The Education Reform Act 20 years on

Dylan Wiliam

www.dylanwiliam.net

Overview of presentationThe key components of the Education Reform ActThe two big myths about parental choiceThe effects of “hyperaccountability”Why this matters

The 1988 Education Reform ActAn extremely coherent piece of legislationMain assumption: markets are the best way to improve schoolsTo create a market, you need:Choice: parental choiceAccountability: formula fundingDiversity: grant-maintained schools, local managementStandardization: national curriculum Information: national tests at 7, 11, 14 and 16

Apart from that, Mrs. Lincoln…The potentially positive features of ERA…National curriculum (the idea, not the particular curriculum)Local management of schoolsFormula funding (again, the idea, not the current policy)

…have been largely negated by tragic shortcomingsThe myth of parental choice……fuelled by misleading information

How to judge school quality?“There is always an easy solution to every human problem:neat, plausible, and wrong.” (Mencken, 1917)

Raw outcome dataUseful when inputs are equalCompletely misleading when they are not (e.g., surgical survival rates)

0 20 40 60 80 100

LuxembourgJapanItaly

SwitzerlandFinland

DenmarkCzech Republic

SwedenHungaryAustriaPortugal

United StatesNetherlands

Slovak RepublicKorea

IrelandSpain

CanadaMexico

New ZealandGermany

OECDUnited Kingdom

Government schoolsGovernment dependent privateGovernment independent private

-150 -100 -50 0 50 100

Observed performance difference

Difference after accounting for socio-economic background of students and schools

OECD

Raw results vs. value-addedExamination success rates combine two effectsThe quality of the teachingThe quality of the intakeThe second dominates the first

Contextualized value-added (CVA) is by far the best measure of the contribution that a school has made to the achievement of its students

Differences in CVA are often insignificant…

(Wilson & Piebalga, 2008)

Middle 50%: differences notsignificantly different from

average

…and are usually small7% of the variability in secondary school GCSE grades are attributable to the school93% of the variability in secondary school GCSE grades are nothing to do with the school

A student who gets eight grade Ds at an average school will get: five Ds and three Cs at one of the best schools (1sd above mean CVA) five Ds and three Es at one of the worst schools (1sd below mean CVA)

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1.0

960 1000 1040 1080CVA

%L2+EM 2007

…but some schools are amazingly goodMoreton Community School%5A*-C 30%CVA 1090A student who gets eight Ds at an average school will get seven Bs and a C

here

The effects of “hyperaccountability”

Effects of test preparation

B

B

BB

B

B B B BB B B B

1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 200740

50

60

70

80

90

100

Children receiving

Literacy

years of the Literacy Strategy1 2 3

0102030405060708090

100

1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008

Proportion achieveing level 4

Numeracy

Children receiving years of the Numeracy Strategy1 2 3

Standards at key stage 2KS2 attainment 1995-2007

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 2004 2006 2008

% of pupils at level 4

EnglishMathsScience

Standards at key stage 4

303540455055606570

1995/961996/9751997/981998/991999/002000/012001/022002/032003/0462004/052005/062006/07

Percentage achieving

5 A*-C5A*-C +EM

460

470

480

490

500

510

520

530

540

550

560

95 96 97 98 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06

PIRLSPISA(S)PISA(M)PISA(R )TIMSS(M)TIMSS(S)

Why does it matter?

The changing demand for skills (USA)

(Levy & Murnane, 2005)

ConclusionAttempts by successive governments to raise student achievement have Produced only marginal improvements in student achievement……that are primarily in skills that are increasingly irrelevant in work……while performance on the skills that matter has declined……thus threatening our future prosperity……and alienating a generation of students.