England Refines Accountability Reforms

In this article, the author discusses how England refines its accountability reforms. When the Conservative government crafted the Education Reform Act of 1988, which mandates a national curriculum for England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, as well as national-curriculum tests at ages 7, 11, and 14, schools in England were permitted to secede from the local education authority and receive funding directly form the national government. The national government set up the Office for Standards in Education, or OFSTED, which regularly inspects schools and produces high-stakes reports on their performance, that are published in print and online. When the Labor government came to power in 1997, it built on that framework, pursuing a strategy that embraces both pressure and support for individual schools. The government has provided about 5 percent real growth in education spending and launched national literacy and numeracy strategies for primary schools. It also further devolved budgetary decisions to individual schools. In this article, the author also describes the government's efforts to improve the accountability system in England.