In conclusion
A very brief history of a very long struggle
This history has focused on the long struggle to create for England's children an education system which values them all. It has, in many ways, been a sad story.
The poor were almost entirely excluded from schools until the Industrial Revolution, when it became clear that England needed an educated workforce if it was to compete successfully in world trade.
Even then, there was hostility to the very idea of mass education. Tory MP Davies Giddy warned that it would render the labouring classes 'factious and refractory', enable them to read 'seditious pamphlets', and encourage them to be 'insolent to their superiors' (Hansard House of Commons 13 June 1807 Vol 9 Cols 798-9).
The argument for mass education was eventually won, but the system which emerged, towards the end of the nineteenth century, was based on the entrenched class divisions of English society.
These divisions survived into the twentieth century, only now it was argued that they were based not on social class, but on the theory of fixed intelligence promoted by Cyril Burt and the eugenicists. The result was the tripartite system of grammar, technical and secondary modern schools, established in 1945.
By this time, however, the notion of fixed intelligence had been shown to be spurious and, for a brief spell - in the 1960s and early 1970s - it looked as though, finally, all of England's children would enjoy the benefits of being educated together in schools which were fully comprehensive.
But it was not to be. The neo-liberal governments of Margaret Thatcher and John Major began the process of turning the public education service into a market: competition was now seen as more important than collaboration; choice and diversity were valued more highly than equality of opportunity.
Tony Blair's New Labour governments took the process further by creating a multiplicity of schools - including the academies - and increasing the number and range of faith schools, while at the same time attempting to micromanage the teaching process itself.
Under Gordon Brown, Ed Balls tried to take a holistic view of the needs of children, but refused to reverse the overall direction of government policy.
And finally, Michael Gove sought to change almost every aspect of England's education system to the point where the word 'system' hardly seemed appropriate any more.
Some final thoughts
As long ago as 1961, in his book The Long Revolution, Raymond Williams argued:
It is a question of whether we can grasp the real nature of our society, or whether we persist in social and educational patterns based on a limited ruling class, a middle professional class, a large operative class, cemented by forces that cannot be challenged and will not be changed. The privileges and barriers, of an inherited kind, will in any case go down. It is only a question of whether we replace them by the free play of the market, or by a public education designed to express and create the values of an educated democracy and a common culture (Williams 1961:155).
More than half a century on, it is clear that governments of both main parties have chosen 'the free play of the market'.
Stewart Ranson, Emeritus Professor at Warwick University, has commented:
Over the past 20 years the neo-liberal agenda of choice and competition in schools has undermined public education. When the present contradictions finally implode, the nation will need a Royal Commission that leads a national conversation to rebuild education based on justice. Education should not depend on power and wealth, but on recognising that extending all the capabilities of all children is the nation's first public good (Ranson 2010:158).
And in his last column for The Guardian, Peter Mortimore, former Director of the University of London Institute of Education, wrote:
Over my years in the education service, I have witnessed the policies of 28 secretaries of state. I have observed the work of scores of local authority education officers, hundreds of heads and thousands of teachers, teacher trainers and pupils in many different countries.
I have seen great progress: British teachers today are amongst the best I have seen anywhere. But the improvements to the system, so obvious in the first half of my career, have not kept pace. Anthony Crosland's request to local authorities to go comprehensive, the raising of the school leaving age from 15 to 16, the Plowden Committee's concern for the disadvantaged, the merging of the GCE and CSE into the GCSE and the abolition of corporal punishment pointed the way to a modern education system.
Regrettably, the influence of the anti-progressive Black Papers, the wasted opportunity of James Callaghan's Great Debate and the systematic rubbishing of the comprehensive ideal by both Tories and New Labour have stymied progress. In addition, the downgrading of local government and the creation of new types of schools - from Kenneth Baker's city technology colleges to Michael Gove's free schools - have fashioned a deeply fragmented English education service. Add to this the haughty control and command of New Labour's classroom diktats, and small wonder that - despite the dedication of those who work in schools - the system is a mess (Mortimore 2010).
Yet, as John Smyth and Terry Wrigley have argued, there is no reason why England, along with Australia and the US, should have education systems based on inequality:
Things need not be this way, and the fact that these powerful English-speaking countries manifest shamefully high levels of inequality yet appear deaf to any alternatives says much about the ideologically driven nature of this particular reform paradigm. The lessons from Finland could not be more stark, and while impossible to transplant or copy, they stand as demonstrable evidence that a commitment to equitable school provision and more democratic systems of quality control pays off handsomely in high levels of achievement and without any of the social disfigurement experienced in countries where schooling is blighted by the neoliberal project (Smyth and Wrigley 2013:202).
The result of creeping privatisation, suggests Melissa Benn, is that we - citizens and parents - are becoming
passive spectators of an alliance between the private sector and politicians as they step in to 'save' civil society from its failures, including the apparent failure of egalitarianism (Benn 2011:199).
Public services, she argues, should 'remain within the remit of a dynamic democratic state, at every level' (Benn 2011:200):
We could organise our education system along much simpler and fairer lines, and in ways that unify, not divide, the nation. ... A service that allows the poorest family to feel confident that their child will receive a broadly similar educational start in life to their better-off peers, and one that promises to enrich and challenge all. A service based on neighbourhood schools - housed in well-designed, well-equipped, aesthetically pleasing and properly maintained buildings, enjoying plenty of outdoor space - with balanced intakes and a broad, rich curriculum that will allow each child, whatever their talents, temperament or interests, to flourish (Benn 2011:201).
And she concludes:
It is time ... to reclaim the mantle of genuine reform for our side in the long-running school wars. Genuine comprehensive reform is unfinished. There is much exciting work still to be done. The rewards, in terms of better-educated citizens of the future and greater common ground between communities and religions and classes, could be enormous. The alternative scenario - of an increasingly fragmented, mistrustful and divided nation, controlled rather than enlightened, dependent on the unstable whim of private or religious enterprise - is too frightening to contemplate (Benn 2011:204).
Keep the faith
Given that we now have a government (and a Labour leadership) apparently determined to do irreparable damage to the future of the next generation by pursuing 'Brexit' (taking Britain out of the European Union), and an education secretary who supports the creation of yet more segregated schools, it is easy to feel profoundly pessimistic about what the future might hold.
For our young people's sake, however, we must endeavour to remain positive, and there are some signs of hope.
With regard to the Brexit problem, 75 per cent of 18- to 24-year-olds voted for Britain to remain in Europe (Ipsos MORI 5 September 2016), and it seems likely that, had they been allowed to vote (as they were in the 2014 Scottish independence referendum), 16- and 17-year-olds would have been at least as positive.
It is not surprising, therefore, that young people around the country are mobilising in support of Britain's continued membership of the European Union. Groups such as Our Future Our Choice and For Our Future's Sake are busy campaigning, and representatives of a million students in more than 60 universities and colleges have written to their MPs demanding a say on any final deal. An increasing number of MPs are at last beginning to accept the inevitability of another vote (The Observer 13 May 2018). Sanity may yet prevail.
In education there are now dozens of organisations campaigning for a fairer system of schools based on local democracy, a more child-focused approach to the curriculum, and an end to England's grotesque testing regime. They include Comprehensive Future, Forum, Learning Without Limits, the Local Schools Network, and Reclaiming Schools (whose websites can all be found on the links page of this site).
As the sociologist Stuart Hall (1932-2014) has argued, there is no reason why the neo-liberal project in education should be permanent:
No project achieves 'hegemony' as a completed project. It is a process, not a state of being. No victories are permanent or final. Hegemony has constantly to be 'worked on', maintained, renewed, revised. Excluded social forces, whose consent has not been won, whose interests have not been taken into account, form the basis of counter-movements, resistance, alternative strategies and visions ... and the struggle over a hegemonic system starts anew. They constitute what Raymond Williams called 'the emergent' - and are the reason why history is never closed but maintains an open horizon towards the future (Hall 2011:26).
Meanwhile, across the country, tens of thousands of teachers still care deeply about the well-being and prospects of their pupils, and go to work every morning determined, despite the often unhelpful interventions of politicians, to provide them with the best and most humane education they can.
Derek Gillard
Oxford
16 May 2018
References
Benn M (2011) School Wars: The Battle for Britain's Education London: Verso
CPAC (2016) Training new teachers Report of the Commons Public Accounts Committee
CPAC (2017) Capital funding for schools Report of the Commons Public Accounts Committee
DfE (2016a) White Paper Educational Excellence Everywhere London: Department for Education
DfE (2016b) Green Paper Schools that work for everyone London: Department for Education
Hall S (2011) 'The Neoliberal Revolution' Soundings 48 Summer
Jenkins S (2017) 'The return of the 11-plus is Theresa May's first real Trump moment' The Guardian 9 March
Labour Party (2017) For the Many, Not the Few London: The Labour Party
Morgan N, Powell L and Clegg N (2017) 'On this we can all agree. Selection is bad for our schools' The Guardian 19 March
Mortimore P (2010) 'Fight Gove's big sell-off of public education' The Guardian 7 December
NAO (2016) Financial sustainability of schools Report of the National Audit Office.
Newsam P (2017) 'Theresa May's grammar school vanity project will institutionalise failure' The Guardian 14 April
Ranson S (2010) 'Returning Education to Layering Horizons?' Forum 52(2) 155-158
Smyth J and Wrigley T (2013) Living on the Edge: rethinking poverty, class and schooling New York: Peter Lang
Williams R (1961) The Long Revolution London: Chatto and Windus
Chapter 19 | Timeline
David Cameron's decision to hold a referendum on Britain's membership of the European Union, in an attempt to placate the right wing of the Conservative party, ended in disaster. Following the narrow victory for the 'Leave' campaign, he resigned as Prime Minister on 13 July 2016 and was succeeded by Theresa May (1956- ) (pictured).
Shadow education secretary Angela Rayner (pictured) was vigorous in her condemnation of the proposals, and hoped that Conservatives who were sceptical about them would join her:
Education secretary Justine Greening (pictured) was clearly unhappy with the policy and tried to find ways to justify it, claiming, for example, that the new grammar schools would 'support young people from every background, not the privileged few' (The Guardian 13 April 2017).
Damian Hinds (pictured) replaced Justine Greening on 8 January 2018. In his first major interview as education secretary, he told The Sunday Times that he planned to abolish the fifty per cent cap on faith-based admissions to over-subscribed free schools, in order to facilitate the establishment of more Roman Catholic schools. He also said he would 'enthusiastically' support the expansion of England's remaining grammar schools (Schools Week 18 February 2018).