Do politicians really make a difference to education?
Politicians do the most good by getting out of the way of teachers.
I read more of the discourse about the recent wave of riots around the UK than I should have. One thing that struck me about the commentary was the extent to which some people wanted to blame the riots on the current government, i.e. Keir Starmer’s Labour government. This seemed a bit much to me because, of course, that particular government was elected on 4 July 2024 and the riots started on 30 July 2024. People had many imaginative reasons to justify laying the blame where they did. There were people who:
blamed the riots on the Labour government that left office in 2010;
claimed that Labour MPs should have addressed the causes of the riots from their place on the opposition benches in the House of Commons;
claimed that the last Conservative government was just doing Labour’s bidding;
argued that the riots were a reaction to things they claimed (often inaccurately) that Keir Starmer had said.
It all seemed a bit desperate, and I recall similar silliness from commentators after previous changes in the party of government in 2010 and 1997.
Of course, at some point, we will have to blame Keir Starmer rather than his Tory predecessors for the nation’s mishaps and misfortunes. The interval in which politicians can blame their predecessors is finite. As I recall from the years after 1997 and 2010, some ministers seemed to take a very long time to shake off the mindset of opposition, and were slow to start taking responsibility for events. Eventually, it reaches a point when politicians have to stop claiming they have inherited a crisis, and start claiming “We did this, and we were right to do it”.
For instance, by the point the Tories left office, there was very little scope for claiming that any failings of the education system in England were down to “the blob” or “enemies of promise”. Tory ministers had shaped the system through their actions (or inaction) for fourteen years. Given that education has been one of the few areas where some genuine improvements were made, not all outgoing members of the last government will object to being held responsible for the state of our schools. However, I suspect they would prefer to receive credit for improved PISA scores and an end to grade inflation, rather than get the blame for crumbing buildings and a recruitment crisis.
Most discussion of the Tories’ education legacy focuses on two politicians: Michael Gove and Nick Gibb.1 This is strange given the sheer number of education ministers during the past fourteen years. There was considerable discussion of their achievements after Gove and Gibb announced their plans not to stand for election in 2024. I don’t want to go over everything they did, nor do I want to evaluate their contribution (although I think they deserve credit for several improvements). However, I would like to note certain ways in which I think schools have improved for the better. Prior to 2010, I experienced the following (and I have encountered plenty of teachers who had similar experiences):
Local Authorities successfully pressurising schools to have no permanent exclusions.
Local Authorities taking action against successful schools2.
Ofsted3 inspectors grading individual teachers and judging them harshly for not teaching in a progressive way or not using the latest gimmicks. Schools made huge efforts to ensure they were teaching in the “Ofsted” way, and consultants made a fortune from helping schools keep up.4
The GTC(E) producing propaganda about the correct, progressive, way to teach. 5
Exams getting easier, year after year.
Incentives for schools to push their weakest students onto worthless qualifications that could be passed by doing coursework.
GCSEs6 being manipulated by inappropriate help with “controlled assessments”.
Modular exams7 enabling pupils to improve their grades by constant resitting.
Secrecy about behaviour. It was simply not the done thing to admit that behaviour was an issue in schools and, even within schools, teachers were reminded that they can’t expect anything better from “kids like these”.
This isn’t meant to be a list of the worst things I experienced in the 00s, or even the worst policies. Some terrible 00s policies were reversed before 2010 (for example, Inclusion). Some difficulties have never been fixed (for example, teacher retention). Nor do I think these are necessarily the changes that politicians or policymakers would pick as their greatest achievements. I have selected these experiences because they are no longer part of my life as a teacher in England in the 2020s8. Some because they have stopped entirely; some because they have become much rarer, so I have been able to avoid them.
I think we can give politicians such as Gove and Gibb credit for the work they did to end or reduce the problems on my list. However, what intrigues me about these changes is the extent to which the solution in each case was the removal of a factor that got in the way of teaching. LA bureaucrats lost a lot of their power to interfere in schools. Progressive Ofsted inspectors lost some autonomy and, in many cases, their jobs. Incentives for gaming exams were removed and grade inflation was prevented. The GTC(E) was abolished. School leaders were much more explicit about behaviour (both as a problem and what should be done about it) because they no longer feared the LA and Ofsted would punish them for caring about school discipline.
These improvements happened because a difficulty that had been created by previous policymakers was removed. In some cases, new institutions and ways of working were created. However, the decisive change was in the incentives, powers, and institutions that had caused the problem. None of the issues I listed would have been problems if somebody hadn’t created them. Politicians and policymakers can make a difference to education, but much of the time they do harm. If they do make a positive change, it’s often because they undid the damage done by a previous politician or policymaker.
I think politicians can make a difference to education. However, I think they need to concentrate on removing obstacles to effective education. Assume that teachers and school leaders already have the answers, all they need is to be given the freedom to implement them and the removal of incentives to do a worse job. It’s not as simple as saying “don’t let politicians interfere in education”. Many of the difficulties were due to unelected policymakers, and politicians are well-placed to challenge the harm caused by bureaucrats. Nor is it as simple as saying “trust teachers and headteachers”. If you give teachers and leaders the wrong incentives or keep them ignorant about what works, they will do a bad job. Nevertheless, I think the highest priority for politicians and policymakers should be to protect schools from those who would get in their way. That is the route to improving schools.
Michael Gove was the first, and longest-serving, Secretary of State for education, in the period since 2010. Nick Gibb did several stints as the minister for schools.
Examples of the first two points can be found in this paid post:
The English schools inspectorate.
Feel free to search my old blog for various examples. Older posts will have the clearest examples.
The General Teaching Council of England was a professional and regulatory body that teachers were forced to join. It was abolished by Michael Gove.
GCSEs, taken at 16, are the most important exams in the English education system, and are sat by almost all pupils.
Instead of taking exams at the end of a GCSE course, modular exams enable pupils to take and retake exams covering part of the GCSE content throughout the course. These ceased to be popular after schools were told only the first attempt would count towards the school’s results.
The change was not immediate. Most of these issues continued into the 2010s.