Opting Out of Local Authority Control ‐Using the Education Reform Act to Defend the Comprehensive Ideal: a case study in educational policy implementation

ABSTRACT

This paper is based on an insider account of the process by which a secondary school, Stantonbury Campus, Milton Keynes, England, used the 1988 Education Reform Act to opt out of local authority control in order to preserve its egalitarian comprehensive character. Using the legislation in this way effectively reversed many of the assumptions surrounding the notion of Grant Maintained Status, in particular that such schools would be selective, traditional in character and seeking to leave Labour LEAs. In describing how and why Stantonbury's governing bodies engaged in a struggle to leave the control of their local education authority, the case study suggests that the direction and development of state educational policy may often lead to unforeseen outcomes and consequences. Moreover, the analysis demonstrates that educational change does not conform to a purely rational model and that it is significantly influenced not only by ideology but also by human agency and meaning. The current state of the debate about comprehensive schools and educational standards is subjected to a critical examination, partly by using the vehicle of a TV documentary made at Stantonbury in 1990, just after the school opted out. The television programme and its associated press coverages serve to indicate the extent to which not only politicians but also the media have produced a situation in which there are many similarities between left wing and right wing policies on education. Indeed differences of opinion over the advisability of opting out as a policy are one of the few remaining divisions between the two sides. The paper concludes by asking what the future holds for opted out schools should the Labour Party be returned to power in Britain.