We've been ruminating about education reform in the motherland recently, especially the ideas of the resurgent Tories and their plan for state-funded ?independent? schools. But as of this morning, the situation in Britain remains unclear. The Conservatives are ahead, for sure, but they failed to garner a majority in Parliament, meaning no party can form the next government. As punctuation to this situation, Labour Party leader Gordon Brown headed back to Downing Street this morning, reminding everyone he's still the PM in light of the hung election.
To be honest, I find the British electoral system incredibly confusing. Apparently, the next step now is for Labour or Conservatives to try to form a coalition government with the Liberal Dems. For education, that's gonna be mighty odd. Michael Gove, the Tory Shadow Secretary for Children, Schools and Families (aka the guy who would be the next ed secretary if the Tories come to power), has been leading the charge for a British form of charter schools, revamped testing, and higher teacher qualification requirements. We've weighed in on this most recently in the Gadfly here and here. (This shift has been a long time coming!) One thing is for sure: Neither Labour nor the Liberal Dems are on board with the Conservative plan for education. How are they going to compromise? I have no idea.
As for the Conservative plan itself, our main concern was that they were throwing over accountability for choice. After 15 years of a weak national curriculum, low national standards, and poor-quality national tests, the Tories want to give parents back some rights. Their frustration is totally reasonable (and sounds quite a bit like American frustration with NCLB), but since the U.S. is moving in the opposite direction?towards national standards, in the very least, and probably some kind of national or semi-national test?it begs a comparison. After reading the Conservative platform on education, though, I think I get it.
First, the Brits think about standards and curriculum in terms of comparability and commonness. We think (or at least we should be thinking) about the Common Core standards in terms of quality and rigor. In other words, where the Brits value having kids learn the same thing and to the same standard, we want kids to have higher, better standards. The commonality is a secondary issue, and it's become apparent that there are probably some?maybe even lots?of states who's current standards are as good, or even better, than the proposed CCSSI ones.
Secondly, there isn't much of an accountability system in the U.K. to begin with. So instead of the Brits really throwing over accountability for choice, they're just throwing over a pretty bad common system in favor of (hopefully) a better varied one. For example, I could find no evidence that bad teachers in the U.K. could lose their jobs, or that failing schools are shut down?or that there is any conversation about starting to do this. Those things are in the fledgling stages on this side of the pond, too, obviously, but at least we've acknowledged their necessity and are working on a way to operationalize them.
I am at a loss to explain what will happen in the British election going forward, but from an education perspective it sure is interesting. And if the Tories do manage to form the next government, I hope they consider sticking some accountability metrics on to their choice provisions. Choice alone is a weak lever for change. They've looked to the U.S. for our charter schools; we can help them think through the accountability stuff too.
?Stafford Palmieri
