The DfE, and the government more widely, have got themselves into a bit of a pickle. The division between what they say they want to achieve and what they are actually doing has diverged so far that they are unable to reconcile the two: rhetoric and reality have boarded trains heading in two opposite directions.
For the DfE this is manifesting itself in terms of the focus on increased selection that will somehow increase the educational attainment of all students, in spite of all of the evidence of academic selection running to the contrary. For the government more widely it’s the focus on raising the life chances of children from the newly baptised Ordinary Working Families (OWFs, not JAMs as the latter was perhaps too resonant of the reality than the rhetoric).
The two came together yesterday in the DfE’s consultation on OWFs. The consultation, essentially a technical one on how to statistically measure OWFs (but heaven knows to what end in terms of school accountability), has been widely regarded as a ‘softening up’ exercise for the proposed extension of academic selection. I say ‘softening up’, but others are less charitable seeing it as a not-so-nifty piece of hoodwinkery and wool-pulling. Others are more than a little concerned at the ‘Big State’ chicanery that is seeing data moved between the DfE, HMRC and the DWP at a level that makes even the highly technocratic New Labour administration look laissez-faire.
What’s really interesting is that the data used by the DfE, and published in a consultation, appears to give succour to those who are arguing against increased selection by demonstrating just how rigged the existing system is in favour of the most affluent and against the least affluent.
The consultation, however, glosses over this by pointing out that the JAMilies now known as OWFs are just as likely to attend grammars as comprehensives (ergo, an extension of selection will extend the number of OWFs making it to the promised land of selective education).
All of which seems plausible, but which is rather neatly skewered by Dr Becky Allen of Education Datalab in her blogpost exploring the data behind the consultation.
In short, the statistical manipulation of data about a very diverse group has been utilised to give credence to a policy proposal that doesn’t stack up, statistically or otherwise. All of which rather begs the question “instead of releasing another consultation that muddies the waters, why not release the outcomes of the earlier consultation on increased selection?” But then again, we are still waiting – almost a year on – for the consultation on 90% EBacc coverage that concluded over a year ago, so no breath holding at the back.
But this post doesn’t aim to do what Edudatalab and so many others can do so much better. Instead, my aim is to fight statistics with data in order to show that the whole debate around OWFs and selection is, or rather should be, a sideshow to the real ‘rhetoric versus reality’ main event: the increasing impoverishment of the much vaunted OWFs in the first place. In doing so, I want to link back to my previous blogpost on Universal FSM provision and the one before that on how we are aiming to support our own OWFs at Canons via our Community Heartbeat Initiative.
The first thing that needs trumpeting very loudly is that, as reported by that pillar of the left-leaning anti-establishment The Economist, absolute poverty is on the increase and this is particularly the case for working families (OWFs perhaps?). Since 2012 these working families now account for the majority of families in absolute – as opposed to relative – poverty. The chart is astonishing but the reportage beneath it gives even more pause for thought.
The eagle-eyed amongst you will have also noticed the significant upturn (stronger than all of the others) of children living in poverty. This is supported by some key findings of one of a number of reports by the Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) reported here.
But perhaps The Economist and the IFS have other agendas: selling copies, securing airtime, website clicks, increased sponsorship and the like? Where might we go for some more unbiased data on the struggles facing OWFs? Perhaps some from parliament itself might be helpful here.
And remember that the statistics for ‘all individuals’ in the table above includes pensioners who have been net recipients through the life of the 2010-17 administrations because of the impact of universal policies such as the annual minimum 2.5% increase in pensions courtesy of the triple-lock manifesto commitment. It would appear that universal approaches to benefits succeed, but it rather masks the increases in poverty of the working age population and their children.
So, given that The Economist said that the increases in poverty cannot be entirely laid at the door of austerity, what is it that has made life ever-harder for OWFs in the past seven years? The IFS are helpful again on this one (all of the different reports I have used are available in the bibliography below).
The primary reason for the increases in poverty SO FAR is the fact that increases in housing costs, particularly rentals, have far outstripped the increases in wages. This first graph shows that rents have increased by 11% in six years…
…whilst this second one shows real wages falling when inflation is factored in – and we are only just at the start of that particular rollercoaster, courtesy of Brexit.
And, just in case we weren’t clear about how this relates to that gap between the the rhetoric and reality of the governments speeches and policies, the IFS conclude their report with this damning indictment.
Perhaps, after all, the government are right to prioritise a statistical measure of what it means to be an OWF because, if things continue as they are, this group might well start to see the outcomes for their children heading to similar levels as those outcomes currently ‘achieved’ by free school meal and pupil premium children.
No? Things can only get better? After all, the Prime Minister has been in charge for less than a year and has been outspoken in her support for exactly these kind of families. Certainly her heart seems in the right place and the treasury has now abandoned the deficit elimination target. Perhaps policies such as the extension of selection are being matched across government and we will soon be leaving the dark days of austerity behind?
Think again. Parliament’s own data says that the trajectory we are currently on is set fair to continue into the next decade, for children if not for pensioners (which does again rather support the case for a universal approach to benefits and social security provision, rather than a means tested one).
The IFS go further – a whole lot further – in their gloomy prognostication for the coming half decade, suggesting that whilst median income is set to rise, it will not be enough to prevent a sharp increase in both relative and absolute poverty rates, with children again being at the sharp edge of this increase.
Note here the impact of the recession (or, more likely, austerity) upon real median incomes so that the new norm is the shallow, bumpy growth predicted by every Keynesian economist back in 2010.
Note also that this last chart indicates the impact of recent government reforms to in-work benefits as they work their way through the system. The government insists that these were the legacy of the previous administration, but the choice to enact them in spite of the rhetoric about JAMs and OWFs was theirs. The final point below explains this clearly.
Quite simply put, the government has chosen to enact measures that will add another 2.8% of children to the realms of absolute poverty by 2022, taking it above 30% deep into our 21st century civil society. And what also needs to be taken into account is the fact that this stark analysis is based upon the forecasts made by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) whose forecasts since their inception have often been significantly downgraded. The situation could be a whole lot worse by the time we get to 2022.
The final word on the impact of all this data analysis, again from the IFS, brings us back to the reality (as opposed to the rhetoric) for ‘Just About Managing’ families.
Perhaps rather than rebranding them as ‘Ordinary Working Families’ they should go for something more accurate like ‘Soon to Not Be Managing’ families, because the prognosis does not look good for the future.
What is really clear from all of this is that things have got worse for ordinary working families (note the lack of upper case) in the recent past and that they are going to get much worse for them in the years to come. What is equally clear is that neither extension of selection, nor a statistical modelling that will be most likely used to pass the blame for declining outcomes of students from these families onto schools, will change the reality for those who are going to be dragged into the poverty trap that hangs over them like a sword of Damocles.
For me, there are three things that are clear from this quick trawl of the problems facing, or to be faced by, ordinary working families. The first is that, if we are to continue under conditions of a low-tax, low-spend austerity, our best chance to ameliorate the impact upon this group is to channel what there is of government spending into universalising social welfare, including free school meals, for children. It has worked for pensioners and can do the same for families with children.
The second, and infinitely more preferable to me, is that we seek to abandon austerity completely. It has not cleared government debt as was promised back in 2010 (and again in 2015), but has simply transferred it into household debt, increased job insecurity, low pay and poor conditions of employment, exorbitant increases in house prices and rent costs, increased dependency on extra-governmental welfare such as foodbanks and, through all of these things, an impoverishment of just about managing and ordinary working families.
The final thing that has become clear to me, but in many senses was always clear to me, is that educators cannot simply divide the responsibility for the educational welfare and the social welfare of the children of the families they serve. We cannot be responsible for one and not the other. Nor can we allow others to get away with rhetoric that does not match reality or reality that does not match rhetoric.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
https://www.jrf.org.uk/press/work-poverty-hits-record-high-housing-crisis-fuels-insecurity
Rowntree report
Economist article
https://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/7880
Institute for Fiscal Studies 1
Parliament
https://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/8371
IFS 2
https://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/8371
IFS and JRF
ONS
Click to access ch2_gb2015.pdf
IFS 3
IFS 4
kevenbartle's Blog 
teachwell
April 15, 2017
I think your argument against grammar schools is solid.
However: “educators cannot simply divide the responsibility for the educational welfare and the social welfare of the children of the families they serve.”
This is your personal political view and not one that follows from the information you have provided. Neither is it incumbent upon teachers to personally take on what is a responsibility for parents/society.
All that taking on responsibility for more than education has achieved over the past 40 years is a two tier system of education where the poorest fair worse and continue to do so. The best thing my teachers ever did was focus on my education and helping me get the best outcome. Anything else is purely ego on the part of educators quite frankly and doesn’t solve anything.
kevenbartle
April 15, 2017
A couple of things in response to this. Firstly, of course it is a personal political view. This is a blogpost, not an attempt at bias-free writing and this was the conclusion to a blogpost. However, your counter-argument, which you appear to be presenting as factual in response to my opinion, is also a personal political opinion. For example, where is the evidence behind your assertion that (a) the education system has been taking on more social responsibility in the last 40 years and (b) that this has created a two-tier system where the poorest end up worse off. I would argue that since 1977 poorer children have clearly achieved far more than they had done prior to that time. I suspect that the statistics would back me completely and my own evidence of teaching in schools serving disadvantaged communities in a little over 20 years has shown your argument to be false. I remember the days of working at two schools with less than 15% of students achieving 5 A to C grades (not including English and Maths).
Secondly, I have a feeling that you missed my point completely. I wasn’t arguing that schools must by necessity take on any more responsibility for society’s ills – quite the contrary in this post – but that we can’t split a child’s educational attainment away from the wider context of that child’s life. Perhaps I could have phrased it better but the quote you use, when in the full context of the post itself as opposed to being dragged out of that post, is fairly apparent. What I’m saying in the post is that hunger, homelessness, increased vulnerability and a whole host of other things arising from material deprivation (again that was the immediate context for the quote – an IFS comment about ‘material deprivation’ – cannot be divorced from the academic side of the child by us as educators.
Finally, the ‘ego’ comment at the end – given everything I said – is a rather cheap shot to finish with. One, it misunderstands the whole notion of ego as a psychological construct. Two, even in this populist version of the word ‘ego’ you’re wrong. Just because you think that your experience as a student was different (and I doubt that none of your teachers have two hoots about your social context as a child) doesn’t mean than we care about the backgrounds of the kids we teach as a vanity project: more of a humanity project.
teachwell
April 15, 2017
It is clear that the focus on the “whole child”, “child-centred learning” has elevated the pastoral above the academic. In addition, the idea that knowledge is elitist and therefore not for the poor forms a foundation in the education system and was deliberately instituted. I’ve worked in three different local authorities and only in inner city schools – the basic assumptions have been the same and are reflected in primary ITT I have come across. This is not an accident. Others interpret their role as a means of “compensating” children for not having happy middle class backgrounds – though not with an equal opportunity to access the same education as middle class children.
Peal’s figures in his book Progressively Worse demonstrated that there was decline in literacy and numeracy according to the Local Authorities who responded to the DfE at the time. This goes against the idea that they have improved since 1977.
The statistics in terms of academic results have increased over the past 20 years but will include grade inflation and still the poorest have been the illest served. The white working class form the largest group of the poorest and are the worst performing in the education system. I don’t think the fact that some groups that started off poorer (such as Indians) have seen success in the education system is an indicator of the way that the poorest have been educated in this country at all.
I took the quote as I wanted to deal with that idea in particular and given that your entire post is above the comment, it can hardly be taken out of context – it’s all right there. I did this as a comment not a tweet for that reason.
I think that the assumptions made about the impact of material deprivation is part of the reason why there are lower standards of behaviour and academic expectation of the poorest in the first place. I’ve seen this hit children from the second they hit school. One can’t assume how the circumstances, even the worst, affect individual children. For some it will be a barrier, for others it will spur them on. I don’t think that any educator can take a material circustance and make sweeping assumptions about how that will affect a child and implement a solution to fix it.
Of course material circumstances can be divorced from the academic and must be. Otherwise, you are justifying a different type of education for children because of your assumptions and not because of how it is actually affecting that child. These assumptions are the root cause of failure among poorer children. They don’t stand a chance if the education they receive is based on the political ideologies of their teachers rather than their needs educationally.
If my teachers cared about my social circumstances they certainly did not show it or make it obvious to me. It also didn’t affect their expectations of me. Having attended a school where it was a mixed intake of middle and working class children, I don’t ever recall in primary or secondary being treated any differently or less being expected of me. In the end, this is what I am arguing against. The only true way to level the playing field in this world in the head of a child.
I stand by the ego comment. I have worked with teachers who focused on compensating children because of their deprivation at the expense of the academic. In the end, this may make the teacher feel better about themselves but it hardly improves the actual circumstances of the child in the present or in the future. I also think it is clear that there is a two-tier system of expectations – “these children, this area” thinking infects schools serving the inner-cities. One only need see the reactions to Michaela to understand that challenging this thinking provokes a huge amount of hostility. If equal expectations were the norm. Also, it’s not as though middle class children suffer no personal problems – e.g. parents getting divorced – and yet no such experience is expected to get in the way of their academic success.
kevenbartle
April 15, 2017
You appear to be taking this down the prog/trad route, which has nothing to do with the intent behind my post. There is nothing in my post to suggest that I believe that we need to have lower expectations of students because of their backgrounds or, conversely, higher expectations because of the backgrounds of others. But when the new head of the Met is saying that the austerity agenda has impacted upon crime statistics, we ought to be aware that it may also do so on children’s educational attainment in spite of the very high standards we hold for them: and I speak as Head of a school where standards have been, and remain, on the increase.
I have absolutely no interest in replaying with you the well-worn debates between prog and trad disciples. I think that your responses demonstrate that you either don’t get where I am coming from in this post, or that you are determined to see it in a way which supports your pre-existing philosophy. And that’s fine. We can each go our separate ways.
The only issues that I would pick out from your response are in the final paragraph. Firstly, I have huge respect with what they are seeking to do at Michaela. Katherine visited Canons only a few weeks ago as we have huge amounts in common. Our approaches are very different in other ways but I will applaud their achievements as loudly as anyone. The other comment was about the challenges facing middle class kids. I couldn’t agree more that every individual challenge for children is equally important, and understanding things like the impact of parents separation on kids is, I think, very important. That doesn’t, though, mean the same thing as expecting less from them because of it.
What is different, however, is that my original post talks about structural problems rather than individual ones, and problems that impact upon a whole group rather than upon individuals, although they will be experience differently by each individual family and each individual child.
Good luck to you with your context-free educational experiences in the next few years. I suspect that we are all going to need it. And if I’m proven wrong on this, there isn’t a person in the world that will be happier.
teachwell
April 15, 2017
I think you are right when you point out that our difference is really down to structure vs action. Assuming the influence of structural problems is my issue here. Without looking at the differential impact on individuals, it is easy to come up with solutions that are ultimately counter-productive.
I don’t accept the idea of context free teaching. I teach a group of Somali children at risk of failure – a group who are among the poorest and people who are at times vilified due to their refugee/asylum seeker status.
However, they are trying everything they can to overcome the structural problems rather than let it overwhelm them. Is this always possible? No – but I tend to find that is the minority not the majority of cases. The fact that these parents are fully aware that their children are not pushed and challenged to excel in school is a source of concern to them and one that is fuelled by ideas about poorer children rather than the abilities of the children themselves.
Another point of difference between us. Hence the difference in our ideas about the solutions required to deal with the problem.
As for the prog/trad debate – I see it’s impact on the assumptions made in schools. I do think it has a particularly negative impact on the poor and the creation of a set of victims of circumstance. In that respect, you too have come up with ideas that support your pre-existing philosophy as the differential individual impact does not interest you. This is a left-wing view that states that if one simply changes the structural aspects that will lead to changes in individual circumstances. Yet this simply is not true.
My experience of poverty was that one does everything one can to challenge ones circumstances, not that one lies down in the face of problems. No one can control all external circumstances but one can still choose what to do. That does not mean it does not impact on my personal political behaviour but that it doesn’t impact on me as a teacher.
kevenbartle
April 15, 2017
You seem to be suggesting that my only interest is only in changing structural aspects in order to lead to changes in individual circumstances, whilst (in your opening paragraph) signalling that you do both even as you initially were insisting that it’s all about the academic. Thus, you seem to have me as someone who is backing the stance where children are “not pushed and challenged to excel in school”.
And yet that was my very starting point: that we can’t have one without the other. I have made it clear in all my posts, not least this one, and in all my work in schools that I believe one can address both the individual academic success of students and, at the same time, challenge the structural inequalities that threaten not just some stereotyped group of students but potentially a vast number of students. What I have never condoned, in writing, teaching or school leadership, is an approach that sacrifices expectation on the altar of a “left-wing view” that you seem to have aligned with progressivism.
I just happen to think that whatever we can achieve with an increasingly unequal society, we can achieve even more when we press hard as educators for a far more equal one. And for that, I offer no apology whatsoever.
As I said in my last response to you (albeit probably a patronising one in hindsight – for that I apologise), I wish you well in your approach.