Andy Hargreaves, Professor at Boston College and recipient of many honors, including the Grawemeyer Award, writes here about the problems of English schools, which he attributes to its reckless pursuit of free-market policies, akin to those now dominant in the U.S. In this article, which appeared in the Times Education Supplement (U.K.), Hargreaves blames the free-market strategy of “reform,” which demoralizes teachers and damages the profession.
He writes:
Britain has a teacher recruitment crisis. But it is not truly British. The complaint is much more spectacular in England. In Scotland, teaching is an attractive profession and while recruitment levels are disappointing, the issue is not as profound. The Scottish system is creaking; the English system has fallen over. What explains the difference?
The answer is simple. Scotland values a strong state educational system run by 32 local authorities that is staffed by well-trained and highly valued professionals who stay and grow in a secure and rewarding job. Teachers serve others, for most or all of their working life, in a cooperative profession that supports them to do this to the best of their abilities.
England no longer values these things. About half of its schools are now outside local authority control. England offers a business capital model that invests in education to yield short-term profits and keep down costs through shorter training, weakened security and tenure, and keeping salaries low by letting people go before they cost too much.
By comparison, Scotland models what is called professional capital: bringing in skilled as well as smart people; training them rigorously in university settings connected to practical environments; giving them time and support to collaborate on curriculum and other matters; and paying them to develop their leadership and their careers so that they can make effective decisions together and deliver better outcomes for young people.
In December, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) published its review of Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence. I was one of four people on the review team. Like any system, Scotland’s isn’t perfect. But there is a strong foundation to build on – with a priority placed on valuing and developing teachers’ professional judgment.
The defenders of the status quo of market reform claim that teachers are overpaid; that they don’t improve over time; and that collaboration is over-rated.
All of this sounds very familiar to Americans. We have heard the same buzzwords of efficiency and outcomes and metrics used to demean the teaching profession, and now we are surprised when experienced teachers leave and new teachers do not appear to take their place. Perhaps this is the intended effect, because the manufactured teacher shortage creates market opportunities for vendors of technology to replace the missing classroom teachers.
When first minister Nicola Sturgeon opened the International Congress for School Effectiveness and Improvement in Glasgow in January, she underlined the importance of the “professional judgment” of teachers. From Glasgow to Stornoway, teachers told our team that teaching today had been like a “breath of fresh air”, which replaced a system of “counting minutes and percentages” that had offered “no room for movement”.
While Scotland is in the vanguard of global educational improvement, England is in the guard’s van, at the back. Worldwide, England’s business capital view is now on the run. The evidence of high-performing nations such as Canada, Singapore and Finland hasn’t been on its side, and countries like Sweden that followed the free-school business model, and saw their results collapse, are reversing course.
Reblogged this on David R. Taylor-Thoughts on Education.
The US aligns with England on a lot of terrible ideas. Read something about the financial crisis sometime and the deregulation that led up to it- it was really a collaboration between London, Wall Street and DC, all marching joyfully off a cliff together.
Both England and the United States have a great deal of income inequality and continuous immigration. The population of Scotland is more stable and has fewer immigrants. Marketplace ideology suits those that want to sort and rank groups into sub-groups such as perceived “haves and have nots”. Thus, allowing some groups to justify remaining separate from others according to a seemingly objective criteria such as scores. Thus, it is easier to separate the majority from the minority population and spend your resources accordingly according the perceived “value” of the population. Selective charters serve the middle class, and the cheap cyber charters for the minorities and immigrants. We have seen this pattern at work in the US before.
Scotland contains fewer immigrants, and the schools are under local jurisdiction. Since local taxpayers value the system that works for them, there is less incentive to seek change. About 37% of London is foreign born, and real estate is certain parts of the city is extremely pricey; it’s a lot like New York. London is also the business hub of Great Britain where I am sure there plenty of hedge funds that view charters as a very lucrative ventures. http://www.migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/briefings/migrants-uk-overview
Cross posted http://www.opednews.com/Quicklink/Why-England-is-in-the-gua-in-Best_Web_OpEds-Education_Evidence_Great-Britain_Public-Schools-160518-872.html
with this comment, whites embedded links at oped
Both the United States and the United Kingdom are embedded in what Pasi Sahlberg called “the Global Education Reform Movement” (GERM). That means privatization and high-stakes testing. This parent in the U.K. wrote an article in The Guardian about why he is opting his child out of the crazy testing. He doesn’t use the term “opt out,” but refers instead to a boycott of the exams. The Minister of Education Nicky Morgan is mad about testing, like our own Arne Duncan and John King. ”
“Teachers are already horrified at what’s happening, and are fighting their own battle, when they’re not too exhausted from jumping through the government’s bureaucratic hoops. Most of them are doing their best to shoehorn in the stuff that actually interests and engages children, around the subordinating conjunctions and the rest of the crashingly dull curriculum.
“Kids are stressed out by the amount of hoop-jumping they’ve got to do too. In a fortnight, like every year 2 pupil in England, my seven-year-olds will do their standard assessment tests, or Sats — a week of exams prioritising things like grammar, spelling, punctuation and handwriting. Which means matters as trivial as the size of a letter s could define them as academic successes or failures at an age when children in more enlightened countries have barely started school.”
Veteran educator Marion Brady has written a concise guide to the privatization movement here.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2016/01/07/a-primer-on-the-damaging-movement-to-privatize-public-schools/
It is mind boggling that market based education reform can maintain such momentum in the face of such abysmal failure. What are decision makers looking at that makes them think it is the route to follow? Why would governments choose sort term savings (and corporate profits ) over long term growth and stability? We have to fight this “I’m in it for me and mine” over the common good of society.
What drives decisions: €€€€€.
Many teachers & parents reject the marketisation of our schools. They came together to create this powerful anthem. Please share
Rappoport has many views and ideas. He speaks on education here – https://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2016/05/18/adhd-is-the-new-education-2/ ADHD isn’t really “new”. It has been around since the ’90s, but now has a new definition (with new acronyms in the DSMV. His viewpoint is compelling. I do not see it as arguable.
As a “laid off” special education Speech/Language Pathologist in Dearborn, MI (due to “budget cuts” as stated in the certified letter), and with all the reform that has been taking place (as we know, for quite a while), how on earth did all of us commenting here get educated at all?
I read every post that Diane gives us, and the comments, and the backtracks.
We have figured this out.
We just don’t know what to do with what we have figured out.
Except contact our representatives and such.
I do often what would happen if NO ONE showed up for the draft on the War against education.
Reblogged this on Saving school math and commented:
The same old mess, again.