'Modernizing' the teacher

Abstract

This paper is set in the context of the proposal by the UK government to introduce a ‘performance management’ policy as a basis on which to organize the management and remuneration of teachers in England. The performance management model envisaged is firmly embedded within managerialist ideology and sets the context for restructured levels of the teaching force and redesigned patterns of progression. ‘Professional standards’ form an essential element of the technology of performance management in specifying skills defined as valuable and supposedly amenable to measurement. No account of performance management would be adequate that did not clarify the value assumptions which underpin it, nor grapple with its implications for patterns of social justice and differentiation. The paper explores both of these dimensions. Furthermore, as has been discovered in other sectors and countries that have endeavoured to introduce such policies, some of the proposals have generated a storm of controversy and opposition. We shall illustrate the contours of this in relation to our recent research.