Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Britain: Social mobility disappeared along with selective schools

"Comprehensives" were supposed to bring equality. They did the opposite

It's a puzzle how Gordon Brown manages to maintain the aura of a serious intellectual. He clearly reads widely. But so, too, do my nephews, albeit books with shorter words. The problem lies not with his ability to read but to draw the correct conclusions. His speech yesterday on social mobility is a case in point - a weird mix of platitudes and outright nonsense. Parents should want their children to do better than they did themselves. Wow. What an insight. And this "cannot be achieved without people themselves adopting the work ethic, the learning ethic and aiming high... We must set a national priority to aggressively and relentlessly develop the potential of the British people." It's difficult to imagine a priority aggressively and relentlessly to hold back the potential of the British people.

The difficulties start when he talks in more than platitudes. Yesterday's speech was predicated on the notion that, while he had been fortunate to be "a child of the first great wave of postwar social mobility", there was then a "lost generation" of "Thatcher's children" who were denied the chance to progress. Mr Brown is right to talk about the reversal in social mobility that took place in the last century. But he is about as far from the truth as it is possible to imagine in describing its cause. Margaret Thatcher did not create the problem; she inherited it.

A 1996 study by the Institute for Fiscal Studies confirmed what strikes most people instinctively: education is the great engine of social mobility. "There is a clear correlation between high mobility up the income distribution and a high level of educational attainment. Non-movers are almost five times as likely to have no qualifications as big movers; at the other end of the scale, big movers are more than seven times as likely to have A levels or better than non-movers are." And with the educational opportunities laid out in Rab Butler's 1944 Education Act, which enshrined the tripartite system of grammar, technical and secondary modern schools, increasingly it was no longer true that where you were born on the social scale determined where you ended up.

As Churchill said to the boys of his alma mater, Harrow School, in 1940: "When this war is won... it must be one of our aims to establish a state of society when the advantages and privileges which have hitherto been enjoyed by the few shall be more widely shared by the many, and by the youth of the nation as a whole."

And this started to happen: the proportion of public-school-educated undergraduates at Oxford was, for instance, on a steady downward path after the Second World War. In 1946 65 per cent of male students were from independent schools. By 1967 only 53 per cent of male students were from public schools. The pattern was even clearer with women, the share falling from 57 per cent of arts undergraduates in 1946 to 39 per cent in 1967. For all the problems with technical and secondary modern schools, grammar schools did a fine job of lifting children out of poverty and into opportunity. Yet today, our comprehensive system has one of the worst rankings in the developed world.

Education was seen by the advocates of comprehensive schools "as a serious alternative to nationalisation in promoting a more just and efficient society" (as Tony Crosland, who would not rest until he had "destroyed every f***ing grammar school", put it). But this was Grade A drivel. Class divisions were made worse, not better. Now those who can afford to do so leave the state system for private education or move to a middle-class catchment area. The rest are stuck with what they are served up. As A.H.Halsey, an adviser to Crosland and one of the leading egalitarian theorists of the 1960s, put it: "The essential fact of 20th-century educational history is that egalitarian policies have failed."

The speed of the process was astonishing. In the late 1960s the state grammar schools and quasi-state direct grant schools easily outclassed the independent sector in terms of academic output. The next decade saw both these meritocratic pillars of the state school system collapse. In 1971 35 per cent of all state schools were comprehensive; in 1981 the figure was 90 per cent, and almost all the direct grant schools had joined the private sector. In destroying the direct grant schools on the altar of equal opportunity, the 1974-79 Labour Government succeeded only in denying opportunity to many poor children.

Mr Brown is right to emphasise the imperative of social mobility. But until he stops speaking in platitudes and starts understanding what has gone wrong, he will never be able to put anything right.

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Many states watch - and like - Florida's education policy

Florida is No. 1 in the nation in vouchers. It's No. 2 in charter school enrollment. It's No. 4 in the percentage of high school students passing college-level exams. Numbers like these have made Florida the nation's most-watched laboratory for education policy. But now former Gov. Jeb Bush is holding up Florida as not just a lab, but a model.

Bush, 55, has been out of office 18 months, but his controversial policies continue to roll. And today, a who's who of education super wonks will gather in Orlando to turn a national spotlight on the changes he championed - from vouchers to school grades to merit pay for teachers. They already know what many in Florida don't - that many states are watching Florida. And a number of them like what they see.

"Florida's system has been held in pretty high regard," said Kathy Christie, chief of staff for the non-partisan Education Commission of the States, which assists policymakers nationwide. "I can't tell you how many times I've highlighted policies in Florida."

Bush's vision isn't popular in Florida. But he and his supporters insist that evidence is on their side. "Florida's education reforms have caught the attention of policymakers across the country because our students are making progress," Bush said in an e-mail to the Times. "My hope is that other states working to improve their quality of education can replicate some of the successes we have achieved." Bush's critics groan at the possibility.

The state's graduation rate remains one of the nation's worst. And critics say Bush's agenda is fueled by a right-wing ideology that has produced more spin than miracle. "There are good things going on in Florida and not good things going on," said Sherman Dorn, a University of South Florida professor whose 2007 book title, Accountability Frankenstein, riffs on the lab analogy. "Unless you're willing to see both sides, I don't think you are being realistic."

The two-day summit is sponsored by the Foundation for Excellence in Education, which Bush formed last year to "improve the quality of education in classrooms across Florida and the nation." Bush will be the keynote speaker today. Other speakers and panelists will trumpet the same brand of reform, which is heavy on school choice and high-stakes testing. Among them: Frederick Hess (director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute) and Checker Finn (president of the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation)

Many tend to be classified as conservative. But guests also include New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, an independent, and his schools chancellor, Joel Klein, a lifelong Democrat. All of them know the Florida story.

For better or worse, Bush pushed the envelope during eight years as governor. Florida did not have a voucher program when he was elected in 1998 and had only a handful of charter schools. Now it has nearly 40,000 students on vouchers and more than 100,000 in charters.

Bush made the FCAT the keystone of an accountability system that included school grades, and retention and intervention for struggling third-graders. More quietly, Bush and his loyalists pushed literacy in early grades and the use of test data to help teachers pinpoint where students were falling short.

Did it work? Florida's graduation rate hovers around 60 to 70 percent (though some calculations show it rising sharply). Per-pupil spending ranks in the bottom tier. Teachers are paid below the national average.

On the other hand, Florida elementary students have made the most dramatic gains in the nation on well-respected reading and math tests. The state leads the nation in the percentage of high school seniors taking advanced placement exams. And it's no longer just right-wing think tanks giving Florida credit. "I'm a big fan," said Janet Hannaway, an education researcher at the nonpartisan Urban Institute in Washington, D.C. Florida "is a very smart policymaking state, at least in education."

She and a handful of other highly regarded researchers recently looked at how Florida's accountability system affected schools with F grades. Their conclusion: Schools ended up focusing more on struggling students and devoting more time to teaching. And their students improved faster than students at schools with higher grades.

Then again, researchers also said it's too early to tell whether Florida's approach is the best one, a line other observers use about Bush's broader changes. Some ask: Will Florida students continue to make gains on national tests? Will higher scores result in higher grad rates? "The results (in Florida) so far are promising. But there's no long-term trends yet," said Alan Richard, spokesman for the nonpartisan Southern Regional Education Board.

Bush said Florida shouldn't wait on them. He described the past decade as just the beginning. "I hope we never stop trying to implement bigger, better and more audacious reforms."

Source






Jeb Bush Supports Return Of School Vouchers

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said he will fight for two controversial amendments. One of the amendments would restore Bush's private school voucher program; the other would give lawmakers the power to send public school money to religion-based schools. Bush said he believes that one of the best ways to help needy students in struggling public schools is to give them a choice between public school and vouchers to pay for private school. In 2006, the state Supreme Court ruled the vouchers unconstitutional.

Bush launched the voucher program, and now he has joined the fight to reinstate it. He wants voters to pass Amendment Seven, called "Religious Freedom," which would eliminate the ban on using revenues from the public treasury or indirectly in aid of any church. Bush is also supporting Amendment Nine, which would reverse the Florida Supreme Court decision to prohibit funding of private school alternatives, such as vouchers. "The simple fact is the Florida Legislature should have the say, the policy at the state level as it applies to education policy, not an unaccountable Supreme Court," Bush said. "I think Floridians will support that. What role I'll play is yet to be determined."

Gay Parker of the Seminole County Education Association is part of a teacher's union movement suing to eject the amendments from the ballot. "Experimental programs are not the answer," Parker said. He said with plummeting state revenues and teacher layoffs, it does not make sense to give money to private schools. "It's not fair, it's not proper, I don't believe that it is legal and FEA (Florida Education Association) is going to argue that position," Parker said.

Amendment Five is another controversial amendment that will be on the ballot in November. It would eliminate local school property taxes, forcing state and local lawmakers to come up with new money, possibly through new sales or service taxes.

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