This paper explores the relationship between changing forms of the governance of education and the growth and uses of data in the context of England – a context that can be described as the most ‘advanced’ in Europe in terms of data production and use. The paper links the shifting relations between the central department of education (variously known between the 1980s and the time of writing as the Department of Education and Science [DES], Department for Education and Skills [DfES] and the Department for Children, Schools and Families [DCSF]), the local education authorities and the schools to the growth and development of data‐based systems of inspection and performance management, and suggests that the massive growth of data has unbalanced the relations of governing and created highly centralised system steering. Recent attempts to ‘rebalance’ steering through ‘intelligent accountability’ invoke network principles and self‐regulation through self‐evaluation, and thus give the appearance of deregulation...

Governing education through data in England: from regulation to self‐evaluation

The 1988 Education Reform Act sought to deconstruct the framework of post-Second World War social democratic governance and replace the tacit rule of professional providers with mechanisms of choic...

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The Changing Governance of Education

Theorising Education Policy

(1988). From 1944 to 1988: Education, citizenship and democracy. Local Government Studies: Vol. 14, The Education Reform Bill, pp. 1-19.

From 1944 to 1988: Education, citizenship and democracy

This paper draws on an on‐going research project on ‘Elites in Education Policy‐making’ supported by the Open University's Research Committee. A major aim of the project is to critically evaluate the post‐war ‘partnership’ between LEAs, teachers and the Ministry of Education/Department of Education and Science. A critical re‐assessment of partnership, it is suggested, has implications for the pluralist analysis of policy‐making on which it draws. The paper critically reviews pluralist approaches, and, drawing on evidence from interviews and archive sources, outlines an approach which is historically grounded and state‐centred.

Partnership, pluralism and education policy: a reassessment

Any educational service is provided through a large number of separated institutions and many decisions are necessarily taken by individual schools, and, indeed, by individual teachers. However, these day-to-day decisions are taken within a framework laid down elsewhere. Power and responsibility in an educational system relate chiefly to the extent and nature of the resources provided, the curriculum and teaching methods, the character and purpose of individual institutions and the internal organization of those institutions. Significant decisions may be taken at national, state, local authority and individual school levels. Cutting across such patterns are employer-employee relationships and agreements negotiated with trade unions. The system of governance and administration of schools in England is seen as “a triangle of tension”, the three points being central government, local government and individual schools. Reference is made to patterns of curriculum, examinations, supervision and finance, the English approach being compared with practices elsewhere. It is argued that within the constraints imposed by the controlling authority individual schools shouls possess a great deal of flexibility in making their own decisions, including questions of student-staff ratios, allocation of teachers and expenditure of finance. Power and responsibility should not be divorced, but related; this is the logical development of a system of distributed administration.

E. W. H. Briault

Papers

A Distributed System of Educational Administration: An International Viewpoint.