Rationing Education: Policy, Practice, Reform, and Equity

Recent educational reforms have raised standards of achievement but have also resulted in growing inequalities based on gender, 'race' and social class. School by school 'league tables' play a central role in the reforms. These have created an A-to-C economy where schools and teachers are judged on the proportion of students attaining five or more grades at levels A-to-C. To satisfy these demands schools are embracing new and ever more selective attempts to identify 'ability'. Their assumptions and practices embody a new IQism: a simple, narrow and regressive ideology of intelligence that labels working class and minority students as likely failures and justifies rationing provision to support those (often white, middle class boys) already marked for success.

This book reports detailed research in two secondary schools showing the real costs of reform in terms of the pressures on teachers and the rationing of educational opportunity.