The Politics Of Excellence And Choice In Education

Reveals all the politics & personal agendas that dictate who has been awarded the Prize, & just as importantly, who has not. Published in conjunction with the 100th anniversary of the Prizes.

This book critically analyses the current education political strategy of cultivating excellence in education. It shows how the new policy for selecting talented students in Denmark deconstructs the compromise from which the comprehensive school was built and reduces equal opportunities. It discusses how the current practice of measurement, selection and guidance of talented students brings about significant changes in education policies, in pedagogic practices, a restructuring of school organisations, and changed requirements of teachers. It explains how the internal differentiation of education systems based on self-selection and free choice, but also on new assessment techniques, tends to widen the inequality gap between students. The analysis clearly shows the relationship between the circulation of new ideas and normative frameworks at international level, and their transfer into national policies, while situating these developments in a socio-historical perspective. The book illustrates by means of a concrete case study with important empirical data that demonstrate the reality and influence of this new policy on the day-to-day work of teachers.

This volume of essays examines the empirical evidence on school choice in different countries across Europe, North America, sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. It demonstrates the advantages which choice offers in different institutional contexts, whether it be Free Schools in the UK, voucher systems in Sweden or private-proprietor schools for low-income families in Liberia. Everywhere experience suggests that parents are ‘active choosers’: they make rational and considered decisions, drawing on available evidence and responding to incentives which vary from context to context. Government educators frequently downplay the importance of choice and try to constrain the options parents have. But they face increasing resistance: the evidence is that informed parents drive improvements in school quality. Where state education in some developing countries is particularly bad, private bottom-up provision is preferred even though it costs parents money which they can ill-afford. This book is both a collection of inspiring case studies and a call to action.

Advocates of market-based education reforms (including such policies as choice, charters, vouchers, and outright privatization) argue that they represent ready solutions to clearly defined problems. Critics of market models, on the other hand, argue that these reforms misperceive the purposes of public education and threaten its democratic ethos. This book explores both the promises and pitfalls of market forces—their potential to improve the quality of public education and their compatibility with its republican justifications. Smith argues that although market models of education are not without utilitarian merit, their potential to alter the social-democratic purposes of education is seriously underestimated. He supports this claim with a series of sophisticated analyses of the key assumptions underlying these models, and by examining the normative elements of theory and methodology that can—and often do—skew empirical policy analysis toward market preferences. He concludes that market reforms are not just a ready means to effectively address the problems of public schooling but rather represent a clear attempt to ideologically redefine its ends.