“And in the twilight zone, trees are purple (not blue, as Gove claims!)”

claire daley, 27 August 2008

Dr Ruth Lupton of the Institute of Education has taken the Conservative’s recent education report, A Failed Generation, to task for using dodgy statistics to claim that the education gap between rich and poor has widened on New Labour’s watch. Her criticisms are powerful but not exactly an overwhelming indictment of the report. One of its claims was based on a statistic on SATS mistakenly provided by the DCSF suggesting, helpfully, that results of repeated information requests from government departments are not especially accurate.

Another criticism took issue with Gove’s uncontested claim that several local authorities did not have a single pupil in a state maintained school attempt GCSE Physics, on the grounds that only six per cent of students nationally attempt Physics as a single subject anyway. But of course, that still begs the question why NONE of even that six per cent are appearing in some areas even though taking the three natural sciences as separate GCSEs still offers the best foundation for studying sciences at a higher level, which is highly suggestive of the very education gap that Gove is trying to illustrate. Similarly, Gove’s statement that twelve local authorities have fewer than a quarter of their pupils attempting English Maths, Science and a Modern language at GCSE is dismissed because only 44 per cent of pupils attempted that subject combination nationally. First, that still implies a distinct variation between areas and, secondly, that pupils should learn a foreign language and to have a GCSE level science qualification isn’t the most ambitious expectation, even though the Tories have no doubt drawn the line to put the divide in the starkest possible light. And, of course, the Tories have to tap-dance around the stats as they try to present New Labour as a unique failure when, in fact, their policies and outcomes follow closely on from what the Tories have offered in the past.
However, the main problem here lies not with one report or statistic but the entire frame of the discussion. For in the main it is taking place not in the real world, but somewhere over the rainbow, where skies are blue, the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true, and where SATS and GCSE results are reliable indicators of real pupil achievement. As we have documented, they are not, because they become alternately a series of gongs for the government to claim when the numbers come up right and a bunch of sticks for the opposition to beat the government with when they don’t. When the results have political implications, the exams will be subject to political interference, hence the gaming, the teaching to the test, the concentration on the borderline cases and, rather more damagingly, the slimming down of the curriculum. Many of these problems are explicitly acknowledged by Lupton, but they will not be solved until the discussion focuses not on arguing the toss over statistical artefacts but on genuinely useful indicators of achievement, something that can only be inferred for now from the evidence offered by universities and employers. Even then, the results will not necessarily have the final word on government policy success as other factors (levels of immigration, for example) will be bound to impact on standards.
Finally, Lupton makes a swipe at the so-called ‘marketisation’ of education that involves less state intervention and that she claims is a continuation of what New Labour are currently doing. A careful distinction needs to be made on this point, between creating a real market in education (i.e. parent choice), and the sort of ‘cargo cult market’ that the Labour government has offered so far. I mean here by cargo cult when the various icons and symbols of a market are introduced (i.e. productivity targets, delivery statements, slogans, new brands, shiny offices, and expensive buildings) so beloved of government bureaucrats, but without the underlying structure being reformed. That reform is, in essence, where rather than the state deciding what good education is and insisting on measuring it itself, parents get the final choice of what makes a good school and teachers and educationalists are encouraged to open and operate their own schools according to their professional expertise. Evidence in favour this sort of market (with the emphasis on parent choice and teacher empowerment rather than government measurement) is becoming increasingly overwhelming. Our report, Swedish Lessons, is our most recent contribution to this debate.