With a general election campaign only months away, the political temperature is rising. A difficult time lies ahead for education, and especially for schools.
The early skirmishes in the education policy war started in July with the publication of the government's white paper – a programme of over fifty policies that touch almost every aspect of school life. Unlike the weather, education heated up in August with a string of Conservative announcements about exams and league tables.
Michael Gove indicated immediate support for the recommendations of his exams guru, Sir Richard Sykes, who stated that standards would be reinforced by changing league tables so that academic and vocational results are separately reported, 'hard' A levels are given greater weight than 'soft' subjects, and a points score will replace the proportion of 16 year olds gaining five high grade GCSE passes or equivalent.
The points score is supported by the Liberal Democrats and is also the main feature in the government's proposed school report card, so in this respect the parties agree.
In fact, there is quite a lot of agreement. All three parties want a 'world-class' education system, whatever that is. All want 'high standards'. All are happy to see the expansion of new routes into teaching, such as the highly successful Teach First programme. All want to reform school funding and introduce a fairer system for additional funding in disadvantaged areas. All see the need for reform of governing bodies. All recognise that assessment at age 11 needs reform. Labour and Tories both want to turn more secondary schools into academies.
Areas of disagreement exist, with the future of diplomas and vocational education the most important. The Conservatives say that they would abolish quangos, but it is not clear which ones, nor whether the work would be transferred to Westminster. The Tories would raise the standards of entry to teaching, while Labour and Liberal Democrats would have an entitlement to professional development and a licence to teach to ensure that teachers keep up to date.
The Liberal Democrats would create an Education Standards Authority and reform Ofsted, which is regarded as largely untouchable by the two bigger parties. Independent exclusion appeals panels would be abolished by the Tories.
School structures could change under the Conservatives, with primary academies and Swedish-style parent-run schools. Under Labour, we would see more federations, both primary and secondary, and more chains of schools.
As yet, there is no clarity on how cold the financial climate will be for the education service. On this topic, more than any other, we need pre-election clarity from all the parties as to where schools and colleges sit in the pecking order for increasingly scarce public funds. We cannot be expected to believe that efficiency savings are the whole answer.
The problem with this torrent of education policies is that politicians have to demonstrate what's wrong with the present system in order to argue that their policies will improve it. So schools and colleges are criticised for poor results and failing to narrow the gap between the best and the weakest. Indeed it sometimes feels as if the education service is expected to solve all the problems of society. We have an important part to play, but we can't do it all.
Eventually these policies go into a bill with debates in parliament, where parties outdo each other in describing not only the wisdom of their proposals but in their accounts of what's bad and why those policies are needed.
The teaching profession and the reputation of state schools inevitably suffer collateral damage. Yet the truth is that schools have done a good job; it's just not expedient for the politicians to say so.
The real problem is that we have too much education policy, too much political interference, and too many changes to implement in too short a time. I know plenty of teachers who will vote for the party that promises to do least.
What's needed, surely, is not an absence of policy – society and its expectations change, and so must the education service – but fewer, better policies, focused on what really matters: the quality of teaching and learning.
The least read section of July's white paper is the chapter describing the huge amount that has been achieved by schools since 1997. That should be the starting point for the 2009-10 political education debate.
Then perhaps we can have a policy framework based on evidence rather than theory. For example, politicians argue about whether whole books or phonics is the best way to teach reading, yet the evidence from brain research indicates clearly that both are needed. If education is to be a major political battleground this year, then the least we can ask of the politicians is that it is an evidence-based debate.
We can't keep education out of politics, but we can appeal for politics to be more rational in the way it discusses education.
Health has the authoritative voice of the chief medical officer, agriculture has the chief veterinary officer, science has the chief scientific officer and all these areas have a calmer, more evidence-based policy debate than education. Perhaps the electorate needs a similarly objective chief education officer to guide it through the policy swamp and be the professional voice in policy making?
Dr John Dunford is general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, and a NET Leading Thinker.
