Negotiating Neo liberal Education: Refraction, Resistance and Re-imagination

1. Negotiating Neo liberal Education: Refraction, Resistance and Re-imagination December 8th, University of Brighton Ivor Goodson, Professor of Learning Theory Tim Rudd, Principal Lecturer

3. Corporate Rule 1.Statement of Desired Objectives Defined by internal groups located in think-tanks, world bodies, corporate groups. Stressing economic competitiveness and issues of economy and neo-liberal restructuring. 2. Translation of Economic Objectives into ‘Educational Cover Story’ Instrumentalisation of value systems and promotion of market objectives within the educational domain.

4. 3. Delineation of ‘Rules of Operation’ for Education Commercialisation of school procedures and practices, stratification through differentiation . Stress of competitive exams and organisation of league tables. 4. Manipulation Mandatory legislation of economic objectives expressed as educational mechanisms. Moral panics encouraged in the corporate owned media about public education – progressive commercialisation of educational sectors, fees charged for profit schools. Corporate penetration of the schools and commercialisation of the curriculum (e.g. defining a common core in 48 of the States of the USA and their provision in textbooks by the corporate giant (Pearson)

5. Horizontal Refraction

7. Horizontal and Vertical Refraction

8. Personal Refraction

11. T.I.N.A and the Conspiracy Theorists Austerity policies in the ‘reconstituted’ neoliberal period - de-historicisation and presentation of a new ‘logic’ After almost 3 decades of neoliberal reforms in the schools sector, why have ‘standards’ in education both increased year on year - yet ultimately failed to improve? Why has the ‘crisis’ in education seemingly never gone away? Why, after 3 decades of reform focussing on externally imposed standards, measurements and tables do we have the worst crisis in teacher recruitment and retention? Why are we seeing similar reforms in the HE sector, and what are the likely outcomes?

12. The reconstituted neo liberal period:Academies and Free Schools • Decentralisation and a move away from local authority control • Development of an emphatic discourse of privatisation and marketisation (habituation) • Conversion of public services to private • Lacking widespread sectoral support • Lack of clear supporting evidence • Elsewhere - little evidence to substantiate claims for improved standards (Böhlmark& Lindahl 2008) • Evidence of impending crises (Green et al. 2016) • Impropriety by vested interests, surreptitious profit making, and even potentially fraudulent activity (See also Burns 2016; Philips (forthcoming) • Evidence of poorly performing academies, question marks over potential to raise attainment.

13. “An academy chain has been accused by Ofsted inspectors of not making enough progress, with warnings the quality of education for too many pupils is "not good enough". The E-Act trust runs 23 academies across England and the Ofsted report says pupils from "poor backgrounds do not do well enough" in its schools”. BBC 09/02/16 ‘Bradford Kings Science academy staff 'defrauded government‘ - The founder of a flagship free school and two staff members used government money intended to help set it up for their own ends, a court heard… SajidHussain Raza, 43, and Shabana Hussain, 40, are accused of paying grant funds into their bank accounts. BBC 21/06/16 An academy trust has paid out almost £700,000 over two years to a firm owned by its chief executive, Education Guardian can reveal… The payments are disclosed in annual accounts for Collective Spirit free school and Manchester Creative Studio – both owned by the Collective Spirit Multi-Academy Trust…Collective Spirit free school, established in 2013, was judged inadequate by Ofsted in June. Guardian 16/08/16 Perry Beeches Academy in Birmingham where the chief executive was paid a second salary through two separate companies. BBC 26/08/16 The Durand Academy Trust, which runs the school in Lambeth, has been told its funding would be ended after “repeated and significant breaches” of its agreement, and inability to cut ties with Sir Greg Martin, its former head teacher… who was knighted for services to education… At one point Martin was paid £160,000 a year as director of a leisure centre that rents property from the school, on top of receiving his £230,000 annual salary as head. Guardian 11/10/16 EDUCATION FREE FOR ALL: Outsourcing, contracts and conflicts of interest in the UK (Deborah Philips) in Rudd and Goodson. Negotiating Neoliberalism

14. Constructed ‘crises’ and questions: ‘The so called’ TEF and HE Bill Is there really a ‘crisis’ in HE warranting restructure and re-organisation? Is the TEF an adequate measure of excellence? If not, what might be its real purpose? The TEF lacks sectoral support, so why are Govt. and (some) Universities doggedly perusing it? The TEF is voluntary, and lacks support, so what is its real intended purpose? What might be the consequences for Universities with lesser ‘capitals’ of competing in a race they are unlikely to win – especially if the HE Bill intends to open up HE to the private sector? Has a TCI been undertaken?

15. HE Student Fees Students as consumers - Universities as producers and service providers Fundamental shifts in perceptions of what HE is for and types of practice occurring within it (for example (Bio) financialisation (cf. Downs; Edmond) and economic imperative Future employees (students) accruing significant debts to provide industry with skilled workforce. Notions of democracy and participation redefined in terms of consumer choice Increased ‘technicist’ objectification of teachers, students, curricula etc.

16. ‘Constructed ‘crises’ and questions Can excellence be captured by 22 ‘statement’ questions? Is this really a student voice activity? Is giving students (consumers) an opportunity to respond to this list of questions really “putting the learner at the heart of everything we do?” If the financial crisis really requires education to be restructured purely in terms of needs of economy – why are individuals now paying and going into significant debt to service the needs of economy? Are there new forms of finacialisation and bio-financialisation occurring as a result?

17. A Familiar Story of ‘Change’

18. Dehistoricisation?: The importance of historical context and analysis • Zinn (2007) - lack of a historical memory results in the facts of history being distorted or ignored to support discourse and interests of powerful • The key to finding creative, alternative futures may lie in the hidden histories of individual and collective resistance and compassion “If history is to be creative, to anticipate a possible future without denying the past, it should, I believe, emphasize new possibilities by disclosing those hidden episodes of the past when, even if in brief flashes, people showed their ability to resist, to join together, and occasionally to win. I am supposing, or perhaps only hoping, that our future may be found in the past’s fugitive moments of compassion rather than in its solid centuries of warfare”. (Zinn, 2007)

19. The Decline of Neoliberalism?

21. Internal educational change (Change Phase 1: 1960s and 1970s) In the 1970s, I developed a model of curriculum change that scrutinized the internal affairs of change which were set against the ‘external relations’ of change. For instance, I argued that secondary school subjects passed through four stages as changes were initiated (see Goodson 1995)

22. 1 ‘Invention’ or change formulation might come about from the ideas or activities of education groups, sometimes as a response to ‘climates of opinion’; or from inventions in the outside world (indirect external change forces); or in response to new intellectual directions and disciplines; or new school student demands (more direct internal change forces). The conceptualization of stages in this change theory drew a good deal on Bucher and Strauss’s work on how professions change. They had argued that new change formulations, ideas and inventions normally exist in several places over a period of time, but that only a few of these change formulations get adopted (Bucher and Strauss 1976: 19).

23. 2. ‘Promotion’ or change implementation occurred in school curricula, where new subjects were taken up by educator groups and promoted ‘where and when persons (became) interested in the new idea, not only as intellectual content, but also as a means of establishing a new intellectual identity and particularly a new occupational role’ (Ben-David and Collins 1966: 461). The response of science and mathematics teachers to computer technology is typical. In this stage, promotion of change arises from people’s perception of the possibilities of basic improvements in their occupational role and status.

24. 3. ‘Legislation’ or change policy establishment extends the scope and impact of change. While changes were most often formulated and initially implemented by internal educator groups, their establishment and financial underwriting required the support of external constituencies or policies (Meyer and Rowan 1978). Change legislation is associated with developing and maintaining such discourses or legitimating rhetorics which provide automatic support from external groups for the now appropriately labelled activity, whether it be ‘science’ or ‘SAT scores’.

25. 4. ‘Mythologization’ or permanent change institutionalizes the change in question. Once external automatic support has been achieved for a change category, a fairly wide variety of activities can be undertaken. The limits of action under the new change policy are only those activities that threaten the legitimating rhetoric and, hence, constituency support. Within these limits, changes are achieved and develop mythological, or taken-for-granted status. Essentially, this process represents granting a licence with the full force of the law and the ‘establishment’ behind it.

26. Interim Change Model 1. Change formulation. Educational changes are discussed in a variety of external arenas including business groups, associated think-tanks, new pressure groups like ‘standards mean business’, and a variety of relatively newly formed parental groups. Often these changes resemble world movements that can be traced back to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (Torres 2000). Much of the change is driven a belief in marketization of education and the delivery of educational services to parental ‘consumers’ who are free to choose and to bargain over their provision (Kenway 1993; Whitty 1997; Robertson 1998).

27. 2. Change promotion is handled in a similar fashion by external groups with varied internal involvement. As Reid has written: External forces and structures emerge, not merely as sources of ideas, promptings, inducements and constraints, but as definers and carriers of the categories of content, role and activity to which the practice of schools must approximate in order to attract support and legitimisation. (Reid 1984: 68)

28. 3. Change legislation provides the legal inducement for schools to follow externally mandated changes. In some countries, schools are evaluated by examination results (which are published in league tables). Measures also exist or are underway to link teachers’ pay to teachers’ performance in terms of students’ examination or test results (Menter et al. 1997). Such legislation leads to a new regime of schooling, but allows teachers to make some of their own responses in terms of pedagogy and professionalism. Overall, school change policy and curricula and assessment policy is thereby legislated, but some areas of professional autonomy and associated arenas for change can still be carved out. In certain countries (for example, Scandinavia), this is leading to progressive decentralization and a push for new professional autonomy. Again, the world movements for change are historically refracted by national systems.

29. 4. Change establishment. While external change has been established systematically and legally, the power resides mostly in the new categorical understandings of how schools operate — delivering mandated curriculum, being assessed and inspected, responding to choice and consumer demands (Hargreaves et al. 2001). Much of the marketization of schools is taken for granted now in many countries and, in that sense, has achieved mythological status.