#marketisation

The Educational Reform Act- suggested schools partake in marketisation and selection.

Funding Formula= schools aquired an equal amount of money for every student they take on.

Exam League Tables= the rank a school gets for their percentage of students who achieve A-C GCSE's.

Competition= schools compete for students

A-C Economy:

Pressure placed on schools to achieve high places on league tables, subsequently attracting more pupils and gaining more funding. Schools focus on pupils who can attain A-C.

Educational Triage:

3 types of pupils :

Those who will do well anyway

Borderline C/Ds

Hopeless cases

Polarisation present between those schools high in league tables and those lower down.

Higher = more popular and can select better students

Lower = less popular and thus less able to select

Evaluating the New Right’s Perspective on Education

In this post I offer four pieces of evidence students can use to evaluate the New Right’s perspective on education, particularly their claim that Marketisation policies since 1988 have raised standards for all pupils.

Item A: GCSE Pass Rates

Probably the strongest piece of supporting evidence for the New Right’s policies on education is that they have worked to improve GCSE results nearly every…

Why do universities make unconditional offers?

1 in 3 sixth formers now receive at least one unconditional offer from a university. 117 000 students received a university offer with at least one unconditional element last year, compared to just 3000 five years earlier. (Guardian article, Jan 31st 2018).

And according to the latest UCAS figures, there are 20 universities which are fuelling the trend. Nottingham Trent is at the top of the list…

Values, not ‘Value’: Mechanization, Marketization and the Prevention of Thought

Gooble Books Ngram Viewer results: value, values

  A sad triumph of the ultimate consequences of the marketisation of Higher Education is when it annihilates solidarity- it dehumanises all stakeholders and minimises empathy.

The process is complete when education is compared without nuance to services like transport or hospitality: Like airlines, rail companies or restaurants, universities are…

Above: Margaret Thatcher (1925-2013), New Rightist politician/Prime Minister (1979)

NEW RIGHTISM ON THE ROLE OF EDUCATION

THE NEW RIGHT

A central principle of New Rightism is that people are better off meeting their own needs through individual choice on the market, rather than public provision through the state. This is why they advocate marketisation of the education system.

Similarities between the New Right and Functionalism:

Believe some people are naturally more talented than others

Advocate of meritocratic education systems with competition

Advocate education system that serves needs of economy - prepares people for work

Believe education should socialize people into shared values (national identity)

However - the New Right don’t believe the current education system is achieving these goals. The state  is to blame for this.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, state socialists saw the emergence of large trusts through the merging of smaller companies as paving the way towards nationalisation and public ownership of the economy. In the words of Fabian theorist Annie Besant, “the great centralized industries” have been “centralized for us by capitalists, who thus unconsciously pave the way for their own supersession.”

Putting aside for now the fact that the forms of public ownership in many places, not least of all Britain, were a far cry from any true socialism, could we not extend this line of thought to the Keynesian postwar settlement? The massive increase in state involvement through welfare, state funding and so on, prepared the way for the waves of privatisation and marketisation under neoliberal governments. Had society and the economy not been centralised under social democracy, neoliberalism would not have been possible, as the levers of power would not all have been located within the corridors of state departments.

The Educational reform act:

Suggested schools complete marketisation and selection.

→Funding formula; schools get an equal amount of money for each pupil they take on.

→ Exam league tables; the rank a school gets for percentage of A-C's GCSE's.

→ Competition; schools compete to attract pupils.

A-C economy:

Pressure on schools to get good place on league tables and attract pupils funding. Schools forced to get A-C and focus on people who will.

Educational Triage:

Pupils:

1. Who will do well anyway

2. Borderline C/D

3. Hopeless cases

There comes a polarisation between schools high in league tables and those lower down.

→ Higher; more popular are able to select those who are better.

→ Lower; less popular, less able to select.

Cream skimming= Selecting higher ability and cost less to teach.

Silt-Shifting= Loading students with loading students with learning disabilities , get poorresults.

John Fritz found that in a study of Grant School, which were 'reinventng tradition' spent £10,000 on an organ for assemblies and renamed the canteent the dining hall.