State Schools

New Labour and the Conservative Legacy

John Dunford, Clyde Chitty

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000144048
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Éducation
• Subtopic: Éducation générale

Eighteen years of Conservative stewardship ensured that the Labour government's education policy did not begin with a tabula rasa, for its starting point has been defined by the previous government to a greater extent than any other incoming government has found. In this book the practitioners discuss the micro effect of the policies in their schools. This book will make an important contribution to continuing debate about the best way forward for state education in England and Wales.

1
INTRODUCTION

John Dunford and Clyde Chitty

It has not been easy working in state schools since 1979. Throughout a period of nearly 20 years, the failings of state schools have been widely publicised while their successes have largely been belittled. The Conservative Government displayed remarkably little confidence in the state system that it was statutorily obliged to administer. One of the aims of this book is to trace the development of this phenomenon and to show, mainly from the perspective of the headteachers, what it has been like to work in and lead state schools during this period. But headteachers are largely optimistic people - they need to be - and so this book looks forward as well as back, analysing the agenda for the Labour Government in the light of the legacy left by its predecessor.

A LACK OF COMMITMENT

Conservative Education Ministers have consistently shown a lack of commitment towards the state system. This is hardly surprising when, for example, Mark Carlisle (Secretary of State, 1979-81) has said: 'I had no direct knowledge of the state sector either as a pupil or as a parent' (Ribbins and Sherratt, 1997, p. 55). His successor, Sir Keith Joseph, (Secretary of State, 1981-86) was even more dismissive:

When I started the job in September 1981, I was anxious to free up the system, to free it from unnecessary bureaucratic controls ... I've always been attracted to the idea of the education voucher and I've always worried about the state's involvement in education. That had also been one of my chief concerns as Secretary of State for Industry, I thought there was a strong ideological case for abolishing the Department of Industry altogether, since really the state has no business getting involved in industry. We do not know how to go about it. And it's the same with education. We have a bloody state system; I wish we hadn't got one. I wish we'd taken a different route in 1870. We got the ruddy state involved. I don't want it. I don't think we know how to do it. I certainly don't think Secretaries of State know anything about it. But we are landed with it. (Chitty in Ribbins and Sherratt, 1997, p. 80)

One of the first acts of the new Thatcher administration in 1979 was to introduce the assisted places scheme, with the implication that 'bright' children had to be taken out of the state system and educated privately, and expensively, with the taxpayers paying the bill, in order to fulfil their educational potential. Gradually, over the following 18 years, the Conservatives' lack of commitment to comprehensive secondary schools became clearer, as ministers continually criticised these schools and created alternative forms of secondary school to undermine the integrity of the state system. Thus grant-maintained schools, city technology colleges and, eventually, attempts to increase the number of selective and specialist schools were introduced. Primary schools were not immune from this criticism, as sections of the media followed the lead of government ministers in attacking the system. Driving an even harder line than the ministers was a group of Conservative backbench Members of Parliament. They were closely connected with a number of right-wing pressure groups, such as the Centre for Policy Studies and the Institute of Economic Affairs, which played a crucial role in moving the political agenda further to the Right (Chitty, 1989; Knight, 1990). These groups also had an influential role in 10 Downing Street, being close to Prime Ministers Thatcher and Major as well as to their immediate advisers on education policy. The relationship between Downing Street and the Education Department during this period will make interesting reading when the private papers are published in 30 years' time.

A LACK OF TRUST

From the schools' perspective, it seemed that the Conservative Government did not trust teachers. Their attitude towards doctors during Kenneth Clarke's period as Health Minister suggested that this may have been part of a wider distrust of the professions, but the consequences for headteachers were severe, as they found themselves leading staffrooms with low morale and falling self-esteem. The teachers' action in the mid1980s, although falling short of all-out strike, had a profound effect, lasting well beyond the action itself, both within schools and on the public perception of the teaching profession. Emily Blatch, later, as Baroness Blatch, to be Minister of State in the Department for Education, often recalled the effect of the teachers' action at Hinchingbrooke School, Huntingdon, on the education of her children.

It was in this atmosphere that Joseph wanted to introduce a punitive model of teacher appraisal and it proved impossible for those who wanted to create a General Teaching Council, similar to that in Scotland, to persuade the Government that the profession should have this degree of self-control. Consultation on all new education legislation was perfunctory, often taking place during the summer months when most teachers were away on holiday. This was particularly so during the preparations for the introduction of the National Curriculum in 1987; it was only when Sir Ron Dearing was asked in 1993 to put right the disastrous consequences of this failure to involve the profession that genuine consultation took place.

Her Majesty's Inspectorate (HMI) was not seen by the teachers as being especially friendly towards them, but rather as a body which was evenhanded in its criticism, reporting as it found and criticising schools and the Government in equal measure. Kenneth Clarke (Secretary of State, 1990-92) saw HMI as being too close to the teachers and delivering too many messages uncomfortable to the Government. His reform of HMI and the creation of Ofsted effectively turned the inspectors' fire almost entirely on to the teachers and away from the Government.

THE DECLINING ROLE OF LOCAL EDUCATION AUTHORITIES (LEAS)

The abolition of the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA) appeared to be part of a wider programme of reform designed to reduce the powers of local education authorities. This movement was fuelled by a highly political campaign, centred on a number of London boroughs, attempting to discredit Labour local authorities and to imply that they were controlled by the so-called 'loony left'. No longer could state education be described, as it had been for 60 years, as a three-way partnership between central government, local government and the schools themselves. The powers of the LEAs were reduced and, from the schools' viewpoint, the service which they provided was changed beyond recognition. If the 1980s was a bad time to be working in state schools, it was even worse for those working in local authorities.

CENTRALISATION AND DECENTRALISATION

The great paradox of the Conservative Government's period of office was the simultaneous introduction of both greater centralisation and greater decentralisation. It was as if the lack of trust in teachers led the Government to measures of centralisation such as the National Curriculum and Ofsted (Office for Standards in Education), while their lack of trust in local authorities led to decentralisation measures such as local management of schools and grant-maintained status. Kenneth Clarke explained the paradox on the grounds that the Government needed to describe the framework for state education, but that it wished the people on the ground to deliver it and be accountable for their success in doing so (Ribbins and Sherratt, 1997, p. 151).

The period from 1979 until 1986 had seen an increase in activity on the part of the Department of Education and Science (DES) and headteachers were already beginning to complain that they did not have enough time to read all that was being published by the Department and HMI. However, this was a mere trickle in comparison with the torrent of legislation and circulars which emanated from the Department after 1986. The extent of change in the education service was without precedent and headteachers had to act as 'sieves' in order to protect their staff from professional suffocation by innovation. Only in this way could schools continue to concentrate on the centrally important tasks of teaching and learning. Not all headteachers managed this successfully and the number of breakdowns and premature retirements among heads and teachers increased dramatically.

After 1986 much of this legislative hyperactivity transferred power from the DES to non-governmental bodies (quangos) such as the National Curriculum Council (NCC) and the School Examinations and Assessment Council (SEAC). For a Government which had taken office with the intention of reducing the number of quangos, this represented a major change of policy, but it enabled Ministers to exercise control over a much wider range of activity as the bodies were largely advisory and dependent on ministerial approval for the measures which they recommended. As Duncan Graham, the first chair and chief executive of the NCC has written, the civil servants who were responsible for the liaison between the Department and the quangos offered a further tier of control (Graham and Tytler, 1993, pp. 12ff.), Ministers also had the power of nomination of the members of the councils of the quangos and they frequently nominated individuals from the right-wing pressure groups mentioned above. With their close connections to ministers, and even to the Prime Minister, these people were extremely influential on the quangos which increasingly ruled over the educational landscape. It seemed that the 'loony left' local education authorities had been marginalised in order that the 'loony right' could, through their membership of quangos, dictate what state schools had to do.

THE MARKET

Sir Keith Joseph's views on the inappropriateness of the state's role in education stemmed from his market-oriented philosophy, which was so influential on Margaret Thatcher's premiership. Standards were to be driven up by market forces, of which the most significant measures were parental choice (more correctly, parental preference) of school, together with open enrolment and intake numbers for each school statutorily increased to their peak 1979 level. The publication of HMI reports on individual schools from 1983 and, later, the more frequent Ofsted reports were to give parents the information on which to base their choices. Headteachers had little alternative but to 'market' their schools and to compete with neighbouring schools for the attention of potential pupils and their parents. Some heads were good at it, some complained that this was not what they had come into teaching for, but all had to learn fast, especially when local management of schools was introduced and the financial viability of the school came to depend almost entirely on the number of pupils recruited.

The publication of examination performance tables made the situation more acute and was especially difficult for schools in areas of social deprivation, on which the pressure became intense. The cycle of poor examination results, smaller intake numbers, less finance and fewer teachers created enormous pressure on the teaching staff and particularly on the head and senior staff, many of whom chose to end their careers prematurely.

SUCCESSFUL SCHOOLS

In spite of this recurring problem, state schools were extremely successful between 1979 and 1997. In 1979, 25 per cent of 16 year olds passed at least five GCE Ordinary levels ('O' levels); in 1997 the equivalent figure for GCSE examination grades A* (i.e. above A grade) to C was 45 per cent. At GCE Advanced level ('A' level), the percentage of 18 year olds passing in at least two subjects rose from 14 to 28 per cent. In 1979, 12 per cent of the 18-year-old age cohort entered higher education; by 1997 this figure had risen to over 30 per cent. Right-wing critics of state education complained that these increases were caused by falling standards in public examinations, but they never managed to prove this and independent studies failed to support the case for falling standards.

During this period there was only a small growth in the percentage of school-age children at independent schools and the proportion at boarding schools decreased. Thus state schools held their place against the challenge of independent schools during a period when the relative expenditure per pupil, and hence the class size, increasingly favoured independent schools.

The success of Scottish state schools continued during the 1980s and 1990s. The proportion of children at Scottish independent schools was only 3 per cent and the remaining 97 per cent were all educated at comprehensive primary and secondary schools. The post-16 participation rate, the proportion of the cohort entering higher education and other performance indicators remained, throughout the period, higher in Scotland than in England and Wales. There has never been any doubt of the fervent support of Scottish people for their education system and this commitment extended right up to the Scottish Office and the Scottish HMI, who continue to play an important role in all the developments in Scottish education.

FROM OPPOSITION TO GOVERNMENT

One of the frustrations for school leaders was the ineffectiveness of the Opposition to the Conservative policies. The Government, for most of the period, had a clear, radical vision and introduced policies which were consistent with this philosophy. It was the Government which was setting the pace and the Opposition seemed to be able to do little other than oppose. The Labour Party, and to a lesser extent the Liberal Democrats, were constantly in reactive mode, appearing to defend the status quo and generally failing to put forward clear alternative policies. Towards the end of the period, the opposition parties began to develop a more coherent set of policies, but they failed to transmit them effectively to the electorate before the 1997 general election campaign.

When Gillian Shephard was Secretary of State and David Blunkett was Labour spokesperson, the policies of the two main parties became indistinguishable in many areas, as the general election neared and the parties sought to occupy the centre ground. However, the right-wing pressure on Mrs Shephard to introduce nursery vouchers and more selective schooling identified the topics on which the election was fought. On the central issue of school standards, there was little difference between the parties.

On taking office, the Labour Government had a huge agenda. This had been itemised in its manifesto during an election campaign in which Labour leader Tony Blair declared that 'education, education and education' were to be the top three priorities of his Government. This created enormous pressure on David Blunkett and his ministerial team to produce policies on a wide range of issues, including standards of achievement, class size, the structure of schools, pre-school provision, children with special educational needs and the role of local education authorities. Outside the school sector, they also had to face the thorny issues, avoided by the previous Government, arising from the grave financial difficulties into which both universities and further education colleges had fallen.

The Education Ministers were also charged by the Prime Minister with the more sensitive and difficult task of altering the balance between pressure and support on schools, aiming to provide a more supportive atmosphere while continuing the previous Government's drive to raise standards of achievement in schools. This was to provide the first major difficulty for the new Government when, after immediate and widely welcomed policy declarations on the abolition of nursery vouchers and the assisted places scheme, the Minister of State, Stephen Byers, named the 18 'worst performing schools'. This represented a clear sign that, whatever measures were to be put in place to support schools in difficulties, pressure would continue to be applied. Most of the schools were, not surprisingly, serving socially deprived communities where the problems are much wider than education alone.

Sir Keith Joseph often spoke about the 'bottom 40 per cent', correctly identifying one of the major problem areas for state schools, but not knowing what measures to introduce in order to solve the problem. Over a decade later, this remains one of the major challenges for the Labour Government and, without a solution to this problem, national achievement targets will not be met.

As the external pressures on schools have grown in the early 1990s, the number of pupils excluded from schools, especially secondary schools, has grown by several hundred per cent. Parental rights have grown, without a concomitant rise in their responsibilities for the education of the child. Consequently, the range of sanctions available to schools has decreased and the ultimate sanction of exclusion has been reached much earlier in the disciplinary process. This has created an underclass of excluded teenagers, who are at the most problematic end of Joseph's '40 per cent'.

Low morale in the teaching force and, closely related to this, the crisis in teacher supply, which strikes first in the very areas where social conditions are most difficult, are perhaps the thorniest problems which the Government has to face. Legislation can be introduced on many issues, but problems of teacher morale and supply cannot be solved by statute.

One of the most worrying features of the Labour Government's education policy is the underlying assumption that all problems can be solved at the centre. The Labour Party, which criticised the Conservatives for being so centralist, has produced legislation which extends the power of the state - and particularly of the Secretary of State for Education and Employment - still further. Lord Pilkington, speaking in the House of Lords during the second reading of the Teaching and Higher Education Bill, commented: 'So many powers are reserved in the Bill to the Secretary of State that, in contrast, the dictatorial Statute of Proclamations of Henry VIII looks like an almost amateur effort in control' (Times Educational Supplement, 19 December 1997). If teacher morale is to be improved and teacher supply is to increase with a stream of high quality graduate trainees, teachers must be empowered, not controlled from the centre. A stronger General Teaching Council - instead of the weak GTC which has been proposed - and a greater emphasis on quality assurance through school self-evaluation, rather than quality control through Ofsted, would provide two important signs of the change in direction which is required.

School leaders want the Government to succeed in creating a state education system of which the whole country is proud. We want ministers to work with us, and not against us, in this crusade. If this happens, then we shall see the improvement in teacher morale on which the educational edifi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Abbreviations
• 1 Introduction
• 2 The Changing Pressures on Primary Schools
• 3 The Comprehensive Ideal
• 4 Changing Pressures in the Secondary School
• 5 Towards Rationalisation? The 14-19 Curriculum
• 6 Schools in Deprived Areas
• 7 Community Schools
• 8 A View from London
• 9 Following the Third Way? Teachers and New Labour
• 10 Inspection: From HMI to Ofsted
• 11 The Rise of Parent Power
• 12 Challenging Partners: Central Government, Local Government and Schools
• 13 Conclusion
• Notes on Contributors
• Bibliography
• Index