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Outflanking all opposition, Fabian SidneyWebb’s vision of a ‘ladder of opportunity’ andthe making of a meritocracy that it encapsulateddo much to explain tensions in the currentprovision, with its roots in the hierarchy of valuesof Victorian administrators, founded in theirturn on the Aristotelian–Platonic philosophythey studied in public schools: ‘The world isgoing your way at present, Webb, but it is not theright way in the end,’ William Morris told Sidneyin 1895. 13There are different versions of the prescriptionfor the Good Society and prescriptions forrealising it. Morris and others felt that it wasnot wealth that civilisation had created butriches. Shocked by the social consequences ofindustrialisation, Morris’s dreams were of asocialist utopia that would provide for all itscitizens a free and full life, with pleasurableand useful work, a decent standard of living,and leisure for art and recreation. For Morris,education was a completely dominating centralconcern needed to prepare people both forsatisfying work and proper use of leisure. Incommon with Tawney after him, Morris insistedon equality of condition rather than equality ofopportunity.Tawney was politician and educationalreformer Shena D. Simon’s great politicalmentor. In common with Morris, Tawney andher son, Brian, Shena Simon was committed toa belief in human educability, an insistence onthe right of all human beings to develop theirintelligence and responsibility. While Tawneyadvocated ‘secondary schooling for all’ in the1920s, he assumed there would be different typesof schools. Shena Simon began arguing for acommon secondary schooling in the 1930s,optimistic that the common school could createsocial cohesion and provide the space in whicha democratic community could be attained.Against the grain of ideas of class power andclass disadvantage that dominated the left radicalagenda, she was also overtly feminist, promotingequal opportunities for women and girls. 14By the 1960s, the weight of support forcomprehensive schools grew out of the experienceof teachers, children and parents at the hands ofa divided education system, which not only failedhuge numbers of young people, but also restedon spurious educational thinking (to do withIQ testing) that was perceived as riddled withfailure. However, particular attention was paidto the structural framework of schooling that leftunanswered the question of what should be theguiding principle of comprehensive education.Equality of opportunity was conceptualised asgrammar school education for all or the searchfor new common principles and a distinctivecomprehensive learning programme. Weshould recall Bernard Barker’s advocacy thatthe ‘comprehensive experience’ ‘has to berescued from its own meritocratic assumptionsabout children and teaching before it can besaved from politicians, falling rolls or shrinkingfinances’. 15 Similarly, we should be in no doubtas to the nature and severity of the harm that willbe done to the education of current and futuregenerations by the model of higher educationof the Department for Business, Innovation andSkills, which may signal the return to a moreunequal distribution of cultural capital.Back to the futureTawney founded his conception of the GoodSociety on the principles of freedom, equality andsolidarity. Eighty years ago, he observed,‘The boys and girls of well-to-do parents…continue their education as a matter of course,not because they are exceptional, but because theyare normal and the question of the ‘profit’ theysucceed in deriving from it is left, quite rightly, tobe answered later. Working-class children havethe same needs to be met and the same powers tobe developed.’ 16Crucially, boys and girls are both much moresuccessful at school than in the 1920s and 1930swhen only one in five elementary school leaversreceived any kind of further education after14 years. If we move fast forward to judgethe comprehensive experience by the narrowcriterion of academic success, we find one in fivestudents gains at least one GCE A-level pass in1983, compared with one in seven who obtainedthis qualification during the 1960s. 17 However,when considering the life chances of all those whopass through the educational system, we shouldnot lose sight of the fact that young people from12 M. Vlaeminke, The EnglishHigher Grade Schools: A LostOpportunity, Woburn Press, 2000.13 R. Page Arnot, William Morris:The Man and the Myth, Lawrence& Wishart, 1964, p.108.14 J. Martin and J. Goodman,Women and Education, 1800–1980,Palgrave, 2004.15 B. Barker, Rescuing theComprehensive Experience, OpenUniversity Press, 1986, p.xvi.16 R.H. Tawney, Equality, UnwinBooks, 1931, p.143.17 C. Chitty (ed.), ‘The wayforward’, in C Chitty (ed.),Redefining the ComprehensiveExperience, Bedford Way Papers,1987, p.87.Education for the good society | 17
the poorest homes (as measured by eligibility forfree meals) still have fewer qualifications at GCSEand A-level. 18With this in mind, we need a demolitionof a simple idea of history as progress. Thereis constant movement. Clarification of thehistorical context and the prevailing ideologiesthat underpin education policy making continueto be framed as a necessary part of any responseto the call for a ‘serious utopianism’. We needto understand the diverse ideological origins ofthe Left oppositional tradition in state educationand ideologies of social action derived from thesesources. If we exclude them, we are not providinga comprehensive picture. Only then can we beginto examine competing conceptions of citizenship,in the sense of ‘crusading activist’, ‘entrepreneur’and ‘volunteer’, and to tease out conditionsthat facilitate or hinder translation of the GoodSociety into political practice.18 J. Shepherd, ‘Poor studentsfail to make the grade at A-level’,Guardian, 20 April 2010.18 | www.compassonline.org.uk
Page 1 and 2: Educationfor theGoodSocietyThe valu
Page 3 and 4: Acknowledgements:Compass would like
Page 5 and 6: ContributorsLisa Nandy is Labour MP
Page 7 and 8: IntroductionEducation for the Good
Page 9 and 10: 1 This article has been developedou
Page 11 and 12: 8 See Ann Hodgson, Ken Spoursand Ma
Page 13 and 14: 13 The most comprehensiverecent res
Page 15 and 16: 1 See for example B. Simon, ‘Cane
Page 17: 10 J. Martin, Making Socialists: Ma
Page 21 and 22: 1 In 2008, 15 per cent ofacademies
Page 23 and 24: 1 Angela McRobbie, The Aftermathof
Page 25 and 26: 8 Christine Skelton, Schooling theB
Page 27 and 28: 1 See www.education.gov.uk/b0065507
Page 29 and 30: 13 Barbara Fredrickson, ‘Therole
Page 31 and 32: 6. Education forsustainabilityTeres
Page 33 and 34: well as cognitively. Real understan
Page 35 and 36: 7. Schools fordemocracyMichael Fiel
Page 37 and 38: and joyful relations between person
Page 39 and 40: 8 Wilfred Carr and AnthonyHartnett,
Page 41 and 42: 1 Winston Churchill, quoted inNIACE
Page 43 and 44: 9 See http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/ed
Page 45 and 46: 1 The Learning Age: A Renaissancefo
Page 47 and 48: nities, and not have the public-pri
Page 49 and 50: 4 Engineering flexibility: a system
Page 51 and 52: other countries to require their re
Page 53 and 54: 6. Remember that many of the outcom
Page 55 and 56: 2 Adrian Elliott, State SchoolsSinc
Page 57 and 58: 4 Peter Hyman, ‘Fear on the front
Page 59 and 60: 12. Rethinking thecomprehensive ide
Page 61 and 62: training, be part of a local system
Page 64: About CompassCompass is the democra

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