (with published agendas and minutes a rarity), and for many local schools, the ability to make their own decisions has disappeared altogether. MATs gradually become larger, more centralised, more secretive and more likely to impose uniform curricula and teaching methods, right down to classroom drills.
The trouble is that constructed technocracies, such as English education, cannot respond to any outside change because they can only think of what they do – schooling – in the same narrow outcome terms. So, after so much ‘missed’ schooling during the pandemic (with variable effects across different social classes), the first thought is just to provide ‘catch up’ of the same, in this case by awarding a national contract to a private company with no history of education involvement.
If you think society needs no change in the future – everything is fine – then the status quo may suit. Even on current expected outcomes, however, there has been no progress in narrowing the gaps between advantaged and disadvantaged students, and ‘key outcomes’ have made no impact at all on social mobility. Why on earth would they?
So, with so many apparently negative aspects for a multitude of those living in the UK, and with schooling apparently having little purpose, are not change and a sense of direction in current policy important? But currently, with democracy every five years, as Rousseau put it, there seems little chance of a change of course except in the shorthand lines of a general election manifesto, decided, of course, behind closed doors.
And, thinking about schooling, which is always local, where can a citizen go to join in local discussions and debates about where secondary schools might be located in their town and what might go on in them? Or, what sort of provision should be made in a rural county for young people with SEND? Well, surprisingly or not, there is nowhere at all, unless some current local government bodies (ready and waiting) are repurposed in the future.
Schools are part of the associational life of the communities they serve, but if they have no governing body of their own, they are left powerless to adapt to the needs of their communities.. But communities develop and change, positively and negatively, and variably need a focus, partners, forums and occasionally facilitation. In the past, communities have looked to their major local public service, their schools, for this. Are they likely to do that now?
Richard Riddell has worked for over 40 years as a state schoolteacher, senior Local Authority Officer, consultant, head of education for an NGO and senior lecturer at Bath Spa University where he is now Visiting Research Fellow.
Schooling in a Democracy by Richard Riddell is available to pre-order here for £24.99.
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