The Perils of Policy (What we are failing to learn from the mistakes of others?)

A friend sent me this today. I have included only the conclusion of the address; (the full text can be found at http://www.primaryreview.org.uk/downloads/Alexander_Miegunyah_lecture_FINAL.pdf)…it all seems eerily familiar.

Miegunyah Distinguished Visiting Fellowship Program 2010
Public lecture, Wednesday 10 March 2010
THE PERILS OF POLICY
Success, amnesia and collateral damage in systemic educational reform
Robin Alexander University of Cambridge, UK

Conclusion

We reached this point via England’s experiment in systemic educational reform. This sought to raise standards in literacy and numeracy and thus propel England to the top of the league table of ‘world class’ education systems as defined by the criteria and methods of the international student achievement surveys. But, as we’ve seen, if it means anything at all, ‘world class’ is a highly questionable notion at the best of times and especially in a world in which human survival rests on international co-operation rather than national supremacy. And the abuse of the phrase ‘world class’ is symptomatic of that degrading of the language, vision and practice of education which seems to follow with awful inevitability when politicians cease to be content with providing a sound policy framework for the work of schools and seek to micro-manage not only what teachers do but also how they think.

The story from England is instructive but in no way is it edifying. In 2008, four eminent British educationists, one of them a university vice-chancellor - Professors Frank Coffield, Stephen Ball, Richard Taylor and Sir Peter Scott - wrote to The Independent, one of Britain’s most respected newspapers. They said:
We have the same objectives as the government in wanting to offer a first-class
education and training to all and, in particular, to narrow the attainment gap between the most and least advantaged. We have, however, become increasingly dismayed by ministers who are intent on permanent revolution in every aspect of the education system: in so acting, they demonstrate a deep lack of trust in the professional education community. It is not only the torrent of new policy that rains down on each sector, the constant changes in direction and the automatic rubbishing of any discomforting evidence by ministers: it’s also the failure of successive ministers to appreciate that reform has to be accompanied by continuity if the stability of our educational institutions and the high quality of their courses are to be preserved. We need a more consultative, democratic and inclusive way of developing and enacting policy for all the public services … We have come independently to the same conclusion, namely that government policy is no longer the solution to the difficulties we face but our greatest problem.

When I first read this, two years ago, I thought it was an over-harsh judgement which took insufficient account of the British government’s genuine achievements, and of just how difficult it is to effect real and lasting change in a complex field like education. But I and my colleagues at Cambridge and 20 other universities have now completed the biggest enquiry into English primary education for fifty years. We’ve studied a vast array of evidence, much of it dealing with recent policy. We’ve monitored the dubious trajectory of the recent standards drive. We’ve registered the questionable assumptions and assertions by which some policies have been informed, especially in the areas of curriculum, pedagogy, assessment, testing, standards, accountability, teacher education and school inspection, some
of which I have exemplified. We’ve noted the vacuous rhetoric surrounding the bid for ‘world class’ status, and the simplistic approach to international comparison, and I’ve illustrated that too. We’ve recorded the crude discourse by which policy is sometimes presented and the pre-emptive strikes against alternative views and unpalatable evidence. And we’ve noted government’s refusal to countenance any truth but its own, and its stubborn belief that it has nothing to learn except from those who tell it what it wants to hear. In the light of this experience, I am now inclined to agree with the authors of that letter to the Independent. Policy has become the problem.

I say nothing about how this tale might resonate in Australia. That is your business, not mine. Like the poet Wilfrid Owen, all I can do today is warn.

And if you come to England … wear a very hard hat.