Education, Education, Education: Reforming England's Schools. By A. Adonis

Dire Straits-Education Reforms: Ideology, Vested Interests and Evidence

“…The policy of replacing low-performing 'modern comprehensives', managed by local authorities, with 'academies', managed by private or social sponsors, was first designed and implemented under a Labour government. It was then further developed by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government and was then given priority by a Tory government (Adonis, 2012;Gibb, 2017).…”

“…First, most education reforms affect the way resources are distributed and/or increase the demands on teachers and stakeholders for quality, accountability and transparency; thus, they tend to face rejection from defenders of the status quo (Grindle, 2004;Moe, 2011;Moe and Wiborg, 2017). Second, education is an ideological battlefield in most countries (Adonis, 2012;Wert, 2019). This explains why all political parties introduce educational issues with a strong ideological component that will attract (or at least please) voters into their electoral manifestoes.…”

“…[T]o forge a new settlement between state and private education […] It is my view, after twenty years of engagement with schools of all types, that England will never have a world-class education system or a 'one nation' society, until state and private schools are part of a common national endeavour to develop the talents of all young people to the full. (Adonis, 2012) This is in fact the challenge faced by many countries where public and private provision of education both have a significant presence. A mix of competition and cooperation resulting in positive emulation dynamics could and should raise the overall level of performance of any given education system.…”

“…(Ball, 2013) In the case of the UK, we may observe a certain 'incremental continuity' over relatively long periods in addressing some features of system-level education reform. For instance, the reforms of school governance were built up from 1986 until well into the twenty-first century, spanning across a number of both Tory and Labour governments (Adonis, 2012). There are clearly differences in the respective approaches, and some ebbs and flows in the reform stamina of these various governments.…”

“…New Labour (1997)(1998)(1999)(2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004)(2005)(2006)(2007)(2008)(2009)(2010) established the rules for the development of a new model of schools labelled "academies", 3. The Governance of Education Systems which allowed failing public schools to be removed from local authority control and placed under the watch of central government, governed by a board appointed by a sponsor and accountable to the Department for Education (Adonis, 2012). The academy model was supported and expanded by the subsequent Conservative-Lib Dem coalition government (2010 and has become such a success that in recent years more than 70% of all secondary schools have become selfgoverned, as well as funded by and accountable to central government .…”