6 - The effective school and the neoliberal project

Summary

‘Leaders are familiar with recent research relating to effective teaching and they regularly disseminate this information to staff via weekly briefings.’

‘Senior leaders’ strategies to improve the school are mostly well considered and rooted in research or compelling evidence’. (Short inspection of Corpus Christi Catholic College, 21 March 2019)

The central argument to be developed in this chapter is that there is a correspondence between the underpinning assumptions of much school effectiveness research and neoliberal education policy and practice. From the Ofsted point of view, one of the reasons why Corpus Christi Catholic College was judged to be good was that the school leaders are familiar with research into school effectiveness. School improvement and effectiveness research projects are rarely theory-driven. However, because researchers often view their role as facilitators of government policy, finding ways to help schools achieve government policy aims and objectives, the underpinning assumptions on which government policy is based are accepted and incorporated without challenge or critique.

Since 1979, government policy on education has been based on a set of neoliberal assumptions about the nature of inequality and the causes of educational underachievement. These assumptions drive and shape the research questions that school improvement and effectiveness researchers address. The assumption that educational underachievement is brought about by low learner expectations and low aspirations underpins research into how effective schools need to build the capacity to raise the expectations of learners and their teachers, rather than questioning the low aspiration assumption in the first instance. The assumption that learners in all but the most effective state schools lack the character of learners in fee-paying independent schools is reflected in research into the need to enhance learners’ social capital and for more character-building in schools. The assumption that poverty and inequality is not a factor in underachievement is also reflected in the research into how to enhance school capacity. While some openly accept and embrace a neoliberal view of the world, it is common for such assumptions to be accepted as the starting point in the formulation of research questions and the school improvement and effectiveness research agenda.