The government's new white paper on education shows how Blairite development has shifted away from a managerial and auditing approach towards the micro-management of individual stakeholders within a system. Thus, a recognition of educational independence with the recognition of Majorism (who got there first and did it better) is accompanied by pressures to force parental conformity with the state.
The combination of an attempt to break local education authorities with greater emphasis on the need to engineer admissions policy through 'ability banding' :
Blairites see the white paper as the critical test of the government's radicalism, as well as Ms Kelly's readiness to introduce a diversity of suppliers into education. Ministers want to shift away from top-down, target-driven improvement to a more dynamic system in which a range of providers in effect compete for pupils, and offer a range of specialisms. The white paper has been coming under attack from traditionalists worried that local government is losing its role as an education provider, and from modernisers concerned that insufficiently clear mechanisms will exist to expand popular secondary schools. There are also political fears that proposals to ensure working class children gain access to popular schools populated by the middle class will prove unpopular and bureaucratic.
Schools would admit equal proportions of children from each band, ensuring an equal range of ability, and so encouraging greater social mobility. That in turn, Downing Street hopes, would ensure that choice becomes a reality for working class parents. The white paper is also expected to look at popular schools randomly allocating places through a ballot system. Working class parents will also be given advice on how to apply for popular schools, as well as some help with transport costs, in view of evidence that middle class parents are prepared to spend more to transport their children to good schools. Ministers hope the transformation of schools into those with specialisms in relatively poorer areas will make them more attractive to middle class parents.
Reports in the Sunday Telegraph portrayed this as a half-hearted response, since certain reforms on the admissions policy were rejected by the Cabinet. Compared to the overall package of reforms, moving the date on admissions does not appear to be a central plank of the white paper. It is easier to portray this as a recognition that Majorite reform of the public services was more appropriate and better implemented than this government.
Whilst the schools may acquire greater independence, this is counteracted by an overweening admissions policy geared to reduce the influence of middle-class parents through the policy of 'ability banding'. Admissions will allow local education authorities, now commissioning education, to maintain a stronger hold on the schools than the white paper anticipates. Their systematic failures will only demonstrate that the independence of schools works in tandem with the freedom of parental choice: vouchers.