Has the objective of raising educational performance now

come to dominate all other purposes of educational policy?

In the following essay, I will give an account of the different stages in thinking about educational policy in the UK and in Germany since the 1950's, illustrating what 'educational purpose' and 'performance' meant to policy makers and the general public at each point in time. I will then go on to explain how the introduction of competitive assessment, both nationally and internationally, changed the goals of educational policy in the UK and in Germany. I suggest that it is possible to diagnose a divergence of goals between both countries.

The British Case

During the postwar period, education came to play a key role in the political economy of the United Kingdom. It both contributed to the unknown sense of economic boom and social progress of the time and at the same time profited from it insofar as a still somewhat cohesive society expected the state to provide opportunity for everyone through social welfare, including education. The main purpose of educational policy of the time was captured in the notion of schools serving the bureaucratic efficiency of the economy, supplying the socially stratified workforce with right kind of employees: a few managers with power and control as well as larger numbers of white-collar and blue-collar workers who would efficiently fulfill their subordinate roles (Brown 2ff).

The overarching principle of bureaucracy as an essentially meritocratic system, as well as the expansion of the welfare state both gave rise to the general belief in equality of opportunity as a positive guiding principle of British society. Intelligence was to be the key to social ascent and material wealth, and it was the task of schools to 'filter out' the best and the brightest for the higher professions. Furthermore, the vast majority of future jobs were predicted to become increasingly skilled, and consequently, the 1950's and 1960's witnessed the exponential growth of educational provision and school expenditures, driven by an "almost euphoric belief in education" (Husen 11). The dual aim of educational policy at that time, namely to achieve economic efficiency and create social justice for all, was still uncontested and unpoliticised. If some understood universal and free education to be an intrinsic good, while others viewed it in economic terms as a necessary response to the demand of increasingly skilled jobs, these two goals did not interfere. As the most obvious symbol for equality of opportunity, the comprehensive school was introduced to replace the formerly tripartite system of secondary schooling (Husen 12).

By the end of the 1960's, however, the ideal of a smoothly functioning meritocracy had given way to disillusionment about the ability for schools to function as 'the great equaliser'. Instead of society moving collectively up the social ladder into middle-class jobs, as had been predicted, working-class jobs had not disappeared, and social privileges by social background had remained unchanged. As a consequence of the new disenchantment with the educational system, state funding for schools was lowered, 'free' schools were created as alternatives for those disappointed with state schooling, and educational policy lost its prominent spot on the policy agenda. Criticism flourished on both sides of the political spectrum. Conservatives bemoaned that schools were failing to create elites, and that  academic standards and work discipline had been lowered by broadening educational access according to the principle of downright dogmatic egalitarianism. Left-of-centre liberals, most notably 'de-schooler' Ivan Illich, criticised schools for being manipulative machineries of institutionalised education  (Husen 11ff).

 It was not until the late 1960's that schools came to be seen not as isolated sites of learning but as embedded in a socio-economic background, an insight that shifted the focus of the debates to factors outside of school that could possibly influence educational performance. Most notably, the Coleman Report from 1966, the Plowden Survey of 11-year-olds in England from 1967, and a cross-national study of 20 countries conducted  by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) from 1967 emphasised the role that social milieu and home conditions played in influencing children's educational performance (Husen 11). Measurable educational outcome, and above all potential explanatory variables (that one could try to influence), had thereby swiftly moved to centre of attention.

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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 ...

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