Choice in Education

Choice in Education! Must be a GOOD THING!

But is it practical?

In theory a totally private school system is the ultimate guarantee of choice. The immediate barrier of course is the payment system. Anyone who cannot afford the fees does not have the choice.

If they can afford the fees, there are still other limitations:

1. Physical distance - unless you accept a boarding school, the child has to be able to get there and back daily so is limited to those accessible.
2. Even where several schools are accessible, the strengths and specialisms they offer may not be the ideal for any given child.
3. A parent may want to make a clear choice but that can only be done when the school is prepared to accept the child concerned. Some schools may be oversubscribed; some may want to concentrate on a specialist area and make their own choice of entry.

The opposite philosophy insists on a standard education for all pupils so far as is possible. This seems the main driver behind the comprehensive system. Children should go to their local school and be subject to the statutory curriculum laid down by the government. The advantages should be that all have the same opportunity so the social divides are minimised.

I think we have to accept that the human condition is unsuited to standardisation. No system can be perfect. As usual in life we have to optimise our solutions within conficting criteria.

Cooking Education

Ed Balls, the minister for Non-Sense is making cooking in schools compulsory.

This is a 'key' part of the Government’s strategy to cut obesity. I wonder what planet he lives on?

It is certainly an example of micro-management of education. Will it work? Is there any evidence that a few cookery lessons will change a lifstyle?

Spending on Education

The latestTresury estimates show £77.7 billion being spent on UK education in 2007-8. This is 5.5% of GDP.

The spend in England only is £63.9 billion

So where does all that money go?

Statistics on the present education system

I have been finding it difficult to source relevant data on the present structure of education. Fortunately I have just found the latest stats from the Dept for Children, Schools and Families.

That shows some 25000 schools in England with 8.1 million pupils. For a summary table, click here.

I am now searching for basic data on the financing and budgetary side. If you know where it is best obtained please le me know. I want to research suitable sources so as to ensure that any policy ideas for the future are based on the realities of today.

Equality v. Opportunity

The traditional view of education has been that every child should go to their local school and there receive at least a core 'education' of the same standard as every other child.



That view implies that children go to school to be taught. It does not reflect the human reality that, even with the same stimulus, individuals react differently. To maximise learning even the core curriculum must be adapted to the needs of the individual. The higher the level of learning and the older the child the more important the personalisation becomes.



So the choice of the right school, particularly at secondary level, must be important to parents and their children even if they agree the broad standards are correct. This choice has to be made within the realities of local geography and the constraints of human organisations.



There seems to be increasing evidence that the ideal size of a secondary school is 600-900 pupils. That was the conclusion of a University of Michigan study in 1996



The present policies of encouraging freedom of choice by incentivising popular schools to grow is not a sustainable policy. Bigger units may bring down the cost per student and allow for more specialisation but the learning environment and personal identity that are crucial to the best schools may be lost in the larger organisation.

Quality in Education

I have just found a paper titled:

"Fulfilling the Proper Aim of Education"
By Myron Tribus
given at the National Governor's Conference
on Quality in Education in Detroit, Michigan in 1997

It outlines the application of the Deming business quality philosophy to the world of education. What a change that requires - at all levels!

Quality management was originally developed for industry. When
transferring its concepts to education certain differences should be kept in
mind:
1. The product is not the student. We do not manufacture students, nor do we determine most of their characteristics.
2. The product is the education of the student.
3. There are many customers for this product. In order of priority they
are:

1. The student… who must live with the product for a lifetime.
2. Parents or close family… who have a vested interest in the
   student's future.
3. Potential employers… who will wish to "rent" the education
   and pay the student for its use and improvement. Students,
   in most cases, must become self supporting.
4. The rest of us… who must live among them and, therefore,
   hope to be surrounded by decent human beings.

4. The workers who produce the product are the students, themselves.
This creates a situation quite different from industry. It is as though
the workers at Ford were building cars and then driving away with
them, never turning back.
5. The key process is learning. All other processes of education should
be support processes. In this spirit, teaching is not a key process. It
is a support process. Ideally, learning would take place without
need for teaching. Teaching would be replaced by mentoring.

Alas, too many managers think their job is to issue crisp orders and then
when things do not turn out the way they planned, they fix the blame
instead of the system.
Changes in the basic style of teaching and learning cannot occur if the schools
are managed as though they were but a collection of independent school
buildings housing teachers working in independent classrooms. Changes
cannot occur if the teachers know, through the reward system, that their pay
depends upon the scores children make in standardized tests in their
particular subject.
The relationship is reciprocal: It is also not possible to change the way the
institution is managed unless changes are made in the classroom.

Measuring Education Policy reforms

The Centre for the Economics of Education at London School of Economics published a paper on the effects of the following reforms:

1. Market reforms
2. Curriculum reform
3. Raising participation in Post-Compulsory Schooling
4. Higher Education reform

A significant conclusion was:

Of course knowing what works in education is not sufficient to inform policy. As economists, we need to inform policy-makers about what works and at what cost, relative to alternative policy options. Yet there remains a deficiency of good cost benefit evaluations in the field of education.

Yet, if you cannot effectively measure results there is no basis for planning further improvements.

Education and Social Policy

Here is a useful summary of the background to Education policy from the Robert Gordon University.

In particular I like the categorisation of approaches as follows:

Education has been particularly significant as an instrument of social policy, in the sense not only of policies for welfare but also as policies intended to deal with the structure of society. The aims of education include:

• Liberal education: the development of each individual intellectually and socially to that person's fullest potential
• Socialisation: education is a method of transmission of social norms and values. This is also sometimes seen as a form of social control.
• Education as 'handmaiden': the education system serves the industrial process and the economy by producing a trained workforce, and by providing childminding services.
• Social change (or 'social engineering'). The education system has been seen as a means of bringing about social change.

Stakeholders of UK Education

These are the people who have to be involved in the setting of objectives and development of policies:

1) The Government

The government is the agent for society as a whole. There is no dispute now that education should be compulsory for all children even though starting and finishing ages may not have the same universal agreement.

On our behalf the government collects the taxes and sets a budget for the state sector. It does not have direct control over private education but does exert a major influence on the expectations and results achieved by the private sector.

The fact that the state provides most of the resources automatically leads to a duty to ensure that those resources are used effectively for the benefit of all. This means results must be measured - but before you can measure you need to set clear objectives.

2) The Parents

Parents have the prime responsibility for bringing up - or educating - their children. They need to be involved in the setting of targets for the education system as a whole so that they can influence and understand what is being done to their offspring.

Parents are the prime source of motivation for their children. As a result it is vital that they are at least in broad agreement with the plans and activities of the relevant school. Their influence can actively help results or sabotage them.

Moreover it is the parents who can most easily spot when their children have difficulties and when the system that my be right for the majority needs to be adapted for a particular child.

3) The Teachers

Teachers have the responsibility of delivering the education required by the state and the parents. They are the ones most able to advise on the practicalities of what is possible for any group of children.

They need to work with parents to provide the flexibility to adapt the system for the individual child. They need to work with government to hone relevant objectives and decide the best use of resources.

4) The Children

School-age children should not be involved in the setting of organisational objectives. But their reactions to the system will determine its success. So they are the final arbiters of success. Even if they do not enjoy the process, their education may be judged by others to be good. Normally however the children will know very clearly if the school was right for them together with its weaknesses and strengths.

Naturally the older the child the more important their opinion. At the tertiary level, they should be effective consumers and able to choose an education that is right for them.

The purpose of Education

The new Department for Children, Schools and Families leads work across Government.

It says their purpose is to ensure all children and young people:

• stay healthy and safe
• secure an excellent education and the highest possible standards of achievement
• enjoy their childhood
• make a positive contribution to society and the economy
• have lives full of opportunity, free from the effects of poverty

So that's all right then! BUT anyone ever trained in management will know the Acronym for establishing meaningful objectives - SMART. That stands for:

• Specific – Objectives should specify what they want to achieve.
• Measurable – You should be able to measure whether you are meeting the objectives or not.
• Achievable - Are the objectives you set, achievable and attainable?
• Realistic – Can you realistically achieve the objectives with the resources you have?
• Time – When do you want to achieve the set objectives?

I think the department could definitely do better!

UK schools slip down in science

One of the reasons for concern about our education standards is the need to keep our economy competitive with potential new rivals in a globalized future where resources may be scarce.

It is very difficult to get an objective measure of different education systems. This information suggests we are losing ground.

When compared only with other members of the OECD in the Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) study, the UK came between 8th and 12th place

Schools 'failing' half a million children

http://www.epolitix.com/EN/Bulletins/PressReview/fullpressreview.htm?bulletindate=10-Jan-2008

See the latest sorry story.

The Aim of Education

A Labour Government, that started in 1997 with the claim of putting Education at the top of their list of priorities, now has to defend a record of relative decline in the international league and too many 16-year-olds leaving without significant qualification.

Yet I can find no active public discussion on the fundamental question of what education policy should be trying to achieve. There are now so many supposed targets that we cannot see the wood for the trees.

My hope is that by going back to basics and agreeing a set of objectives that are measurable, we can apply sound principles of business management to a huge, and fundamental, public enterprise.

Please help me by contributing your own ideas and criticising mine.

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