In England the balance of responsibilities between national and local government for the governance of education is changing. Relationships between schools are shifting and new structures, groups and alliances are being created in response to national policy. The article is part of a project to understand how the new local education landscapes are…

This article considers the ways in which government policy in England is causing local schooling landscapes to be reconfigured. By August 2014, 12 percent of primary schools and 53 percent of secondary schools had become academies--"independent publicly funded schools" directly responsible to the Secretary of State. The article begins by…

The statutory guidance is for local authorities given by the Department for Education, on behalf of the Secretary of State. Section 72 of the Education and Inspections Act 2006 places a statutory duty on all local authorities in England, in exercising their functions in respect of maintained schools causing concern, to have regard to any guidance…

This article reviews the development of "teaching schools" in England, exploring some of the reasons for their development and their potential to transform professional learning.

This article presents research relating to the experiences of union and community-based campaigns that have sought to challenge the establishment of academy and free schools in England. Such schools are removed from local government control and are seen as a defining element of the neoliberal restructuring of public education. The research draws…

This article provides a case study of union change in an environment in which radical school restructuring is taking place, and active strategies to weaken and marginalize organized teachers are being pursued by the state. The case study union is the National Union of Teachers in England. The article explores a number of different strategies open…

This research reports upon the impact of two concurrent processes of Special Measures and academisation applied to a primary school in the north of England as a result of an unsatisfactory inspection by the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted). The aim of the study is to describe how the process of being placed in special measures, coupled…

Research to date about the English government's policy to make schools independent of local authorities (LAs) has looked at the "macro" level of national policy and at the "micro" level of the institution. The study of which this article is a part, explores changes at the "meso" level--the locality. The article…

High stakes testing has been long established in the English school system. In this article, we seek to demonstrate how testing has become pivotal to securing the neo-liberal restructuring of schools, that commenced during the Thatcher era, and is reaching a critical point at the current time. Central to this project has been the need to assert…

This article presents a policy sociology reflection on Bernard Barker's book, "The Pendulum Swings: Transforming School Reform". The book represents Barker's attempt to intervene in education policy during the lead-up to the 2010 UK general election and is framed by what he imagined might be possible under a new Conservative government.…

Following the indecisive general election in May 2010, the Tories and Liberal Democrats formed a coalition government with David Cameron as Prime Minister, George Osborne as Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Michael Gove as Secretary of State for Education. Right from the start, Gove was a man in a hurry. Within two weeks of his appointment he had…

Despite successive waves of school reform, the English education system, like many others, continues to be characterized by marked inequalities of outcome. These seem to be related to factors in students' family, community and wider societal contexts that schools traditionally have been powerless to tackle. This paper argues, however, that schools…

Behind the thin veil of the Conservative regime's rationale of deficit reduction hides the final demolition of public comprehensive education and Raymond Williams's more expansive long revolution unfolding over a century of creating a democratic state that affords opportunity, voice and justice for all. Restoring the politics of a pre-war or…

This groundbreaking volume considers the ultimate fate of the comprehensive high school as individuals enter the twenty-first century. Contributors consider whether the question of the high school's seeming demise is exaggerated and why it is experiencing the many problems that it does. Essays focus on the United States, the United Kingdom,…

Coalition education policy threatens to transform the school system in England. A combination of public spending cuts, and the drive to making all schools Academies, represents a key moment in the restructuring of the education service along neo-liberal lines. This article argues that there is nothing distinctively "new" about Coalition…