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CentrePiece:
Spring 2009 Issue Now Out: The Education Issue

4 June 2009

Education is always a big issue in public debate. It becomes even more important at a time of crisis, when the economy is in recession, unemployment is rising rapidly and disadvantaged members of society are in danger of becoming even worse off and perhaps permanently 'scarred' by job loss or inability to join the labour market at all.

So how is the UK's education system doing? Over a number of years, researchers at the Centre for Economic Performance (CEP) have been assessing the effectiveness of the nation's educational policies in raising standards. A series of studies has evaluated efforts both to improve the quality of education overall and to tackle the 'long tail' of people without basic skills by giving better opportunities to low-achieving, 'hard-to-reach' children from poorer families.

This CentrePiece provides an overview of the most significant findings across a wide range of policies, including increased resources, the 'choice and competition' agenda and new structures such as academy schools. We also make comparisons with education systems in other countries, and take a look at teachers - both their career decisions and the impact of their expectations on pupil performance.

Key articles include:

Big ideas: education by Sandra McNally; Academy schools and pupil performance by Stephen Machin and Joan Wilson; Assessing pupils' abilities by Stephen Gibbons and Arnaud Chevalier; What works in primary schools? by Olmo Silva; and Going private by Richard Murphy.

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