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Education standards are a long-standing issue, although they have acquired greater significance in the USA and the UK over recent decades with the introduction of performance targets, audits and inspections, and public reporting of comparative results. In both countries, performance measurement has been a major driver of reform in schools themselves and in the supporting administration. In some jurisdictions, this has resulted in the involvement of private firms.
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| A Guide to School Choice Reforms (PDF) |
| Daisy Meyland-Smith & Natalie Evans, 2009 |
| Policy Exchange |
A new think tank report sets out a blueprint for expanding choice in the UK schools market, drawing on lessons from the introduction of school choice reforms in Sweden and the USA. The authors conclude that successful reform will mean combining elements from both the Swedish and US systems as well as further developing the UK academies programme. It echoes findings elsewhere that increasing the use of independent provision significantly raises standards. |
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| UK |
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| Academies Evaluation Fifth Annual Report (PDF) |
| Price Waterhouse Coopers (PwC), 2008 |
| Department for Children, Schools and Families |
Analysts PwC provide their fifth annual report assessing the achievements and shortcomings of the Academies model, including a series of recommendations for future improvements. |
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| UK |
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| Investment in School Facilities and PFI: Do They Play a Role in Educational Outcomes? (PDF) |
| KPMG Infrastructure Research, 2008 |
| KPMG |
| This study examines the impact of investment in school infrastructure, and the use of private finance, on educational outcomes. The authors find that increased investment in school buildings leads to improved attainment; this is perhaps not surprising. It is also claimed that educational attainment increases more following investment via PFI procurement than following investment via conventional procurement; however this result is not statistically significant and thus not a reliable indicator of future performance. |
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| Public Services at the Crossroads |
| Brooks, Richard (Ed.), 2007 |
| Institute for Public Policy Research (ippr) |
| This report argues that UK public services in 2007 are "at a crossroads" with a new government offering the opportunity to steer a new course in reform. It focuses on the health, education and criminal justice sectors to outline "a progressive agenda" in which social justice is placed at the heart of public service policy. It is cautiously optimistic about the role played by (quasi-)markets in public services, arguing that the principle reason for private and voluntary sector involvement "is not the inherent superiority of one type of provider over another, but rather the opportunity that such diversity offers to generate competitive pressure for improvement among providers from all sectors". |
| ISBN: 978-1-86030-315-9 |
| UK |
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| Standards and Structures (PDF) |
| Stephen, Martin, 2007 |
| Reform |
This essay assesses the standard of education in UK secondary schools and argues that it fails the majority of pupils. Dr Stephen makes a series of policy recommendations to reverse this trend, in particular focusing on the more integrated operation of public and private schools alongside one another.
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| UK |
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| Freeing Britain to Compete: Skills, Training, Science and Engineering (PDF) |
| Economic Competitiveness Policy Group, 2007 |
| Conservative Party |
| This chapter from the Conservative Party's competitiveness review argues for greater private-sector involvement in financing universities; and an overhaul of vocational training in the UK with a "demand-led system, served by a radically simpler funding architecture". |
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| UK |
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| Towards a Gold Standard for Craft: Guaranteeing Professional Apprenticeships (Web Page) |
| Hayes, John and Kelly, Scott, 2007 |
| Centre for Policy Studies |
| This report examines professional apprenticeships in the UK, evaluating how this long-established public-private partnership in education is faring in the 21st century. It finds that central government's top-down management is exacerbating systemic failure, and that a new employer-driven policy is necessary to ensure a higher number of students acquire a skilled craft. |
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| UK |
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| The Academies Programme (PDF) |
| National Audit Office (NAO), 2007 |
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| This report reviews the progress of the UK government's academies programme, an initiative whereby schools are funded with public money but operated independently of the local education authority. The NAO finds that although the full impact of these policies cannot be known for a number of years, most academies have made good progress in improving GCSE results as well as suggesting that they will deliver good value for money in the long run. |
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| Better Schools and More Social Mobility (Web Page) |
| Willetts, David, 2007 |
| Conservative Party |
This speech, first delivered to the CBI Conference on public service reform (May 2007), announced a step-change in the Conservative Party's approach to choice and selection in public education. It argues that self-governing state schools in a market with liberalised supply and intra-school streaming but not inter-school selection, is the efficacious route to an improved public education system.
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| UK |
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| Are We Being Serious About Apprenticeship? (PDF) |
| Steedman, Hilary, 2007 |
| Centre for the Economics of Education, London School of Economics |
| This report examines one of the oldest established types of public-private partnership in the education sector: the apprenticeship. In particular it seeks to compare the UK apprenticeship sector with those abroad, and finds that the UK remains distantly behind other nations in this policy area. |
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| UK |
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| The Corruption of the Curriculum |
| Furedi, Frank; Lawes, Shirley; Ledda, Michele; McGovern, Chris; Patterson, Simon; Perks, David; and Standish, Alex, 2007 |
| Civitas |
| This pamphlet argues that the politics of central government have corrupted education in the UK, creating a kind of 'education apartheid' between independent schools - which retain control over their syllabus - and government schools - which have little influence over what they can teach, and when. |
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| UK |
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| Has Labour Delivered on the Policy Priorities of 'Education, Education, Education'? (PDF) |
| Centre for Economic Performance (CEP), 2007 |
| CEP, London School of Economics |
| This policy analysis brief evaluates the education policy performance of the Labour government during its first ten years in power. It summarises the evidence on school standards, parental choice and staying on to draw implications for the future of the education sector in the UK. |
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| UK |
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| Ballots in School Admissions (PDF) |
| The Sutton Trust, 2007 |
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| The report from the Trust aims to create a clearer understanding of how ballot systems work in school admissions in the UK. Summarising some of the common characteristics of the scheme, the report also looks at case studies of other countries where the ballot system is already in existence. The main purpose of this report is to provide more information about the ballot system to allow for a more informed debate. |
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| UK |
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| Education Walsall (PDF) |
| Cranley, Gerald and Mathias, Megan, 2006 |
| Serco Institute |
| This case study examines the successful public-private partnering in provision of education services in Walsall, West Midlands. It identifies the factors which prompted Ofsted to declare the partnership responsible for one of the fastest ever improvements in education services in the UK. The authors find that the improvements are a direct result of a turnaround driven by the service company, but that these were achieved in partnership with stakeholders. |
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| UK |
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| Competitive Models to Restructure California's Lowest-Performing Schools (PDF) |
| Snell, Lisa, 2006 |
| Reason Foundation |
| This report examines low-performing schools in California, outlining several reforms designed to enable students to leave failing schools, thus forcing those schools to improve or close. It claims that school funding should follow each child to the school of their parents' choice, forcing schools to compete for students and money. Opponents will argue however that competition only thrives where there is high, symmetric information, - something rarely evidenced in the sector. |
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| USA |
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| Road Map to Reform: Education (PDF) |
| Stansfield, James (Ed.), 2006 |
| Adam Smith Institute (ASI) |
| This brief collection of papers makes three proposals to promote the right to choose within UK schooling. The first is that parents be entitled to remove their children from failing schools and place them in any other school (state or independent) instead. The second proposal is a Sweden-style universal user-choice system. And the third proposal is for a non-refundable tax credit to provide parents with a £-for-£ reduction in their income-tax liability (up to an agreed limit) for each child they have in non-state education. |
| ISBN 1-902737-52-0 |
| UK |
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| Charging Ahead? Spreading the Cost of Modern Public Services (Web Page) |
| Asato, Jessica (Ed.), 2006 |
| Social Market Foundation (SMF) |
| This collection of essays discusses whether there is a case for introducing or extending co-payments in UK public service provision. It considers the economic and political principles that underpin the use of co-payment in UK public services, and in particular the impact on equity. The potential for extending co-payment or introducing new charges is investigated in three sectors: health, higher education and local government. The full publication can be downloaded via this web page link. |
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| UK |
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| Competition, Choice and Pupil Achievement (PDF) |
| Gibbons, Stephen; Machin, Stephen; Silva, Olmo, 2006 |
| Centre for the Economics of Education (CEE) |
| This CEE study analyses the empirical foundation for claims that educational standards rise with increased choice and competition amongst primary schools on the south east of England. The authors make a number of key conclusion, including that on balance choice and competition have limited impact on educational standards. |
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| UK |
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| Faith Primary Schools: Better Schools or Better Pupils? (PDF) |
| Gibbons, Stephen and Silva, Olmo, 2006 |
| Centre for Economic Performance (CEP), London School of Economics |
| Advocates of autonomy in selection argue that faith schools typically out-perform secular state primaries on pupil performance. This research questions the received wisdom by controlling for types of selection which favour academically strong pupils - and finding that there are then no observable differences in performances between faith schools and secular state primaries. |
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| UK |
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| Education Policy in the UK (PDF) |
| Machin, Stephen and Vignoles, Anna, 2006 |
| Centre for the Economics of Education, London School of Economics |
| This article reviews the empirical evidence measuring the impact of major education reforms in the post-war period. These include low and apparently falling achievement levels, low staying-on rate at age 16, internationally uncompetitive skills base of UK populace and persistent inequalities in higher education. |
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| UK |
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| School Admissions in the United States: Policy, Research and Practice (PDF) |
| Hillman, Josh, 2006 |
| Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) |
| This paper collates and analyses evidence from research and practice in the US education sector with a view to informing the UK's school admissions debate. The author outlines US admissions policy and identifies three key policy drivers at play: the desire to create neighbourhood schools, intake balancing, and parental school choice and differentiation. The paper can be downloaded for free via the above link. |
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| UK |
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| The Educational Impact of Parental Choice and School Competition (PDF) |
| Gibbons, Stephen; Machin, Stephen; Silva, Olmo, 2006 |
| Centre for the Economics for Education (CEE) |
| This brief article summarises a series of research papers from the CEE. The authors have undertaken to measure the impact of expanding choice and competition on educational standards. They find that there is little causal link between greater choice and greater educational attainment, suggesting that either families are either not exercising choice or that the choices offer negligible academic benefits. Additionally they do find increased inequalities arising from increased competition. However, defenders of choice will counter that the markets in question are neither sufficiently mature nor sufficiently open to be considered a viable test case for choice in education. |
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| UK |
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| To the Point: A Blueprint for Good Targets (PDF) |
| Targets Commission, 2005 |
| Social Market Foundation (SMF) |
| This is a summary of a report into the Government's use of targets in four public service sectors: education, health, housing and criminal justice. It concludes that as a rule, observed empirical failures have been the result of specific design problems and not intrinsic; thus targets ought not be abandoned as a policy tool. Rather, well-designed targets can be a very useful tool in improving performance - and particularly when other forms of service improvement such as user choice are absent. The report concludes with a range of practical proposals to improve target-design in future. |
| ISBN 1-90489931-5 |
| UK |
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| Higher Standards Better Schools For All (PDF) |
| Department for Education and Skills, 2005 |
| The Stationery Office |
| This White Paper sets out the Labour Government's plans to "place parents and the needs of their children at the heart of the school system". By enabling schools to become self-governing trusts, it aspires to a system of independent, non-fee paying state schools driven to improve by the ease with which customers can go elsewhere, and new providers can enter the market. |
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| UK |
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| What's the Good of Education? (PDF) |
| Machin, Stephen and Vignoles, Anna, 2005 |
| Centre for the Economics of Education (CEE) |
| This article discusses the economic value of investments in education made by individuals, firms and governments. In particular it focuses on the need for reliable empirical evidence on the diverse set of issues about school effectiveness, higher education funding and vocational study if educational standards are to be raised in a meaningful way. |
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| UK |
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| Skills and Sustainable Welfare-to-Work (PDF) |
| Mansour, Jane , 2005 |
| Work Directions |
| This paper argues that welfare-to-work interventions need to accept the skills challenge to ensure that work is a sustainable solution by raising training standards with long-term prospects of retention and progression. |
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| UK |
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| Public Expenditure on Education and Skills (PDF) |
| The Education and Skills Committee, 2005 |
| The Stationery Office |
| This report recommends that the government take care in making claims about the effectiveness of increased investment in education because links between expenditure and outcomes remain difficult to establish. |
| HC 168 |
| UK |
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| Department for Education and Skills Departmental Report 2004 (PDF) |
| Department for Education and Skills (DFES), 2004 |
| The Stationery Office |
| This report sets out the Government's Expenditure Plans for the Department of Education and Skills based on the resources allocated in the Spending Review 2002. Of particular interest is the performance against Public Service Agreement (PSA) targets. |
| Cm 6202 |
| UK |
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| Hands Up For School Choice! (PDF) |
| Hockley, Tony, and Nieto, Daniel, 2004 |
| Policy Exchange & Localis |
| This report from the Policy Exchange reviews evidence from around the world on choice-provision in the education market, seeking to devise ways in which school voucher schemes might be expanded in the UK. The study includes both the short-lived nursery vouchers in the UK in 1996/7 and much larger school choice in Sweden, the Netherlands and several American states. |
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| UK |
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| The Work of Ofsted (PDF) |
| The Education and Skills Committee, 2004 |
| The Stationery Office |
| This report examines whether Ofsted's role and remit should be re-evaluated, and whether its inspections represent good value for money. |
| HC 426 |
| UK |
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| Schools Admissions (Web Page) |
| Haddad, Moussa (Ed.), 2004 |
| Social Market Foundation (SMF) |
| This report proposes ballots as a means of allocating places in oversubscribed schools. In addition to eliminating the 'postcode premium' phenomenon in education services, it is argued that this would force schools to concentrate on improving standards in order to achieve good results, rather than relying on the quality of their intake. The full report can be downloaded via this web page link. |
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| UK |
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| Evaluating the Effectiveness of Specialist Schools (PDF) |
| Levacic, Rosalind and Jenkins, Andrew, 2004 |
| Centre for the Economics of Education, London School of Economics |
| This paper summarises past data and makes its own investigation into the effectiveness of specialist schools in raising the standard of educational attainment in the UK. While significant effects are identified, overall the superior effects of specialist schools are modest in size and vary significantly across specialisms. |
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| UK |
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| Delivering Better Education (PDF) |
| Tooley, James, Dixon, Pauline and Stansfield, James, 2003 |
| Adam Smith Institute |
| This report formed part of the Adam Smith Institute's 'Better Education Project'. It shows the practical benefits that education choice has brought in other countries, demonstrating how the same choice and competition that are already improving school standards in disadvantaged communities are applicable to the UK. Nations studied include the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Hong Kong, the United States and Canada.
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| UK |
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| Educational Action Zones and Excellence in Cities |
| Bell, D. , 2003 |
| Educational Review, vol.17 no.1, 2003, pp.11-15 |
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| UK |
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| Learning From Europe: The Dutch and Danish School Systems (PDF) |
| Justesen, Mogens Kamp, 2002 |
| Adam Smith Institute |
| This report formed part of the Adam Smith Institute's 'Better Education Project'. It covers primary and secondary education in the Netherlands and Denmark, demonstrating how these two nations' systems have established independent provision in harmony with parental choice and government funding. |
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| UK |
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| Access to Achievement (PDF) |
| Lambert, Chris, 2002 |
| Adam Smith Institute (ASI) |
| This report argues for a new education system in the UK. It outlines a vision for a system which supports parents' freedom to identify the appropriate school for their children's abilities and needs so that non-state education becomes accessible to all. |
| ISBN 1-902737-30-X |
| UK |
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| Customers not Bureaucrats (PDF) |
| Pollard, Stephen, 2002 |
| Adam Smith Institute (ASI) |
| This discussion paper argues that in value for money terms, when all bureaucratic costs are taken into account, state education is more expensive than private education because too much of the budget is wasted on inappropriate spending by distant officials. The author therefore argues for devolution of the budget to front line managers to raise the standard of education through consumer-power. |
| ISBN 1-902737-39-3 |
| UK |
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| Report on Government Services 2002 - Part B: Education (PDF) |
| Australian Government Productivity Commission, 2002 |
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| This report was produced by the Steering Committee for the Review of Commonwealth/State Service Provision (SCRCSSP). Part B: Education covers future directions in performance reporting, framework of performance indicators, and key performance-indicator results. |
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| Australia |
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| Professionalism and Trust - The Future of Teachers and Teaching (Web Page) |
| Morris, Estelle, 2001 |
| Social Market Foundation (SMF) |
| This pamphlet outlines a Department for Education and Skills strategy to put education professionals at the heart of reform in this sector. Given the importance of teachers and support staff not only to school standards but wider society, this strategy attempts to establish their organisation, management, support and reward at the centre of future policy. In doing so, it stresses the importance of agent freedom, innovation and ethos. The full report can be downloaded via this web page link. |
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| UK |
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| The New Shape of Public Services Volume I: Health and Education (PDF) |
| Butler, Eamonn and Pirie, Madsen, 2001 |
| Adam Smith Institute (ASI) |
| This report outlines a new vision for the NHS and state education, aiming to make both markets more innovative and consumer-focused. "Free-standing, self-owned and independent" providers would manage their own budgets and set their own policy and priorities. Driven by the demands of their customers, public services would utilise this autonomy to improve quality and efficiency. |
| ISBN 1-902737-23-7 |
| UK |
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| A Class Act (PDF) |
| Pollard, Stephen, 2001 |
| Adam Smith Institute (ASI) |
| This discussion paper argues that all UK state schools could become independent, citing examples where the "public funding, private provision" model has been successsfully rolled out. These include charter schools in the USA and New Zealand. It concludes that equality and educational standards would both rise if the government stopped running schools and paid others to do it instead. |
| 1-902737-22-9 |
| UK |
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| Buying Power: the role of the private sector in education action zones |
| Hallgarten, Joe and Watling, Rob, 2001 |
| School leadership and management, vol.21, no.2, pp.143-158 |
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| UK |
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| Schools - Achieving Success (PDF) |
| Department for Education and Skills (DfES), 2001 |
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| Recommendations in this landmark White Paper for reform of secondary education in the UK include delivering high minimum standards and encouraging innovation. |
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| UK |
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| UK Local Action Zones and Changing Urban Governance |
| Painter, C. and Clarence, E, 2001 |
| Urban Studies vol.38, no.8, Jul 2001, pp.1215-32 |
| This article deals with the UK's Education and Health Action Zones in the context of both New Labour's 'modernising' agenda and academic literature on such area-based partnership programmes. It finds that there are as-yet-unresolved tensions between political pressure for fast results and the necessarily long-term collaborative infrastructure. |
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| UK |
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| Education Action Zones: Partnership is No Panacea for Progress |
| Easen, P. , 2000 |
| Westminster Studies in Education, vol.23, 2000, pp.55-69. |
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| UK |
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| The Role of Private Sector Organisations in Public Education (Web Page) |
| Education and Employment Committee, 2000 |
| The Stationery Office |
| 7th report of Session 1999-00 HC118
Focusses specifically on the management of state-funded education services by private sector organisations, and on the principles which the Committee believe should underpin partnership between public and private sectors in education. |
| HC 118 |
| UK |
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| Implementing Reforms in Government Services 1998 (PDF) |
| Steering Committee for the Review of Commonwealth/State Service Provision (SCRCSSP)., 1998 |
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| Includes case studies of recent reforms in different government service areas in four jurisdictions: education; health; disability services; and courts. |
| ISBN: 0 646 33564 2 |
| Australia |
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| What A Performance: Performance Related Pay In The Public Services (PDF) |
| French, Stephen; Marsden, David, 1998 |
| Centre for Economic Performance, London School of Economics |
| This report is among the earliest studies to examine performance-related pay schemes in the public services. It examines data from the Inland Revenue, the Employment Service, NHS Trust Hospitals and Head Teachers and finds that while performance-related pay can increase productivity it can also foster distrust and feelings of injustice among workers. |
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| UK |
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