Although no one voted for it, and there have been no street-campaigns demanding it, education in England has been systematically defunded in a comparative sense over the last 20 years under all shades of government.
Twenty years ago, Britain devoted the same share of national wealth to funding education as to healthcare. Today, total health spending is roughly double the education budget. Writing in The Times, James Kirkup, Director of the social market foundation, says: "voters don’t seem to mind, or notice". Maybe they don't seem to mind because they haven't noticed. No one ever seems to stand on their doorsteps to clap for teachers.
The Ipsos Issues Index, which surveys public concerns, recently found that just 8 per cent of the public considered education to be a high priority. Kirkup says that’s the lowest since 1984. Kirkup also says that if we want a case study in how we are focused on the wrong topics, consider the DfE report Key stage 4 performance 2022. These data show that the gap between the GCSE results of children from low-income homes and their classmates from better-off backgrounds is at its highest level since 2012.
So poverty begets poverty, and the soft bigotry of low expectations continues unconstrained.
Will the new team at the DfE do any better? Will the opposition wake up? Will ...? I do hope so, but fear I know the response.
Respond