20 years on and departments of education are ‘next in line for the treatment’ again

Geoff Whitty

Michael Gove recently wrote an article in the Daily Mail attacking so-called Marxist teachers and teacher educators, who he characterises as “the enemies of promise”.  Reading this no holds barred critique may well have given many who work in education a strong sense of déjà vu. I sought out a copy of my inaugural lecture at Goldsmiths College in May 1991 – “Next in line for the treatment: Education Reform and Teacher Education in the 1990″. As I noted back then:

“A recurring theme in the pamphlets of the New Right pressure groups is the need to rid the system of the liberal or left educational establishment, which is seen to have been behind the ‘progressive collapse’ of the English educational system and which ‘prey to ideology and self-interest, is no longer in touch with the public’.”  

The answer prescribed by the pressure groups: schools free to recruit whoever they wanted as teachers and any training deemed necessary done on the job. At one level the pressure groups were making a general argument about producer interests, but it was also a more specific attack on the alleged ideological bias of teacher educators. The fundamental problem for this line of argument was that, if the critique of teacher training was right, schools surely needed to be purged of teachers who had “suffered” from teacher training before they could themselves be entrusted with teacher training.

Much has changed in education in the intervening 20 years, and it’s a shame that the contemporary debate does not acknowledge that. Most importantly, the more legitimate criticisms of university-led teacher training of the 1980s and ‘90s have long since been addressed through constructive engagement between government, universities and schools. In that same 1991 lecture, I argued that higher education institutions should actively embrace school-based training and partnership working, and the sector has subsequently welcomed multiple training routes and worked ever more closely with schools. It’s also the case that some of us in university departments of education were involved right from the start in the development of Teach First, one of the teacher training routes consistently praised by government ministers.

All this, according to Ofsted under its previous HMCI and a report last year by the House of Commons Education Committee, has had positive effects on the quality of new teachers entering the profession. It has helped to shape the schools that Michael Gove himself singles out for praise. Current policies, however, are being rolled out in a manner that risks eroding some of the best practice that has developed in recent years and the infrastructure that supports it. Only a couple of weeks ago at the launch of the Ben Goldacre report Building Evidence into Education (pdf) the DfE was promoting an evidence-informed approach to education policy and practice. We need that in initial teacher training policy, too.

Key to an evidence-informed approach, of course, is the responsible and considered use of the evidence. On that basis it was disappointing to see the way in which the first inspection results under the new inspection framework for teacher training were described in an Ofsted press release last week. It included spurious interpretations of limited data and at least one factual error, and it omitted to mention anything that reflected well on HEIs or badly on school-led teacher training schemes.

It was also disappointing to see a report in The Times suggesting connections were being made between the allegedly inferior teacher training inspection results from HEIs and the letter from 100 education academics voicing doubts about the government’s National Curriculum proposals (which had prompted Michael Gove’s article in the Daily Mail) – not least because very few of the signatories to that letter are actually involved in the design or delivery of initial teacher training.

What the evidence does show is that teacher training in the best performing education systems worldwide is based in close collaboration between universities and schools. It would be political folly to disregard the contribution that HEIs are making to teacher supply and quality in England in order to pursue an agenda based on outdated caricatures.

Geoff Whitty, former IOE Director, is currently Professor of Public Sector Policy and Management at the University of Bath and a non-Executive member of the Board of Ofsted. His comments on Ben Goldacre’s recent paper on the use of evidence in education can be found here. 

Does ‘the gap’ matter to children eligible for free school meals?

Rebecca Allen

David Laws, the Liberal Democrat Minister for Schools, has been making a series of speeches over the past month about “closing the gap” in the attainment between pupils from deprived and more affluent backgrounds. Yesterday, he warned that schools should not be judged as outstanding by Ofsted if they failed to close the gap, a goal that sounds fair and even laudable in principle, but I believe is rather unfair in practice.

The “gap” is the difference in GCSE achievement between the average for pupils who are eligible for free school meals and the average for those who are not. Pupils eligible for free school meals have similar characteristics across schools since they all come from families claiming some sort of benefit. The problem is that the background of pupils who are not eligible for free school meals (FSM) will vary considerably across schools, since the group includes both those with bankers and with cleaners as parents.

A school may substantially narrow the gap by working hard to improve the attainment of their most deprived children, or through the accident of the characteristics of their non- eligible children. I have written before that very deprived schools tend to have very small gaps, a quirk I first spotted as a governor of a school that was struggling to produce strong academic results but was very proud that its FSM gap was zero. All the students at the school came from low income families living on a very large and universally deprived council estate. Some of the families happened to claim benefits that made them eligible for free school meals (not necessarily the poorest), others didn’t or couldn’t. Not surprisingly, the GCSE performance of the FSM and non-FSM pupils in this school were no different, on average, because these pupils were no different in their social or educational background. Nothing the school was doing contributed to this supposed “success” in “closing the gap”.

Social class disadvantage is an important national policy problem but I do not believe that schools should be deciding policies based on the size of their FSM attainment gap. What matters to children from low-income families is that a school enables them to achieve a qualification to get on in life. If a low-income student gets a low quality education from a school, it is little consolation or use for them to learn that the school served the higher income students equally poorly (i.e. the school’s “gap” was small).

As it turns out, great schools tend to be great schools for all children in the school – the statistical correlation between who does well for FSM children and who does well for non-FSM children is very high. Moreover, schools can make a difference to the life chances of FSM children – there are huge differences in attainment for these children across schools, far larger than there are for children from wealthy backgrounds who do pretty well in all schools.

Should the pupil premium be used exclusively for FSM children?

In an earlier speech David Laws threatened to ring fence the pupil premium money to force schools to spend it on their FSM pupils, rather than throwing it into the general pot of schools money. (The pupil premium is the policy tool by which schools are supposed to “close the gap”). I worry about this type of restriction in spending on certain activities, not least because the FSM children are not always from the poorest families in the school – the very act of claiming benefits means some family income leapfrogs those of others that work. More practically, students eligible for free school meals are not segregated into special classrooms, so it is rather difficult to spend the pupil premium on important things such as teaching and learning without the benefits spilling over to other children who sit in the classroom with them.

Free school meals children do not have educational needs that are unique or particularly distinctive. Like other children, excellent teaching and support for their learning is a good place to start. I do not deny that social deprivation in the home spills into schooling and it is clearly possible to target this via attendance incentives, breakfast clubs, homework clubs and tutoring support. But I believe schools would find it morally and emotionally difficult to exclude a child who is not on FSM from accessing these schemes if they could clearly benefit from them.

I hope that my very specific criticisms of an admirable policy do not detract from the urgency of understanding and reducing the size of social class gaps in educational achievement in England. Schools must engage in the evidence on resourcing and pupil achievement and make careful, deliberate budget decisions that improve pupil learning, particularly for those who are most educationally disadvantaged in their school. This may mean spending the pupil premium to retain the best teachers, introduce policies to improve teaching practice or even an “approved” activity targeted very specifically on more deprived children in the school.

However, I suspect that in trying to support the attainment of FSM-eligible children, a school might inadvertently help those not eligible too. Is this such a bad outcome? And if not, why do we use a “gap” metric that “punishes” a school for improving the attainment of those not eligible, as much as it does allowing the attainment of more deprived children to fall behind?

Risky business: Should headship in challenging schools come with a career warning?

Karen Edge

The Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) hosted their annual conference in London at the weekend. General Secretary Brian Lightman’s address has set the Internet abuzz with articles, tweets, retweets and blogs. Hundreds of individuals and media outlets have weighed in, including the BBC, Daily Mail and the Independent, to name but a few!

In his speech, Lightman explicitly stated what we have been hearing in whispers amongst our London-based school leader research participants. The message? Taking on headship of a challenging school can become a long-term career risk. Lightman’s tale of an ASCL member’s experience would cause a ripple of worry for even the most experienced of leaders.

In the words of one ASCL member, it can be potential “career suicide”. These sentiments capture a growing swell of concern that even leaders with stellar career histories and successful turnaround records may be falling prey to career-ending OFSTED judgements.

Lightman has linked the potential career risk to two different yet overlapping issues. First, the alarming and perhaps impossible pace at which school turnaround can be expected to take place. Second, as a result, good headteachers could be scarred by less than glowing Ofsted reports, even in cases where impressive and meaningful improvements have been made. As previous Ofsted reports, in the hands of governing bodies, may make or break a leader’s ability to get their next post, many a potential headship candidate may be pausing to reflect on their next steps.

Our ESRC-funded study of Generation X school leaders offers a sneak peek at the experience of under-40-year-old deputies and headteachers in London, New York and Toronto. Sadly, our young London-based leaders are often not immune to the aforementioned worries.

During our interviews, we have heard rumblings of a similar nature. As our participants discuss their strategies for choosing their early leadership posts, they are mindful of the influence their first and second headships will carry, as they will “make or break your career”. Our young leaders appear acutely aware of what can affect career longevity. In the words of one participant, a very able, ambitious and dedicated young leader: “You are only as good as your last Ofsted. So why take the risk?”

If our youngest and often most resilient leaders, at the beginning of their careers, are seriously considering the long term implications of taking up posts in challenging schools, what will the future look like? What are the potential implications for recruitment and retention of the leaders we need to improve schools in all circumstances?

As a parent and education reform scholar, I want all schools to be good schools – if not better. However, I am mindful that sustainable and system-wide improvement takes time and commitment. As we look forward, supporting the growth and development of schools across London and the UK will also require a cadre of leaders and teachers who are invested in the system and their professional careers over the long haul.

We hope that Lightman’s comments have created a sense of urgency amongst policy and practice leaders to begin a very public discussion of the “unrealistic” pressure being placed on headteachers to create instantaneous improvements at breakneck speed. Better yet, a public discussion of the very real implications for leaders, teachers and students of short term, standards driven changes that may not be sustainable in the long run.

Our initial thought: Fasten your seatbelts folks! We may be in for a bumpier leadership recruitment and retention ride than we anticipated.

Evidence-based practice: why number-crunching tells only part of the story

Rebecca Allen

As a quantitative researcher in education I am delighted that Ben Goldacre – whose report  Building Evidence into Education was published today – has lent his very public voice to the call for greater use of randomised controlled trials (RCTs) to inform educational policy-making and teaching practice.

I admit that I am a direct beneficiary of this groundswell of support. I am part of an international team running a large RCT to study motivation and engagement in 16-year-old students, funded by the Education Endowment Foundation. And we are at the design stage for a new RCT testing a programme to improve secondary school departmental practice.

The research design in each of these studies will give us a high degree of confidence in the policy recommendations we are able to make.

Government funding for RCTs is very welcome, but with all this support why is there a need for Goldacre to say anything at all about educational research? One hope is that teachers hear and respond to his call for a culture shift, recognise that “we don’t know what’s best here” and embrace the idea of taking part in this research (and indeed suggest teaching programmes themselves).

It is very time-consuming and expensive to get schools to take part in RCTs, (because most say no). Drop-out of schools during trials can be high, especially where the school has been randomised into an intervention they would rather not have, and it is difficult to get the data we need to measure the impact of the intervention on time..

However, RCTs cannot sit in a research vacuum.

Ben Goldacre does recognise that different methods are useful for answering different questions, so a conversation needs to be started about where the balance of research funding for different types of educational research best lies.

It is important that RCTs sit alongside a large and active body of qualitative and quantitative educational research. One reason is that those designing RCTs have to design a “treatment” – this is the policy or programme that is being tested to see if it works. This design has to come from somewhere, since without infinite time and money we cannot simply draw up a list of all possible interventions and then test them one by one. To produce our best guess of what works we may use surveys, interviews and observational visits that took place as part of a qualitative evaluation of a similar policy in the past. We also used descriptions collected by ethnographers (researchers who are “people watchers”). And of course we draw on existing quantitative data, such as exam results.

All of this qualitative and quantitative research is expensive to carry out, but without it we would have a poorly designed treatment with little likelihood of any impact on teacher practice. We may find that, without the experience of other research, we might carry out the programme we are testing poorly for reasons we failed to anticipate.

The social science model of research is not ‘what works?’ but rather ‘what works for whom and under what conditions?’

Education and medicine do indeed have some similarities, but the social context in which a child learns shapes outcomes far more than it does the response of a body to a new drug. RCTs may tell us something about what works for the schools involved in the experiment, but less about what might work in other social contexts with different types of teachers and children. Researchers call this the problem of external validity. Our current RCT will tell us something about appropriate pupil motivation and engagement interventions for 16-year-old teenagers in relatively deprived schools, but little that is useful for understanding 10-year-old children or indeed 16-year-olds in grammar schools or in Italian schools.

The challenge of external validity cannot be underestimated in educational settings. RCTs cannot give us THE answer; they give us AN answer. And its validity declines as we try to implement the policy in different settings and over different time frames. This actually poses something of a challenge to the current model of recruiting schools to RCTs, where many have used “convenient” samples, such as a group of schools in an academy chain who are committed to carrying out educational research. This may provide valuable information to the chain about best practice for its own schools, but cannot tell us how the same intervention would work across the whole country.

Social contexts change faster than evolution changes our bodies. Whilst I would guess that taking a paracetamol will still relieve a headache in 50 years’ time, I suspect that the best intervention to improve pupil motivation and engagement will look very different to those we are testing in an RCT today. This means that our knowledge base of “what works” in education will always decay and we will have to constantly find new research money to watch how policies evolve as contexts change and to re-test old programmes in new social settings.

International Women’s Day: the gender gap shortchanges us all

Heidi Safia Mirza

Today is International Women’s Day 2013, 18 years since the 1995 UN Beijing World Conference on Women that declared “women’s rights are human rights”. But we still have a long way to go in securing women’s global access to health, education and the right to full economic and political participation.

So says Melanne Verveer, Humanitas Visiting Professor in Women’s Rights at Cambridge University. As President Obama’s former Ambassador at Large for Global Women’s Issues, she has delivered a series of powerful lectures this week drawing on her extensive experience in the US State Department and international feminist activism to argue that there is a moral imperative for gender justice and equity.  As she says, “The gender gap in women’s political, social and economic participation is not just short-changing women around the world, but is also short-changing global economic growth for all.”

In the concluding symposium on Monday 11 March I will be joining leading feminist thinkers Henrietta Moore, Sara Ahmed, Susie Orbach, Sarah Franklin,  and Nina Power to debate Gender Equality: A Moral and Foreign Policy Imperative at King’s College Cambridge.

Drawing on my research on young migrant and Muslim women in schools I will examine how gender violence and the symbolic power of the veil limits young women’s right to education. These young women are caught in between conflicting ideologies and cultural perspectives.

On one hand, their experiences in British schools are shaped by the powerful Islamophobic discourses that have circulated since 9/11. According to such ways of thinking, the Muslim woman’s body has become symbolic in the battle against Islam and the “barbaric Muslim enemy within”.

In this context the wearing of the veil has become a key symbol for many young women themselves, but it invites both unrestrained public comment and open legitimate attention from teachers who wish to regulate and control the young women’s behaviour in the class.

On the other hand there are also some parents, brothers and other young men who wish to control their daughters’ and sisters’ emerging sexuality through religious ideas that are both political and patriarchal, and that sanction gendered violence, including honour crimes, and forced marriage.

The consequence of being caught up in these competing discourses of school and family are great for the young women who, worryingly, have high rates of mental distress and trauma, including depression, attempted suicide and eating disorders. The findings conclude that while educational policy must address the human rights violations of young women’s bodily rights, it is also crucial that policy perspectives move beyond stereotypical views of Muslim women and look at violence not as a cultural matter, but as a gendered issue to be treated in the same way for all young women.

The Symposium has already sold out, but it will be recorded and available at CRASSH website (Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities), University of Cambridge, after Monday.

Ageing in a digital world: the opera

Andrea Creech

Something very special has been happening in the depths of the East Sussex countryside. Today, tomorrow and Saturday (March 7-9 2013) music-lovers will be arriving at Glyndebourne to see the world premiere of a brand new opera by Orlando Gough and Stephen Plaice. Right at the heart of this production is an intergenerational  community chorus aged 16-80, some of whom have never been involved in music making before, collaborating with international artists.

The opera, Imago, focuses on the theme of ageing in a digital world. This piece is a tour de force, both musically and technically. Community participants have mastered complex musical challenges that would have vexed the most experienced professional musicians. Young and older participants alike have been tweeting, blogging and face booking about their experience, as they prepared for the premiere.

This project is special on so many levels. This is a remarkable example of community learning, of peer support, of experiential learning and of the power of music. Glyndebourne, an international centre of musical excellence is an extraordinary context for this venture. As one chorus member said to me, “this is the real deal”. The production is supported with the full weight of Glyndebourne’s resources. In this content of excellence participants have exceeded personal and collective expectations.

In the run-up to this week’s event, old and young have been working together in an atmosphere of mutual respect. In the orchestra pit community musicians were being mentored, playing alongside professional musicians. The sense of community was compelling, as the entire company pulled together, united by a common purpose. Aspirations have been raised. Individuals have experienced deep levels of musical engagement, drawing on previously unknown personal resources.

Imago addresses a very topical issue – ageing in the modern world. In the UK, where our population of centenarians has risen by 84% since 2000, we need compassionate initiatives that enrich the lives of older people and help them to sustain wellbeing.  Music is just such an initiative. Glyndebourne has got this one exactly right. The story line is highly topical and fosters some deep thinking about what ageing means.

Most importantly, Imago is a tangible example of how music can be affirming, sustaining and transformative, acting as a vehicle for young and old alike to experience enhanced well being. It is also compelling evidence that when individuals of any age have the benefit of first class opportunities and expert support they really will rise to the challenge, achieving remarkable things.

Andrea Creech is conducting an evaluation of this project for Glyndebourne

A right is not a right unless you know about it: why we must defend citizenship education

Hugh Starkey

Despite rumours of its untimely demise, citizenship education in England is alive and kicking. Following a rather lukewarm endorsement in the report of the expert panel in December 2011, last month’s new national curriculum Framework document for consultation retains citizenship as a subject at key stages 3 and 4 but with a very much reduced programme of study.

Democratic Life, the coordinating group for organisations associated with citizenship education, including the Association for Citizenship Teaching, Citizenship Foundation and Amnesty International, considers this as something of a moral victory. But is it?

In England’s current national curriculum Citizenship is a statutory subject with a brief but carefully constructed Programme of Study for each of the four key stages. At Key Stage 3 the key concepts are: Democracy and Justice; Rights and Responsibilities; Identities and Diversity: living together in the UK, and the new programme of study contains the vestiges of these themes. “Pupils should be taught about … how the political system of the United Kingdom has developed as a democracy”. The justice system includes “the role of the police, and how courts and tribunals work”. An overarching aim is developing understanding of “the rights and responsibilities of [UK] citizens”. At Key stage 4 pupils should be taught about: “diverse national, regional, religious and ethnic identities in the United Kingdom and the need for mutual respect and understanding”.

This may feel like a diluted version. But in practice, the national curriculum may have relatively little influence on what happens in schools. The most recent Ofsted report,  Citizenship established? Citizenship in schools 2006/9 noted that more than 10% of schools visited “had done little or nothing to implement citizenship, a National Curriculum requirement that has now been in place for seven years” (p5). Clearly the schools felt that they had other priorities and that the national curriculum would not be the only factor determining their arrangements.

The NFER’s longitudinal study of citizenship education in schools found in 2009 that less than half of schools had a dedicated time slot and less than half had specialist teachers. In other words, whatever curriculum advice schools get, only a minority are able to commit to best practice for citizenship education even when it is a statutory obligation.

However, the national curriculum has great symbolic importance. It is the public and explicit statement of the knowledge, skills and dispositions that are deemed essential to transmit as embodying a cultural heritage as well as preparing for the future. It may, in practice, have relatively little impact on the priorities of schools. It gives expression to the essential elements of knowledge, skills and understandings that the current generation wishes to see transmitted to the next. It provides an opportunity for political leadership in standard-setting.

One of the first actions of the Conservative-led Coalition Government on 11 May 2010 was to sign a formal Recommendation supporting the Council of Europe Charter on Education for Democratic Citizenship and Human Rights Education. The ministers of education collectively agreed to recommend to their governments that: “Member states should include education for democratic citizenship and human rights education in the curricula for formal education at pre-primary, primary and secondary school level”. This commitment is barely visible in the new programme of study, suggesting that an opportunity to emphasise the importance of democracy and human rights for our diverse society has been missed.

The new proposed programme of study for citizenship alludes, rather quaintly, to “the precious liberties enjoyed by the citizens of the United Kingdom”. These liberties or freedoms are guaranteed by the UK’s commitments to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. But these ”precious liberties” are at risk if citizens do not know that they are entitlements in international law and that people everywhere struggle for them. A right is not a right unless you know about it.

The debate on citizenship education in multicultural societies comes to IOE on Monday 11 March 2013 with the visit of Professor James A. Banks, Kerry and Linda Killinger Endowed Chair in Diversity Studies and Director Center for Multicultural Education, University of Washington, Seattle. Invited by the International Centre for Education and Democratic Citizenship (ICEDC), he will launch his monumental SAGE Encyclopedia of Diversity in Education in presence of a distinguished panel of contributors to this four volume work. This will be followed by an open public lecture in the series sponsored by the Faculty of Children and Learning on the subject: Diversity and Citizenship Education in Global Times.