1. TUC Conference The future of our schools 27th November 2010
The policy context:
trends towards autonomous schools
Peter Mortimore
Former Director of the Institute of Education, University of London and Professor of Pedagogy, University of Southern Denmark.

2. Plan What are autonomous schools?
What is education policy and who formulates it?
Short history of education policies
The Conservative years
The New Labour years
Some data
The 21st century - Academies and Free Schools
The ongoing policy context.

3. What are autonomous schools?
Autonomous can mean
Independent – i.e. private, receiving no state moneys and answerable only to its trustees
Self-governing – receiving state moneys but managing its own budget, staffing and organisation though not its pupil intake and answerable to a local authority or other body
Academies and Free schools – answerable to their trustees (and/or to the Secretary of State) receiving state moneys .

4. What is education policy?
Laws & rules that govern education systems applying mainly to
purposes of education
its objectives
its organisation and methods
Its evaluation.

5. Who formulates education policy?
Aspiring political parties preparing mandates
Ministers and advisers drafting legislation often following a green paper
Civil servants revising regulations or responding to public consultation
Lobbyists promoting causes
Secretaries of State – on whims.

6. First policies
Circa 300 AD – Romans create schools for native British prospective administrators
Circa 600 – Augustine creates schools for clergy
Circa 1300 – Cathedral schools for clerks
Circa 1500 – Grammar schools for boys

7. Important 19th Century policies
1862 – Revised Code
1870 – Forster Act [1]

9. Important 20th century policies
1902 Act – created some secondary schools BUT did not fit them with the elementary ones [2]
1944 Act and the tripartite system [3]
1965 Circular 10/65 – encouraging LAs to go comprehensive [4]
1967 Plowden Report and 1975 Tyndale Affair
1976 Callaghan’s Ruskin College speech [5].

10. The Conservative years
1983 TVEI initiative
City Technology Colleges
1988 Education Reform Act [6]
Grant maintained schools
1997 “A grammar school in every town”.

11. The Labour years
1997 Landslide election victory – the result was “education, education, education” [7]
Some positive policies
General Teaching Council
Sure Start
Every Child Matters
Children’s Commissioner
Rose Review
Cambridge Primary Review (Alexander Report) [8].

13. Other models United States Nordic countries Charter Schools
Denmark’s folkeskole foundation and year 10
Norway’s comprehensive upper secondaries
Sweden’s interesting experiment in education/care
Finland’s lack of streaming, selection, inspection and universal testing programmes.

14. Some data

15. Maths average scores and standard deviations source PISA 2007

16. PISA Reading scores 2000 - 2006 2000 2003 2006 Denmark 497 492 494
Finland
546
543
547
Norway
505
500
484
Sweden
516
514
507 UK
523
495 US
493
Excluded

17. % of working population with upper secondary education (EAG 2009, Table A1.2a)

18. % of working population with tertiary education (EAG 2009, Table A1
% of working population with tertiary education (EAG 2009, Table A1.3a)

19. Adult literacy average scores OECD 2000 Adult Literacy survey

21. Unicef Report Card 7 (2007) Order COUNTRY AVERAGE RANK Order1
Netherlands
4.2 2
Sweden 5 12
Canada
11.8 3
Denmark
7.2 13
Greece 4
Finland
7.5 14
Poland
12.3
Spain 8 15
Czech Republic
12.5 6
Switzerland
8.3 16
France 7
Norway
8.7 17
Portugal
13.7
Italy 10 18
Austria
13.8 9
Ireland
10.2 19
Hungary
14.5
Belgium
10.7 20
USA 11
Germany
11.2 21 UK
18.2 21

22. Happiness table for Europe (Bradshaw et al, 2009)
Overall rank
COUNTRY 1
Netherland 2
Sweden 3
Norway 4
Iceland 5
Finland 6
Denmark 24 UK

23. The 21st century - Academies and Free Schools
Academies can be seen as descendents of the 1988 City Technology Colleges & Grant Maintained Schools, 1998 Foundation schools, 2000 City Academies, 2002 and 2006 Trust Schools
They are self-governing institutions, independent of local government control and funded directly by the Department for Education. They have been turned into the goal for every school by the Coalition Government. But are they really autonomous?
Free schools are intended to be all-ability, state-funded schools set up in response to parental demand. They will have the same freedoms as academies. But will they be autonomous?

24. The ongoing policy context
Over a period of 150 years our education system has changed from catering for an elite to universal compulsory schooling but it remains deeply segmented
The last two governments have further fragmented it by enforcing the rules of the market
Are new academies and free schools an interesting but - perhaps – foolish diversion or are they part of a calculated deconstruction of democratically managed public education?