Pick ’n’ mix, select and project; policy borrowing and the quest for ‘world class’ schooling: an analysis of the 2010 schools White Paper

Abstract

Education reform is increasingly portrayed as a quest to achieve a ‘world class’ education system through a process of identifying and adopting the practices of those systems whose pupils perform best in league tables of achievement. This is the rationale for the range of new policies proposed by the coalition government in the schools White Paper published in November 2010, which promotes whole-system reform in England. This article examines the White Paper and analyses the sources and nature of the evidence for reform and the congruence between the policy intentions and their associated policy actions. The analysis suggests that the evidence for the proposed reforms and policy actions is at best tenuous. Both the White Paper and its key sources of evidence are characterised by: a selective use of data: a propensity to mix and match the sources of comparison; and an overall tendency to employ comparisons with high-performing systems elsewhere as a façade to legitimate preferred policy options.

Keywords:

• comparative
• critical analysis
• policy borrowing

Acknowledgements

I am very grateful to Esther Morris for her research and editorial support and to the following for their advice: Euan Auld, Steve Carney, Bryan Cunningham, Germ Janmaat, Laura Johnson, Tom May and Rebecca Morris.

Notes

*McKinsey were involved in setting up Teach First, which itself was a policy borrowed directly from ‘Teach for America’ (See http://www.teachfirst.org.uk/OurHistory/ourhistory.aspx).

1. At different times the various surveys referred to have been based on data from both England and the UK. To avoid confusion and given the increasing power of regional governments to determine education policy in this article all references are to England.

2. The White Paper’s intention to promote the use of systematic synthetic phonics to teach reading does not suggest that it is willing to allow teachers curricular autonomy.

3. This clause was later withdrawn following scrutiny of the Bill in the House of Lords.