Reflecting on a number of recent conversations with people in the education world I rediscover the importance of starting points in debate and just how much opportunity to improve a system is lost by failing to examine the premise.
The challenge is best illustrated by Andy Zaltzman joking about Brexit on BBC Radio 4's News Quiz recently
"Is reducing massively complex political and economic issues to oversimplified binary choices right or wrong?"
But this is not a blog about Brexit, I've done more than enough of them. It's about solving social problems and getting beyond everyone's initial endowment bias and confirmation bias - the entirely natural human traits or [1] overvaluing your own beliefs and ideas when compared to other people's and [2] tending to notice or even look for data that confirms your existing beliefs rather than challenge them.
What this means in practice is that we often start discussions in the wrong place. I start with my prejudice and lived experience and you start with yours and we take an average between the two positions and then have at each other. When this happens often, between lots of different people, we create argumentative habits. We repeat these short-cuts (or tropes) over and over again to the extent that they become worn paths in our minds and they prevent us from properly listening to each other.
One of them exists in the academy space and is a revisiting of the old Keynesian dilemma, can the private sector be trusted to deliver a public good? It's also known as the "Free rider" problem.
This plays out as follows:
A) Those who swing to the left:
There is no place for profit in education. Business can't be trusted to deliver for the vulnerable and the poor. Greedy fat cats will fill their own pockets and cut services siphoning money into offshore accounts and their friends' pockets. Those that most need support from the system will get none. Teachers will be forced to fill the gaps without proper funding or support.
B) Those who swing to the right:
How long can you keep pouring taxpayers' money down the drain without delivering any improvement? Government cannot be trusted to improve education because all civil servants do is create endless regulation and red tape that achieves nothing. If you want to improve outcomes all you need is robust accountability.
Group A see the academy sector as confirming all their worst fears about the sell off of public assets and the undermining of support to the needy. They see education being taken over by business people who know nothing about teaching. They see increasing high profile cases of misuse of funds as proof of endemic corruption and moral vacuum. They see Group B (and most of the academy sector) as heartless, greedy Neo-Cons.
Group B see the academy sector as a breath of fresh air bringing energy, conviction and purpose to a sector desperately in need of reinvigoration. They see long term under-performers leaping ahead and negative vested interests being challenged. They see group A (and most of the previous education sector) as moaning Marxists uninterested in children and pursuing their own narrow political aims.
Although both groups are partially right, they are also significantly wrong in what they chose to see. Consequently as their mistakes compound each other nearly all debate is in the wrong place. To whit:
Academies introduce profit to education:
No they don't. It is illegal for multi academy trusts to make a profit from their charitable work. They are also tightly bound to proving they spend public money properly
Business people who know nothing about education are taking over
No they aren't. The vast majority (probably >95%) of Trust Leaders are serving or former headteachers.
Some high profile cases of fraud are proof of systemic corruption
No they aren't. They are the product of a higher regulatory standard than that which exists in maintained schools. So more people get caught. This is evidence of system working not failing
Local authorities were failing children for too long
No they weren't. They were dealing with immensely complex issues at the same time as dealing with massive funding cuts.
Academy reforms have introduced freedom and energy to a stagnant sector
No they haven't. They have massively fragmented a sector that was largely successful (if inefficient in some areas). There is almost no freedom as the programme is excessively over-regulated due to the concerns of group A above
Academy reforms have led to significant improvements in long term under-performers
It is far too early to say whether the improvements delivered are sustainable or scalable or significantly above normal regression to the mean. There is some evidence that the sector has become marginally more efficient but most of the savings have been taking in reduced government spending rather than increase in performance.
The challenges are not addressed by Group A and Group B screaming at other across a divide. The system is much more complex than that. And if the last two years are anything to go by, the less politicians are involved in education the better.
