White noise

Dylan Wiliam, Institute of Education, University of London | 20 January 2014

What is not clear, either from the evidence presented here, or from Conor Ryan’s blog, is whether the achievement of white working class boys is lower than we would expect from the fact that they are white, they are working class, and that they are boys. Work by Betty Hart and Todd Risley in the US suggests that there are huge differences in the language experiences of children brought up socioeconomically disadvantaged households and those brought up in more advantaged households. One particularly stark statistic given by Hart and Risley is that by the age of 3, students in advantaged households will have had spoken to them, by adults, 25 million more words than those in the most disadvantaged households (35 million versus 10 million). Given that language competence is essential in accessing the secondary school curriculum, it is not surprising that many studies show the gap widening in secondary school. Since substantial increases in our spending on education are unlikely for the foreseeable future, the question is whether we are prepared to re-allocate resources to tackle the problem. There are several practical ways in which we could do this.

The first is to flip the inverted pyramid of our education spending. Currently, the older the student is, the more money we spend on her or his education. We should flip this to spend more money on the education of the youngest children, reduce class sizes to 15 in key stage 1, and fund Reading Recovery for every child at risk of failing to reach, by the age of 11, a standard of literacy that we currently associate with a high level 4. The second is to take resources away from the students who find learning in our school systems relatively easy, and divert them to those who find learning much more difficult. The most important resource that we have in the system is good teachers, and work by Simon Burgess and his colleagues at the University of Bristol shows that the very best teachers advantage all students, but benefit the lowest achievers most. In the classrooms of the best teachers, achievement gaps actually get smaller, so we need to find ways of getting the best teachers to the lowest achieving students. Schemes like “Teach First” are a good first step in this direction, but it is important to note that most low achieving students are not in low achieving schools. We need to create incentives for the best teachers to work with the lowest achieving students. Many of our best teachers already do this, out of a moral imperative to make a difference, but our educational system does not create incentives for people to do this. We can do this in many ways, including with pay, with working conditions, or by providing formal forms of social recognition, and no doubt others can think of other ways. But as long as teacher quality is the most important variable in the system, any approach to addressing the achievement of white working class boys that does not address getting them more of the best teaching available is, to my mind, little more than re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Children differ in their talents, their aptitudes, and their interests. And some of these differences are innate, even genetic. That’s fine. But when certain groups of students (boys, working class children, white children) do less well than other groups, then a fair society should take notice. John Rawls, the American philosopher has proposed “the veil of ignorance” as a way of thinking about fairness in society. If you didn’t know whether you were going to be born white or not, male or female, into a working-class household or an affluent one, is ours the kind of society you would choose? I suggest it is not. I think we would want a society where educational outcomes for boys and girls, rich and poor, white and non-white students, were at least approximately in line, and we would accept that the job of government is to allocate resources to achieve this.

Richard Day, York St John University | 21 January 2014

We must, of course, agree with Dylan Wiliam here; does he ever say anything that doesn’t make complete sense? However, without wishing to sound defeatist (we’ll leave that to the classroom cynics, of whom there are a few…) the changes advocated here, such as inverting the pyramid of funding and group sizes, although achievable, are unlikely without political will and a revolution in attitude from policy makers. I remember hearing similar arguments from the likes of John Abbott more than fifteen years ago. These changes are impossible to imagine in the current climate, if ever. And even if they occurred the effects would take a generation to come to fruition. And in the meantime another large proportion of our greatest asset will potentially be lost; their children taking their place in the schoolyard, even more difficult to reach. I agree that our focus must be on teacher quality first and foremost. While the jury is still very much out on Teach First, and will remain out for much longer still on School Direct, where it does succeed is in evidencing the need for academic rigour and intellect in the classrooms – any classrooms. I would advocate a more (not less) rigorous study of pedagogy within a University setting, whether as part of a longer PG course, or as an UG degree in its own right. Movement away from University based study, in many instances, leads merely to elongated exposure to mediocre teaching, and the pedagogical input from Lead schools is in many cases poor. Many will argue. Arguments concerning redistributing resources from the more successful to the less so will I fear never get beyond politicians’ fear of the lower middle classes who would shake their fists at the ballot box. And perhaps rightly so. What is clear is that until society’s esteem and respect for the profession increases, and politicians’ need only to be seen to do something, quickly, changes, those who need help and action the most will become even more of an underclass.