Educational Review Vol. 59, No. 3, August 2007, pp.

267284

Pedagogy of the possessed: the privatization of civic education and values under New Labour
Gary Wilkinson*
Scarborough School of Education, The University of Hull, Scarborough, UK

As part of its agenda to promote choice, diversity and parent power in education, New Labour is aiming to develop a system of independent non-fee paying state schools. It is envisaged that control of the governing arrangements in such schools will shift from the local authority and be delegated to a range of external partners and sponsors drawn largely from business and religious organisations. The involvement of external partners in education in the US suggests that it may be both ineffective and detrimental to the development of rounded citizens. This article reviews some of the themes from research there and argues that, in an increasingly fragmented world, privatised control of civic education in state-funded schools in England threatens the integrity of public education and the civic objectives of state schooling.

Introduction
Unfortunately, to this point in America, policymakers have devoted much less time to thinking through the constraints that may be necessary on corporate involvement in the schools than to considering ways to expand schoolbusiness partnerships. This will have to change if we wish to retain and strengthen a public education system that serves the best interests of children and that promotes democratic civic values. (Molnar, 2001, p. 7)

The White Paper, Higher standards, better schools for all: More choice for parents and pupils (DfES, 2005a), developed what has been a slow-burning and, until recently, unacknowledged theme of New Labour education policy. Its persuasive language of choice, diversity and parent power speaks for a strategy broadly sculpted around a belief in both educational markets and self-managing schools free from the constraints of local authority control. Alongside this is an assumption that external partners, with their enterprising spirit of innovation, will be the most effective change agents to spearhead this agenda. The document is a blueprint for a system of
*Scarborough School of Education, The University of Hull, Scarborough Campus, Filey Road, Scarborough YO11 3AZ, UK. Email: G.P.Wilkinson@hull.ac.uk ISSN 0013-1911 (print)/ISSN 1465-3397 (online)/07/030267-18 # 2007 Educational Review DOI: 10.1080/00131910701427199

268 G. Wilkinson independent non-fee paying state schools (DfES, 2005a, p. 4) in which school governance is devolved to groups of parents or, and this is more likely, to religious groups, charities and businessmen. This delegation of school governance to external sponsors privatizes control of civic education in publicly funded schools in England. Followed to its logical conclusion, it heralds the wholesale handing over of the education system to those representing organizations whose chief interests lie in something other than the advancement of education for the good of society and an active democratic citizenry. The increased scope of the power conceded to private interest groups therefore threatens the integrity of public education and the civic objectives of state schooling. It is true that there are distinctions to be drawn between for-profit and not-for-profit private management of educational provision. This article, however, uses privatization to refer to the control of schools and their assets irrespective of whether corporations, or other organizations, are making money from their involvement in education since the central and most immediate argument here is one about privatized power within the public sphere. Paulo Freire (1982) wrote inspirationally of a pedagogy of the oppressed in which education provided oppressed citizens with the tools to read society. Educators, he argued, must be critical cultural workers helping students to understand the socio-political functions of the dominant cultural values and norms and bringing them to challenge oppression and to consider how they might improve democracy. It is possible that corporate and other sponsors share these educational ideals but not everybody can aspire to the huge influence and power that this recent version of delegated school governance confers. The city academies programme, New Labours flagship independent state schools, requires a financial contribution from sponsors of up to 2 million for each new school. This makes the government vulnerable to the charge that the rich, powerful and influential are buying control of state education. The words of the director of Arizona State Universitys Commercialism in Education Research Unit (CERU), quoted earlier, are now as relevant to England as his native land (Molnar, 2001). England must now begin to consider how best to safeguard the integrity of education within state schools. We must question the educational wisdom and ideals of those who seek to control schools. Failure to do so risks the creation of pedagogy of the possessed where the nature of citizens educational experience is determined by those who can afford to purchase power. New Labours choice agenda has its political antecedents in the new right policies of the Thatcher and Reagan eras and is incontrovertibly connected to the ideology of the market. The economist Milton Friedman, as far back as 1962, proposed a voucher system for parents to purchase education in a market of privately run schools. Governments role, he suggested, should be restricted to setting minimum standards and policing schools much as it now inspects restaurants (Friedman, 1962, p. 89). Later, Chubb and Moe (1990) claimed to have demonstrated that school effectiveness improved according to the degree of autonomy enjoyed by school leaders. Since autonomy is more evident in the private

The privatization of civic education and values 269 sector which operates according to a market model and boasts higher student achievement outcomes, they argued that it the structure of state education which is responsible for its lower educational standards. In their view, political and democratic control restricts autonomy in state schools. They assert that Bureaucracy is unambiguously bad for school organisation (Chubb & Moe, 1990, p. 183) and call for freeing up the supply of schooling (p. 208). They too propose a market model for school organization, including vouchers, to create competition between schools and promote parental choice in the belief that this would drive up standards. Glass and Matthews (2000, p. 5) offer a methodological critique of Chubb and Moes research claiming that the causal direction between autonomy and high achievement has not been established and describe their work as a polemic wrapped in numbers. A more profound concern with their approach, and with many economistic arguments for school markets and parental choice, is that they define school effectiveness purely in terms of academic attainment and ignore the social functions of schooling for civil society. The creation of educational quasi-markets (Glennerster, 1991) produces a poor mimic of commercial marketization which disregards the different and complex values and ideals of the public service tradition. Crouch (2003) argues that one distortion in public service markets is produced by an artificial analogue of prices, one which can easily be measured and may not indicate what the consumer is seeking. Defining school effectiveness according to academic attainment alone is an example of such distortion since the importance of the wider civic functions of state schools to nurture moral, social and cultural behaviour and values may become marginalized. Democratic accountability, which is caricatured as bureaucratic meddling by the proponents of privatized state schools, has served to protect the rights of students in this regard and acted as a safeguard against an education biased in favour of a private providers interests. It also gives the State a say in the education system which it funds. The US has been at the forefront of attempts to involve the private sector in educational provision and it is worthwhile looking at their experience first. Research there does little to engender optimism about external partners involvement in schools suggesting that it is both ineffective and detrimental to the integrity of state education. Because of the variations in educational provision and school control across the US, we cannot assume that what pertains in one state applies in another. Nevertheless, certain trends are identifiable throughout much of America. Some concerns which have arisen there are sketched first. Policy instruments and structures which facilitate private involvement in English schools will then be outlined and some key issues signalled. The focus is on corporations and religious groups as problematic examples of private interest groups whose objectives outside of education may be incompatible with the ideals of civic education in a liberal democracy. It is argued that the New Labour leadership now accepts the logic of the new rights beliefs in educational markets as it seeks a diversity of state schools controlled by those from outside the tradition of public sector professionalism. The paper will conclude with some reflections which tentatively map out some themes for

270 G. Wilkinson a possible response for those concerned about educational values and democratic accountability in schools. Private lessons from America There is now a significant body of literature on what is commonly termed the commercialization of education in the US. This catch-all term encompasses two broad strands of discussion. First, it describes the incorporation of managerialist techniques borrowed from business and imposed upon the public sector. Second, commercialization is an umbrella term covering aspects of corporate or private business activity within the US education system. This is concerned with issues such as the impact of private sector involvement with university research, the use of educational arenas for brand-building and corporate governance of schools and colleges. Sometimes commercialism leads to a distortion of educational mission. The sponsorship of US college athletics teams by sports companies has led to an undesirable imbalance of emphasis in university sports departments where team success overrides the rights of students to a more rounded education (Bok, 2003). University teaching and research, traditionally considered a public good, has also been affected. Increasing corporate involvement has heralded an era of academic capitalism (Slaughter & Rhoades, 2004), where universities and their corporate partners seek to profit from knowledge. Commercialization encourages and catalyses the privatization of knowledge. Corporate brand-building in schools privatizes too. Klein (2001, p. 88 ) has documented the commercialization of public space in the US and described how corporations striving to advance their brands have intensified their focus on marketing activity in schools to the point where they have all but eliminate[d] the barrier between ads and education. Advertising contracts or exclusive deals with vending companies privatize school space and aspects of schools functions. Channel One is a controversial television station broadcast in US schools which trades television sets and computers for pupil viewing time. The company profits from selling advertising time on the station to companies keen to reach a captive market of schoolchildren. Studies highlight problems with its news coverage (Hoynes, 1997), its advertising content (Miller, 1997) and its effect on pupils (Greenberg & Brand, 1997). In short, the channel is anti-intellectual, offering children a bland, onedimensional consumerist take on life. Schools serving the poor are twice as likely to air the station (Morgan, 1993). Channel One, which exists to promote its own private interests and those of its advertisers, has privatized vital parts of the hidden school curriculum. It has appropriated the way the news is tackled in many schools and privatized a significant aspect of what was once vital preparation for citizenship. It reaches 11,000 schools in the US educating 7 million children. The CERU at Arizona State University reports annually on commercialization in schools throughout the US using eight discrete categories. The privatization category is concerned chiefly with the operation of for-profit Education Management Organizations (EMOs). CERUs profiles of for-profit education

The privatization of civic education and values 271 management companies (Molnar et al., 2005), lists 51 education management companies operating during the 20032004 school year running 463 public schools catering for over 200,000 children. There are three examples of EMO activity in the US: the contracting out of services, including school management, by states or cities; publicly funded voucher schemes which citizens can use to purchase education at a school of their choosing; and charter schools which delegate school governance to a group or collective. The contracting out of whole groups of schools has produced some unenviable outcomes. Researchers at Princeton University examined the work of Educational Alternatives Inc. (EAI) who had been given $135 million to run nine schools by the city of Baltimore. Researchers found that its schools cost 11% more per pupil to run yet the overall effectiveness of teaching was the same. They concluded that the promise that EAI could improve instruction without spending more than Baltimore City was spending on schools has been discredited (Future of Children, 1997, p. 105). They were similarly unable to find any evidence of improved results at the Edison Project which developed and managed for-profit schools. More recently, Saltman (2005) has written in greater detail about the failure and mismanagement of Edison Schools Inc. and draws broader conclusions calling for a reconceptualization of public education and a critique of public sector funding mechanisms. The blunt message is that privatized profit-making schools do not work. The transatlantic school choice agenda arises from the ambitions of the radical right who are zealous in the pursuit of a small state and market utopia. For them, advocating a public school system run by private interests of various guises has the advantage of harnessing the perceived vitality and creativity which competitive markets bring while simultaneously reducing the role of the state. In 1990 the State of Wisconsin implemented The Milwaukee Parental Choice Programme, a publicly funded voucher system which enabled poor ethnic minority children to attend private schools. Molnar et al. (1996) outline how the findings of official annual evaluations failed to identify any lasting improvement in standards for the children participating in the project over and above children attending Milwaukees public schools. Yet statistics from this research have been presented in a misleading way to support an ambitious longer term political policy objective:
The goal of the neoconservative power brokers who are bankrolling the push for school choice in Milwaukee and across the country is to create a private school system that is publicly funded, that operates according to the rules of the private market, and that will break the government monopoly on the provision of education. (Molnar et al., 1996, p. 2)

Californian citizens seem to suspect that vouchers may divert resources away from the public sector and have twice voted decisively to reject vouchers by margins of 70% to 30% in 1993 and 71% to 29% in 2000 (Dzidzikashvili et al., 2003). Perhaps their apprehension about private sector involvement in public education stems from the public scandal of Edutrain, a charter school in California which collapsed with 1 million unaccounted for. The school was in breach of various aspects of its charter and the business ethic of management incentivization seems to have been

272 G. Wilkinson practised enthusiastically. Molnar (1996a) recounts that school money was used to help pay for the principals rent, sports car and bodyguard. Charter schools are an alternative form of privatization to voucher schemes. The first opened in 1992 in Minnesota. There are now over 3500 educating more than a million US children in 39 states. According to CERUs seventh annual report (Molnar, 2004) charter schools are now the main focus of EMO activity. They are publicly funded schools run by groups of parents, teachers, community leaders and businesses. Charter schools are accountable to the state or local school board for academic outcomes and financial matters but can act with relative autonomy in many other areas, including management of curriculum, employment arrangements and accommodation. Each state has its own charter laws though some do not facilitate this form of provision. The National Alliance for Public Charter Schools (NAPCS, 2006), a group fighting for the advancement of charter schools, claims that they give parents greater say in the education of their children, offer educators freedom from burdensome rules and regulations, and ensure accountability for student learning. Chartering, they say, is at the center of a growing movement to challenge traditional notions of what public education means. It is certainly clear that freedom from bureaucracy and the implication that state involvement in education represents unnecessary meddling and interference is never far beneath the surface when protagonists articulate the benefits of the schools. The effectiveness of charter schools, like voucher schemes and contracting out, is, however, far from proven and the inconclusivity of research into this experiment is best demonstrated by comments on the US Charter Schools (2006) web site. Sponsored in part by NAPCS, it lamely announces that:
Some schools have already been successful enough to have their charters renewed, which means their sponsors were satisfied that they met the original goals of their charter. A few charters have been revoked due to lack of proper financial management or lack of achievement. Charter schools have shown improvement in both parent and student satisfaction and in innovation.

Over 10 years into the scheme, even a partisan organization like NAPCS is unable to produce evidence of improvement in any harder educational outcomes claiming that more [research] data are needed (NAPCS, 2006). CERUs work shows only that privately managed schools perform better than public in some cities and worse in other. For peripheral educational activities, they cite Luftigs (2003) study which looked at reading summer schools and found no difference between the results of public and private sector provision. Whilst the effectiveness of privatized public education is in doubt, there are growing signs that clashes of interest between educational and commercial priorities are becoming more publicly apparent. As with Edutrain, the dynamism of the corporate sector sometimes commands public attention for rather unwelcome reasons. CERUs report catalogues many instances of behaviour which raise questions about EMO activity. Edison, now reverted to a private company focussing its business strategy on charter schools, has reneged on promises to extend school

The privatization of civic education and values 273 hours in its Florida schools after it encountered problems of staff retention and declining pupil attendance. In New York, an Edison charter school failed to provide legally prescribed services and classes for special education pupils. Victory Schools have eliminated librarians in its schools in New York, Baltimore and Philadelphia. K12 Inc. is tapping into the lucrative new market of Virtual Charter Schools, which provide computer-mediated education and are aimed at the significant numbers of home schoolers in the US. EMOs which run these schools invariably provide or are linked to companies providing branded curriculum materials and technological infrastructure. K12 Inc.s methods have led to lawsuits in several states and challenges to the legality of the companys provision including the failure to deploy state-certified staff in Minnesota. This example illustrates how the different dimensions of commercialism in educationin this case privatization and brandbuilding through educational resources often operate in tandem. Allied with political and intellectual backers keen to advance certain planks of public policy, privatization in its various forms offers a variety of profit-making opportunities for business. Auditors claimed that Arizona improperly gave more than $1.1 million in federal money to charter schools run by for-profit companies. Florida, has offered corporations tax incentives for donating money to fund scholarships to send children to private schools. But the evidence is inconclusive as to whether privatization provides value for money for the state and improved education for US children. The US privatization project appears to rest on an article of political faith, summed up neatly by Molnar:
Instead, each reform supports the fiction popular with business leaders that, if the system was made more efficient, there is no reason America couldnt maintain a universal system of public schools and provide every child with a high-quality education without spending more money. In other words, unleash the market and stand back as thousands of entrepreneurs create better schools. (Molnar, 1996b, p. 9)

Commercialization and privatization based upon just such a misplaced faith has arrived in the UK. We need now to examine the mechanisms which promote it.

Privatizing English education From standards to structures At Ruskin College in 1996, Tony Blair, then Leader of the Opposition declared that the truth is that we know the qualities that make a successful school and they exist whether or not we have a market in education (Blair, 1996). New Labours first education white paper, Excellence in schools (DfEE, 1997), committed the government to focussing on standards not structures. Since then, the confident dismissal of simplistic market solutions voiced at Ruskin College has given way to robust endorsement. The New Labour leadership has performed a volte-face which now presents the party as the champions of choice and diversity. Blair forcefully underlined this new willingness to publicly proclaim his conversion to a market model in his 2005 Labour Party conference speech:

274 G. Wilkinson
Theres a great myth here: which is that we dont have a market in services now. We do. Its called private schools and private healthcare. But its only open to the well-off Choice is what wealthy people have exercised for centuries. The Tories have always been comfortable with that. But for Labour choice is too important to be the monopoly of the wealthy. (Blair, 2005a)

The prime ministers rhetoric does not paint the full picture. The new right ideology of the Thatcher years birthed policies remarkably similar to those New Labour now advocates. Their project was never completed but the Conservatives did manage to introduce city technology colleges and grant-maintained schools similar in many respects to new Labours city academies and proposed independent schools. A further interesting point of continuity with Conservative thinking, shared with many in the US, is the presupposition that flexibility, inventiveness and dynamism are the preserve of business, faith groups and charities whilst public sector professionals are regarded as impediments to reform. The publication of the White Paper, Higher standards, better schools for all: More choice for parents and pupils (DfES, 2005a) in October, 2005 and the Education Bill presented before the British parliament in early 2006, brought this agenda into sharper focus by laying the foundations upon which all schools would be released from local authority control and achieve self-government. In truth, though, the measures only sought to extend what already pertained in a significant number of schools to all schools. Schools were to be freed to create their own ethos and granted relative autonomy in the management of curricula, accommodation and workforce. At the same time, there would be changes to schools relationships with local government and to school governance. At one level, schools would enjoy respite from local government bureaucracy and the inconvenience of accountability to structures of local democracy; at a different but complementary level, representatives of private interest groups would be embedded in the structures of school control. This simultaneous shunting out of the public and empowerment of the private is at the core of the strategy to privatize the governance of public education. The prime minister is fond of proclaiming the improved results of specialist schools and academies. Both of these schools involve sponsors and, for the prime minister, demonstrate the connection between standards and private interest groups:
It is no coincidence that results at every level have been better in specialist schools and academies where they have had more freedom to innovate and a greater involvement of external partners. (Blair, 2005b)

These models are to be extended, alongside a new category of Trust Schools which will harness the external support and a success culture, bringing innovative and stronger leadership to the school, improving standards and extending choice (DfES, 2005a, para. 2.5) without unnecessary bureaucratic interference (p. 4). Alongside foundation schools, already enjoying a degree of autonomy, these are the mechanisms for creating a fully independent state school system offering parents diversity of provision where each school has its own distinctive character and areas of excellence. Local education authorities are reinvented as choice commissioners.

The privatization of civic education and values 275 Much of the Parliamentary Labour Party is suspicious of this, concerned that the poor and disadvantaged will lose out. There are good reasons to support this backbench apprehension. On the politics of choice, a longitudinal study in New Zealand indicated a decline in overall educational achievement and showed that markets are neither efficient nor equitable (Lauder & Hughes, 1999, p. 2). There are also difficulties regarding the concept of meaningful parental choice in public sector services coupled with a danger that the outcomes of such a system may, in fact, favour the professional and middle classes as their children cluster in certain favoured schools exploiting their greater economic and cultural capital to avoid schools with a disadvantaged intake (Tomlinson, 2001). It is right to seek to address the inequalities which school markets create and understandable that this has been the chief point of criticism for those opposed to New Labours strategy. That should not, however, lead us to overlook other areas of concern. There is little enthusiastic endorsement of New Labours belief in the powers of external sponsorship. The cross-party Select Committee of the House of Commons report that No causal link has been demonstrated between external partners and the success of a school, or between the independence of a school from local authority control and its success (Education and Skills Committee, 2006, para. 50). Yet the government have persisted with policy instruments designed to provide the opportunity for private interest groups to control and heavily influence the nature of local state schools. There arise some important questions of public interest. Who are these school sponsors and what motivates them? What safeguards protect children from an impoverished educational experience funnelled through a corporate lens or filtered thought the perspective of fundamentalist religiosity. Who determines whether the educational ideology of a school promotes the public interest or the interest of the sponsors? Corporate involvement
It is not practical or desirable for company boards to. represent different stakeholder interests. Boards should be accountable to shareholders. (Peter Mandelson, quoted in Monbiot, 2001, p. 14)

As Peter Mandelson reminds us, the logic of shareholder capitalism means that the corporate animal is driven by the promotion of its own interests. Yet, educational administrators in England, like their US colleagues, have been compelled to seek partnerships with business if they wish to avail themselves of government funding for major policy initiatives. The granting of state funds for educational projects under New Labour has been increasingly dependent on schools or local education authorities having first secured the support of a private sector sponsor. Cohen (2000) notes that Education Acton Zones (EAZs) have invited Shell, British Aerospace, Tesco, ICI, Cadbury Schweppes, McDonalds and Kelloggs amongst others to have a say in the running of groups of English schools. EAZs are not a oneoff. The Playing for Success programme is an initiative to develop after-school study centres within sports stadia to help motivate pupils in need of a boost to help them get

276 G. Wilkinson back up to speed in literacy, numeracy and information and communication technology (DfES, 2005b). In addition to the support of the host club, individual centre managers are tasked with enlisting the support of private business usually in exchange for the donors logo being displayed within the centre and on the centres literature. Sainsburys plc, Nestle, Barclaycard, ASDA, Nike, Intel, Sony, Powergen, HSBC Bank, Boots, McDonalds, IKEA, Playstation 2 and Coca Cola Enterprises have all taken advantage of this opportunity to raise brand awareness amongst underachieving children and associate their companies with the local football or county cricket club. Like the virtual charter schools in the US, the line between the distinct priorities of the business and educational worlds becomes very fuzzy. The European Round Table of Industrialists (ERT, 1998, p. 18) have argued that We cannot leave all action in the hands of the public sector. The provision of education is a market opportunity and should be treated as such. There have been vigorous government efforts to help these industrialists into this market by contracting out educational services provided by Local Education Authorities (LEAs). As with US cases of Educational Alternatives Inc. and Edison, the experience has singularly failed to produce a compelling case for the efficacy of the business ethic. Following an analysis of the Office for Standards in Educations (Ofsteds) reports, the Times Educational Supplement reported that those LEAs forced to surrender services to the private sector have improved less than those who failed an inspection but were allowed to retain control (Slater, 2003, p. 7). Five of the nine privatized LEAs were poor and one firm, Cambridge Education Associates, was fined after failing to meet targets. In 2003, a collapsed contract with Atkins Education cost Southwark council 1.5 million, much of it in lawyers fees, after the company withdrew prematurely from its contract to raise standards in the borough. The council leader, was clear that the termination of a contract with Atkins is in the long-term best interests of Southwark schools, parents and pupils (Smithers, 2003, p. 10). Specialist schools, which receive extra money per pupil unit, are part of the governments oxymoronic aim of creating a wholly specialist comprehensive system (DfES, 2005c). As of October 2005, there were 2381 specialist schools educating 2.5 million children and representing over 75% of all secondary schools. Whilst such schools have a special focus on those subjects relating to their chosen specialism they must also meet the National Curriculum requirements and deliver a broad and balanced education to all pupils (DfES, 2005c). Schools bidding for specialist status are obliged to find 50,000s worth of support from a private sponsor whose contribution presumably symbolizes local capitalists enthusiasm. Sponsors are entitled to representation on the governing body but their contribution does not secure control. Nevertheless, there are marketing advantages to such an exercise as the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust (2005) testify:
Supporting a specialist school provides innumerable and ongoing opportunities to raise the profile of a particular sponsor through the association with a flagship national government initiative. In addition sponsors can expect a substantial level of local recognition as a considerable proportion of the increased investment going into a school is used to help and improve local communities. (Specialist Schools and Academies Trust, 2005)

The privatization of civic education and values 277 Unsurprisingly, over 400 companies have taken this opportunity including GlaxoSmithKline, Marconi, Microsoft, Tesco plc, Associated Newspapers, Deutsche Bank, Hitachi, Kodak, Motorola, Nestle Rowntree, Nissan, Philips, Saatchi & Saatchi, Sanyo and Vodafone Group plc. Schools and authorities who can find a commercial backer with rather larger pockets can apply to become a City Academy which are publicly funded independent schools (DfES, 2005d). In addition to the sponsors charitable donation of 10% of the building costs of the new school (up to 2 million), these schools have received public funding in excess of neighbouring local authority schools since they receive direct from the state money held back from neighbouring schools by the LEA for its central services. They operate outside of LEA control which removes any element of local democracy. Academies independent status allows them the flexibility to be innovative and creative in their curriculum, staffing and governance (DfES, 2005d). These schools have similarities with US charter schools. Although corporate sponsors in England are not permitted to make direct profits, corporate advantage cannot be reduced to the crudities of immediate financial payback. That is why the other brand-building activities in schools, which do not usually generate immediate financial returns, is booming. DfES is certainly alive to the marketing opportunities presented to sponsors whilst it ignores the anti-educational effects of advertising on children. Hence, its Education Business Links website (DfES, 2006) tries to lure companies with a direct appeal to self-interest:
Companies today are discovering that partnership with schools can help bring real business benefits. They can acquire better market knowledge, tap into local creativity to develop new products, and gain new and more loyal customers. (DfES, 2006)

In city academies, sponsors make decisions about the Academys vision and ethos and structures for governing and managing the new school (DfES, 2005e). In reply to a direct enquiry asking about restrictions on academy sponsors marketing in schools, DfES (2005d) disclosed that it does not publish guidance on advertising at, or through, schools and leaves decisions regarding this and all forms of corporate brand-building to governing bodies. Sponsors of the twenty seven academies opened so far include Amey plc, Reed Executive plc, SGI Ltd, a venture capital company, Seabourne Group plc, stockbrokers Insinger Townsley and the drug company Pfizer. The Dixons City Academy in Bradford surrenders the very identity of the school to its sponsors. Although there is no taboo surrounding the corporate benefits of sponsorship, any hint that self-interest might motivate individuals to sponsor academies is considered vulgar. Des Smith resigned as a council member of the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust in January 2006, after admitting to a Sunday Times reporter that the government rewarded sponsors with knighthoods and peerages. Downing Street denied this. Smith later told The Guardian that he was sorry and had been na ve (Smithers & Pallister, 2006), though tellingly, he did not retract what he had unwisely introduced into the public arena. He has since been arrested as police investigate claim alleged breaches in the honours system though no charges have been brought at the time of writing. Six academy sponsors have been honoured

278 G. Wilkinson under New Labour since 2001 though there is no suggestion that any impropriety has occurred in respect of these individuals. Non-corporate involvement New Labour minister Margaret Hodge has been praised by the British Humanist Association (2005) for her bravery in questioning the religious orthodoxy of the government. She is not the only sceptic. A recent poll showed that 64% of the general public agreed that the government should not be funding faith schools of any kind (Taylor, 2005, p. 1). Their view is increasingly shared by influential voices from a surprisingly wide range of backgrounds. The Chair of the Commission for Racial Equality warned that a society where children are marching into educational ghettoes is sleepwalking to segregation (Phillips, 2005). Barry Sheerman, the usually measured Chair of the Education Select Committee, worries that schools play a crucial role in integrating different communities and the growth of faith schools poses a real threat to this (Sheerman quoted in Taylor, 2005, p. 2). Chief Inspector of Schools, David Bell (2005) has publicly expressed concern about the threat to national coherence caused by religious segregation and called for the state to monitor the growth of faith schools to ensure that pupils are educated about the wider tenets and values of English society. Leading liberal rabbi Jonathan Romain argued in The Times that faith schools are a recipe for social disaster which can destabilise the social health of the country at large (Romain, 2005, p. 72). The former Church of England Bishop of Repton wrote to the newspaper in support of Romain and expressed sadness that the churches and the state (in my native Northern Ireland) continue to acquiesce in the sectarian divide (Richmond, 2005, p. 18). The ugly face of sectarian divide, when primary aged children were terrorized by running a gauntlet of screaming Protestants to get the Holy Cross Catholic School in Belfast had, understandably, left a mark on the bishop as it has on everybody else who witnessed the nightly coverage of this grim spectacle. Despite growing public reticence, the government has persisted in promoting more faith schools as part of its diversification strategy. Over 50 Jewish schools, around 100 Muslim schools and over 100 Evangelical Christian schools have opened as independent faith schools (Bell, 2005). City academies now offer a more circuitous route through which those with a religious agenda can buy a platform in non-faith state schools. The cases later demonstrate that this should concern those who do not wish to choose faith schooling for their children. Emmanuel College in Gateshead and Kings Academy in Middlesbrough are sponsored by the Emmanuel Schools Foundation (ESF), a charitable arm of Peter Vardy, a fundamentalist Christian who made his fortune from second-hand car dealing. Although they replaced non-religious state secondary schools, Vardys schools place the Person of Christ and His example at the centre of their inspiration as they mould a curriculum appropriate for students of the 21st century (ESF, 2006). The curriculum they have moulded so far has included teaching creationism alongside the theory of evolution which has been described as educational

The privatization of civic education and values 279 debauchery by Richard Dawkins, professor of the public understanding of science at Oxford University (BBC News, 2003). Kings College were reported to have banned Harry Potter novels from the school library over fears of satanic undertones (Desira, 2004). Sex and health education are
presented in a Christian moral framework, whereby self respect and respect for others are seen in chastity outside of marriage and fidelity within it. Presenting this ideal, it is recognised many do follow other lifestyles and so sensitivity and understanding in tutorial and pastoral situations by staff are of prime importance. (ESF, 2006)

The sensitivity displayed by Nigel McQuoid, principal at the Kings Academy, is not reassuring. He has been quoted stating that the Bible says clearly that homosexual activity is against Gods design. I would indicate that to young folk (Harris, 2005, p. 8). McQuoid was directly appointed by the foundation who also appoint viceprincipals and five of the nine members of the governing body. Peter Vardy claims a purely philanthropic interest in education but his evangelical lieutenant John Burn, Chief Education Officer of the Vardy Foundation and Chairman of the Christian Institute, appears to have a more partial agenda. He sees opportunities for Biblical Christians to influence all of the compulsory requirements in schools and asks rhetorically whether Christians have the wisdom and courage to contend for this (Burn, 2001, p. 14). Burn perceives objectivity in religious education as dangerous because it too often fails to present the unique truth claims of Christ (Burn, 1999, p. 1). The United Learning Trust (ULT), is a subsidiary charity of the United Church Schools Trust (UCST)and was specifically created to manage academies in England. It now has 11 schools. Predictably its education is based on Christian principles of service and tolerance. Less predictable is the extent of their ambitions to extend their influence by associating local primary schools helping them to act as a through school, ensuring continuity of ethos, learning and records (ULT, 2006). ULTs parent charity is chaired by Lord Carey of Clifton, a former archbishop of Canterbury. Under his watch, a Church Schools Review Group (CSRG) reporting to the Archbishops Council candidly revealed that the churchs involvement with schools was doctrinally motivated. It hoped that engagement with children and young people in schools will enable the Church to: Nourish those of the faith; Encourage those of other faiths; Challenge those who have no faith (CSRG, 2001, para. 1.13). The religious enthusiasms of the prime minister are sincere and well documented (Seldon, 2004). His then Secretary of State for Education, Ruth Kelly, who introduced the white paper to Parliament, is a member of a Christian sect Opus Dei which asks that its members spread the message of the universal call to holiness in ordinary work and social life and view their work and social relationships as ways to grow closer to God and to help others do likewise (Opus Dei, 2006). This may have obscured the administrations appreciation of some cogent criticisms regarding faith and schooling and help explain why the administration brushes off reasonable criticism without substantive reply. Asked during Prime Ministers Questions about the controversy regarding the teaching of creationism in Vardys schools, Blair

280 G. Wilkinson remarked that it would be very unfortunate if concerns about that issue [creationism] were seen to remove the very strong incentive to ensure that we get as diverse a school system as we properly can (Blair, 2002). Objections from local parents to academics backed by the religious are also sidestepped when are perceived to obstruct diversity policy. Harris (2005) recounts in detail how evangelical sponsors and their facilitators from the local authority and the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) tried to frustrate an ultimately successful campaign to prevent a Vardy-backed take-over of a comprehensive school in Doncaster. The National Secular Society (2005) track cases where communities feel that academies sponsored by faith groups are being imposed upon them. They have reported incidents of organized and vocal parental opposition in Barnsley, Kent, Leicester and Lincolnshire. Controlling interests The US is further down the road in terms of both commercialization and privatization of schools and the systematic study of such phenomena. Their experience demonstrates that our civic education system and its values may well be under threat from two commercializing formsbrand building in schools, in both corporate and religious forms, and privatization. The US experiment with privatization ought to urge caution for the practical reason that there is no evidence that it works. There are also deeper moral and cultural objections to the privatization of school governance if the primary purpose of the interest groups to whom power is ceded resides in something other than, or additional to, the educational welfare of children. It presents the opportunity to impart a partial world view by fashioning a curriculum, pedagogy and ethos which inculcates children into the sponsors way of looking at the world. The lack of effective controls means that school doors open to brand-building activity while freedoms from local democratic control may mean that sponsors can use their position to generate other income streams for the company or its corporate friends and relations as we have seen with the virtual charter schools in the US. Advertising or branded educational materials may be introduced and a school culture may evolve which has critical blind spots concerning the benevolence of big business or the limits of the private sector. As we have seen, not only is there little to stop this. The government are actively highlighting these marketing windows as bait to lure potential corporate sponsors. Religious and other groups are not ideologically neutral educational administrators. Where they bring their faith perspective to school governance, this, in many respects, signifies a more blatant ideological privatization of state schools. Independent state schools controlled by religious groups may spread intolerance of the wide diversity of life choices upon which the success of secular liberal democracies depends. They may begin to exercise religious bias in personnel decisions. Moreover, the religious control of non-faith schools is profoundly undemocratic. Attendance at churches on Sundays is now a marginal activity in

The privatization of civic education and values 281 England and DfES have published statistics showing that 65% of 1219 year olds identify themselves as having no religious affiliation (DfES, 2004). The governments choice agenda is amply catered for with existing faith schools and the ambition to give parents the right to ask for a new primary or secondary school to meet a lack of faith provision (DfES, 2005a, p. 29). To allow previously nonreligious schools in disadvantaged areas to be turned into academies with an ethos based on fundamentalist forms of Christianity is an inappropriately paternalistic imposition in twenty-first century secular society. If this is not to be stopped, then there should be, at the very least, a counterbalancing right for parents and children to establish schools where children can access their entitlement to the full state curriculum free from the influence of religion. Too many aspects of New Labour education policy seem to airbrush the irreligious, and their rights, out of existence. If we are serious about reclaiming education as a civic good for a vibrant and critical democracy, we must respond to privatization on at least three levels, practical, empirical and political. At a practical level there is now a pressing need to develop strategies which might act as safeguards and establish channels of redress and correction. Such actions might include: developing the remit of the inspection service Ofsted so that commercialism in schools becomes a key area of scrutiny; establishing a more rigorous and genuinely democratic consultation process when co-opting external partners; establishing an effective external complaints commission since if citizens have complaints against provision which is publicly funded, they ought to be able to take their grievances beyond a governing body with a private controlling interest; developing a national code of practice to cover all aspects of commercialism and corporate activity in schools; providing training to raise teachers awareness of commercialization since front line workers are often the unwitting conduits for the messages of McWorld (Barber, 2003). A research agenda must build on the work begun in the US. It needs to be properly funded and examine meticulously the comparative impact of private education management organizations and so called independent state schools. It must reach beyond the usual performance indicators (examination results, university entry, and such like) to examine pupils inclination and capacity for participatory democratic citizenship. If there are genuine educational advantages, the reasons for this need to be systematically investigated and explained with rather more sophistication that the platitudes about the pioneering spirit of entrepreneurs with which the government has justified its privatizing agenda so far. At a political level, a reappraisal of the purpose of civic education that has the imagination to see beyond its function of credentializing citizens for economic life is vital. Academic standards, fair access and equity of educational entitlement are important matters but political discourse must broaden out to talk about the content and ownership of childrens educational experience. New Labour hope that enthusiastic parents will organize and petition local authorities clamouring to run new trust schools but Ruth Kellys recent courting of Microsoft and others (Halpin, 2006) and the angry protests against religious sponsors of proposed academies suggest that the push for independent state schools is not parent-led. The likelihood

282 G. Wilkinson is that most new schools will be built in reaction to perceived school failure and run by groups with religious or corporate interests. The motivation of individual representatives of these organizations may be wholly philanthropic but politicians and policy formers cannot take the good faith of organized sponsors, corporate or otherwise, on trust. Ruskin and Schor (2005, p. 4) observe that As governments adopt commercial values, and are integrated into corporate marketing, they develop conflicts of interest that make them less likely to take stands against commercialism. New Labour has cosied up to these interests as it has tried to push forward its diversity strategy and is selling a controlling interest in the education of English schoolchildren to those who can afford the subscription. References
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