Henley 2: This time it’s cultural

So finally the cultural education review has arrived. Like a difficult second album, this one has taken far longer than Darren Henley’s excellent music education review (although not quite as long as Kevin Rowland’s notorious second solo album – my friend Jon was working for the record company that waited twelve years for that gem to arrive).

The delay might have been caused by Darren’s creative angst, but my guess is that it was probably down to torturous back and forths between the DfE, DCMS and possibly the Arts Council. As a member of the Cultural Learning Alliance’s steering group, the process was frustrating. Despite being promised consultation and early sight on recommendations, yesterday’s news was genuinely news to most of us.

The report has hardly been eagerly awaited – that’s part of the problem. Cultural learning is generally somewhere on everyone’s list of priorities, but despite the fantastic efforts of the CLA, it generally scrapes along the bottom of people’s ‘to worry about’ lists, especially in these meaner, more blinkered times. We all knew that key decisions on the future of cultural learning lay outside the boundaries of this review: in the now-delayed national curriculum review, and the space it leaves or doesn’t leave for schools to develop a whole curriculum; in the changes to the accountability system so that not every subject matters; and in the budget decisions made, relatively autonomously, by thousands of schools, youth centres, local authorities and cultural institutions.

So, has the review been worth waiting for? Plans for a £3m BFI Film Academy, or the £2.7M going to English Heritage to pay for brokers to foster links between schools and historic sites, made reasonable Tuesday headlines. But if you know your history (as Michael Gove might say), they don’t really cover up the financial holes created by Arts Council and Government decisions. Nor do they answer the bigger questions about quality, access, the role of schools, colleges and HEIs as cultural institutions, and how we target, target, target resources at those most risk of missing out culturally, often through lack of demand rather than supply. I still worry that in a few decades this government may be remembered for precipitating the UK’s creative and cultural decline.

Henley’s focus on newly qualified teachers feels like the right pressure point in the system – the Teaching Outside the Classroom programme I established always found it difficult to compete for space in a student teacher’s calendar, With money attached, this idea could fit well into a teacher’s first or second year, when they are just looking beyond the exhausting parapet of behaviour management, and might link to Masters’ qualifications.My thoughts on Gove’s thoughts about ‘data not being the plural of evidence’ (borrowed from Dylan William) will have to wait for another post.

The Review also makes a good effort to define cultural learning. When leading Find Your Talent (a programme which appears to have made a depressingly minimal impact on the future of cultural education) I stepped on the shoulders of Raymond Williams and other giants to define culture as 'the means through which we understand and create our identities'. This film by Billy Pols, shown at the Turner Contemporary exhibition on youth culture, fits with my definition. Would it make the Henley cut?

Although the national plan for cultural education will be important, bigger news for cultural learning may well have come the week before. According to Arts Industry, thanks to a big rise in National Lottery ticket sales, The Arts Council can expect an extra £1.25 billion in extra income over the next five years. I know it’s not all about the money, but even if a proportionate amount was spent on children and young people, that would give an additional £50 Million per year to play with. Now, where did I put that proposal I wrote for a redesigned Creative Partnerships 3.0?

Opting into PISA’s 2012 problem solving test

Here's a virtual contribution to today's Whole Education conference.

The idea is straightforward; putting it into practice would probably involve overcoming torturous bureaucratic and diplomatic hurdles.

It concerns next year’s PISA new problem solving test which will be run alongside the usual literacy and numeracy assessments, and is being taken by 43 out of 66 OECD countries. The Department for Education has decided to opt out, as it does not wish to ‘overburden schools.’ There are obvious ideological reasons behind this, although Michael Gove’s thoughtful speech to the Schools Network Conference last week did suggest a broader philosophy of education, acknowledging the need to bring teaching and learning up to date with the demands of current society and workplaces.

The OECD is initiating these tests since “we need to assess problem-solving abilities as governments around the world seek to equip young people with the skills they need for life and employment.” The DfE may have been put off by some of the baggage which the OECD has attached to the problem solving framework around “progressive teaching methods”. The test “aims to examine how students are prepared to meet unknown future challenges for which direct teaching of today’s knowledge is not sufficient. “ This is not the language to attract sceptics within and beyond DfE. However, this is not about a battle between so-called traditional and modern pedagogies; it’s simply after a robust assessment of outcomes, regardless of methods.

Can a group of UK organisations work with OECD to ‘opt in’ to this test? We would find a representative sample of schools, using all the appropriate OECD methodologies, (to avoid tainting our sample with too many skills-serious schools).

Assessing skills is difficult; The QCDA came close with a strong, jargon-free analysis of personal learning and thinking skills, but this never gained traction in enough schools, or developed into a common assessment framework. Our refusal to grasp the skills assessment challenge is part of the reason why the daft and destructive knowledge vs. skills battle that overshadows too much education debate never goes away.

Although we might have concerns about a computer-based problem solving assessment, the OECD and Pearson’s combined approach is likely to be very high quality and as evidence-based as possible. Taking these tests in 2012 would provide England with a benchmark for improvement over time and in comparison with other nations. Who knows? We might even come in the top three, and benefit from a boom in educational tourism, as foreign educators come pleading ‘why can’t we be like the English?’

... or Scottish, or Welsh, for that matter. I can’t find out whether they are participating – can anyone help? I am aiming to build a broad coalition of organisations who could help us work with OECD to ensure that as many nations in the UK as possible participate in this test in 2012. We will need organisations that can mobilise thousands of school leaders – the NAHT and ACSL maybe but Whole Education might also play a role. 

There may be an obvious flaw in my proposal. And it might be better for us all to lobby for the DfE to change its mind. But until told otherwise, we will keep pursuing this idea. If information is power, information gathering could be empowering. 

From an EBacc to a MeBacc

The briefest of blog plugs for a terrific collection of short articles on Creativity Money and Love: Learning for the 21st Century, commissioned by Creative and Cultural Skills and A New Direction.


My chapter describes a proposal for a MeBacc. The idea is better than the name, I promise.

Leading Cultural Learning part two: dazed and confused

So, where did all those stories leave me? I used to think and say, frequently and stridently, that cultural organisations needed to put learning at the core of their mission and operation. Now I'm not so sure. All I can offer are a few maybes.

Maybe we need to recognise the tension between cultural and educational 'pedagogies'. As Susan Sontag once wrote, the role of the artist is to make things more complex. Generally, the role of the teacher is to explain, simplify, ensure understanding. In learning through culture, how can we make sure that the arts aren't serving a more reductive learning agenda that they probably won't serve that well anyway.

Maybe learning is best left as an unintended or unplanned outcome of the artistic opportunities that artists and organisations provide through making and showing work - creating spaces where learning can happen, but might not.

Maybe the most effective educational strategy is for artists and organisations to focus on the quality of their products, and make sure that as many different kinds of people as possible engage. This requires serious, sustained targeting at 'not yet reached' audiences, rather than random acts of cultural kindness, and needs a reclamation of the concept of audience engagement from marketeers.

Is this cultural learning heresy? One person thought my views were straight from the 19th Century. I made it clear that I wasn't arguing for the abandonment of education officers, departments and programmes. Too much great work and progress has been made, and England's cultural learning infrastructure is the envy of much of the world. I also wasn't arguing against those whose mission is largely or entirely focused on learning. Their work adds huge value to our artistic and educational landscape.

I also suggested that there might be some fascinating work to do in terms of the learning offer of the arts-producing SMEs - the small producing or touring companies, festivals and other venue-free ventures, who might be able to offer much more to children and young people with some minor tweaking and regearing.

But I am not sure what I am arguing for... and maybe that reflects the problem and potential of art's relationship with public policy and public services.  The education sector and wider policy world are crammed with people who are more certain of their position than their position deserves... who put doubts aside to exaggerate the strength or their argument. How can art compete in this environment? As Wayne MacGregor once said, 'the job of the artist is to not know'.

I also know that we're dealing with an education sector that, more than ever, is systematically wired to neglect the arts, and relies on cultural partners to cover up for their deficiencies. And we are also facing a cultural sector that, despite the Arts Council goals, strategies and occasional words, is also subtly being offered the option to 'stick to their knitting' (and maybe my 'maybes' above are guilty of this too). With the  Henley Review about to offer recommendations to government, those passionate about cultural learning need to lobby collectively and coherently - rumours are that there's money to be released. But as we coalesce and create ever more stunning evidence for the power of cultural learning, let's nurture rather than neglect our doubts about the whole enterprise - ultimately, doubt may be our most valuable currency.

Leading Cultural Learning part one: six stories, no ending

I was asked to speak to this year’s cohort of Clore Fellows. Ten minutes as an interlocutor (I had to look it up) on ‘leading cultural learning’. I thought I’d risk a new riff, moving far from my standard creative learning patter to reveal my inner confusion. I started with six stories, told in chronological order.

Story One: 1997

As a teacher, I had no real affinity with the arts. To my shame, I didn’t teach one dance lesson in five years, and the visual art I attempted was too rare and too shoddy. I did however play around with drama, especially for assemblies. I remember creating a lavish assembly for an OFSTED inspection. Oblivious to those men with clipboards at the back of the hall, my Year Five Class performed a rousing history of the Jarrow crusade, complete with a couple of historically misplaced Woodie Guthrie songs. OFSTED failed the assembly, as it did not include an act of collective worship.

Story Two: 2002

As a parent, I remember visiting Tate Britain with my two toddlers to see Michael Landy’s childhood home, rebuilt in painstaking detail in the centre of the main hall. It was a powerful experience, provoking emotions around identity, memory, and family. Whilst recovering from this art thunderbolt, I wondered what my children were making of this. Before I had the chance to find out, I had been dragged into a nearby room, and forced to make cardboard box homes with my kids. The Tate’s family learning programme had destroyed any chance of engagement with its art.

Story Three: 2009

On my Clore placement to the Theatre Royal Stratford East, I met one of their young Associate Directors. A few years before, as part of the youth theatre, he had, with friends, devised a dance piece based on the Pied Piper of Hamlyn. It had rapidly moved onto the theatre’s main stage, and two years on was now the Barbican’s Christmas show. He was now CEO of his own company, Blue Boy Entertainment.

Story Four: 2010

At a think tank seminar, the artistic director of a large venue talked about how education was now at the centre of his organisation. He claimed that his own programming decisions were now more informed by the education department’s views than by anybody else. I thought ‘you’re lying, and I don’t know why you’re lying.’

Story Five : 2011

In one of my final visits to a Creative Partnerships school, I visited a secondary school which had done some wonderful programmes over five years, most recently working with a visual artist on ‘museum of love’ to explore concepts of love in Shakespeare’s plays and poems. The creative agent at the school, who was managing the programme, talked about how she had tried to ban the word art and artist from discussions with pupils and teachers.

Story Six: 2011 again

Last month, I was talking to someone in the arts education world. I was telling her about some schools which were thinking of starting ‘look clubs’, after school clubs where pupils would visit museums, galleries, buildings and landscapes, with an emphasis on looking and contemplation, rather than drawing or doing. She scoffed at me: ‘that’s not very participatory!’

Conclusions to be drawn… in next blog.

Beetroot Boris to bring back ILEA?

Over a lunch with journalists, Boris Johnson yesterday suggested what Ken wouldn't dare - that maybe the mayor needs some influence over London's schools.

His logic is good. So much of the rest of his agenda for London depends on improving educational outcomes, especially for the poorest families. And the GLA has the potential to do so much more. Although many local authority support services are excellent, and the move towards self-financing principles of 'buy-back' are sharpening up or closing down many others, the oft-expressed assertion that London councils are too small to do the big things well and too big to do the small things well might be true for several aspects of education - special needs or school transport, for example.

One of Boris' aides Munira Mirza has been doing some excellent work banging heads together and provoking people and organisations to provide a better cultural education for all young people in London. This shows what is strategically possible. The mayor's sponsoring of two academies is a stranger move, but is probably symptomatic of his frustration about having no direct routes into influencing London's schools.

The Daily Telegraph wrote back in 2006 that 'power in education in everywhere and nowhere'. The ongoing fragmentation of the school system means this is more true now than ever. How would another tier of authority play into this landscape? Does Boris want to take power from schools, Local Authorities, academy chains, or even the Department for Education?


Rather than 'seeking input' to a random mix of education issues, Boris needs to go back to first principles: What in education could the GLA be accountable for, and why?  And once we've answered these questions, two others follow:

• What should the GLA do to support schools?
• What should the GLA do to challenge schools?

Boris should also recognise the strengths and successes he could build on. London's schools are now outperforming most of the rest of the country, and  improvements in certain inner London boroughs are staggering. The percentages attending private schools has plateaued and may even be falling. Rising school populations has been partly caused by a decline in middle class family flight to the suburbs or beyond. The  'apartheid' of racial and social segregation in London schools that the head teacher of City of London School claimed we were 'sleepwalking towards' just isn't happening, especially compared to many Northern cities. Stephen Gorard's statistical work is especially useful here. Urban school systems around the world are dealing with similar issues around poverty, diversifying populations and other urban stress points, and may have much to learn from London as a case study.  


London's schools certainly don't have all the answers, and many of them are still in need of transformation. But before proposing new policy prescriptions, structures or funding streams for London's schools, it might be worth a deeper analysis of the last decade. Schooling in London: What went right?

Free Schools: pioneers or land grabbers

I have no ideological problem with Free Schools. My decade-old book on parent school relationships recommended that government experiment with parent-led provision. Free Schools could form an important R and D arm of our education system, providing they are properly researched and evaluated – everything this government says about Free Schools and Academies smells of optimism bias, and opponents have the opposite problem. As for Academies, my daughter goes to one, I have mentored Teach First teachers in a couple, and at Creative Partnerships I saw outstanding practice in many of them.

My problem is with Academy-speak, and what the rhetoric about free schools and Academies implies about the other few thousand schools out there. Government never claims that all local authority schools are failing – the evidence is too contrary, and GCSE successes in schools such as Bethnal Green Technology College (in a borough with no Academies) prevent any brash assertions. However, there are constant hints that those institutions and individuals which choose not to extract themselves from Local Authority so-called ‘control’ are somehow dull, stubborn or both. In this week’s DfE announcement about the creation of 79 new Free Schools, Michael Gove argued that “the people who are driving Free Schools and UTCs are true pioneers. They are leading a revolution in the education system.”

A bit like the PM’s call for real excellence, it’s hard to know what he means by true pioneers. Many of these schools are taking interesting approaches, from prioritising foreign languages  to linking with independent schools. But every innovation happening in free schools could take place, and probably is taking place, in local authority schools.

The Schools White Paper also gave the same impression about Academies, as if any school not taking the Academy route had some kind of deficiency in capacity or ambition. At a recent academies event, one principal allegedly claimed that ‘only academies have true moral purpose’.

The decision made by hundreds of outstanding schools not to become Academies is not necessarily down to lethargy or timidity. It may be a positive choice around wanting to remain part of a family of schools, an understanding about what extra funding might not buy, or even a quaint love of local democratic accountability. Moreover, conversion is a bureaucratic process, and its consequences can create added bureaucracy. Many heads are simply choosing to focus on learning and leadership – standards, not structures.

For Free School and Academy leaders are in a sense bureaucratic pioneers. Their central freedoms, around admissions, assets and staffing, are mainly bureaucratic, not educational. Their liberty to veer from the national curriculum lies largely untaken.

Many academy heads are fantastic leaders, and there does appear to be an ‘academy state of mind’ of bullish passion, attention to detail and entreprenuialism that some Heads could learn from. But pioneers are everywhere in England’s education system, from small scale classroom tinkerers to revolutionary heads. The most intelligent leaders, whether teachers, Heads, politicians or policymakers, will look everywhere for inspiration, rather than confine themselves to one type of school.

A few Free Schools, especially Bristol Free School, look like land grabs on behalf of the affluent. No need for swords or ploughshares when you’ve got sharp elbows. But the vast majority do appear to have social justice aims at their heart. And their founders, leaders and teachers will be working crazy, passionate hours to make sure their pupils succeed. Welcome to the world and politics of schooling in England, and good luck. There’s a lot we can learn from each other.

One final thought. The words ‘true’ and ‘real’ appear to have gone straight from playground banter to Tory speeches. True pioneers. Real Excellence. It’s being used like the star on exam A grades. Stop this True/Real madness. 

Speaking Doubt to Power

Here is my idea for an ArtTank. But first, a quick admission.

I’m not an artist. In fact, the arts passed me by for a couple of decades. After some early dalliances, when adolescence kicked in, the arts and I looked at each other in some dusty corridor, and walked on – we got by without each other.

Meanwhile, politics and policy grabbed me – from CND and anti-apartheid marches, to nerdy documents. And policy kept me going throughout my career – even as a teacher, when I was a victim and bystander. From trade unions to think tanks to government departments, I stuck with policy and, beyond the odd novel and movie, stuck without culture.

It’s only been in the last five years, as one of the directors of a programme that uses the arts to transform young people’s lives, have I allowed art, and especially theatre, back into my life, personally and professionally.

So, here's the half-formed idea.

Imagine, for one moment, you are a policymaker, or at the least a policy-shaper. You could be Prime Minister, a civil servant, think tank wonk, or in a tenants’ association. Take your pick. Part of your life is spent recommending or making decisions that will impact on other people’s lives.

Now imagine that, in this role, you have been handed a problem. Somebody’s hunch is that policy can help solve that problem – a new policy, a change in policy, or maybe just the removal of an old policy. So, what do you do? How to you make recommendations or decisions? You will probably want to gather and analyse evidence, talk to experts, maybe hold a seminar, consult with a wider group of people. Recommendations will emerge, which in time may or may not be taken up, and then may or may not be implemented in the way you envisaged. At some point, no doubt, someone will implore you to think creatively. That someone will probably be holding pens and post it notes of many colours. If you are very unlucky, a rainbow cocktail of pipe cleaners and assorted stationery will also appear.

Policymaking is busy work these days, and the processes are becoming busier and busier. Decades ago, hold one or two meetings, write a couple of strong memos, and out came policy. These days, it’s a more torturous process, involving horrible words like ‘stakeholders’, horrible meetings, and horrible online spaces.

All this activity, however worthwhile and rigorous, may not be sufficient. My hypothesis is this. Policymakers who actively allow cultural experiences to inform their decision making processes will make better decisions. Or, as I recently said to a think tank director who was wondering how a new cohort of young researchers could come up with more innovative solutions, “Just get them to see some art!”

Art builds new knowledge and creative capital, and provides a sideways look at the critical challenges facing society now. Artists are, whether they or we like it or not, an incredible political resource. At a time when fundamentals about the role of the state and democracy are being questioned, art can help us think through problems that seem impossible to solve. The results are not always straightforward or simple, nor is art a panacea. But it can and does help shift thinking. As the political theorist Murray Edelman has written:

“Commonly held assumptions about the nature of the world are partly arbitrary, partly conventional, often contradictory, only rarely based on verifiable tests, and even in the last case likely to change as scientists revise their premises, hypotheses, and techniques of observation. Successful works of art enhance, destroy, or transform common assumptions, perceptions, and categories, yielding new perspectives and changes insights,,. although they sometimes reinforce conventional assumptions as well. They can transfigure experience and conception, calling attention to aspects and meanings previously slighted or overlooked.”

Or, as the art historian TJ Clark put it:

“Art seeks out the edges of things, of understanding; therefore, its favourite modes are irony, negation, deadpan, the pretence of ignorance or innocence. It prefers the unfinished: the systematically unstable, the semantically malformed. It produces and savours discrepancy in what it shows and how it shows it, since the highest wisdom is knowing that things are pictures that do not add up….”

What are the policy discussions that could benefit from artistic input?

Right now, anyone who is thinking about policies relating to Englishness, identity, rural community or even intergenerational issues should get to the West End to see Jerusalem.

If you are wondering about how to personalise the NHS, or about how technology might be used more innovatively across all public services, it would be worth exploring the recent Abandon Normal Devices contemporary art festival in Liverpool.

And if you want to think about how we manage consumerism and how consumerism manages us, take a look at Grayson Perry’s pots, inspired by visits to Westfield Shopping centre.

At a time when so much policy requires changing individual and organisational behaviour, where fewer of the solutions can be found in legislation or compulsion, art and artists can play a key role in helping us ask better questions and understand human behaviour, motivations, passions and spirits. So, for my Clore research project, I am beginning to play with the idea of an ArtTank, a mechanism that helps put art and artists into the policymaking process. Here are some of my starting assumptions:

- that the arts can influence the decision making processes of policy makers for the better
- that art is a valid form of ‘evidence’ which could complement (without ever replacing) current policymaking processes
- that artists should be seen as thought and doubt-leaders, and can help policymakers redefine and solve problems
- that deliberately using art and artists this way does not surrender art to instrumentalism, or compromise the artistic process or product.
- that positioning art as an essential tool for policy, rather than of policy, will contribute to its public value

For now, I am going back to theoretical basics, reading tough stuff about theatre, policymaking and power, and thinking through my research methods. So bring me your views, however brutal, and top tips for things to read and see. But I am also looking for partners from policy and art worlds who might help me test some of these ideas in practice. So shout if you think that ArtTank might be able to work with you.

User-generated. Content?

How people blog when they are really busy is beyond me. I have been far too preoccupied with two very different tasks. They are linked, tenuously I guess, around the theme of co-production. Much of my past month has been spent in hospital with my daughter, trying to negotiate a way of treating her lung condition that keeps her as well as possible and all the family as sane as possible. Home treatment saves the NHS thousands of pounds a day, despite the cost of home IV antibiotics. Evidence says that hospital treatment has more effect, but whether evidence is too generalised to count for our experience (I’d say we were now ‘expert patients’) and factor in our emotions is difficult to say.

Before that, I was working with the fantastic team at the Theatre Royal Stratford East. Earlier this year, Artistic Director Kerry Michael announced that, for the first six months of 2012, the Theatre would open up its programming process to allow our public to completely decide on the Theatre’s programme, two seasons of work on the main stage, studio spaces, bar and off-site. My job was to scope the idea, gather examples of similar initiatives, and begin to create a recommended framework for how this could be done. We named the project Open Stage.

It’s clear that, even within the arts, Theatre Royal is not alone in its ambitions, despite Mark Robinson's account of the arts sector’s ambivalence to this agenda. Notable recent innovations included the Nuffield Theatre Lancaster, London Bubble's Fan Made Theatre, and Fierce Festival's recent innovations The combined might of the British Museum and the BBC are also contributing to this zeitgeist, enabling participants to upload photos of their objects as part of their wonderful ‘History of the World in 100 Objects’ initiative, starting in 2010. User-generated content will create the worlds largest museum, adding to rather than challenging the curatorial decisions which led to the first one hundred choices.

However, the Theatre Royal’s plans feel more radical, unique and genuine than anything else I researched. In a way, the concept is already part of the Theatre’s DNA. The theatre has long held a reputation for being a “theatre of the people” and the aim of Open Stage is to take that a step further, building on Joan Littlewood’s ‘continuous loop’ philosophy by giving real programming power to the people the Theatre serves. As Joan herself once said:

I really do believe in the community. I really do believe in the genius of every person. And I’ve heard that greatness comes out of them, that great thing which is in people. And that’s not romanticism, d’you see?

Beyond some financial and ethical constraints, everything about how and what the theatre programmes is genuinely up for grabs. My central suggestion (with huge thanks to Kate from Fuel) was around the creation, through public consultation, of an Open Stage brief, which artists around the world could respond to, and the public would then select and curate from. But the project, funded by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, could go in many exciting directions. In the midst of Olympic rhetoric and real, often turbulent change in its Stratford heartland, Open Stage could have a huge influence, not only on the Theatre Royal, but on the whole theatre and arts sector.

Enron and on: art as evidence

A recent article from Michael Billington about how theatre is responding to the recession focused on the current production of Enron at the Royal Court. With Enron, there has been just about enough time for some decent reflection, with the additional hindsight of realising how little was really learnt (If the smug 'we told you so' hindsight of The Economist ever irritates you, it's worth reading some of their 1990s articles about Enron). The forthcoming play by David Hare about the more recent financial crisis may present more of a challenge. When the events that theatre confronts are too contemporary, distance and reflection become more difficult - let's call it the Dambusters dilemma.

Stunning reviews from the Chichester Festival has sold the run out. Thanks to a short placement at the Royal Court, I saw the first preview. The production was thrilling, with complex issues explained and exposed with creativity, sometimes subtle and occasionally bombastic. At times feeling like an adult pantomime, the play rarely stretched its audience to examine our own complicity and values. Given the demographic of the Royal Court audience (albeit on a first night), the performance felt at times like old money was laughing at the vulgarity of new money.

I finally understood the fraud at the heart of the Enron story, the mark to mark market. To quote Jeff Skilling:

"It's a way for us to realize the profits we're gonna make now. if you have an idea, if you sign a deal, say that we're gonna provide someone with a supply of champagne for the next few years at a set price, every month whatever - Then that definite future income can be valued, at market prices today, and written down as earnings the moment the deal is signed. We don't have to wait for the grapes to be grown and squashed and ..however the hell you make champagne. The market will recognise your idea and your profit in that moment. And so will the company. If you come up with something brilliant - You know, life is so short. If you have a moment of genius, that will be rewarded now. No one should be able to kick back in your job years from now and take all the credit for the idea you had. "

Might policy benefit from a mark to market approach? It would enable politicians to take credit for achievements that are unlikely to be realised in their political lifetimes. In the last fortnight, I have visited several Hackney secondary schools. Even beneath the veneer of some stunning buildings, it feels like something extraordinary may be going on which could have as much impact on social mobility as anything tried in the past. Hackney's secondary schools now outperform the national average for GCSE results. At Mossbourne Academy, a huge group of students who five years ago would probably have ended up with minimal qualifications are now starting their A Level courses.

In the same way that the gains in primary school test scores in the late 1990s were probably more due to Tory policies than to New Labour's literacy and numeracy hours, some of this government's real achievements may not bubble through for a decade or more.

Whilst avoiding premature evaluation, is there any way to give our politicians credit now for evidence not yet seen, impact not yet felt, or outcomes not yet realised?

Putting the C into the CSR

All parties are going for some rhetorical slash and burn to prepare voters' minds for the spending cuts ahead. Lord Mandelson yesterday announced that "everything is going to have to be examined".

It was less than two years ago that we reached the end of the last Comprehensive Spending Review, agreeing budgets for 2008 to 2011. Comprehensive it wasn't. For all the macho talk from civil servants about tough choices and total line-by-line examinations of Departmental budgets, ultimately nobody really suffered. If there were any major losers, they didn't shout too loudly. This contrasted with a concurrent Arts Council portfolio review that did dare to make some unpopular choices, although its communication and justification of these choices were more than flawed.

Any government genuinely committed to cuts in public spending will need a new language to admit its limitations, a polite way of saying that shit happens. I remember one Minister came close when, commenting on a couple of train crash deaths, he compared this to the numbers killed on roads. He was heavily criticised, as was Boris Johnson when responding with justified humour to the transport problems caused by last Winter's snow in London.

A recent DCSF Press Release on youth crime proclaimed: "Ministers are clear that there is no room for failure when it comes to protecting the public from crime". No room? None at all? Does this mean that whenever a crime happens, some part of Government has actually failed?

George Osborne this weekend praised Tory Councils for providing us with fully itemised details about how our money is spent. Would it be possible to start this openness earlier, to render more transparent the decision making processes about how our money is allocated, well before it's actually spent? The opacity of the current process, conducted in spreadsheet-filled rooms, feels archaic. We need an honest discussion between politicians and voters about why and where cuts might happen. As an addition to recent debates about co-production of public services, is there time and space for some thinking about co-reduction?

research, reuse, recycle

I got back into some kind of post-holiday swing by reading Mark Robinson's Arts Counselling blog, celebrating the Gulbenkian Foundation's republishing of their 1959 report Help For the Arts. Mark's summary and analysis cut through the differences in languages (is it time for the regions to reclaim the word 'provinces'?) to show how little has changed in the key debates around arts funding.

Later, inspired by a brief family visit to the Eiffel Tower and a quick fleecing at the gift shop, we all watched The Lavender Hill Mob, the kids still grasping their solid-metal souvenirs. Filmed in 1951, mainly in the heart of the bomb-damaged City of London, the film provided a beautiful visual accompaniment to the Gulbenkian Report.

If it's really true that, chastened by climate change and the recession, we are all cutting costs and darning socks, we may also benefit from taking the same approach to the way we make and shape policy debates. Rather than rely on fresh-faced glossy pamphlets which blithely describe the 'pace of change', maybe we'll all start looking backwards, and learning far more.

Everyone thinking about policy should try out the wonderful History and Policy website, which "works for better public policy through an understanding of history". And if someone out there wants to discover what the current Building Schools for the Future programme might learn from the last wave of school building in the 1960s, I can give you a copy of my wife's Masters dissertation.

Here is something I recycled earlier; an extract from John Berger's Ways of Seeing that has extraordinary resonance to current debates around art, technology and power relationships.

“If the new languages of images were used differently, it would through its use, confer a new kind of power. Within it we could begin to define our experiences more precisely in areas where words are inadequate ... that is to say the experience of seeking to give meaning to our lives of trying to understand the history of which we can become the active agents.

"The art of the past no longer exists as it once did. It authority is lost. In its place there is a language of images. What matters now is who uses that language for what purpose. This touches upon questions of copywright for reproduction ... As usually presented, these are narrow professional matters. One of the aims of this essay has been to show that what really is at stake is much larger. A people or a class which is cut off from its own past is far less free to choose and act as a people or class than one that has been able to situate itself in history. This is why – and it is the only reason why – the entire art of the past has now become a political issue."

back to broken basics

Is there a better name for a blog than The Bleeding Heart Show? Neil Robertson's self-confessed 'liberal-left' blog takes the challenge that all of us should face - thinking like a Tory.

Neil compares Cameron's 'broken society' rhetoric with the pronouncements, and occasional policies of John Major's Back to Basics era. Wary of the way in which Major set standards that members of his Cabinet failed to meet, Cameron is being far more specific about a set of societal ills that afflict only a small part of the population.

How broken is society? What has caused those ills, to what extent are we all responsible? Who was Number One in the Charts when Major gave that speech? Amidst the laughable hypocrisy of Back to Basics and cones hotlines, I remember one speech from Major that resonated with me then, and continues to appeal.

In the middle of a speech full of eulogies for nuns on bicycles and warm beer (remember that one?) Major called for a gentler society. He never expanded on this, but, strip away the nostalgia for an age that was far more violent than golden, he may have been onto something.

Could gentleness become an all-encompassing political philosophy? In a faster, frantic modern world, what does gentleness look like? The Young Foundation's latest report on Civility may well provide some fresh, gentle thinking on this issue. For now, the only answer I have is that, in September 1993, Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince was Number One, with 'Boom Boom Shake The Room.'

stick to your blogging

As of today, I am a proud member of a new bloggers' circle. Set up by Matthew Cain with the support of the RSA, the idea is that a group of amateur bloggers commit to reading, reviewing and publicising each others' blogs. We all aim to create at least one post a week, and comment on at least two posts from other blogs every month. At the moment, it feels like a warm supportive space. Maybe that's because the process hasn't yet begun.

There are lots of Circles out there, but I have immediate visions of knitting circles. From there, the phrase 'stick to your knitting' comes to mind. The phrase was apparently created by Tom Peters (that business guru whose book 'In Search of Excellence' identified a number of excellent companies whose fortunes nosedived post-publication). It means carry on doing what you are familiar with and what you do best. If your company is good at knitting, don't diversify into something new.

The act of blogging is in a sense a direct denial of this daft principle. Great blogs play with the unfamiliar, create connections between different areas of knowledge, none of which the authors might know much about. They acknowledge the value of genuine expertise, but challenge and probe information, teasing out new insights and taking risks with half-formed opinions.

Let's hope everyone in the bloggers circle and beyond sticks to our blogging and keeps ranting way beyond our authority.

Ends and Means

This post isn't really about education. It just begins that way.

A couple of weeks ago, Conservative Education spokesman Michael Gove gave an important speech to the RSA. The speech revealed the contradiction at the heart of his thinking, and probably that of all parties.

The first half of his speech covered his personal views on the purpose of education. A return to the liberal tradition; a focus on thea subject-based canon of content; a retreat from the pursuit of wider skills and outcomes, as exemplified by 'Every Child Matters'. His views were interesting, coherent, and genuinely guided by a passion for social justice. Matthew Taylor's blog gives a good summary, and will soon challenge Michael to clarify a few points.

The second half focused on Tory plans to free up schools to run schools as they wish, driven by the demands of their parental community. If Michael really believes this, it renders the first half of his speech irrelevant. His opinions are no less interesting, but they become merely opinions, ones which schools and parents could adopt, adapt or ignore as they see fit.

The key 'localism test' for any politician should be this: If you are serious about devolving power, you will have to be prepared not only to devolve methods, but to devolve outcomes too. Every child will still matter, but in very different ways to very different communities.

Raising and Redefining Achievement

I have always had respect for Michael Barber's approach to education, and his ability to make genuine change happen. However his piece on How the school system should respond to a shrinking budget shows that he might have hung round politicians too long. He uses two political devices.

Device 1: Invent extreme-viewed enemies that don't really exist

Tony Blair used to do this all the time; I doubt he was the first. Here are three of Michael's examples:

"Many still cling to the demonstrably false view that creativity consists of each teacher making it up in the classroom. This is not creativity, it is betrayal."

"the widely held but absurd view that because some things can't be measured, we should measure nothing."

"There are many educators and leaders who simply don't believe that successful change is possible."

Where are these people? I have weaved my way round the education world for years, and never seem to meet them. Yes, there are those of us who, backed by evidence, believe that we focus insufficiently on the creative development of our children; that our assessment system is no longer fit for purpose; that change is rendered difficult by societal factors beyond the school walls. But nobody I have met ever takes these views to the extremes that Michael claims. By turning them into extremists he denies the validity of these concerns and closes down debate.

Device 2: Make it sound too simple

His 'systemic solutions' are faultless: train and develop great teachers and leaders; ensure teachers develop their pedagogy with regular opportunities for collaboration and feedback; devolve power and budgets to schools; ensure that data about school and student performance is rich, accurate and transparent. As an education system, we have made progress on all of these solutions.

Here is my additional solution, more messy and complex, but one which could move us on at a time when 'performance' appears to plateauing. Talk about the outomes. As an education system, we need a robust discussion, a new consensus, and finally (and most challenging) a degree of local flexibility about the outcomes we want for our children and young people. Despite the tinkering from government, and braver moves from others, including the RSA's Education Charter, politicians tend to close down discussions about outcomes before they have really begun.

I once claimed that the aim of Creative Partnerships was to raise and redefine achievement. Raising proved much easier than redefining. I hope that the new 21st Century Learning Alliance has more joy. Standards Are Not Enough (worked out the acronym?)