Stephen Downes responded to my series of posts about the marketization of education which helped me structure my Ed.D. Policy Studies essay (which I’ve now sent off). I’d post the essay I wrote as a result, but am a bit wary of doing so before it’s been marked, just in case! Stephen raises a few points (mainly criticisms) which I’d like to address. I tried to respond via a comment on his blog, but it would seem he’s not the only one having problems commenting: I had to login using my blogger account and perhaps because I’ve transferred dougbelshaw.com to the new beta of Blogger… well, suffice to say it didn’t work. So I’ve re-edited it and am posting it here. :D

First of all, apologies to Stephen and to anyone else who’s got the ‘Slow down cowboy’ error messages when attempting to post a comment. It’s something that I’m aware of and seems to only affect those posts which I schedule to appear in the future. I’ll try to get it sorted ASAP!

To make sense of what follows, you might want to read ‘Markets’ in education: a conclusion and Stephen’s reply.

Stephen,

Regarding your response to my post, I think you’ve misconstrued which side of the fence I’m actually on. This is possibly due to the concluding post I made which was originally titled ‘Markets’ in education – a way forward by which I actually meant a way forward in terms of getting critics and advocates to be able to engage in meaningful dialogue without ‘talking past’ one another. One more point in my defence before I move onto the point to you raise: the 6 different systems are raised by Lawton, not by me and are phrased in his language…

Taking the point you made at the end of your post in which you compare the marketization of education with slavery (albeit implicitly) there’s a difference between thinking something is implausible in practice and it being implausible theoretically (I suppose this would be inconceivable, technically speaking). It is the former sense by which I’m ruling out number 6 which was, to remind ourselves, the state system only with all independent schools abolished. I don’t think your point about selling your children into slavery vs. sending them to a private school really holds water, as limited choice is no choice at all. To use a non-emotive example: if you offer me tea or coffee when I’m allergic to caffeine I haven’t much of a real choice, have I? Presumably if the state abolished independent schools they’d also have to ban educating one’s child at home which I see as a complete infringement of liberties. You have to be able to refuse to make a choice, surely? I suppose you could say that those who refuse to make a choice when the state thinks it knows better should be either convinced or punished in some way. But given the issue of home education, refusing to school between state schools because you’d rather educate your child at home is a choice which parents would not have under situation number 6.

Next, I defined what I meant by ‘free’ as being ‘free from external constraints’ for a marketized education system with no state intervention. You say that ‘it is still constrained by geography, the laws of physics, economics…’ – well yes, but if that’s the case we’re all constrained by these things and no-one and nothing is ever free. I’m sure you’re not such a determinist that you’d disallow any kind of freedom? There’s a difference between theoretical freedom and practical freedom. The type of theoretical freedom invoked here is that of removing as much state control from education as possible. Of course, we all know that in practice something or someone would probably take the place of a state and have a malign influence. But that’s not what the theoretical model deals with – it’s concerned with models, not practicalities. (And yes, I know you’ll want to come back on that one and say ‘what’s the point in it then?’ – the point of this section was just to show that quasi-markets were one of the only options currently available due to recent political and economic realities)

Finally, I completely agree with you that notions of ‘equality’ in a marketized system in any real sense are laughable. This, as I have attempted to argue in the essay itself (which I’ve emailed you), is because the arguments of those who advocate markets in education are predicated upon a merit-based conception of equality of opportunity. As I have concluded in the essay, this is not really equality at all.

I hope that clears up my position. I’d hate anyone to think that I’m actually arguing for markets in education: in order to understand the position of advocates of marketization I had, to some extent play devil’s advocate…

I’d welcome any responses – either from Stephen or anyone else interested in this issue! :p