Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1-19)
WEDNESDAY 20 NOVEMBER 2002
PROFESSOR STEPHEN
GORARD, PROFESSOR
JAMES TOOLEY
AND PROFESSOR
RICHARD PRING
Chairman
1. May I welcome three eminent professors who
are going to help the Committee with their wisdom and research
this morning, Professor Tooley, Professor Gorard and Professor
Pring. Professor Pring and I have known each other a very long
time, so welcome Richard and Stephen and James and thank you very
much for spending some of your valuable time in helping the Committee.
You will know that the Committee has set this whole Parliament
to look at secondary education. We have done a great deal of work
on higher education in the last couple of years, on pre-school
and individual learning accounts and other things, but in terms
of inquiries we have been away from what some people would describe
as mainstream education for some time, certainly secondary education.
Therefore we are looking at the diversity agenda, the Government's
commitment to have a whole range of different kinds of schools,
what we believe is their linking of that with attainment of schools.
We are then going to be looking at retention and recruitment of
teachers, we are going to be moving onto admissions policies and
we are going to be looking at performance of particular groups
of pupils. Four parts to our inquiry and we shall be reporting
them out individually. This morning's evidence is really around
the diversity agenda. Thank you very much for the memoranda you
have presented to us prior to this meeting; they have been most
useful to the Committee and most illuminating. May I ask whether
you in turn would like to say a few words to open up the discussion
from your side?
(Professor Tooley) Having been expressly
informed that we were not going to be asked to do that—
2. It would seem discourteous not to give you
a chance to.
(Professor Tooley) You received my paper on Choice
in Education: Global Examples and Evidence. What I
am particularly interested in is the range of market approaches
to education which are used around the world. I have given examples
here of approaches in America and Europe, but I must be clear
that there are also examples in Africa, in Asia, in every country
imaginable. Some of the examples are particularly interesting
when you see surprising places using some sort of private provision
to enhance diversity; those in this report are the private grammar
schools Germany and other examples which are equally surprising,
as in the Swedish universal voucher system, one of only two anywhere
in the world. There is a lot here to be going on with and I look
forward to your comments on them.
3. Surprising in what way?
(Professor Tooley) Surprising as far as vouchers are
concerned. We are often told in debates that these are right-wing
ideas, that they find favour only in America and the Anglo-Saxon
world. To see the most Social Democrat Government in Europe introducing
vouchers surprises many. The fact that Germany has a higher proportion
of children and young people in private grammar schools, secondary
schools, than England also surprises many and the fact that these
schools can charge top-up fees and still receive state subsidy
surprises many because we assume our Social Democrat partners
in Europe will not be embracing these privatisation ideas. Surprising
to many: encouraging to me.
(Professor Gorard) May I first of all apologise? I
sent in a summary of three strands of the research I have been
doing recently. What I could not do was prepare it especially
for this inquiry. I gave you what was available off the shelf.
I hope that makes sense. I have brought some other material which
would back that up, but I am happy to leave that here for you
to take away at the end. We are talking about a large number of
different projects which converge in different ways. There are
two main themes: one is the one about standards, about attainment
in schools. My summary of that would be that I have yet to see
any convincing evidence that any sector or type of school is differentially
effective with equivalent pupils. Obviously there are differences
between schools but we are talking about differences between school
types. We cannot say that one particular type or sector of schools
is particularly better or worse than another. The second strand
which you may want to talk about is the potential cost of diversification
which is to do with the extent to which social groups are or are
not clustered within particular schools or types of schools, that
is what I call social segregation, and the extent to which recent
policies and possibly future policies might affect the composition
of schools.
(Professor Pring) Very simply, if you are going to
differentiate between different groups or different individuals,
where that differentiation means an unequal distribution of resources
then the onus of proof lies on those who want to make the differences,
a very simple principle of justice. In focusing upon today, I
came to realise the enormous number of ways in which differentiation
is taking place and there is different funding and there are different
resources. Yet all this arises from many different initiatives
over a period of about 10 or 15 years. There does not seem to
be any overall set of principles which justifies that sort of
differentiation. In other words, it has grown bit by bit ad hoc
and there does not seem to be any overall vision or any overall
principle by which that differentiation is justified. The onus
of proof does lie on those who want to maintain this unbelievably
diverse system of funding and admissions policies that we have.
Secondly, particular problems are now emerging over the differentiation
which takes place through admissions policies and funding of faith
schools. I have to say that until very recently I have certainly
been a strong supporter of faith schools, but there are some very
real difficulties now. They are not easy ones to be solved and
they are not ones with any simple solution because of the history.
It does seem to me—and I should like to develop this afterwards
if people wish—an issue which our society has to address
very seriously and very urgently.
4. Thank you for that. May I open the questioning?
This Committee was particularly attracted to looking at the experience
of New Zealand which we visited fairly recently, partly because
it seemed to have, in terms of the OECD scores, the PISA study
scores, something in common with our own country, that was that
a pretty high percentage of people were doing rather well in terms
of the scores. When we went to New Zealand, we found a society
very similar to ours: a band, 60 to 65%, of the population who
seemed to be getting a fairly good education but this tail, for
very different reasons this tail of significant underachievement
which very much concerned the New Zealand politicians and educators.
We have the same problem here, do we not? We have a large number
of people getting a pretty good education in this country but
a significant tail of underachievement. If diversity is not the
answer, what is the answer to tackling this tail of underachievement
in our country which to this Committee seems reasonably obvious?
Are we wrong to believe this?
(Professor Tooley) You are asking what other things
as well as diversity are required.
5. Yes.
(Professor Tooley) You might like to look at compulsion
as another aspect in your agenda and particularly, as the White
Paper indicates, post-14 when most of the problems of alienation,
underachievement and so on occur in this country and in New Zealand
and looking at the issue of whether school is the right place
for all young people post-14 should be a very important part of
that exploration. Certainly the diversity we shall be touching
on and the diversity which occurs to a limited extent in New Zealand
does not really touch on the types of diversity which are indicated
in the White Paper which might be required post-14. Rather than,
to put it crudely, giving everyone perhaps a combination of some
watered down academic curriculum and some quasi pseudo vocational
curriculum post-14, you might want to reconsider whether everyone
needs the same type of schooling.
6. We might want to push you on that in a moment.
Professor Gorard, is this idea of two thirds/one third and a big
tail of underachievement an accurate picture?
(Professor Gorard) No, I do not think so.
7. Good. Tell us why.
(Professor Gorard) First of all I would
have considerable doubts about the genuine effectiveness of international
comparisons based on PISA. I am doing some work on PISA at the
moment and I have some material here which I should be happy to
leave for you to look at. The danger is that because of the different
contexts and the different natures of the education systems, even
the age banding and the promotion system within different national
contexts, the variability that that causes is likely to be much
larger than the variation between countries. Even what appear
to be relatively large scores, even ignoring the rhetorical ranking
you get in these international comparisons, even when the scores
appear to show quite large differences, it would be difficult
to say these are actually due to differentially effective education
systems. That is a general blanket point. In terms of the notion
of underachievement, it is one I have had difficulty with because
I always wondered what the "under" is in relation to.
Terms like "differential attainment" between particular
social groups, "lower achievement", are all bound up
in this notion of underachievement. We have to consider, if we
have what we have been calling this underachieving group, what
the assessment system, the qualification system, sets out for
them. We have a GCSE system which was the merger of CSE and O
levels which were designed for 40% of the relevant age cohort
and because of the criterion referencing in the marking we have
this year on year move towards higher scores, higher grades. Let
us not get into a debate about why that is, that is a red herring.
The point is that the assessment system is there to discriminate.
I am not advocating it should be, I am just saying that is what
it does, it is there to discriminate. You always get some people
who do better than others. The other extreme would be simply to
allocate everybody some kind of certificate.
8. A lot of my constituents would say that is
all very well and it is very academic, but if 20% of the population
of New Zealand leave school with no qualification, whatever the
academic niceties of it, many people would think that the education
system had failed those children; if 20% of people go out of the
school with no qualification, whatever the qualification is.
(Professor Gorard) I was not advocating the system,
I was just saying the system as it is, is set up to discriminate
between people. If we had a system where nobody failed any assessment,
then questions would also be asked about the reality and nature
of the assessment. You could change the form of assessment.
Ms Munn
9. Are we not talking about underachievement
in relation to what we might expect people to be able to achieve?
(Professor Gorard) Yes.
10. The issue in areas like Sheffield which
I represent is that you see proportionately fewer people getting
the qualifications and not based on the fact that they are less
intelligent. Surely that is what we are talking about? Not whether
anybody should ever fail an exam but whether people are being
given the kind of teaching and behaviour to learn in order to
fulfil their individual potential.
(Professor Gorard) I am sorry if it sounds very academic,
but you then have the perennial problem. If you take a psychological
prediction of how well you would expect an individual to do in
any future assessment, then you have a discrepancy between how
they do and how you predicted, you have now way of knowing whether
it was the final assessment or your original judgement which is
wrong.
Chairman: We do not mind you sounding
like an academic because you are one.
Ms Munn
11. That is in relation to an individual. What
we are actually talking about is large parts of the country and
usually we are talking about poor estates, we are talking about
people overall. My colleague here is from Barnsley where classically
people do not achieve, yet they have done intelligence testing
of kids going into school and the kids going into school there
are no less intelligent than kids going into school in Oxford
overall. So why are they not doing as well in Barnsley or Sheffield
as they are in Oxford?
(Professor Gorard) May I talk about South Wales which
is an area of quite high deprivation where I have done considerable
work? People have been suggesting that there was considerable
underachievement there. It was said that the worst schools were
schooling children to fail because standards had been lower than
they had been in England. Where we have done comparisons between
Wales and other regions of either England or Scotland which had
similar economic and social profiles then the scores were pretty
much as you would expect. If you did a contextualised value added
analysis of what you expected pupils to achieve, then they were
achieving pretty much what you would expect. The point is if you
try to compare in some sort of league table system children from
Kensington and Chelsea with children from Blaenau Gwent and then
say because the children from Blaenau Gwent are not getting such
high scores, even though they may do well on cognitive attainment
tests, they must be underachieving.
12. That sounds like you are saying it is okay
for poor kids to do badly.
(Professor Gorard) No, I am not. It is an odd thing
for an educationist to suggest, but I resent the logic which says
that we know there is a strong link between poverty and educational
attainment, so let us do what we can for the poor children to
improve their educational attainment. To some extent that is putting
too much emphasis on education. Why do we start from the supposition
that we should continue to have poor children? Why not deal with
that issue first and then see what pans out in education?
Chairman
13. In reality we want to do both at the same
time, do we not?
(Professor Gorard) Yes.
14. There is a rather pessimistic note in the
material you sent us in the sense that you say many times that
the real link is between poverty and underachievement, do you
not? Are there not examples where children from poor backgrounds
achieve significantly better than children from poor backgrounds
in other parts and other schools?
(Professor Gorard) Those are the kinds of issues which
the school improvement agenda is trying to tap into to see what
we can learn. I do not think we can have a blanket policy of borrowing
or practice of borrowing from sectors or countries or even regions.
That is the point I was trying to make at the beginning. It is
not a question of looking to the Pacific Rim and saying we will
deal with these underachieving children in that way or looking
at particular sectors of schools and saying we should be more
like them or decorate our foyers in the same colours. Quite often
the way in which these children are brought through depends on
a charismatic teacher as much as anything else, the kind of thing
for which you cannot bring in blanket legislation.
(Professor Pring) In many respects the Government,
both in this and the previous administration has put its finger
on one very important thing and that is that education begins
very early and one really has to put more resources into early
years. Anybody who works in and is connected with the reception
classes and early classes in our primary schools will realise
that many youngsters come to school at the age of five already
deprived in the social skills which are going to enable them to
perform well, but also in a whole range of other things. In tackling
the problem which you identified, the focus upon early years in
terms of resources and making sure there is good teaching has
been a very good point in this present Government. Secondly, quite
frankly you are going to continue to achieve badly if you do not
learn to read and write. The stress upon literacy and numeracy
which the Government has pursued, often against certain opposition,
has been right. One can criticise aspects of it and the rigidity
of it in some cases. Nonetheless I think these were two policies
which were quite correct in redressing these problems. We are
now beginning to see the consequences of that. There is no doubt
there are more people achieving well in secondary schools than
was ever the case before. It is a bit like turning around a battleship,
is it not? I do feel that there have been significant changes.
One further point which I should like to make is that there is
certainly no doubt that there was a need to tighten up the curriculum
framework in the 1980s and 1990s. There were lots of stories going
back, I do not need to spell them out, where we feel many young
people were deprived, often because of certain attitudes. A lot
of work in the 1960s in America more or less said that schools
do not make much difference. I think that permeated the consciousness
of many people. There has been a changeover now and people do
know that schools make a difference and we are benefiting a great
deal from that. At the same time, having got to that stage, I
do believe that there is a need for loosening up, often the things
which constrain imaginative and good teachers in responding to
the kind of needs as they perceive them in particular areas. There
is a frustration with many teachers having to pursue a curriculum
with some young people where they feel this may not be altogether
appropriate. We have to be careful here. Nonetheless I think that
is the case. Whenever I go to New York, where I was a fortnight
ago, I always work in a particular school, which is within the
state system. In New York there is a collection of what is called
the consortium of essential schools, which are all within the
state school system but which have been really freed to enable
them to develop quite imaginative approaches to learning and to
curriculum for people in Manhattan, in Brooklyn and so on. One
sees some quite remarkable changes there. It is often due to a
different sort of relationship, a different school, often with
young people, as in the school that I was in, from every conceivable
ethnic background and often people who have been ejected from
their own schools. I should like to see now, in addressing some
of the problems you have talked about, the possibility of experimenting
with smaller schools, where personal relationships are very, very
important in order to motivate those young people. There is room
now for enabling teachers to have much greater professional freedom
in tackling some of the sorts of problems you have been talking
about.
Mr Turner
15. Who is the guardian of the child's interest
in your picture of how education should work?
(Professor Pring) Essentially the parent in partnership
with the school. I say in partnership because you cannot just
hand it over. The idea that parents know best was part of Choice
and Diversity, John Patten wrote it. Quite clearly in many cases
parents do not know best. Teachers very often know best for those
particular children. So it has to be a very close partnership
between the school and the parents in developing the education
agenda of those children.
16. What do they see as the objective of the
diversity agenda? Unless we are more or less agreed on what the
objective is we cannot tell—
(Professor Pring) My view which I put in my paper
was that there is no one overall objective. If you look at the
very different kinds of diversity, the very different sets of
funding, the very different admissions policies, which have grown
without any kind of rational basis over a period of about 20 years,
you cannot talk about any overall objective.
17. Indeed. That is why I was going to ask your
colleagues the same question.
(Professor Tooley) What is the objective of this Government?
18. No, the longer-term diversity.
(Professor Tooley) I must say that the word "diversity"
is probably a red herring. The words to stress are "choice"
and "competition", perhaps "entrepreneurship".
Diversity may or may not be an outcome of that. In many areas
of our lives diversity does not occur when you have choice and
competition. For example, all the men here are wearing suits and
ties and we go to supermarkets which are roughly similar, even
though they are the result of competition. The diversity aspect
is not something which is to be pushed initially. It is something
which could be an outcome of choice and competition: it may not
be.
(Professor Gorard) As my comments earlier were suggesting,
I am not clear what the problem is that diversification could
be a solution to. I am not saying there is no problem, but I am
not absolutely clear what that problem is. In the data I read
there is not the crisis that I certainly see reported daily through
the media in any of the educational components we are looking
at here. I am guessing that I was not brought along here to express
my opinion on current policies or anything else, but to talk about
where the data we have, which is largely based on official statistics,
leads me to. I certainly was not intending to be depressing; certainly
not intentionally. My intention was to look at what the data say.
What I am guarding against is having initiatives which are there
without clear evidence to solve problems which have been unclearly
formulated. The first thing to work out is exactly what the problem
is that we are trying to sort out. One of the papers I sent you
was looking at what we call the determinant of school compositions
and there seem to be three major chunks. Geography was a clear
one. We have already mentioned geography and it has to be the
main thing. Where you live largely determines where you go to
school. One of the indications about the major determinant of
where people go to school and therefore the outcomes of those
schools by whatever mechanism would be, rather than thinking about
specialisation or diversification, some form of extra money, if
there is extra money to be had, to be given to those areas which
actually need it and making the grants or awards geographical.
The second major determinant is the type of school organisation.
What is absolutely clear is that currently areas which have more
diversification, different types of schools, have more socially
segregated intakes to their schools. As we know from the school
effectiveness and school improvement literature that can have
an effect on outcomes. Outcomes are very sensitive to the compositions
of schools, so my view would be that we look at the composition
of schools first and that would not necessarily mean you would
want to rush straight into diversification. You would want to
think about the admission policies. If you take as an example
the recent policy of specialism, specialist schools, what appears
to happen is that in areas where specialist schools are prevalent,
there is more segregation than in areas where they are not. The
majority of the long-standing specialist schools have also tended
to be either voluntary aided, voluntary controlled or foundation
schools. What they have in common, and some of the other schools
I have put in my study, is that they have different admission
arrangements and different over-subscription criteria to the LEA
schools with which they are competing in their local markets.
In the LEAs where that is not the case, such as one LEA in our
study in the south-east of England, specialist schools have to
use the same criteria as the local comprehensives and the results
from that school are indistinguishable from the other schools
in the LEA and the composition of the schools is indistinguishable.
It seems to me that what is driving this is not the nature of
the schools or even the funding, but the ability to use different
admission arrangements to the local area. My last point is to
agree with what James Tooley said, which was that in areas where
there has been a considerable choice of schools and there has
been freedom of movement as there has been in some parts of New
Zealand recently, then social segregation actually declines in
the period of free choice and diversification was not an outcome.
It was not a market-driven/market-led thing. Most of the diversification
which Richard Pring was talking about in the system has been imposed
by people saying they want these kinds of schools. That is not
bottom-up demand. Generally if you have a choice system in schools,
what appears to happen is that parents are trying to choose between
ranked uniform schools.
Jonathan Shaw
19. I should like to ask Professor Pring to
expand on his idea of piloting smaller schools. You mentioned
this briefly. Could you tell the Committee what you think smaller
schools might provide?
(Professor Pring) I am not suggesting that smaller
schools are ideal for everybody. Where you get areas where there
are particular difficulties because of the social background,
the economic context and so on, the personal relationships between
teachers and pupils, this personal knowledge, this understanding
people very, very well, is extremely important. There may be many
young people who do not find it easy to be in schools of 1,200,
1,300, 1,400, with all the implications that has for personal
knowledge. Many schools do do a very good job at breaking down
these large numbers into units in which there is a great deal
of excellent pastoral care. The small school is what really needs
to be explored for certain young people at certain ages. It may
be defective in certain things, it will not have that range of
expertise in the school, but that close personal relationship,
establishing good social skills, motivating young people may be
much more important in the long run than ensuring they have first-class
teachers of history, geography, mathematics, etcetera. I think
that is something which is certainly worth exploring. There is
quite an interesting movement in this country called The Small
School Movement and it is one which ought to be taken seriously.
When I have seen this in the United States what happens is that
they shape schooling very, very differently. They use the community
much more. If they have excellent mathematicians in this school
of only 120 pupils aged between 14 and 19 then there is a link
to Hunter College just down the road. Where they have particular
talents in certain things, they bring in the community and this
school is something exciting, one of the few schools in New York
now which has managed to get rid of the metal screens whereby
they check whether people have knives and guns and so on. They
have absolutely transformed relationships in that particular area
because of the close intensity of the relationships which take
place between excellent teachers and the pupils. I am not saying
it would necessarily work but I think there has to be room, in
addressing some of the problems which the representative of my
home town of Sheffield came across, to start looking at other
ways. I do believe that in education, certainly in my education
and that of many people here, being in an institution where you
really feel you belong, rather like an extended family, can be
crucial for certain people.
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