Whose School is it Anyway?: Power and politics

169 Pages·1998·0.75 MB·English

by  Kathryn Riley

Whose School is it Anyway?
Educational Change and Development Series
Series Editors: Andy Hargreaves, Ontario Institute for Studies in
Education, Canada and
Ivor F Goodson, Warner Graduate School,
University of Rochester, USA and Centre for
Applied Research in Education, University of East
Anglia, Norwich, UK
Re-schooling Society
David Hartley
The Gender Politics of Educational Change
Amanda Datnow
The Rules of School Reform
Max Angus
Whose School is it Anyway? Power and Politics
Kathryn Riley
Whose School is it Anyway?
Kathryn A.Riley
UK Falmer Press, 1 Gunpowder Square, London, EC4A 3DE
USA Falmer Press, Taylor & Francis Inc., 1900 Frost Road, Suite 101,
Bristol, PA 19007
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004.
© K.A.Riley 1998
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored
in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without
permission in writing from the Publisher.
First published in 1998
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British
Library
ISBN 0-203-20927-3 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-26746-X (Adobe eReader Format)
ISBN 0 7507 07135 cased
ISBN 0 7507 06716 paper
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data are
available on request
Jacket design by Caroline Archer
Every effort has been made to contact copyright holders for their
permission to reprint material in this book. The publishers would
be grateful to hear from any copyright holder who is not here
acknowledged and will undertake to rectify any errors or omissions
in future editions of this book.
Contents
Preface and Acknowledgments vii
Part I Constructing the Reform Agenda 1
Chapter 1 Your School or Mine? 3
Chapter 2 The End of an Era 9
Chapter 3 William Tyndale Junior School 21
Chapter 4 The Fallout from Tyndale 42
Chapter 5 The Ruskin Speech—Setting a New Agenda? 56
Chapter 6 Thatcher’s Legacy: Blair’s New World 72
Part II Reconstructing the Reform Agenda for the
21st Century 89
Chapter 7 Whose School—The Local Authority’s or the
Governors’? 91
Chapter 8 Whose School—The Headteacher’s? 111
Chapter 9 Whose School—Teachers’, Pupils’ or Parents’? 125
Chapter 10 Whose School is it Anyway? It’s Ours 137
Appendix I List of interviewees 141
References 142
Index 153
v

Preface and Acknowledgments
If one is to believe in education at all, one must believe that something
worth doing can be done.
And if one is to believe in anything, one must believe in education…
The moral for the educator is to be more ambitious.
F.R.Leavis and Denys Thompson (1934, p. 4)
The Labour Government of 1997 has an historic opportunity to lay the
foundations of a new national education consensus, similar to that which
prevailed for some thirty years after the Second World War. This book
examines why that post-war consensus broke down in the mid-1970s,
and how in the 1980s, the Thatcherite revolution transformed the
educational landscape. It draws on a wide range of educational research
from around the world to examine questions which teachers and
educational reformers are struggling with in many countries besides the
UK. Both historical and contemporary events are used to reflect on some
of the possible elements of the new educational dispensation between
central and local government, teachers, governors, parents and pupils.
Some of the questions and events which I explore are, inevitably, those
which have interested me through my journey in education as a teacher,
elected local councillor, local government officer, governor, parent and
most recently as an academic researcher.
The book is not a polemic, nor is it prescriptive. But it poses many
of the questions and some of my answers to the issues of the day. It
represents a distillation of my work over recent years—work that has
been influenced by many people. There are those who I interviewed for
the book (see Appendix I). Conducting those interviews was a delight
and it gave me the opportunity to venture into unusual places—my thanks
to the interviewees, particularly Anne Page, for the extensive and rich
source material, and Fred Jarvis and Peter Newsam for pointing me in
the direction of a number of gems.
I would also like to thank my research colleagues at the Centre for
Educational Management at Roehampton, David Rowles and Jim
Docking, with support from lan Monk, and colleagues from Scotland,
Denmark and Australia who were part of the research team on school
leadership (see Chapter 8). Particular thanks go to Pat Mahony and John
vii
Preface and Acknowledgment
Denmark and Australia who were part of the research team on school
leadership (see Chapter 8). Particular thanks go to Pat Mahony and John
MacBeath. My work has also been influenced not just by the research I
have undertaken but by the experiences and challenges of many of those
teachers, headteachers, governors, pupils, LEA officers and politicians
who have taken part in the various projects. Thanks to them.
There are those who have contributed to my thinking over the years
and who also commented on this book. I would particularly like to thank
here Alan Ruby and Gerald Grace. I would also like to mention two
friends who died recently, Desmond Nuttall and Kieron Walsh. Both in
their different ways contributed to my thinking and development, as
have Margaret Sandra, Judy White, Tanya Arroba and Vivien Lowndes.
I would like to thank members of the Education Reform Group,
educationalists who always offer challenging thinking on new
developments in education, and those colleagues who attended the 1997
conference on teachers and professionalism (see Chapter 9).
Finally, I would also like thank my family—near and far—who
include my toughest critics and greatest supporters. My daughter Jo is a
constant reminder of the spirited questioning of young people. My mother,
Agnes Riley, was a teacher and although she died in 1988, she remains a
strong influence on me. She exemplified the commitment and passion
for teaching which today is so easily forgotten, and so rarely valued as
the mainspring of all educational success.
Kathryn Riley
January 1998
viii
Part I
Constructing the Reform Agenda