ABSTRACT
In this chapter I shall limit myself to the following main points.
First, I shall rehearse the political arguments about falling standards and about the need of the educational system to do something about them — and of the government, therefore, to do something about the educational system.
Second, I shall then say a little about the consequence of this — the ways of putting this concern into operation.
Third, I shall move into the more theoretical and critical domain, and place the prevailing notion of standards within the wider context of different educational traditions. The arguments about standards cannot be divorced from a much larger ethical debate about the purpose and the control of education.
Fourth, I shall reflect on all this in a more philosophical way, trying to clarify what by now (in the argument) appears more and more to be an ‘essentially contestable’ concept.
Finally, I shall draw all these points together very inconclusively.
