Memorandum submitted by Professor Stephen
Gorard
— The principle of equal entitlement
underlying the National Curriculum is valuable. This should not
be discarded without a clear evidence-based (or equally principle-based)
alternative.
— The National Curriculum is part of
a historical trend, following 1994 and 1965, towards equity in
theory, organisation and then process for the delivery of state-funded
education.
— It helps pupil and teacher mobility,
helps minimise geographical, social and economic disparities between
schools, and so leads to a more equal education system than in
many international comparators.
— A major objective of state-funded
education is to minimise the link between socio-economic background
and life chances. We are currently reasonably close to this objective
in the sense that most schools are equivalent (despite increasingly
wayward attempts to portray them as radically different), and
the National Curriculum is a part of this.
— Pupils in England and Wales have
higher aspirations, more trust in society, a greater willingness
for those in difficulty to be helped, and a general sense of equity,
than pupils in other European Countries. The National Curriculum
set within a comprehensive system could be a key part of this.
— In modelling the determinants of
aspiration, for example, the school mix and the pupil's experience
of others at school is a major factor. In statistical terms it
is as important as family and social background, explaining around
half of the variation in outcomes.
— A range of recent measures, including
specialist schools and the use of Contextual Value Added (CVA)
for "performance" monitoring, have led to a shift away
from the principle of equal entitlement underlying the National
Curriculum.
— Changing the National Curriculum,
by expanding entitlement to vocational and generic study for example,
does not destroy its underlying principle.
— However, ethically we should have
a very good reason and scientific evidence of impact before going
any further to interrupt the late 20th century trend towards an
enviable, while imperfect, equity in the UK education system.
Why retain a National Curriculum?
The National Curriculum was unpopular with many
commentators and practitioners on its introduction, partly due
to the political ideology attributed to its origins and partly
due to its associations with contemporaneous reforms concerning
school choice and the testing regime of SATs. In retrospect, however,
it can be seen as a natural and perhaps almost inevitable further
step towards truly comprehensive schooling. Where the 1944 Education
Act created free universal schooling, and Circular 10/65 moved
that schooling away from selection, the Education Reform Act 1988
began the creation of a school structure that was not merely comprehensive
in organisation but was also comprehensive in nature and process
(Gorard, Taylor and Fitz 2003). Subsequent legislation from the
1998 School Standard and Framework Act onward has attempted to
make provision of schooling and allocation of school places fairer,
but it is perhaps these three earlier steps that have defined
the nature of UK (and specifically English) compulsory education.
Everyone was entitled to a place at school, that place should
not be allocated on the basis of ability or ability to pay, and
it would not matter where one lived in the country because the
provision should be equivalent in all areas. This is part of what
the National Curriculum has achieved. It is part of the reason
that social, economic and regional stratification of pupils is
lower in England than in developed countries such as Austria or
Germany which have pupil tracking, lower than in countries such
as Belgium or the Netherlands which have much less state control
of schools, and why pupils' experience of equality and justice
in school is greater even than in countries such as France in
which egalite is considered a paramount principle of public provision
(Gorard and Smith 2004a, European Group for Research on Equity
in Educational Systems 2005, Gorard and Fitz 2006, Gorard 2007a).
An additional, but perhaps less important, consequence of the
National Curriculum is that it makes the transfer of both pupils
and teachers between schools much easier.
One of the main reasons that developed countries
have universal, free, compulsory education for the young is that
without it access to knowledge, skills, and advancement would
be more clearly a product of the "accident" of birth.
Maintained schools are meant to help break the link between an
individual's family or socio-economic background and their access
to learning opportunities. One indication of the success of an
education system would be that it made little difference which
school a pupil attended (Gorard 2007b). And this is what research
indicates is happening, in general, in England and indeed in most
developed countries with non-tracked school systems (Gorard and
Smith 2004b, Gorard 2006b, Gorard 2008a). In terms of examination
results, around 80 to 100% of the variation between schools is
attributable to variations in the pupil intakes of those schools.
The variation is caused by regional disparities in population
figures, differential access to transport and the socially segregated
nature of much of England's housing. Thus, the intakes to schools
are not completely balanced in terms of prior attainment or Single
Equality Scheme (SES). Around one third of pupils from families
living in poverty would have to be exchanged between schools for
all schools to have the same proportion as each other, for example.
The imbalance in school intakes almost completely explains the
imbalance in outcomes. The remaining 0 to 20% of variation in
outcomes would have to include serendipity, patterns of entry
to examination, and lack of comparability between subjects, boards
and modes, plus gender imbalances, errors in measurement and marking,
mis-specification of the statistical models and missing data (among
other things). Therefore, to a very real extent, it does not matter
in examination terms which maintained school a pupil attends.
Note that this is very different to saying that it makes no difference
to go to school as opposed to not going to school. Rather it means
that within a free, universal, compulsory system, almost equally
funded per pupil with national standards for teachers (QTS) and
testing (SATs) it makes almost no difference which of these schools
a pupil attends. The National Curriculum is currently (or historically)
a key part of this clear equivalence between schools.
The equality of England's schools, though not
much talked about or celebrated, has become part of the culture
to such an extent that England stands out in international comparisons
for the attitude of its pupils. Pupils in England are more likely
to want all pupils treated equally, but are also happy for those
struggling to be given extra attention. And, overall, this is
what they report experiencing in their own school. Pupils in other
European countries are less likely to express support for equal
treatment and are also more likely to report that preferential
treatment is shown towards high attainers (Gorard and Smith 2004b,
Gorard 2007c). Internationally, the impact of schools on what
pupils think and their future aspirations and their trust of wider
society is much greater than the differential impact of schools
on examination outcomes. Socially mixed schools are associated
with greater aspirations among those from less prestigious occupational
backgrounds, greater post-compulsory participation in education
and training and, if meta-analyses are to be believed, with marginally
better examination outcomes anyway (Gorard and Selwyn 2005a, 2005b,
Gorard and Smith 2007). Again, the National Curriculum is currently
part of this culture of equity, which is almost unique to England.
Of course, the National Curriculum is likely
to have opportunity costs as well as benefits. And of course,
none of the above is necessarily dependent on the National Curriculum
remaining the same over time—it is the ideal of a common
entitlement to schooling and equivalence between all maintained
schools that is probably key to the advantages listed. The argument
above does not suggest that the previous or current mix of subjects
is the right one, or indeed that it should be academic in nature
as opposed to vocational, generic, or to do with personal development.
But it is irresponsible to try and undermine this historical progress
since 1944 without clear evidence that the gains in changing it
outweigh what we might lose.
The trend from 1965 was towards uniformity of
provision and from 1988 towards less social and economic stratification
between schools. Since 1997 both of these trends have been interrupted
and even reversed to some extent. Specialist schools have undone
the clear idea of equivalent treatment underlying the National
Curriculum provision, for example. And they do so with no clear
gain in terms of attainment. Quality and equality are conjoined
to some extent, so that specialism which is equivalent to inequality
was unlikely to lead to increased quality. Specialist schools
were merely selected and self-selected on the basis of pre-existing
provision and then given preferential funding on the basis of
a mythical local area concentration of pupil aptitude in one curriculum
subject. Similar arguments apply to faith-based schools, and of
course to the remaining grammar schools (Taylor, Gorard and Fitz
2005). In fact, most of the school diversification since 1997
is associated with increased stratification of provision with
no overall gain on attainment (Gorard 2005). They are all zero-sum
or worse in their impact. The recent introduction of contextualised
value-added measures (which are flawed both in theory and in practice)
is perhaps the most symbolic component of the attempted destruction
of the comprehensive ideal (Gorard 2006a, 2008b). By using the
family and socio-economic origin of pupils in its calculation,
CVA now makes it impossible to discern whether and to what extent
maintained schools are meeting their key objective of breaking
the link between pupil origin and outcomes. A more retrograde
step for the ideal of equity in education it would be hard to
imagine—except perhaps the complete abolition of the ideal
of equal entitlement for all as operationalised in the National
Curriculum.
REFERENCES
European Group for Research on Equity in Educational
Systems (2005) Equity in European Educational Systems: a set of
indicators, European Educational Research Journal, 4, 2,
1-151
Gorard, S. (2008a) Research impact is not always
a good thing: a re-consideration of rates of "social mobility"
in Britain, British Journal of Sociology of Education,
29, 3 (May)
Gorard, S. (2008b) The value-added of primary schools:
what is it really measuring?, Educational Review, 60, 2
Gorard, S. (2006a) Value-added is of little value,
Journal of Educational Policy, 21, 2, 233-241
Gorard, S. (2007a) What does an index of school
segregation measure? A commentary on Allen and Vignoles, Oxford
Review of Education, 33, 5, 669-677
Gorard, S and Fitz, J. (2006) What counts as evidence
in the school choice debate?, British Educational Research
Journal, 32, 6, 797-816
Gorard, S. and Smith, E, (2007) Do barriers get in
the way? A review of the determinants of post-16 participation,
Research in Post-Compulsory Education, 12, 2, 141-158
Gorard, S and Selwyn, N. (2005a) What makes a lifelong
learner?, Teachers College Record, 107, 6, 1193-1216
Gorard, S and Selwyn, N. (2005b) Towards a le@rning
society?, British Journal of Sociology of Education, 26,
1, 71-89
Gorard, S. (2005) Academies as the "future of
schooling": is this an evidence-based policy?, Journal
of Education Policy, 20, 3, 369-377
Gorard, S, Taylor, C and Fitz, J. (2003) Schools,
Markets and Choice Policies, London: RoutledgeFalmer
Gorard, S and Smith, E. (2004) An international comparison
of equity in education systems?, Comparative Education,
40, 1, 16-28
Gorard, S. (2006b) Is there a school mix effect?,
Educational Review, 58, 1, 87-94
Gorard, S and Smith, E. (2004b) What is "underachievement"
at school?, School Leadership and Management, 24, 2, 205-225
Gorard, S. (2007b) The true impact of school diversity,
International Journal for Education Law and Policy, 2,
1-2, 35-40
Gorard, S. (2007c) Justice et equite a l'ecole: ce
qu'en dissent les eleves dans les etudes internationales, Revue
Internationale d'Education Sevres, 44, 79-84
Smith, E and Gorard, S. (2006) Pupils' views of equity
in education, Compare, 36, 1, 41-56
Taylor, C, Fitz, J and Gorard, S. (2005) Diversity,
specialisation and equity in education, Oxford Review of Education,
31, 1, 47-69
February 2008
|
