EDUCATION FOR THE GOOD SOCIETY - Support

1 This article has been developedout of an initial statement‘Education for the Good Society’(February 2011), which hasprovided a reference point for theCompass Education Group and itsGood Society project.2 The vision of a comprehensivesystem is now being revisited. Seefor example, Michael Fielding’seditorial in the spring 2011 editionof Forum, ‘A comprehensivecurriculum: reaffirmation andrenewal’, Forum, 53(1), pp.3–9.3 For recent critiques ofpoliticised policy-making ineducation see, for example,David Raffe and Ken Spours,Policy-Making and Policy Learningin 14–19 Education, Bedford WayPapers, 2007, and Richard Pringet al., Education for All, Routledge,2009.4 Michael Gove, ‘What iseducation for?’, speech to theRSA, 30 June 2009.1. Education forthe Good Society:The values and principlesof a new comprehensivevisionNeal Lawson and Ken SpoursWhy this debate and why now?The Left has suffered a huge defeat. No not thedefeat and the election of the Conservative-ledCoalition Government in 2010 but the intellectualand hegemonic defeat of over 30 years ago.That defeat transformed education into a battlegroundfor the soul of our young people andtheir teachers and parents. What sort of peopledo we as a society want to create? What is ourvision of humanity? In the face of such immensequestions and the onslaughts of the Right, theLeft crumbled. New Labour did some goodthings about school investment and standards,but its purpose was almost entirely neo-liberal– to better create a workforce fit for free marketfundamentalism. This enlightened neo-liberalapproach was better than its crude Thatcheritealternative, but has allowed Gove and Cameronto slip into its jet stream and continue the samelineage of reforms based on break-up, individualisationand commercialisation. While thesereforms need to be fought and resisted there is adeeper struggle to be engaged in. The Right wonbecause they dared to dream of a different world– and they made their dream a reality. The Leftwill only set the terms of debate again once wehave a vision of the world we want to create andunderstand the role of education in pre-figuring,making and sustaining that world. This is theGood Society project. 1Arguably the greatest problem arising fromthat hegemonic defeat has been the narrowingof a vision of education and a disconnectionbetween much of professional and popularopinion. This is despite the fact that we nowknow more about how people learn and increasinglyappreciate the relationship between widerfactors in the economy and society and theexperience of education. It is interesting tocompare people’s attitudes towards health andeducation. The National Health Service remainssacred to the public despite repeated assaultsfrom the Right, because of the compelling visionof free health care, regardless of waiting lists,rationing and persistent inequalities. Educationin England, on the other hand, never had its1948 moment, nor did ever really experience agolden age that captured the public imagination.The comprehensive school movement remainedunderdeveloped, despite islands of inspirationin Leicestershire, Oxford or the Inner LondonEducation Authority, and the idea of an inclusiveand comprehensive curriculum and qualificationssystem did not emerge until the 1990s. 2Instead, education became increasingly associatedwith the search for social advantage anddivisions deepened, even though the educationsystem expanded and became better resourced.At the centre of this ‘modernisation’ was arestrictive vision of education and a loss ofoptimism, a process that began in the mid-1970sand continued under Thatcherism, New Labourand now the Coalition.The concept of education for the GoodSociety is an attempt to address the crisis ofeducational vision. This is not the first attempt– many others have tried before. However,looking across Left interventions it is possibleto see negativity, where a positive vision ofeducation has become subordinate to a fear ofthe adversary. As the Right advanced its agenda,so the Left’s vision of education also appeared tonarrow, often retreating into a set of apprehensionsabout unequal outcomes as a result of thevery successes of neo-liberalism. Furthermore,New Labour did not help. It adopted much ofthe tone of neo-liberal thinking and conductedan extremely complex educational policyin a top-down and politicised way. 3 As the2010 general election approached, it was theRight that came to talk in more positive termsabout change, taking command of key termsconcerning rigour, knowledge, freedom andinnovation. Michael Gove, Secretary of State forEducation, has taken this ideological offensiveto a new level. 48 | www.compassonline.org.uk