ABSTRACT
The discontent with schooling seems strong among younger teachers and people linked to education or otherwise working with young people. The State, once having averted the threats of the early 1970s, continued to strengthen its grip on schooling. In fact the process of centralisation began in 1870, when parliament initiated the process of mass schooling by the State. Much of the quality of what counts as education during the years of schooling depends on classroom teachers. True, schools were given more financial control, at the expense of reduced power for the local education authorities, and head teachers gained additional powers, including the possibility of becoming a grant-maintained school, for they were intended to be at the forefront of improvement efforts. The most important eventual outcome was Conservative Education Secretary Kenneth Baker’s Education Reform Act of 1988, which established the National Curriculum and schemes of national assessment.
