How decisions about education are made and what you can do about it

When I was at secondary school, I remember my teacher making an important point about representative democracy. In reference, I imagine, to opinion polling, she suggested the majority of British people at that time were in favour of reinstating the death penalty for murder but that there was little prospect of this happening. Why? Because decisions are not generally made by majority opinion, even in a democracy. Instead, we elect people to examine the issues on our behalf and make those decisions for us. Democracy is limited to periodically changing a government or local council if you don’t like the sum of its works. That’s the difference between a representative and a direct democracy.

In complex, modern states, we also have a kind of second order representative democracy. There are too many issues for even career politicians to contemplate – or, as I suspect, a number of issues they would rather not contemplate – and so these are handed over to commissions and agencies, with the politicians’ role to give these agencies their authority or rubber stamp their decisions.

You may consider this a bug or you may consider it a feature – it is often justified by referring to the expertise of those involved. To an extent that we could argue about – and perhaps should argue about more – it seems necessary. Otherwise, modern states would be ungovernable. The key point is that although we are in a democracy, the decisions that concern our daily lives do not necessarily reflect majority opinion. Instead, they tend to reflect the opinion of a relatively small group of people whose role is to think about a relatively small set of issues.

We all know the kinds of conditions where this system breaks down – the union that reflects the views of people who are inclined to turn up to union meetings as opposed to those of its members or the internecine disputes of the local parish council. We should also be aware of the dangers of ‘capture’ where an activist minority manages to take over one of these decision making groups by being more energetic, fundamentalist or sanctimonious than their peers.

So, what does it take for such a system to work well?

I would suggest that there are two important criteria. The decision-making body must be so comprised as to:

1. Be in possession of all existing knowledge relevant to the decision
2. Represent a range of political outlooks

The latter is a fraught question. Some political outlooks are fringe or just plain bizarre. However, if it is a strong current in popular opinion, it should arguably be represented. For instance, a decision involving state regulation should hear from those who broadly favour bigger government and those who favour the opposite, both of which are legitimate, widely-held views.

It is clear that many decision-making bodies fail on this second, political criteria. However, decisions made about education often fail on the first and this is because two relevant sources of knowledge are often neglected – knowledge gained from robust education and educational psychology research and, of perhaps more concern, the practical knowledge of teachers.

Decisions about the structures and funding of education tend to be taken by politicians with little input from teachers, but it is unclear how much teachers would be able to contribute to that discussion. On the other hand, decisions about exams, curricula, teaching initiatives and so on tend to be made by academics and bureaucrats. These decisions would benefit from the knowledge of teachers. And yet, at present, teachers are largely excluded from the discussion.

If politicians are considering reforms that will improve teaching, they should evaluate policies as to whether they will add teacher knowledge to the decision-making process. They need to be wary of initiatives like the UK’s College of Teaching which was ostensibly just such an initiative, but that ended-up being captured by non-teachers. So politicians need to think bigger.

One way they can do this is through manipulating structures – an issue they perhaps better understand. The question to ask is: How may we design this system so that regular classroom teachers are fully involved in, and perhaps leading, the decision-making process about teaching methods, the curriculum and assessment?

In the meantime, it is up to teachers to elbow our way in. We should submit our thoughts to public consultations and turn up to hearings. Perhaps more importantly, we should challenge bad decisions and the often dodgy research used to justify them. We can do this within our networks and through blogs and podcasts, taking the opportunity to speak to a wider audience when it arises. This is not always easy. Teachers are busy and some policies intentionally seek to silence teachers. But we have a duty to do what we can, when and where we can.