7/10/2008 3:14:00 AM
Andrew Hargreaves:The Independent 10 July
It was once a world leader in inventing the Third Way, but this Government has now well and truly lost its way. Tony Blair wrote a pamphlet on the Third Way, and the LSE director, Anthony Giddens, became its theoretical guru. This policy is now stuck – especially in education. In the First Way, the state supported everything in the public domain. It created conditions for opportunity and social mobility, set out an inspirational vision of social change and common good, and allowed professionals to get on with the job. The spirit of the times drew many innovative teachers into the profession, but it also tolerated incompetence and eccentricity. After the first oil crisis in the early Seventies, a Second Way of markets and competition emerged where schools competed for clients, performance results were published and services outsourced. Initially, this generated energy and initiative, especially in secondary and technical education. But markets were then trumped by the standardised national curriculum, Ofsted introduced its culture of fear, professionals lost their autonomy and risk was squeezed aside. New Labour's Third Way promised something between and beyond the market and the state. It kept competition but also restored educators' salaries, improved conditions, provided a focus on literacy and numeracy, invested in massive regeneration programmes, established networks of schools helping schools, and founded the world's first National College for School Leadership.Independent
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