Trying before buying is a concept alien to New Labour. Whilst this government’s been in power, initiative after initiative has been rolled out without so much as a pilot study.
With education the centrepiece of the Blair project, schools have suffered particularly acutely. Here, with the u-turn virtually synonymous with education policy, not only have policies been implemented untested, they have also invariably focused on short-term goals, often at the expense of long-term benefits. Moreover, in order to guarantee headline coverage, these short-term strategies tend to be ‘innovative’, which by definition involves discarding anything tried and tested. Sure Start is a prime example. A nationwide equalising project had exactly the sort of historical potential Blair was looking for. As the Guardian commented in July 2000, “Sure Start could be what Tony Blair’s government is remembered for in the same way that Harold Wilson’s government is remembered for the Open University.” However unlike the design of the OU, Sure Start was rolled out at break-neck speed, with not a scrap of evidence showing it to be structurally sound. As the flaws now come rapidly to light, Sure Start is – rather more quietly – being restructured.
And it’s happened again with the government’s ‘irreversible’ reforms laid out in the latest white paper. (Only a government whose educational policy was quite so notorious for its u-turns would proudly declare their reforms ‘irreversible’).
This time, however, whilst Blair may not be interested in learning from experience, many in his party are. Both from within the party and from educationalists outside it, the proposed reforms have been subject to extensive criticism. As backbenchers plot tactics over the white paper, the Commons Education and Select Committee has announced that it will be carrying out a formal enquiry into it. Meanwhile, New Labour’s education policy has also come under fire from a body made up of 25 education experts, headed by Professor Richard Pring, at Oxford University. The committee’s accusation is that this government’s reforms are ‘not properly evaluated’, and based primarily on ‘political’ motives. This is the second time this year that the committee have accused the government’s education strategy of being ill planned. On the 14-19 reforms, the group described New Labour education policy as a ‘plethora of piecemeal policy initiatives that are not fully evaluated’, guided by ‘short-term political objectives’.
That it remains possible to implement education policy without evaluation is a great concern. After the January 2004 Commons’ debacle over university tuition fees, MPs were promised that policy proposals would in future be rigorously evidence-based, with a much stronger emphasis on the consultation process. Yet, MPs today argue that this has simply not been the case with the white paper. Brewing unrest on such matters, both in the party and in the teaching community, is putting Blair in an increasingly weak position. But more importantly, implementing untested education policies is gambling not only taxpayer’s money, but also our children’s life chances. In the cases where the DfES has conceded to having failed, policy u-turns have led to enormous disruption to learners and children, to the detriment of standards. Thus the evidence, not just common sense, suggest that testing must pre-empt investing.