{"id":7772,"date":"2020-09-16T15:08:25","date_gmt":"2020-09-16T15:08:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=7772"},"modified":"2020-09-16T15:08:25","modified_gmt":"2020-09-16T15:08:25","slug":"150-years-of-state-education-in-england","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2020\/09\/16\/150-years-of-state-education-in-england\/","title":{"rendered":"150 years of state education in England"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As part of the celebrations of 150\u00a0years of state education in England, Michael Barber has written an appreciation of 11 people who contributed much along the way. \u00a0It's <a href=\"http:\/\/fed.education\/10-characters-who-shaped-a-school-system-michael-barber\/\">here<\/a>. \u00a0Foster's 1870 Eduction Act was the start point, and Baker's 1988 National Curriculum brought it to a close \u2013 an ironic choice, I think. \u00a0Who would you have included in between? \u00a0I played that game with my wife before reading the text. \u00a0My suggestions included:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Somebody around 1902 but I'd forgotten who and exactly why<\/li>\n<li>RAB Butler and the 1944 Education Act<\/li>\n<li>Ellen Wilkinson, for reasons I'm never sure about<\/li>\n<li>Alec Clegg the West Riding CEO who tried hard to make a reality of the 44 Act<\/li>\n<li>Lord Robbins and his 1963 report expanding the universities<\/li>\n<li>Tony Crossland and Circular 10\/64<\/li>\n<li>Bridget Plowden and her 1967 report on\u00a0primary schooling<\/li>\n<li>Rhodes Boyson and the Black Papers that challenged what they saw as the excesses of progressive education in the 1970s<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Barber's list was:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Foster 1870 \u2013 established universal (though not necessarily free) elementary education by setting up school boards<\/li>\n<li>Balfour 1902 \u2013 strengthened local education authorities and primary education, and expanded secondary education<\/li>\n<li>Fisher 1918 \u2013 established compulsory schooling to age 14, with strict limits on employing children under 14<\/li>\n<li>Geddes 1921 \u2013 who tried to cut the Education budget by 36%<\/li>\n<li>Butler 1944 \u2013 steered the game-changing 1944 Education Act through Parliament<\/li>\n<li>Wilkinson 1945 \u2013 who raised the school-leaving age to 15<\/li>\n<li>Crossland 1965 \u2013 the promotion of comprehensive schools<\/li>\n<li>Plowden 1967 \u2013 promoted learning through discovery and the promotion of creativity in primary schools<\/li>\n<li>Thatcher 1972 \u2013 raised the school leaving age to 16 and railed against complacency in the teacher workforce<\/li>\n<li>Callaghan 1976 \u2013 who (stimulated by the Black Papers) launched the Great Debate on Education in England, paving the way for the National Curriculum<\/li>\n<li>Baker 1988 \u2013 who implemented the\u00a0National Curriculum and the dangerous dogs act, the consequences of which we are still living with<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Lord knows why Geddes was included \u2013 political sensibilities, maybe. \u00a0A pity about Sir Alec Clegg. \u00a0he was a colossus.<\/p>\n<p>In 50 years time, when this exercise is repeated, will there be someone who finally finds fame for ensuring that young people learn in appropriate detail about\u00a0the natural world and the problems we create for it \u2013 and ourselves? \u00a0Who knows. \u00a0One thing seems sure, it won't be either the current secretary of state or opposition spokeswoman.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As part of the celebrations of 150\u00a0years of state education in England, Michael Barber has written an appreciation of 11 people who contributed much along the way. \u00a0It's here. \u00a0Foster's 1870 Eduction Act was the start point, and Baker's 1988...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-news-and-updates"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7772"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7772\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}