Meeting Crosland’s equality challenge

7 September 2009

Anthony Crosland, in his seminal work The Future of Socialism, proposed a grand bargain for the left. We could accommodate markets and capitalism, if we reduced the impact of unequal power and wealth distribution through an excellent and fair education system. For Crosland, comprehensive schools replaced state control of industry as the main tool for meeting the traditional goals of the Left.

The stakes are therefore very high when we are talking about education. If our schools aren’t creating the conditions for greater equality, we open ourselves up to the charge of managing society rather than changing it; of failing to fulfil our side of Crosland’s bargain.

So what should a left wing approach to education look like today? At a high level we need to pursue a strategy that promotes a greater sharing of top educational outcomes amongst all children whilst acknowledging that the education system, like all public services, has to respond to the changes in society that have taken place since Crosland’s day.

More specifically the left should focus on a few key areas:

  • Firstly, we need to define the purpose of a school. A school should provide all children with the capabilities (and therefore freedom) to fulfil their aspirations, whatever they might be. This means schools need not only to teach kids to read , write and count but crucially how to learn so that they can excel in different environments throughout their life. Schools can equip children with these capabilities however they want and through whatever subjects they like, but they have to make sure that no pupil has any limitation on what they can learn next and therefore what they can achieve.
  • Secondly, our system as a whole needs to take full responsibility for getting these capabilities in place, particularly when families are falling short. So where a child is disadvantaged by virtue of poor parenting, the system has to step in with intensive and overwhelming support – regardless of the cost. If there are parents limiting the horizons of their children, we can have no time for worrying about the ‘overweening state’. The alternative is too stark: a conveyor belt of underachievement that recycles unfairness generation after generation.
  • Thirdly, we need to be radical in terms of our delivery models. If comprehensives, or academies, or trusts, or faith schools aren’t doing the job, they have to go. In the same way if teachers, teaching assistants and Headteachers aren’t doing their job, they have to go too. Mediocrity is not acceptable, this is just too important. Therefore we have to be prepared, intellectual and politically, to think about steps such as increased or decreased supply side reform, individual learning plans for all pupils and aggressive state intervention to address failure.
  • Fourthly, we must get past, once and for all, the false dichotomy between supporting either excellence or equity in pupil outcomes. It is individual pupil progress that counts rather than national basic standards or the number of Oxbridge graduates. If a pupil has the potential to get an A, but actually gets a B that is not good enough. Equally the pupil who gets a D, but had previously achieved an F, has shown that they have progressed at a fast rate and therefore have the capability to learn further. Schools should be judged on how far pupils progress not how many reach a certain level. And to support this we need a full range of courses and higher education institutions to match every learning aspiration. That includes renowned centres of academic and vocational excellence in addition to top quality institutions for all levels.

Now I am not sure what all this mean in terms of the politics and economics of our debate, but it certainly points to a need to think carefully when ring fencing budgets and setting priorities. If we leave education to wither on the vine we may be betraying the last fifty years of the revisionist left.

Oli de Botton is a former teacher, and Labour Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Hitchen and Harpenden.

1 Comment

One Response to “Meeting Crosland’s equality challenge”

  1. treborc
    September 15th, 2009 @ 12:58 pm

    We are going to hear the education education education shouted again, well the words coming back will be not again not again not again.

    Education is of course vital, f*cking about with childrens lives is not wanted.

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