Educating Labour: We need a school system that will deliver equity as well as excellence  

Should Labour win the next general election its new Education Secretary will inherit a school system that has been subject to significant ‘diversification’ and ‘structural reform’ since 2010. The key question for many Labour members and supporters is should a new Labour government continue with this focus on system-wide reform or put its efforts and resources into teaching and learning programmes that are proven to raise standards?

The past 50 years of school reform in England shows us that the road to securing better educational opportunities for all is paved with good intentions. Yet almost all of the post-war restructuring of the secondary school system in England – grammar schools, city technology colleges, grant maintained schools and even specialist schools – have mainly benefitted the middle classes and not the urban poor.

I have recently returned for a trip to the US where I was keen to find out what the Federal government has been doing to  ‘raise the bar’ and ‘narrow the gap’ and see what lessons we might learn for future policy development here in the UK. I met with the impressive Mildred Otero, a former adviser to Hillary Clinton and now the Chief Education Counsel to the US Senate’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.  When we meet in her office at the US Capitol building in Washington, Otero was keen to make clear that one of the biggest frustrations she encounters in her new role is not a lack of policy ideas or initiatives but rather a sound ‘delivery vehicle’ that can secure the effective implementation of federal programmes and funding.

Otero, a registered Democrat, was a strong supporter of the controversial policy of the previous Bush administration of the early 2000s called ‘No Child Left Behind’ (NCLB). She explains how the Obama administration distanced itself from NCLB and focused its Race to the Top initiative. So was NCLB a failure? Otero suggests that it is too simplistic to conclude that NCLB was a botched experiment, a noble effort to attain aspirational yet patently unrealistic ideals. In her view there were many positive lessons to take from the ‘No Child Left Behind’ programme. She cites evidence that points to NCLB having brought meaningful, positive change to some of the US’s most troubled public schools. The NCLB’s basic vision that schools use resources wisely to realise the potential inherent in all children, regardless of their background, still holds appeal on both sides of the aisle in Congress.

The sad reality is that in England today too many children are left behind. As a nation we are superb at educating an elite but the gap between the attainment and progress of disadvantaged and non-disadvantaged pupils in England is growing.The present situation across the country highlights the level of educational disadvantage:

• In 2013 nearly 50 % of children claiming free school meals achieved no GCSE passes above a D grade;
• The reading skills of children from disadvantaged families are, on average, more than two years behind those of pupils from wealthier backgrounds, a gap twice as wide as in some other developed countries;
• In 2013, a quarter of English universities failed to meet their targets to admit more students from diverse socio-economic backgrounds.

The scale of change needed can only be achieved through the sustained collective effort of leaders in classrooms, in schools and throughout society. The pursuit of excellence and equity must be at the heart of all future education reforms and improvement programmes. To ensure that no child in England is left behind will require significant support and challenge in equal measure. Support in terms of resources and improved funding but also the will to challenge and change the status quo child by child, class by class and school by school, in order to address educational disadvantage.

Too often the direction of school reforms In England has not always been guided by the polestar of world-class standards and test-based accountability. I strongly believe that the next stage of our journey will require coordinated reform efforts focused on laying the foundations for far more widespread and equitable opportunities for students throughout the nation. I would suggest that in order to succeed in ensuring that no child is left behind the next Labour government should:

• Implement well-resourced evidence based programmes that are clearly effective in improving outcomes for particular student groups that are especially likely to be left behind—including Pupil Premium pupils, English-language learners, children with special education needs and those involved in the criminal justice system;
• Provide greater investment in early years provision with an academic focus to narrow the disparities in readiness when children reach reception class;
• Legislate for a more equitable school finance system so that a child’s critical opportunities are not a function of his or her post code;
• Further reform school governance arrangements at a local, regional and national level and make clearer who is responsible for what.

Children cannot help being born into a particular context but as a progressive nation we can surely all support and promote measures that would seek to mitigate against your background being the biggest determining influence on your likely future. 

Cllr Mike Ion is a member of the advisory panel for the Centre for Public Scrutiny and contributed to the Labour Party’s review into School Standards chaired by David Blunkett MP.