This shift in focus was even more emphasised in the 1970s when deteriorating economic conditions caused education again to be viewed under the aspect of cost-efficiency. Against the backdrop of the oil crisis of 1973 and sharply growing competition from a globalised world economy, educational policy once more served economic paradigms. Indeed, with the New Conservatives' rise to power, the conviction of the 1960s that education represented an intrinsic good both for individual and societal improvement became more and more discredited in favour of a market-driven perspective. Many conservatives now viewed the welfare state, and with it the existing educational system, as undermining the spirit of free competition and enterprise. Accordingly, the New Right introduced downright market principles to education (Husen 11).
Ideologically, the New Right coupled a neo-liberal view of virtues of individual freedom and the free market with the traditional conservative view that a strong state is necessary to uphold moral and political order. These views were mirrored in a move to both centralise and decentralise the educational system at the same time. The system was decentralised insofar as the Major government gave greater autonomy to individual schools to select their teachers and determine their wages and, most importantly, to compete for the best students, made possible by the introduction of parental choice. Headmasters were encouraged to manage their schools like businesses, fostering competition in a quasi-market system. Yet the system was also centralised by the establishment of a national curriculum and central testing of pupils aged 7, 11, 14 and 16. Later on, the results of GSCEs and A-Levels were even annually published in league tables of schools, serving as guidelines for parents' choice of school and as yardsticks for financial rewards given out to successful schools by the state. Additionally, the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) was created in order to inspect all schools on a regular basis (Paterson 167).
Rather unsurprisingly, the introduction of market mechanisms to the educational system had soon spurred intensive social research into input variables that influenced educational performance and could be manipulated, i.e. factors that 'made schools effective'. Effectiveness was seen in both absolute terms, i.e. resulting in higher tests scores, as well as in relative terms of 'value added'. In 1979, the publication of Fifteen Thousand Hours by Michael Rutter et al. introduced the concept of school ethos to the discussion, making more sense of the correlations between the school-related variables and outcomes (Hargreaves 487). The study gave reason for optimism insofar as their conclusion was that 'schools did indeed matter', i.e. that schools were in principle able to somewhat compensate for social factors previously identified as disadvantageous. Problematically, however, the outcomes that classified a school as 'effective' were more and more narrowed down over time and reduced to test results of academic knowledge and cognitive skills (Hargreaves 488).
The consequences of running schools under free market conditions have been describes as a shift away from creating equal opportunity by means of social policy, back to the reinstallation of social class. Competition is said to have lead to a renewed polarisation of wealth and a sharp increase in unemployment, resulting in a spread of child and family poverty. In essence, it has been claimed that marketisation meant the reduction of government responsibility for social needs, shifting the blame for the inequalities in access and outcome it has promised to reduce onto individual schools, parents and children (Apple 24). With respect to educational policy goals, this meant that concerns about efficiency, speed, and cost control replaced concerns about social and educational justice (Apple 25).
The change of government did not not result in a change in paradigms. Far from reversing the educational policies of the New Right, once in power, New Labour kept the focus on relentless competition, making the integration of education into the economy once more a prime goal of educational policy. Even more so, the increased attention recently paid to international league tables, often seen as indirect measures for a country's future economic competititveness, prompted the Blair government to further increase standards in the core skills numeracy and literacy in British schools (Hartley 81).
This development spurred two main criticisms, the first being the obvious argument against 'teaching to the test', namely that "an educational theory with an excessive or exclusive focus on the cognitive is impoverished" (Hargreaves 488). Interestingly, however, the second argument is essentially an economic one: With the change of society into a knowledge economy, as reflected in organisational changes in how companies manage and make use of their employees' intellectual talents, it is the task of schools to foster their students' creativity and innovation skills (Hargreaves 499). Rapidly changing forms of work demand transferable problem-solving skills, self-motivation and flexibility, yet the Ofsted-endorsed traditional pedagogy of lecture-style, whole-class, subject-specific teaching to the test is unsuitable for fostering such qualities. However, fearing the high financial and political cost involved, the British government is hesitant to introduce progressive methods of teaching (Hartley 81).
The argument concerning new skills sketched out above is in line with recent findings and recommendations made by the OECD. Since the core cognitive skills reading, writing and maths have been calculated to account for only about 40% of individual variation in earnings, the OECD has recommended countries to invest into 'wider human capital'. It is defined as "the characteristics that allow a person to build, manage and deploy his or her skills. These include the ability and motivation to learn, effective job search skills, and personal characteristics that help one work well, as well as the capacity to blend a successful life with a good career" (OECD 2002). More explicitly, the OECD writes that "schools may need to give more explicit attention to allowing students to manage and control their learning" (OECD 2001b). It is fair to assume that the British government is aware of the problems associated with narrow 'teaching to the test' and of the necessity to foster the kinds of skills described above. Neither are these educational goals necessarily mutually exclusive. However, it is difficult to conceive of a way to balance both goals at the same time, while not maximising one at the cost of the other.
The German Case
Due to early and extensive welfare provision by the state, education never gained the strong connotation of being a social welfare policy in Gemany that it had in the UK (Allmendinger 63). Yet the development and political arguments behind educational reform since the 1950s in Germany bear much resemblance to those of the UK and other western states. Thus, just like in the other western capitalist societies, the 'Sputnik shock' of 1957, seen as a sign of the supremacy of Soviet technology, catapulted educational reform and advancement into public discussion and up the political agenda. The issue was reinforced by the widely received book Die deutsche Bildungskatastrophe ('The German education catastrophy") by Georg Picht in 1964. Subsequently, elementary, secondary and tertiary education were broadened and received large scale financial boosts in the 1950s and 1960s, opening the doors of Gymnasien for more children from working-class backgrounds who would have otherwise traditionally pursued apprenticeships or vocational training (von Friedeburg 461ff).
Economic rationale, followed by the optimistic belief in the possibility of creating equal opportunity for all, were the driving forces behind educational policies in Germany in these decades, just as it was the case in the UK. In the 1960s, German society similarly experienced an 'educational paradox' as a result of socialdemocratic educational reform. The dramatic increase ('inflation') of education certificates for previously underrepresented groups de facto lowered the chances for graduates to find a job that corresponded to their (formally) high qualification. Universities were filled with people only formally qualified to pursue tertiary education, while Hauptschulen and Realschulen were turned into 'sink schools' for migrants and severely underachieving students. Thus, the introduction of formal educational equality proved not to be sufficient to create equality of opportunity (von Friedeburg 466).
By contrast to the UK, the political left in Germany has so far been unable to push through the replacement of the traditional tripartite system of secondary schooling with the comprehensive school (Gesamtschule). It had achieved initial success in the 1970's, when the number of pupils in Germany had risen from 7.3 in 1965 to 10 million in 1975, creating demand for more secondary schools, yet the movement died down in the 1980's. In conservative circles, the Gesamtschule was snubbed as "shortcut to the socialist uniformity school" that would foster levelling instead of achievement. Ingrained notions of social class that corresponded to the three tracks of traditional schooling, and a distrust of the workability of the comprehensive school ruled the Gesamtschule out as a competitor for the Gymnasium. Especially in times of economic strain and risk, parents were more likely to send their children to traditionally strong Gymnasien, thereby helping them retain their competitive edge over Gesamtschulen. This trend continues until today. Particularly working-class children have little chance to climb up the educational ladder, a fact that is reinforced by the early separation of children (at age 10) into the three educational tracks (von Friedeburg 461).
The outcomes of the PISA studies of the late 1990s and early 2000s, where Germany scored in all three cognitive skills that were tested into the bottom third, led to irritations and a storm of public debate, shaking up the long-held self-perception of Germany as still having a world-class educational system. A closer look at the data revealed that the overall low scores were chiefly due to the disparities between the best and the worst performing students. While students attending the Gymnasium performed as well as the Finns, who lead the table, had, the gap between them and those at the lower end of the scale were larger in Germany than in any other country (Smolka 7). The group of very low performing students is mainly comprised of students with migration background. They have been identified as a 'risk group' of people whose cognitive skills suffice 'only conditionally' even for the pursuit of a vocational apprenticeship. Thus, social background and parental choice continue to determine a child's educational path in Germany, as educational levels are 'inherited', i.e. passed on from generation to generation (Smolka 8). Lacking a coherent strategy of integrating migrants into mainstream society and doing nothing against growing disparities, the state failed to support those weaker groups sufficiently.
As an immediate consequences of the German 'PISA-shock', two policy paradigms concerning the output of schools were reanimated. Conservative voices call for a return to the tripartite system where sufficiently upgraded Hauptschulen and Realschulen are no longer discredited as 'dumping places' for underachieving students but instead are sound paths leading to high-quality apprenticeships. Social Democrats, on the other hand, feel affirmed in their call for the renewed and widespread introduction of the comprehensive school as the only way to create equality of opportunity and to counter class and social segregation.
Has the objective of raising educational performance come to dominate all other purposes of educational policy? The historically deeply ingrained decentralisation of German educational policy makes the establishment of a national curriculum or even centrally administered testing highly unlikely. To raise educational performance while risking the social exclusion of social groups (as is being cricised in the UK) is therefore currently not the primary political goal in German educational policy. Rather, the aim is to use educational policy as a tool for more social cohesion in an already highly stratified society.
Likewise, far from being in a position to complain that too much emphasis of educational policy is placed on fostering purely cognitive skills at the cost of creativity and problem-solving, the German industry has been pressuring for the advancement of at least basic cognitive skills among students. Not so much higher-skilled jobs than rather many apprenticeship places in Germany remain open due to a serious lack of starters capable of the even basic levels of reading, writing and maths (Der Standard, 25 Januar 2005).
Market-style competitive structures have come to dominate British educational policy, (unintentionally) furthering the disadvantages of the already disadvantaged groups. By contrast, the results of the PISA studies have given new vigour to those in Germany pushing for the socially selective threepartite system of secondary schooling to be removed in favour of comprehensive schools. It is very doubtful whether comprehensive schooling will ever by able to compete with the engrained notion of Gymnasien being the school of choice. What is remarkable, however, is that as a result of international assessment and comparison, educational policy has assumed more of a social policy character in Germany.
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The Education Act of 1944 (The Butler Act) had affirmed the responsibility of the state for establishing the right of all young Britons to receive comprehensive education, independent of the material or social status of their parents.
James S. Coleman, professor of sociology at the University of Chicago, influenced American and British educational policy with his study 'Equality of Educational Opportunity' (1966), also known as the 'Coleman Report'. Researching nationwide 630,000 students from classes 1-12 as well as their teachers and heads of school, Coleman established that the underperformance of black children was primarily due to disadvantageous family backgrounds. Coleman stated that racial segregation only reinforced the disadvantage of blacks, but that mixed classes could alleviate the problem without any negative effect on the performance of white children. As a direct consequence of the Report, busing was introduced to the U.S. The report has been commissioned by the U.S. Office of Education in accordance with the Civil Rights Act of 1964, in a time when issues of racial segregation and disadvantage were at the forefront of national concern in America. Obviously, Coleman's findings challenged basic assumptions about the nature of the American education system (Coleman 1969).
Even more so, the large scale study by Peter Mortimore et al. identified a number of explanatory variables that influenced school effectiveness, giving renewed hope to those optimistic about the capability of schools to compensate for social disadvantage (Mortimore 1988).