The above discussed critiques were put into the basis of the UK, the USA, Australia and New Zealand government’s Education Reform Acts, all dated to late 1980s. The detailed account of these governmental policies will be given in chapter three of this essay. However, some initial references to the Acts are necessary in the developing of the argument and will be given in this part. Thus, according to Ball (1990:4) ‘at the heart of the Act is the attempt to establish the basis of a education market. The key provisions of the Act replace the principle of equal access to state education for all, with the principle of differentiation in the market place’. The ways to raise educational standards and performance in the Acts were the following: promoting choice, open enrolment, per capita funding, competition and diversity among schools.
The main provisions of the Education Reform Act were influenced by Hayekian free market economy theory. According to Ball (1990:2-4) ‘the key to Hayekian utopia is market competition bases on total economic individualism’ and the main assumptions of the free economy theory are strongly opposed attitudes towards state provision of social services in general and education in particular; the criticism of government policies of social justice and redistribution of wealth; interpretation of state provision derived from taxation as such ‘tending to reduce incentive and innovation’. According to Hayek (1979) human nature is guided by envy, which he views as a positive force as it gives rise to competition and initiative. Therefore he concludes that all social policies should be decentralised, privatised and marketised. Hayek and other neo-liberal theorists (Nozick, 1974) are advocating freedom, choice, competition and markets as the foundations for progress of civilisation.
Free market economy critics state that in Hayek’s world there is no place for education as a right and citizenship is simplified to two basic roles those of ‘consumer and entrepreneur’.(Ball 2000:3)
Before analysing the key elements of marketisation as an educational principle I will outline, albeit briefly, the main tensions and dilemmas on the way of marketisation of schools and the effects of the markets, their short and long-term consequences to schools and society.
Thus Gerstner et al.( 1994:19) describe ‘discipline of the market’ as the ‘last , best chance to save [public schools]’.
Meanwhile anti markets opponents such as Hugh Lauder at el. (1999:2-4) constantly emphasize on the threats of marketisation of education. In particular, they claim that markets will lead to a decline in students’ achievements and educational standards as markets ‘trade off the opportunities of less privileged children to those already privileged’. In their words marketisation does not work because it is neither fair nor effective and ‘ belief in their [markets] effectiveness is a matter of faith rather than hard evidence’. They also provide evidence that markets in education will inevitably threaten the equal opportunity in education.
James Tooley justifying the principle of marketisation points out three possible grounds on which market model in education is being criticized. The first one is the assumption that educational opportunity can not be provided without State control. He responds to this by the example taken from the USA, England and Wales nineteenth century history, when privately run school had limited interference from the State, and the relatively low standards of education in that time were caused by the poverty of society but not by the organization model. The second argument against markets in education is the idea that marketisation will not guarantee the equality in education. Thirdly, markets will weaken the ties between democracy and education. In his further research J. Tooley elaborately analyses the Grace’s (1989) reflections on whether or not education is ‘a public good’. Tooley claims that Grace gives two definitions for the term of public good.
‘Might not education be regarded as a public good because one of its fundamental aims is to facilitate the development of the personality and the artistic, creative and intellectual abilities of all citizens regardless of their class, race or gender status and regardless their regional location. Might not education be regarded as a public good because it seeks to develop in all citizens a moral sense, a sense of social justice and fraternal responsibility for others…’(Grace, 1989:214)
Tooley argues that the only basis for Grace’s hostility towards markets is the assumption that markets would not provide the equality of educational opportunity. Toley objects claiming that equality in marketised education can be ensured .
Next issue that James Tooley tackles is the fact that anti markets advocates use the word markets and inequalities synonymously. For example, Clay and Cole (1991) describe markets as inequalities and hierarchies and Levitas (1986:148) has no doubts that marketisation model will ‘lead to far greater inequalities of opportunity within the education system’. J. Tooley in his turn suggests not to interpret the word ‘equality’ literally, but instead consider the notion ‘adequacy’ he develops his argument by examining the works of Dworkin (1985), Williams (1962) and Rawls (1972); and he proves that three of them under justice mean a guarantee to an adequate minimum education that market system can satisfy. Tooley concludes that in marketised education equality of opportunity stands for guaranteed educational minimum and markets are able to secure this minimum.
Summarizing the first section of the essay, I claim that the critique of the centralised democratic provision of education and the theories of free market economies lead to reconstructing public education oriented on parent-student choice, school competition and autonomy as the foundation for raising school performance and students achievements. While anti markets researchers strongly disagree on the positive outcomes of introducing markets to schools as it threatens the equality in education and leads to polarisation and segregation of schools. However I am inclined to consider the shift toward markets in education to be effective and adequate attempt aimed at motivation, flexibility and innovation of schooling.
Section Two: Educational, Political and Economic Perspectives
on Marketisation Principle
Now being aware of the arguments of pro and anti markets opponents I come to the analyses of the marketisation as an educational principle. The task to identify the main components of marketisation as an educational principle is complex and complicated first of all due to the fact that there is no agreement between pro market advocates and their opponents on the definition of terms ‘principles’, ‘elements’ and ‘mechanisms’ of markets. Both groups use the terminology synonymously and implicitly. Thus, for example Ball (1990:4) differentiates between five ‘principles’ of the education marketplace (‘choice’, ‘competition’, ‘diversity’, ‘funding’ and ‘oragnisation’) (see Figure3), Adett and Davies (2002:6-7) consider five ‘factors of the market mechanism’ (‘competitiveness’, ‘information about providers’, ‘demand’, ‘desirable outcomes’, ‘dynamic and static efficiency’), Gray (1991:26-31), discussing the ‘essentials of educational markets’ examines seven concepts of ‘marketing mix’ (‘product’, ‘place’, ‘price’, ‘promotion’, ‘people’, ‘process’ and ‘physical evidence’), Dockling (2000:21-23) in his overview of National Policies for Schools outlines ‘quality’, ‘diversity’, ‘greater parental choice’, ‘greater school autonomy’ and ‘greater accountability’. Secondly, other researches elaborately analyse only one or two central issues of marketisation: Chub and Moe (1990:185-226) define ‘choice’ to be the center of marketisation principle, Clayton (in Bridges and McLaughlin, 1994:40-54) writes about ‘diversity’; Gerwitz, Ball and Bowe (1995) discuss ‘choice’, school organisation’, ‘equity’ and ‘control’. The third challenge is to single out among these components the core principles of markerisation whether it is a choice or competition or autonomy, this challenge can be explained by the fact that these notions are of overlapping character and it is hard to define which one is derivative of which (see Figure 1). The majority of the researchers assume choice to be the center of marketisation, some - decentralisation, others – new forms of organisation. In this essay my classification of markets components will be based on three perspectives: the perspective on quality of education, the political perspective on autonomy and the economic perspective on efficiency and accountability; the center of marketisation I claim to be choice. Accordingly I will analyse each component of marketisaion as an educational principle from educational, political and economical perspectives (see Figure 2)
For the reason of accuracy and adequacy I will classify marketisation components into three groups as I claim this approach is able to explain the interrelationships between the markets components (see Figure 2) also I will refer to Ball’s view (see Figure 3) of the education marketplace. My standpoint is that Ball’s theory is the most relevant to the educational interpretation of markets, while Gray (1991) together with Adett and Davies (2002) are tend to give the interpretation of the marketisation principles with evident economic - industrial bias.
At the beginning of the chapter, I give elaborate review of the explanations and interpretations of choice, and its consequences for education. This will be done due to two reasons, firstly, because I consider the choice to be the crucial force and main principle of the marketisation of education, and, secondly, not all the researches agree on the positive outcomes of introducing choice in education.
Thus, according to Hill (1998: 380)
‘Choice strongly benefits all children, including the disadvantaged. Choice promotes the candid and demanding relationships among teachers, parents and students that are essential to effective schooling. It can make the difference between schools that are apathetic providers of routine academic courses and schools that are true communities that develop students as whole people’.
He develops his argument claiming that schools will strive ‘to attract students in order to survive’, although not all schools can become the best but ‘every school can offer something that gives it an identity – a specific curriculum, social climate, or extracurricular program – that attracts the interests of parents and students.’
Also Hill (1998: 385) tackles the issue of choice from different approaches.
‘choice – choice of schools by teachers, students, and parents; choice by schools concerning how long to stick with a student who will not fulfil the school’s work requirements; and choice by public officials regarding whether to continue supporting a failing school or to close and recomission it with a new staff and management. Schools of choice become places in which parents and teachers are collaborators, bargains among adults and between adults and children are made and kept, effort is rewarded, and actions have consistent consequences'
Meanwhile opponents of the choice argue that, instead of promoting performance, a market-driven system will lead to polarization, segregation and inequalities for students and schools. One more discrepancy of the choice Henig (1998:174-95) puts in such way ‘the choice work well as a metaphor, but it is not a concrete policy option’. He explains that the students they interviewed saw school choice not as an ‘option between institutions’, but as an opportunity choose an ‘individualized curriculum within an institution’. Henig doubts if this also constitute school choice. ‘In three months of interviews we found a lot of people who favored school choice, but few who seemed to be talking about the same thing’.
Smith and Meier (1998:392) outline two problems that researchers face answering the question about the effectiveness of school choice: the first one is ‘there is no agreement on what should be analysed’, and another challenge is the lack of ‘comprehensive systems of school choice to test’. They say that there is no real system of choice that ‘exist in any universal or comprehensive form and is unlikely to exist for the foreseeable future’. For Smith and Meier choice ‘is more Pandora’s box than panacea.’
As I can conclude from the discourse about choice, it is a contested issue and answers to the question whether choice works will require more research, analysis and evidence. However, I hold to the opinion that the theory can work to improve educational provision and students’ performance by allowing the exercise of parental choice. My argument is based on the assumption that when parents choose a school, they and their children become as much responsible as school teachers or administrators for the children’s performance. Students will try their best to keep up with the standards of the school, as choice implies not only selection by students of schools but also by schools of students. If a students fail, the students and their parents in a marketised system of education would not accuse the school organisation and environment but would try to collaborate with teachers to eliminate the causes of failure. I may illustrate this argument by analogy with my own experience of classroom activity. Being an exchange teacher in Northfield Public Schools, MN in 2002 at one of the lessons I witnessed how choice work with primary school children. At the beginning of the lesson the teacher read and discussed with all the students the poem. After that students were proposed to choose one kind of activity out of six (reading the poem, drawing, composing, writing the prose variant of the verse, working in groups of three on a project or working individually with the textbooks). I did not expect to see how enthusiastically students worked, as I supposed the discipline would a problem. But students diligently did the task they choose for themselves. The rationale behind this is when you choose it is your choice and you hold and share responsibility for getting the best outcome from what you have chosen.
Choice very closely relates to two interdependent and interrelated principles of marketisation – the principle of competition and diversity, these two principles I analyse from the perspective on quality of education (see Figure 2). Thus in Britain the 1980 Education Reform Act (ERA) required publishing school performance and hold ‘compulsory Open Evenings’ (Ball, 1990: 6). The result of this were the changes in the schools’ relationships with the public and media aimed at improvement schools’ image and reputation. My standpoint is that school-media-community- school paradigm will produce positive changes as more people in the community become acquainted with the schools’ agenda and philosophy, educational issues are discussed not only among teachers and administrators but among all people in the neighborhood, towns, cities, counties and States.
Another argument in favour of competition is Reekie’s (1984:37 ) explanation of Hayekian market theory. Firstly he says that competition ‘evokes effort’, secondly, it ‘generates the search’ and he concludes that ‘the essence of the whole process is choice by the consumer; emulation, rivalry and substitution by the producer.’
I argue that competition forces schools to be more productive, for me the most productive school is one in which the educational output and students performance outcome is the highest due to schools responsiveness to parent-student needs. Ball (1990:15) assumes that schools entering competition will reconsider their management mechanism and ‘school governors will begin to consider employing executive heads who are not and never have been teachers, but are good managers’.
The next component of the marketisation as an educational principle from the perspective on educational quality is diversity (see Figure 2). In order to exercise the choice the customer should be introduced to the variety of products, that is why schools should vary in organisation, structure and possible educational outcomes. Ball (1990:6) puts it very clearly ‘thus, the ERA also introduce a greater variety of schools into the education system’. He gives an example of Grant Maintained Schools (GMS) and City Technology Colleges (CTC), the funding of which were different from comprehensive schools. GMS and CTC were free from local control and that gave them an opportunity ‘to specialise in a curriculum.’ (Docking 2000:22)
While anti market advocates describe opposite outcome of the diversity and competition. According to Lauder (1998:389) ‘it is most likely that the marketisation of education will lead to a decline in overall educational standards. Schools are likely to become sharply differentiated, with elite schools for the rich and a gradation of less prestigious and less ‘successful’ schools beneath them’. The future of these schools Lauder describes in a very pessimistic manner, in particular, he citing Bowe and Ball (1991) assumes that ‘the less successful schools will enter the spiral of decline and in which the loss of students will be accompanied by a loss of income and a consequent decline in morale as teachers become constrained in their pedagogical methods and curriculum offering’.
Alongside with the principles of competition and diversity goes the economic principles of schools efficiency and responsibility realised through mechanisms of per-capita funding and new forms of organisation. According to 1990 ERA, schools obtained direct control of their budgets and became responsible for hiring and firing school personnel, paying maintenance, heating and lightening bills. These economic principles of the ERA are aimed at transferring central state power to schools thus enhancing school’s autonomy and providing greater possibilities for competition. and the attempts of schools to attract the most possible number of students as this will influence the staff, resources and in general the overall school performance and services. The number of students and schools financial stability become interdependent. As Ball (1990) schools become business run with a primary focus on the profit and loss account. But at the same time with that mechanism there is the increasing threat of closing the schools providing that they will loose the minimum number of students. So the question arise what to do with the schools that will not be able to survive in the market place.
The answer to this question is the following, those schools will be forced to reconsider the principle of their organisation and if needed refocus on the interests of customers and on improving the school’s profile. If the schools fail to do it they will be closed, because the discipline of the market is strict, those who are not flexible and not responsive to the customers are most likely to become bankrupts.
Ball (1990:12) draws the conclusion that in terms of markets the education is
no more constitutes the public right or duty, in new circumstances education is more likely to be interpreted as business enterprise. The assumption can strike but there is a lot of truth in it.
So marketisation as an educational principle is the attempt to take control of education away from public bureaucratic sphere to the realm of markets. The main element of marketisation include choice, competition, diversity, funding, autonomy, and new forms of organisation that make schools responsive to the needs and demands of customers.
In the third part of the essay I will refer to the education policies of the UK, the USA, Australia and New Zealand in order to analyse how the principle of marketisation influenced reconstruction of education and I will give the assumptions to the changes towards markets in Ukraine and assess the importance and consequences of these changes.
Section Three: Marketisation Principle and Western Countries’
Governmental Policies: Implications for Ukraine
This chapter will primarily examine governmental policies and different ways in which marketisation principle was implemented in Britain, the USA, Australia and New Zealand schools, and how power was redistributed between governments and individual schools and their ‘clients’ (Whitty et al. 1998:15). In the second part of the section implications to introducing marketisation principle to the Ukrainian education will be made
In Western countries the introduction of markets in education started as governmental initiatives. Before evaluating the effectiveness of such initiatives, I will give brief account of the 1980s educational policies in four English speaking countries.
Thus in Britain after the series of Conservative government’s Education Reform Acts passed in the 1980s and early 1990s the premises ‘to break the LEA monopoly of public schooling’ (Whitty et al., 1998:18-19) were made and, apart from ‘various measures to increase parental choice’, Assisted Places Scheme was introduced. The Scheme provided funding for academically able working class students to attend private schools. It was the first step in reconstructing public education in Britain. Later, the emergence of new types of schools such as City Technology Colleges (CTCs) and grant-maintained schools was aimed at providing greater variety for education customers. Important aspects of the 1988 Act were, first of all, the promotion of educational establishments’ autonomy ‘through the local management of school (LMS) policy’ and, secondly, open enrolment with per capita funding as an alternative to school vouchers. Through these policies a system of quasi markets was introduced in British education. Although it may seem that the state power and control over education was reduced, in fact, the central government did not transfer all control to the schools, on the contrary, by introducing the National Curriculum and national testing the state power and control in education was enhanced and ‘thus [central power] strengthened its grip over the education service as a whole’(Whitty et al., 1998:20). Furthermore State did not delegate its right to monitor and control the work of schools and teachers and left this responsibility to the government through the mechanism of inspection.
The education reforms in New Zealand that gave the nation the sobriquet of ‘the New Right laboratory of the world’ (Kelsey 1995) were introduced in October 1989. The policies were based on two documents the Picot Report (Picot et al. 1988) and the Labour government’s response, Tomorrow’s Schools (Lange 1998). New Zealand’s Education Reforms promoted shift in responsibility for budgets, employment and outcomes from ‘central government and education boards to individual schools’. (Whitty et al., 1998:21). Schools were governed by the Board of Trustees, where initially parents and later business community members were elected. Thus Wyllie (1994:xv), cited in (Whitty et al., 1998:21-22), claims that ‘New Zealand’s reforms offer a model of school self-management which is more balanced that the English experience’. This is because they put ‘a greater emphasis on equity… on community involvement… on parental involvement [and on] partnership: between parents and professionals’. One more difference to the British ERA was funding formula which distributed finances to schools on the bases of average teacher salaries. The attempt to diversify New Zealand’s education market was marked by the innovation to start since 1989 schools aimed at preserving the Maori language and culture. Other provisions of the Reforms were connected with the children’s from low-income families support in getting places in private schools and introducing a New Zealand Curriculum Framework. Whitty claims that ‘as its name indicates, [Curriculum Framework] is far less prescriptive than the English model and pays more attention to minority Maori interests’.
The marketisation of Education in Australia due to this country’s geographical proximity to New Zealand experienced almost similar tendencies in devolution of state power. However, federal structure of Australia brought peculiarities to this process. Thus, in different parts of the country sequence of key reports were issued. In 1987, Western Australia government produced Better Schools reports, which pass many administrative functions such as employment policies, non-staff budget responsibilities to schools. The same year Northern Territories saw the publication of Towards the 90s and, as Whitty argues, the two documents have much in common. In 1990 the Queenland’s Focus on Schools document introduced curriculum and testing. New South Wales started its decentralisation program with Schools Renewal (1989). This reform influenced not only school management but also promoted competition among schools by abolishing school zoning and creating new types of high language and technology schools. Victoria state was considered to be the leader in reconstructing its education system, as by the end of 1992 (Whitty et al., 1998:24) ‘all schools were governed by a school council that had budgetary control for all items except teaching staff salaries’. Quasi-market mechanism in this state was introduced within the Schools of the Future (1993) framework which also predetermines the curriculum and testing requirements. The picture of the Australian school choice will not be complete without mentioning the fact that private school sector in this country is the largest among four Western countries, ‘accounting for almost one-third of students enrolment’ (Whitty et al., 1998:25). The government subsidies all private schools enabling them to charge low entrance fees.
The USA education initiative in 1990s was mainly focused on seeking the ways of improving the quality of public education and as Brighouse (2000:20) states this country ‘with its locally governed school system, has less scope for national reform’. Still various restructuring educational reforms started since 1985, which primarily stimulated parental choice, enhanced school autonomy and shared decision-making. Thus American parents can exercise choice of four versions of schools. The first one is private voucher program funded by large corporations that provide choice only among a certain range of private schools for low-income families. As Brighouse (2000:20) claims
…they [programs] are very small: in 1994-5 these programs assisted 6,572 students in seventeen cities. Nor do the programmes represent any kind of policy victory: they are run not by cities or school districts, but by business people, without any kind of democratic mandate.
Secondly, there are choice mechanisms within public school system. The emergence of magnet schools ‘developed in response of judicial pressure for racial integration’(Brighouse, 2000:20). Magnet schools allowed students from inner-city schools to transfer to suburban districts. The most famous is East Harlem District program comprising twenty-four high schools.
The charter school reform provided parents with the third form of school choice. As Brighouse (2000:21) clearly states ‘Charter schools are established by educational entrepreneurs is consultation with local school districts, but are exempt from much of the regulatory burden imposed by the state on public schools’.
The fourth form of choice is private schools which enroll 11 per cent (Whitty et al.,1998:25) of the American school children. Private schools in the US do not get significant public funding. However, programs to support low income families children entry were started in Milwaukee and Wisconsin in 1990.
Another crucial reform focused on raising educational outcomes of public schools in Chicago area was prescribed in a set of educational bills dated to 1985-88. According to the bills schools were required to produce annual student performance cards and restructure their management by allowing local schools councils solve personnel and budget problems and ‘develop a curricula focus’. (Whitty et al., 1998:26)
From the outline of governmental reforms in four Western countries, I can conclude that the main target of the education reconstruction of these societies was to transfer the responsibility for students’ performance on individual schools and devolve state decision making to educational institutions. Another important assumption of the reforms was promotion parental choice and competition among schools. As a result if that schools were forced to introduce new forms of management and innovation. However, the introduction of the reforms was strongly criticised because of the fact that broad public debates did not proceed the implementation of the educational acts and by decentralising state power acquired control over the decisions in which state previously was slightly involved, for example introducing National Curriculum and monitoring school performance.
While Western countries were reacting to the marketisation of education, Ukrainian educational system in 1991 was facing new era of its development. Different educational agenda was discussed in the Ukrainian society. After the Proclamation of Independence, Ukraine as a state inherited former Soviet Union education policies, methods and curricular with all its deficiencies and drawbacks. Thus In Soviet Union where all events were to be regarded as a part of class struggle education was politically tendentious, authoritarian and centralized system aimed at generating collective mentality of Soviet students. The Soviet education fostered poor people who hated the rich and were not taught how to be independent and successful, how to make choices. The Communist party was the state law and the collective interests of the state were more important than the interests of the individual.
Ukrainian reformers had originally hoped that independent Ukraine as a country and Ukrainian education as a system would be able to make a quick, clean break with the totalitarian past regime. But today even after the thirteen years of independence Ukrainian society and education is uneasy mixture of new and old, stability and instability, hope and despair.
Though Ukrainian education makes the impression of implementing and following European standards the Ukrainian education does not show vivid sings of foundation on which a stable democratic state can be built. In fact, the state monopoly in education decision and policy making still belong to governmental officials only. And Ukrainian education in general uses the Soviet-style administrative planed mechanism in management policy. The existing conditions of education in Ukraine may have unpredictable consequences for sustaining human development in Ukraine. Attempts to overcome the contradictions in Ukrainian education have been spontaneous and unsystematic both on governmental and local levels.
So the following criteria that are at odds with market economy requirements prevent Ukrainian education from being competitive and effective on the national and international level, contradictions that slow the progress in education are:
- Strict vertical centralized system of education
- Lack of pluralism in education policy
- Ineffective content and form of organization
- Inactive participation of parents and local communities in schooling
- Lack of public control over the Ministry decisions on budget funds
- Low social status of a teaching profession
- Insufficient number of specialists with foreign experience who can contribute to the reformation of the education
However a number of positive changes in the field of education are linked to the creation of a legislative framework. In 1996, a law On Education was adopted. The provisions of the law On Education make the education system more democratic, lay the foundation for the establishment of private schools and higher educational institutions, and expand teachers' opportunities to choose the topics in the curriculum they teach. The law On Education recognizes the right of students (or their parents) to choose the type of educational institution according to their possibilities and interests. This demonstrates that educational opportunities from which Ukrainians can choose have expanded - one of most important elements of human development. Still I agrue that these educational policies are not sufficient. It is obvious that introducing marketisation principle in the Ukrainian education will definitely foster the devolution of state power in education decision making, will help to overcome authoritarian way of education management and makes Ukrainian educational institutions more accountable, flexible and responsive to the needs of parents and students.
