Introduction
Catholic Education systems face a number of challenges today, including church/state relations, the relationship between faith and culture, the meaning of Catholic identity, declining levels of religious observance and the aging profile of religious teaching communities. Conscious of the tendency for Catholic Education systems to focus on their own uniqueness, the author addresses a challenge of a different order, one that arises from the hegemony of scientific-technical reason and market-driven neoliberal values, a hegemony that militates against gospel values. The chapter considers appropriate responses to this ideology from the perspectives of curriculum policy and practice and the social values of the gospels, particularly the option for the poor. It is based on the author's keynote address at the 2013 Australian Catholic University (ACU) Catholic Leadership Conference and reflects his familiarity with education systems in Ireland and Australia.
Grace's (1989) fundamental question remains valid â âEducation: Commodity or Public Good?â While Grace's main focus was on the value of a liberal education, it was not long before the discourse of the neoliberal ideology came to dominate. Today the term neoliberal has come to be âused so widely and so loosely that it is in danger of becoming meaninglessâ (Ball, 2012, p. 3). For the purposes of this chapter, it refers to the adoption of private and social enterprise approaches to publicly funded education systems, often referred to as the new managerialism.
The hegemony of scientific-technical reason means that, redolent of the Christian existentialist philosopher Gabriel Marcel, issues of great human significance are portrayed as problems that can be solved by the relevant experts. The emphasis is on performance indicators and on finding the most economic and effective solutions to such problems, as instanced, for example, by Dubai Knowledge Village (DKV).2 This culture of pragmatism, predicated on what Habermas (1972) calls the âtechnical paradigmâ, is characterised by value neutrality and declining levels of critical public debate. Within the prevailing environment of enterprise and competition, there is a premium on individual rights to property ownership, legal protection and market freedom, while civic society, community values, social democracy and citizenship rights are eschewed. The focus is on collective responsibility, national identity and the pursuit of self-interest facilitates what Sennett (1998, p. 26) calls âthe corrosion of characterâ.
Neoliberal policies and education
Modern education systems are characterised by an undue emphasis on the relationship between education and economic growth and a growing obsession with performativity and league tables:
⌠the global policy convergence in schooling has seen the economisation of schooling policy, the emergence of human capital and productivity rationales as meta-policy in education, and new accountabilities, including high-stakes testing and policy, as numbers, with both global and national features. (Lingard, 2010, p. 136)
This ânew orthodoxy in educationâ (Ball, 1998) questions the very aims and purposes of public education. It identifies education as the key instrument for producing the new global citizen and as a major component of economic globalisation, while teachers are viewed, in an environment that is devoid of trust, as productive workers deprived of professional autonomy. The outcomes of this new managerialist approach are evident in the annual Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) production, Education at a Glance, with its myriad of league tables that facilitate contractual rather than professional accountability3 (Gleeson & Ă DonnabhĂĄin, 2009). Within this environment, the growing power and influence of the modern state in education is legitimated by economic concerns. As former Australian Prime Minister Gillard stated:
Put simply, we cannot have the strong economy we want tomorrow, unless we have the best of education in our schools today. That is why the plan that I am announcing today is a plan for our schools to be in the world's top five by 2025. (The Australian, 2013, April 14)
This is to ignore Brown and Lauder's (2012) conclusion that âthe human capital theory on which official policy discourse is based is fundamentally flawed because it assumes that all can capitalise on the demands for knowledge and skills, because they are key to increasing productivity and productsâ (p. 6). Nor does it take cognisance of Wolf's (2002) observation that âour preoccupation with education as an engine of growth has only narrowed the way we think about social policyâ (p. 251).
This new managerialist culture redefines knowledge and education within âthe legitimate framework of public choice and market accountabilityâ (Lynch, Grummel, & Devine, 2012, p. 4). The associated growth in policy entrepreneurship is reflected in the emergence of major international education consultancy businesses and transnational advocacy networks such as the Atlas Economic Research Foundation, the Liberty network and Tooley's Templeton Foundation (Ball, 2012). Such networks facilitate policy borrowing (Lingard, 2010) and constitute a new form of governance, what Ball (2012) calls âa market of authoritiesâ (p. 9). This means that âthe boundaries between state, economy and civil society are being blurred [while] multilateral agencies, NGOs and business interests and influences can separately or together constitute a powerful policy alternative to state âfailureââ (Ball, 2012). The activities of such networks are heavily focused on developing countries and their policies are âtypically discussed and portrayed within a paradigm of progressive policy solutions, vulnerable constituencies and community empowerment related to human rights and environmental issues in particularâ (Ball, 2012, p. 12).
The World Trade Organization's General Agreement on Trade and Services (GATS) regards education and other public services as marketable goals where âthe student is defined as an economic maximiser, governed by self-interest [and] and capable of making market-led choicesâ (Lynch et al., 2012, p. 14). In this environment, education is perceived as a consumable good rather than âa key instrument in protecting people's human rightsâ (Lynch et al., 2012). Some 10 years ago, Merrill Lynch estimated that the global market in educational services was worth $111 billion a year outside of the United States with a âpotential consumer base of 32 million students' (Spring, 2009, p. 84). This market ideology is portrayed âas a natural way of doing thingsâ (Gandin, 2006, p. 192), while social policy decisions in education are increasingly being defined by powerful intergovernmental organisations, such as the United Nations, OECD, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (Ball, 2008; Ditchburn, 2012; Spring, 2009).
Impact on education practice
The neoliberal agenda impacts on the practice of schooling in many ways. The emphasis is on measurable outputs, employment-related skills and competences, consumer choice, increased state control over curriculum content and assessment and standardised testing. The associated curriculum discourse is highly technicist, standardised and universalistic in character, with the definition, selection and structuring of legitimate knowledge being externally prescribed and prioritising the self-realisation of the individual child. Curriculum is seen in terms of product rather than process, something that the teacher must âdeliverâ, rather like the mail or the milk. For example, Michael Barber's (former Head of the UK Prime Minister's Delivery Unit) address to the African Development Bank in March 2010 was titled âAn Introduction to Deliverologyâ (Ball, 2012, p. 108).
Au (2013) sees No Child Left Behind (NCLB) in the United States, with its roots âin the logics of competition and markets of neoliberal capitalismâ, as the prelude to their recently introduced Common Core State Standards (CCSS). He argues that Obama's âRace to the Topâ means that NCLB is more deeply entrenched than ever, with test score results being used as the main justification for charter schools4 which are undermining both public and Catholic Education systems.
From an Australian perspective, Lingard (2010) sees the recent introduction of their national curriculum as part of a nation-building exercise involving the alignment of curriculum with global economic imperatives. From the perspective of neighbouring New Zealand, an early adopter of the neoliberal agenda, Dale (2000) argued that the popularity of standardised models of education meant that the school curriculum had become âa ritual enactment of worldwide educational norms and conventions rather than instrumental choice of individual societies to meet various local requirementsâ (p. 431).
There has been a proliferation of standardised testing programmes such as the OECD's Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), the National Assessment Plan â Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) in Australia and NCLB. This has resulted in a wide variety of tensions between, for example educational quality and [e]quality, education as public good and competitive private commodity, âhaving an educationâ and âbeing an educated personâ, the role of the teacher as technician/professional.
The spread of this ideology has also had regrettable implications for schools, as reflected in Hargreaves (2003) study of the influence of neoliberal reforms on the highly progressive, student-centred, Blue Mountain School in Ontario. He concluded that inflexibly mandated, standardised reform measures impacted on all aspects of the school's work and culture and âchipped steadily away at Blue Mountain's distinctive approach to teaching and learningâ (Hargreaves, 2003, p. 146).
In its short history, Blue Mountain has built a strong and enviable reputation for caring, among pupils and staff alike. But the secure selves and relationships on which effective caring depends are being consistently undermined by the effects of large-scale, standardized reform. (p. 151)
One of the defining characteristics of neoliberal policies has been an emphasis on outcomes-based education (OBE). The shortcomings of this approach have been well documented (Gleeson, 2013; Hussey & Smith, 2002; Stenhouse, 1975). While OBE is appropriate for trainin...
