I'm going through a busy patch for the next few days so I'll leave out a
discussion of Hayek (save to say that he was a strong exponent of a
framework of just law within a country rather than a "moderate residue of
welfare paternalism") and confine myself to one point at the end, which
I'll bring forward.
(KH)
>>Fortunately, and at long last, the situation has now become so serious in
>>America and England . . .
(TW)
>At this point, Keith, I would like you to step back and take a look at the
>grammar of your sentence. Do you really mean to say that it is a good thing
>that things have gotten so bad? And is this really THE END ("at long last")?
I was aware of this when I wrote it. I was being partly whimsical. One
doesn't whether to laugh or cry at the tragedy that's taking place.
Actually, the situation in America and England are not quite the same.
Although both countries are suffering from a deteriorating state education
system (both probably about the worst in the western world) , the American
educational set-up is far less centralised than ours, so that their
experiments are much more varied and innovative than ours have been so far.
So there are probably going to be clearer outcomes and thus more
interesting (and effective) outcomes and solutions which (as you suggest in
your quote below) might indeed start to rescue the American system as a whole.
(TW)
>Unfortunately, as always, no matter how bad things get they can always get
>worse. Fortunately, things can also get better without getting worse first.
However, the English system is highly centralised, so the experiments will
be confused and interfered with because of political in-fighting within the
same Department of education (DoE), and many of them not allowed to run
their course -- as indeed, as already happened with several DoE initiatives
in recent years. Meanwhile, because of central control the whole system
will more systematically go to the dogs. Reform of the English education
system will need much more by way of catastrophe before real
experimentation can take place.
I've written about this before but let me summarise what has been
happening. Until a couple or so years ago, tens of thousands of the more
experienced teachers took early retirement mainly because of bureacratic
intereference in their methods. Meanwhile, quality and numerical
recruitment of graduates into teacher training colleges has declined
enormously. Today, a quarter of new teachers fail simple mathematical
tests which 16-year old children are expected to pass (and which were far
simpler than the typical school tests of the Victorian era). (Two or three
months ago it was decreed that these failed teachers would be tested four
times and if they still failed they would not be given certification. Last
week this was repealed because the DofE realised that too many more
teachers would be lost.) More recently there has been a surge of young
teachers leaving schools after a couple of years. The result of all this is
that, come September, nearly all secondary schools (for post 11-year
children) will be short of teachers, as also a great many primary schools
in the inner city areas. A proportion (perhaps as many as 10-15%) of will
have no permanent teachers at all (except perhaps the head teacher) and can
only use temporary teachers supplied by agencies on a daily basis. Normal
teacher-pupil relationships will have disappeared. Some schools are already
so desperate that they are now recruiting teachers from India, China and
Russia on yearly contracts.
What I am suggesting, and what will almost certainly turn out to be true
this coming September is that, for something like 25% of our primary and
secondary schools, the situation could hardly be any worse. It won't be the
collapse of the whole system -- not yet -- but will be a clear sign of the
beginning of the end. For a quarter of our schools the situation will be
close enough to catastrophe as regards any sensible management, guidance or
policy-making by the DoE. They are already in a vicious cycle from which
there's no escape. The government will simply have to give up any pretence
at knowing what it's doing. It will have to allow total self-management of
hundreds of schools and simply send them a cheque every month.
So although I don't really wish catastrophe to happen -- because a lot of
children will suffer for a while -- I'm afraid that this will be necessary
in order for real reforms to be allowed to happen within our highly
centralised system. And, of course, once self-management and the more
successful experiments start to emerge in the worst areas of our cities (as
they seem to be happening in some city charter schools in America) , you
can be certain that teachers and parents in the rest of the State system
will want the same freedom to run their own schools.
With luck we can then have the beginning of an educational system that
we'll be proud of and we won't have so many schools burned down by
disaffected pupils, or violent attacks on teachers or race riots in our
northern cities.
Keith Hudson
At 07:45 25/06/01 -0700, Tom Walker wrote:
>Keith wrote,
>
>>I am a not enamoured of your use of phrases such
>>as "Hayekian inspired nostalgia" and "neo-liberal resurgence" at the end of
>>your message because it means that you are putting up a division between
>>you and me. Such labels don't help useful discussion.
>
>Hayek's thought has a worthwhile and an indefensible side. His critique of
>statism (what he sees as socialism) is apt. But his escape-hatch
>prescription relies as much on state intervention to "dismantle" the state
>as it relies on an entirely one-sided appreciation of the glories of 19th
>century liberalism.
>
>There were positive aspects to 19th century liberalism but those positive
>aspects were themselves embedded in older, paternalistic institutions and
>traditions that both checked some of the more egregious tendencies and
>highlighted some of the more progressive aspects. In other words, liberal
>(in the 19th century, free market sense) is a relative term not an absolute.
>A more free market may well be an improvement over a less free market -- as
>well in a broader sphere than the narrowly economic -- but THE free market
>is a non sequitur.
>
>Hayek was intelligent enough to recognize the need for a moderate residue of
>welfare paternalism, but he seems to have assumed that it would be
>administered by philosopher kings rather than by bureaucrats playing to the
>peanut gallery, like anything else.
>
>Let's not overrate the uniqueness of Hayek's critique of "socialism",
>either. Friedrich Pollack and Max Horkheimer developed critiques of
>totalitarianism in the 1930s that became the basis for Frankfurt School
>critical theory. And, of course, George Orwell wrote novels on the theme
>(not the first, by any stretch). One could even speculate on the extent to
>which Frankfurt School cultural pessimism and Orwellian cynicism opened the
>doors for neo-liberal Pollyannaism.
>
>>It is not so much the closed minds of the educational boards and government
>>funding bodies that you ran up against that is the problem. It is their
>>very existence. There is no way that they can be reformed or their views
>>changed because they consider it axiomatic (and also by you, presumably)
>>that they are necessary. In truth, they have no real idea of what their
>>customers feel because they are too removed from them and never receive
>>direct feedback.
>
>You're right. If you take into account both the original disciplinary
>purpose of the institutions and compound that with the capture of the
>institutions by self-serving internal cliques, there's not a lot of hope for
>reform.
>
>>Fortunately, and at long last, the situation has now become so serious in
>>America and England . . .
>
>At this point, Keith, I would like you to step back and take a look at the
>grammar of your sentence. Do you really mean to say that it is a good thing
>that things have gotten so bad? And is this really THE END ("at long last")?
>My narrative policy analysis specializes in rooting out such garden-variety,
>idiomatic apocalypticisms. There's no such thing as just a teensy bit of
>apocalypse. A moderate, sensible-shoes, no free lunch, polite middle-class
>utopia (vouchers, charter schools) is no less a utopia than a rip-roaring,
>pull-out-all-the-stops revolutionary communist free-love and
>eat-all-you-want-without-getting-fat utopia (Summerhill, Illichian
>de-schooling).
>
>Unfortunately, as always, no matter how bad things get they can always get
>worse. Fortunately, things can also get better without getting worse first.
>What we need to do is free our thinking from the formulaic but strictly
>narrative consolations that close off the real possibilities.
>
>Tom Walker
>Bowen Island, BC
>604 947 2213
>
>
>
___________________________________________________________________
Keith Hudson, General Editor, Calus <http://www.calus.org>
6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England
Tel: +44 1225 312622; Fax: +44 1225 447727;
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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