Examination of Witnesses (Questions 285-299)
WEDNESDAY 15 JANUARY 2003
MRS JENNIFER
EVANS, PROFESSOR
RON GLATTER
AND DR
PHILIP WOODS
Chairman
285. Professor Glatter, you are known to the
Committee from previous appearances. May I welcome you and Dr
Woods and Jennifer Evans to our deliberations. You are the evaluators
of diversity. I take it you are familiar that there is quite an
academic industry out there also taking part in evaluation not
as part of an official team but certainly there is a range of
people who have appeared before this Committee with very strong
opinions about the diversity programme. But you will know all
about that and you will know the different positions they take.
To start this session, can you tell us a little bit about what
your evaluation work comprises.
(Professor Glatter) Chairman, could I
say that when we had the initial invitation I gathered there were
two things in which you were interested: one is our work on the
evaluation but also some of the things which I referred to in
our private session when I attended in July about diversity more
generally. You will see that the material divides to some extent
into those two sections. We have more or less decided, but we
do not want to stick rigidly to it and create a firm boundary,
that my colleagues will respond to the points on evaluation and
I will respond on the other issues, but, as I say, we may vary
it because I am a member of the evaluation team as well.
(Dr Woods) I would like to say something about the
research we are involved with. This research started in April
last year and it runs until October 2005, so it is a three-and-a-half
year study. One of the things which attracted us to this was that
it ran over a reasonable period of time, over which it is possible
to get some idea of what is happening in a very complex initiative.
We are using both quantitative and qualitative methods. That is
very important. We are doing measures of performance over a period
of time in the schools involved, we are doing surveys of pupils
and we are doing some small questionnaires to staff over that
period of time, and we are collecting a variety of data that is
of a financial nature and other statistical data from the areas.
So there is quantitative data that we are collecting over a period
of time and then we are also doing interviews with head teachers
and others in schools, talking to pupils as well as doing the
survey with pupils, so that we get some of that depth that you
cannot get from the statistics. The aims, in essence, are to see
if the Diversity Pathfinder projects in each of the areas are
meeting the aims as laid down by the DfES and the local aims as
conceived by the LEA and the schools locally, and that covers
the final outcomes (as they are referred to) of their projects;
that is, how they are contributing to the educational performance
and achievement and opportunities of pupils, and the processes
in between, how well they are doing in terms of developing collaboration,
managing specialisation and so on. So it covers quite a range
and we will have quite an array of data by the time we have completed
three and a half years.
(Mrs Evans) I suppose I just want to add that in a
sense it is very early days, in that we will not be seeing yet
any impacts on what pupils are experiencing. The data we are gathering
at the moment is baseline data really. We are looking at how things
are now, so that in three-and-a-half years time we can say what
changes have taken place and, as Phil has said, we are looking
at the processes that have happened to make those changes take
place. Currently we are very much focusing on what has been happening
at the level of the local authority and what has been happening
at the level of the individual schools and head teachers, but
things have not yet permeated down to the classroom level. Currently
we are focusing on the kind of organisations and the setting up
of systems, rather than what is actually happening at the classroom
or even what is happening in terms of professional development
for teachers, because that is still a beginning thing and has
not got very far yet.
286. So you are both saying that it is far too
early for you to tell us anything about whether this diversity
programme is driving up standards or not.
(Dr Woods) Yes, it is.
(Mrs Evans) I think that is what we are saying.
(Professor Glatter) Was your question about diversity
generally or Diversity Pathfinder, which I think we see is a very
specific kind of pilot programme, changing quite a lot of the
dynamics? It is that we are looking at, and that has really only
just started.
(Dr Woods) We have seen glimpses of what is happening
in some of the areas where we have been going along; it is too
early to evaluate what is going on.
287. As professionals in this field—and
you have heard the information coming from the team which was
on before you, in terms of the longevity of this interest in,
if not fashion or love affair with, diversity as a way of driving
up standards—what do you think about the debate that we
have been hearing from the academic world about the relationship
between diversity and standards? What is your view in terms of
your professional opinion?
(Professor Glatter) I can say a little bit about what
my view is about the relationship between diversity and choice.
If I could focus on that one, but you may want to draw out issues
about standards. One of the things that interests me is the way
in which choice and diversity have tended to be used as near synonyms
over the years, almost as inseparable twins, and yet I think they
are quite distinct, and some of that has actually come out this
morning in a very interesting way. As I think Professor Tooley
said at an earlier session, choice does not necessarily produce
diversity. From the 1998 Education Reform Act on this—and
there is quite a lot of research to back this up—it was
then actually that schools started to become somewhat more alike.
That was actually due to a combination of factors, partly the
new central prescriptions that started about that time, with the
introduction of the National Curriculum and the linked assessment
regime and the introduction of league tables and of inspection
a little bit later on, and then, from a different policy strand
within the Conservative Government, you had the whole market forces
push and the whole business of pupil related funding and more
open enrolment. Then—and this is a huge generalisation but
broadly there seems to be evidence for this—schools began
to appeal much more to the middle ground, and they did not go,
if you like, for the niche markets, because they felt that was
where their survival and their funding base was most likely to
be assured. It was quite sensible from that point of view. It
was not so much "comprehensivisation" incidentally,
in the 1960s and 1970s, that brought that sort of development;
it was actually much later than that, with the Education Reform
Act and so on. Since the early 1990s, governments have been trying
to inject more diversity of provision. As I said in the paper,
and as I think others have said, there is not really evidence
of a strong demand for that, but, nevertheless, that is the way
governments have gone. It will be very interesting to see, once
the diversity is fully rolled out, as it were, whether people's
views change and there is actually a demand. The current Government
is searching for diversity linked with equity, and I think that
a number of challenges have got to be met for that to work. First,
of course, we have to avoid greater polarisation and segregation—and
that is the whole two-tier argument with which I know you are
very familiar. For that to happen, choices have to be spread a
lot more widely, and you will recall that the PISA study showed
that the key impact that the nature of a school's intake has on
student achievement is fundamental. In this country, it matters
more than in many other countries which school a child goes to,
and in a way we need to try to reduce that. I think a number of
the Government's policies are aimed at trying to reduce that.
The second challenge with trying to link diversity and equity
is the whole business, which has been touched on in many different
questions this morning, about availability and access, the whole
logistical problem. I think that is an underplayed element and
I was interested to hear the discussion earlier in fact. In most
areas, even urban ones—that is an important point—many
parents see their realistic choice as limited to two or three
schools at most, and so in a diverse system they could actually
only express a preference among very few types or specialisms—let
us say, perhaps a grammar school and a science school, or an engineering
college and a sports college, and you could make up any list of
two or three—and it could be—and there is no evidence
for this yet and it is important to watch whether this is so—that
diversity will be perceived by families as in fact constraining
rather than enhancing choice. The key point is that choice and
diversity do not go together. They are different ideas. Finally,
which is specific to the specialist school notion, it is not just
an issue of 10% selection, which, as we know, is not widely practised,
but even where there is no selection families may feel pressure
to judge children's aptitudes at a very early age, around nine
or 10. We know that is okay with things like a small number of
students in areas like music or other performing arts, perhaps—and
there are a number of respected establishments that have been
going many decades on that—but is it something that will
be a problem more broadly? I have a few suggestions on that. This
is becoming a long answer, I am sorry about that, but I would
just say, first, on the issue of broader specialisms, that it
has been suggested that schools might be allowed to define their
own specialisms or at least that they might not be linked with
particular subjects or subject groups—and we have heard
comment on that this morning. Secondly, that there could be more
stakeholder input to decisions about diversity at national and
local level to promote more local ownership among teachers, parents
and communities. Thirdly, that there ought to be some professional
marketing input, I feel, on branding, because these are branding
issues really—it is a particular brand—and, given
that is the case, there could be some professional advice on that
which could be useful. Fourthly, coming back to diversity and
collaboration, which I do think is potentially very significant
but it is a huge cultural change, that we have got decades of
institutional separateness to contend with and we cannot expect
quick results, I feel, but the idea of focusing on the student
rather than on the institution is a very challenging one, and
I know that our team is really fascinated to see what is going
to happen because it is a very radical approach. I am sorry for
the length of that answer.
Chairman: Thank you for that, Professor
Glatter. That was a very good introduction.
Mr Turner
288. Would I be right in saying that one of
the key determinants of whether parents really have choice is
actually nothing to do with education; it is the density of transport
networks and the efficiency of transport networks.
(Professor Glatter) I think that is a factor.
(Dr Woods) It certainly is part of it. There is also
a difference in terms of the capacity for people to travel around
who do not have their own resources or the flexibility in their
work patterns to travel and take a child further. That is a capacity.
Also I think Professor Glatter pointed to the issue of cultural
capital, as it were, being a factor in the ability to negotiate
the system: to know where you can go, to know who to ask if you
do not know something and so on. So there are a number of factors.
The idea of the Diversity Pathfinder project, as I understand
it, is that you move away from the focus on institutional choice
and you enter an area of a group of schools. You are based in
one school but you then access the educational opportunities within
the whole group, and you access that perhaps by travelling to
the school but in other ways, by perhaps that expertise coming
to your home school base through ICT or through teachers from
other schools travelling to that school and in other ways that
have not yet been developed.
(Professor Glatter) I remember that in 1994 there
was an extremely interesting OECD report on school choice in a
number of countries. The point that that report made, and I have
not seen any later work on this, was that while in England there
was more emphasis on choice than in most other countries, the
arrangements for the funding of school transport were less generous
than in many other countries. There was that paradox to which
that report drew attention. I suspect that the situation may still
be rather similar now.
289. Addressing the issue of cultural capital,
clearly the ease or difficulty in applications is quite significant.
One of the things which I think this Government has drawn attention
to is your chances of success must become more open when you make
the application. Is there something fundamentally wrong with a
system that gives priority to people who express first preferences
rather than people who express lower preferences?
(Dr Woods) I do not think we have looked at it from
that perspective. From previous research, it was clear—without
going into whether it is right or wrong—that where you had
a selective system you had a much greater degree of anxiety about
choice—which came out from the questioning earlier on. I
think I would have to reflect on the specific question that you
are putting about whether it is fundamentally wrong to favour
those with first preferences. I suppose that what is meant to
happen is that the stated admissions' criteria are what should
operate, and it should be open and understood and known that that
is how your application is going to be judged. That is only fair
and right, that it follows what is clear. If first preferences
are not part of the criteria, whether you put first preferences
on, then that should not be a part of the judgment of applications.
290. I think what concerns people is that they
have to gamble, when they make their application, against the
likelihood of other people's first preference being more important
than their first preference, and so they do not necessarily put
the first preference for the school of their first choice, they
put their first preference for the school which they are most
likely to succeed with. As far as you know, do any LEAs, or for
that matter any admissions systems in this country, treat preferences
equally rather than treat the first preferences above other preferences?
(Professor Glatter) I am trying to remember the work
on admissions that I have seen. I do not think there is anything
like that. I think there was one area that had a lottery system
at one point and I think that was declared illegal or something,
but I do not recall that example being operated anywhere else.
291. Professor Glatter, you said that since
1988 schools had gone more for the middle ground. That suggests
to me that before 1988 there were more sort of niche schools or
at least schools outside the middle ground, but also before 1988
there was less choice enforced by legislation. Was there also
less choice? If the answer to that last question is yes, what
was the consequence on pupils of them going to schools which were
outside the middle ground, about which they had no choice?
(Professor Glatter) This was more to do with school
responsiveness rather than student or parent choice. Schools all
felt . . . I am sorry, this is getting to very big generalisations.
There appears to have been a movement towards schools saying,
"Okay, we cannot just go for a niche market for the less
advantaged"—if you like, to take that example. "Because
of things like league tables and so on, we have to do everything
we possibly can, not only to get the largest number of students
through the door but also to get a reasonable intake of higher
ability students." It was that process. Your point earlier
about the supermarket reminded me of this, that it was something
like that process—and there has been some academic work
on the effects of competition generally that I have seen which
actually does use the supermarket analogy in terms of schools,
saying "Why do we expect choice necessarily to produce diversity?
It does not in things like mass car manufacturers and supermarkets
and so on." It may well be that there is that sort of process
and I thought that example was extremely interesting.
Chairman
292. Professor Glatter, in your introduction
you gave the impression that up until the National Curriculum
and the whole swathe of reforms that came about when one government
tried to find ways of raising achievement and standards, we had
a more diverse system—you say niche schools and so on; then
we got a much more uniform—and I will not use the description—more
standardised provision across comprehensives because of the National
Curriculum and all that; and now we are in a new fashion, a new
fashion which is back to specialism and niches and all the rest
of it. Do you not, as an academic with a lot of experience in
this field, sometimes despair at the way governments sort of switch
and swatch and move? At the same time, some of the research that
disturbs me particularly, the research that was produced for Sutton
Trust, for example, shows that social mobility in recent years
has actually slowed down. We are less socially mobile as a nation
and as a society than we used to be. People are not using education
to move up and improve on the achievements of their parents. Achievement
is much more like that of your parents than it was if you take
the two cohorts 1958 and 1970. Here we have a society where we
think education opens up all the doors to all the children, but
it obviously is not doing that. Does that not concern you?
(Professor Glatter) Yes, absolutely. I just want to
say I hope I did not make that business about before 1988 and
after 1988 starker than I think can be warranted, if you like,
by the evidence. There was competition. It is not that 1988 was
the dawn of competition in the education system. Those of us who
were around in the eighties, the seventies and eighties, will
remember the era of falling rolls, when there was quite tough
competition, particularly where schools were concerned about their
survival. So I do not want to make it as stark as that, but I
think that is right. Another thing which is in the supporting
paper: you spoke to Professor Gorard earlier and one of his rather
controversial findings was that the whole choice and competition
movement did not have as much impact as many other people said
it had. I think one of the reasons for that—and again I
refer to that in the supporting paper—may well be—I
have spoken to him and I think he agrees with it—that actually
when you think of all the other movements that are going on, all
the population movements, for example, then the impact of policies
is often a good deal less than we actually think at the time.
Even policies like those that were introduced in 1988, which looked
like very forceful policies, in fact, when you look at all the
other things that are happening . . . For example, one of the
things to which he draws attention is the way in which school
rolls rose because there were a lot of closures of schools and
also because of the increasing population. That is one of the
reasons, arguably, that the choice and competition policy did
not produce as much segregation, in his view and on his data,
as many people expected. The impact of policies, government policies,
is not as great as we often assume it must be.
Jeff Ennis
293. Coming back to what emerged from a previous
line of questioning from Margaret-Anne about the Birmingham model,
looking at Pathfinder projects, it appears that there is no evaluation
being done for neighbouring schools. Is this an oversight of the
evaluation process and should it be incorporated?
(Dr Woods) I would not describe it as an oversight,
in that the brief for the research evaluation is quite taxing
in terms of trying to assess what is going on within those clusters
and those schools. To add looking at the effect on schools outside
it would be interesting but it would ad quite a bit of extra work
and costs which I think is beyond what the Department want to
do. I do think it is a good question, an important question, because
it is conceivable that you could have a cluster of schools that
is working very, very collaboratively within its own borders but
is having detrimental effects outside it. I would say that the
idea, as far as I understand it, in Birmingham is that you build
up a number of clusters and that the culture generally becomes
one of working together, not, "Oh, well, we are all right
within our little area, we are just not interested in going outside
it."
294. There is a possible danger in that.
(Dr Woods) Yes. With the project as it is set up at
the moment for research we could not simply add it on.
295. One of the more attractive dimensions of
specialist schools for me is this collegiate approach, which is
the next dimension, rather than schools just being specialist
schools. That is something I view more positively than the general
idea of specialist schools in principle. Does that mean that to
some extent you will be moving away from individual league tables
for schools if this catches on, and that we can look at more qualitative
rather than quantitative things for schools?
(Dr Woods) That is a very good question, again. It
is coming up within certainly some of the areas, that if you are
working together you have a commitment to the educational opportunities
and standards within your collaborative area and group of schools.
At the moment, as a school, you are judged as a school and your
own performance, your own measures, so the implication is that
the accountability structure should reflect what we are trying
to achieve on the ground and in fact the accountability structure
which focuses expressly on the school can actually be one of the
disincentives to collaboration—not that it automatically
would put people off, but it is a problem, and it has come up
amongst the schools in one of the areas already.
296. It appears to me that it may act as a barrier
against schools working collegiately, carrying on with the same
old schools league table system.
(Dr Woods) Yes, it does. If I were a head teacher
in my school and helping out others—I am sending some of
my staff with a certain expertise over because I have a commitment
to their development in that school as well—then I should
not be criticised by OFSTED, or having to worry first and foremost
only about your own performance measures.
Chairman
297. Unless Ofsted is looking at a grouping
of schools in terms of their collegiate performance, they perhaps
might be persuaded to . . .
(Dr Woods) I think it is going to come up in the project.
Jonathan Shaw
298. Just considering secondary education, Professor
Glatter, you said that the impact of government policies did not
perhaps make that much difference.
(Professor Glatter) Compared with the whole context.
299. That is sad news for us politicians, whether
we are taking the credit or pointing the finger of blame.
(Professor Glatter) It was a speculation based on
his—
Chairman: There was deep resonance around
the group!
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