Freeing Education: redrawing boundaries between schools and politics

The April/May2010 British election campaign saw educators, academics and parents drawing battle lines in a debate to remove politics from education. Leading educators, writing in a TES letter of 2 April 2010, want to shift the prime responsibility for education to teachers, schools and colleges, urging that schooling should be depoliticised so as to rebuild public trust and free up education.

The outgoing Labour government, whilst making positive changes, also greatly increased the central, statutory control of education, and undermined the professional autonomy of teachers. For example, on the one hand, Ed Balls the former English Education and Children’s minister said he wanted teachers to exercise more responsibility, professional judgement and leadership. On the other, he trusted teachers so little that he signed the ‘nappy curriculum ‘ of the Early Years Foundation Stage into law in September 2008, with no Parliamentary debate. The EYFS requires child minders of three year olds in non-statutory settings to use computers for basic literacy, setting 70 targets for educators.

In sharp contrast, the Welsh government adopted the EYFS as voluntary guidelines for educators. Furthermore, Ed Balls said that teachers who refused to carry out SATS tests in 2010, would be breaking the law, rather than debating with them the extent to which ‘teaching to the SATS test’ was distorting real education.

Or take the way in which the findings of Professor Robin Alexander’s Cambridge Primary Review were dismissed by government. He concluded that:

‘ In spite of our careful attempts to elicit and record differences, what is striking about the Community Soundings is the extent of consensus which they reveal, especially in the key areas of educational purpose, curriculum and assessment, the condition of childhood and society, and the world in which today’s children are growing up. What is no less striking is the pessimistic and critical tenor of much of what we heard on such matters. Thus we were frequently told that children are under intense and perhaps excessive pressure from the policy driven demands of their schools and the commercially driven values of the wider society.’

An unnamed government spokesperson replied defensively that, ‘The vast majority of children go to better schools, enjoy better health, live in better housing and in more affluent households than they did 10 years ago… The government does not share the view that children are over tested. Tests help parents and teachers monitor the progress of children and ensure they get the help they need.’

A gulf has opened up between government on the one hand, and teachers, parents and academics on the other. Education needs to be taken out of politics. So it was refreshing that Nick Clegg described the fourteen page Swedish national curriculum, as a refreshing contrast to the lengthy English one, and went on to announce the need for a freedom in education charter. And rather than engage in the magic silver bullet policy of Swedish style parent run free schools (some of which will be run by profit making companies ready to pounce on a new market) advocated by the new Education secretary Michael Gove MP, the 14 education professors called for a research informed National Education Council to help guide schools with developing curricula, pedagogy and assessment. This would sit between renewed local authorities and government, with scrutinising roles in areas such as children’s attainments. Government would set overall systems, structures, and funding, but not what is taught and how.

‘The Council would guide schools in their development of curriculum, pedagogy, assessment and self evaluation; monitor children’s attainment by sampling; monitor local authorities’ supprt for schools; sponsor research into worthwhile practise; and generally aim to tell the public and Parliament of the successes, failures and future direction of the education system-without fear of favour of party politics.’

These proposals are similar to what the Freeing Education chapter of Common Wealth advocates. This calls for both a de-politicisation of education, and also pushing the market out of education as well. (E.g. for profit schools and education services such as Offsted privatising school inspection to corporations.) Common Wealth calls for a return to an equal partnership between government and schools, with each playing to their strengths- once again a public, but autonomous service. More freedom means the liberation of discretionary effort, and more responsibility-it’s the up to students, teachers, parents and communities.

A first step? Your call! However, several members of a Common Wealth Workshop that I conducted in Sheffield on Saturday May 21^st suggested that we organised a world or conversation café at Freeman College, and invited local Sheffield Hallam MP, Nick Clegg to a dialogue on freeing education. They thought that civil society needed to open up participative political space for dialogue. It would be interesting to hear how Nick Clegg envisages the potential of the core Liberal principle of freedom to transform education.

Refs: www.tes.co.uk/article.aspx?storycode=6040712

Common Wealth for a free, equal, mutual and sustainable society, www.hawthornpress.com (2010)

Common Wealth Questions

Questions can be more important for the future than answers. The politicians are giving plenty of answers in the current British election campaign, but what are the key burning questions to address? As the old joke goes, 'Technology is the answer, but what was the question?' By living into the questions, answers can emerge organically. This blog aims to clarify some keyCommon Wealth questions that will then be addressed in subsequent blogs.

When the failing banks were bailed out in 2007-8, people did not realise that 'our' government would then allow the remaining bankers to claim ever larger bonuses whilst raising taxes, and cutting public services. This prompted questions such as, 'To what extent do we have a captive state, run largely for the benefit of the banks and large corporations? How can we reclaim our democracy from the market state? Reclaim our common wealth?'

These questions also led to writing the book, Common Wealth, published in January 2010, and people suggesting a blog that would offer space for dialogue about rebalancing society and reclaiming common wealth through pushing back the market.

The stakes are high. We can either wake up and work through government, business and civil society to set boundaries on predatory, greedy banks such as Goldman Sachs, or we can continue to allow the financial markets free rein as a brutal oligarchy draining society of wealth. The US SEC, the Securities and Exchange Commission, has just charged the world's biggest investment bank, Goldman Sachs, with fraud. When Matt Taibbi called Goldman Sachs, ' a vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity' draining wealth like blood, he provoked a hot debate. Taibbi was pointing towards the crime the SEC alleges Goldman had committed. The hedge fund financier, John Paulson paid Goldman $14mn for devising a synthetic derivative package that was linked to risky US sub prime mortgages, to then use in order to bet against the mortgage market. Whilst Goldman would then sell the package to suckers as a good bet, such as Britain's RBS bank which lost over $700 mn, the vulture Paulson was meanwhile betting it would short, ie go down. This was something Goldman did not tell its clients. Goldman sees itself, not as a swindler, but as CEO LLoyd Blankfein, said, as 'Doing God's work'. This is an example of one of the institutions that have been syphoning off our common wealth over the last thirty years.

This blog is inspired by the Digger, Gerard Winstanley, who wrote in 1649 that, 'The earth shall become a common treasury to all, as it was first made and given to the sons of men.' We have enough resources, if we can find equitable ways of sharing them. Land, for example, is a common resource that has been turned into a commodity to be bought and sold on the market. The result is poverty, inequality and market failure from the lack of affordable homes. One solution is to treat land as a shared resource, a commons, and put it into community land trusts, as people are now doing for affordable land access and public benefits. Capital can also be seen as a commons. It is socially created and can be held trust for both public benefit and human initiative

Writing the book Common Wealth was sparked by people asking me to help facilitate their most desirable future for their community, company or organization - and how to realise this. People, whether in the Post Office, my home town of Stroud, or in war torn former Yugoslavia, kept coming up with these strikingly similar questions:

* How are we caring for the earth and our environment?

* How are we building a more cooperative and efficient economy that works for all?

* How are we building a more peaceful, democratic, just and equitable society?

* How are we enabling all human beings to realise their creative, social and human potential?

When discussing the underpinning values that informed each question, the values of sustainability, mutuality or fraternity, equality and freedom emerged. So the key question became, 'How can we build a more equal, free, mutual and sustainable society?'

The values of freedom, mutuality and equality first came into prominence during the French Revolution of 1789. They have moved people ever since as guiding lights for society. These values can be contradictory when applied together. However, equality is 'at home' in our social and political life, in the political system-we are all equal before the law and have equal rights.Fraternity ( mutuality, co-operation) is at home in the economy, where a whole web of people working collaboratively produces goods and services that consumers need. The division of labour is based on mutual help, on interdependence, ideally on collaboration rather than win/lose competition motivated by greed. Freedom is more at home in cultural life, where individuals can find meaning, express themselves through art, maintain their health, realise their potential through education and develop knowledge and skills.

So the values of mutuality, equality and freedom guide the development of the three 'spaces' of politics, business and culture in a tripolar or threefold society. When 'the market' dominates society, there is a market state and a corporate mono culture. Asserting the autonomy of politics and culture, of government and civil society will rebalance society by pushing back the market.

This rebalancing was what Yukio Hatoyama, the new Prime Minister of Japan, wanted in, ' ANew Path for Japan', in 2009.' He asked, ' How can we put an end to unrestrained market fundamentalism and financial capitalism, that are void of morals or moderation, in order to protect the finances and livelihoods of our citizens? That is the issue we are now facing. In these times, we must return to the idea of fraternity - as in the French slogan 'liberte, egalite, fraternite."

So, we are at a turning point, a historic open moment where there is an opportunity to rebalance society through the guiding values of freedom, equality, mutuality and sustainability; to set boundaries between business, government and civil society by pushing back the market from politics and culture. The purpose of this Common Wealth blog is to discuss the key issues that need addressing , so that we can make the changes needed. I hope that readers will find this helps make more sense of what is happening, engage in dialogue and find practical openings for action.

The next blog will evaluate the British election campaign and ask the extent to which the different parties are addressing the challenge of rebalancing society- and responding to the groundswell of people wanting a more equal and just society.