The Education Reform
Act 20 years on
Dylan Wiliam
www.dylanwiliam.net
Overview of presentation
The key components of the Education Reform Act
The two big myths about parental choice
The effects of “hyperaccountability”
Why this matters
The 1988 Education Reform Act
An extremely coherent piece of legislation
Main assumption: markets are the best way to improve schools
To create a market, you need:
Choice: parental choice
Accountability: formula funding
Diversity: grant-maintained schools, local management
Standardization: national curriculum
Information: national tests at 7, 11, 14 and 16
Apart from that, Mrs. Lincoln…
The potentially positive features of ERA…
National curriculum (the idea, not the particular curriculum)
Local management of schools
Formula funding (again, the idea, not the current policy)
…have been largely negated by tragic shortcomings
The myth of parental choice…
…fuelled by misleading information
How to judge school quality?
“There is always an easy solution to every human problem:
neat, plausible, and wrong.” (Mencken, 1917)
Raw outcome data
Useful when inputs are equal
Completely misleading when they are not (e.g., surgical survival rates)
Government schools
Obs er ved performance di fference
Government dependent private
Government independent private
0
20
40
60
80
Di fference after accounti ng for soci o-economi c backgr ound of students and schools
100
-150
-100
-50
0
50
100
Luxembourg
Japan
Italy
Switzerland
Finland
Denmark
Czech Republic
Sweden
Hungary
Austria
Portugal
United States
Netherlands
Slovak Republic
Korea
Ireland
Spain
Canada
Mexico
New Zealand
Germany
OECD
United Kingdom
OECD
Raw results vs. value-added
Examination success rates combine two effects
The quality of the teaching
The quality of the intake
The second dominates the first
Contextualized value-added (CVA) is by far the best measure of the
contribution that a school has made to the achievement of its students
Differences in CVA are often insignificant…
Middle 50%: differences not
significantly different from average
(Wilson & Piebalga, 2008)
…and are usually small
7% of the variability in secondary school GCSE grades are attributable
to the school
93% of the variability in secondary school GCSE grades are nothing to
do with the school
A student who gets eight grade Ds at an average school will get:
five Ds and three Cs at one of the best schools (1sd above mean CVA)
five Ds and three Es at one of the worst schools (1sd below mean CVA)
1.0
0.8
%
0.6
L
2
+
E
M
2
0.4
0
0
7
0.2
960
1000
1040
CVA
1080
…but some schools are amazingly good
Moreton Community School
%5A*-C
30%
CVA
1090
A student who gets eight Ds at an average school will get seven Bs and a C
here
The effects of
“hyperaccountability”
Effects of test preparation
Literacy
100
Proportion ac hieving level 4
90
Children receiving
1
2
3
years of the Literacy Strategy
80
B
B
B
B
B
2000
2001
2002
2003
B
B
2005
2006
B
B
70
B
B
60
B
50
B
40
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2004
2007
Numeracy
P ro p o rtio n a c h ie v e in g le v e l 4
100
Children receiving
90
1
2
2000
2001
3 years of the Numeracy Strategy
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
1994
1995
1996
1997
1998
1999
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008
Standards at key stage 2
KS2 attainment 1995-2007
100
90
% o f p u p ils a t le v e l 4
80
70
60
English
50
Maths
Science
40
30
20
10
0
1994
1996
1998
2000
2002
2004
2006
2008
20
20
06
05
04
3
2
1
0
9
8
/0
/0
/0
7
6
5
46
/0
/0
/0
/0
/9
/9
/0
02
01
00
99
98
03
20
20
20
20
20
19
19
97
6
75
/9
/9
95
96
19
19
19
P e rc e n t a g e a c h ie v in g
Standards at key stage 4
70
65
60
55
50
5 A*-C
45
5A*-C +EM
40
35
30
560
550
540
530
PIRLS
520
PISA(S)
PISA(M)
510
PISA(R )
TIMSS(M)
500
TIMSS(S)
490
480
470
460
95
96
97
98
99
00
01
02
03
04
05
06
Why does it matter?
The changing demand for skills (USA)
(Levy & Murnane, 2005)
Conclusion
Attempts by successive governments to raise student achievement
have
Produced only marginal improvements in student achievement…
…that are primarily in skills that are increasingly irrelevant in work…
…while performance on the skills that matter has declined…
…thus threatening our future prosperity…
…and alienating a generation of students.