Literature Review Blog #1

   

(2) Whitty, Geoff. "Creeping Privatization And Its Implications For Schooling in the Inner City." The Urban Review Volume 22. No. 2 (1990) :101-114. Print

(3)   Goeff Whitty discusses the government's response to the issues facing education in the inner city. He includes the "assisted places scheme", the establishment of city technology colleges with aid from business  sponsors, and the cultivation of schools through the use of federal grants.

(4)   Whitty was Goldsmiths College's Professor of Policy and Management in Education before he became Director of the Institute of Education, Professor Whitty is Chair of the British Council's Education and training Advisory Committee. Whitty has directed  research projects on the impact of education policies, such as the assisted places scheme, city technology colleges, Education Action Zones and changes in  initial teacher education.

(5) "Assisted Places Scheme" - system structured so that poor students could attend expensive proprietary schools by scoring within the top 10-15% of applicants in the school's entrance exam.

"City technology colleges  (CTCs) " - secondary education with a strong technological element thereby offering a wider choice of secondary school for inner city students. 

(6)    "Instead, he justified  CTCs  by  pointing  to  what he  perceived  as  the success  of magnet  and  other specialist schools  in  the  United  States,  notably the Bronx  High  School  for Science,  in  transforming  the  achievements  of inner-city children  and  acting  as  "beacons  of excellence"  to  spur surrounding  schools  to make similar improvements" (Whitty 107).

The achievements of students aided by the assisted places scheme has had an influence on the education of  nearby schools, leading to the improvement of the institutions of the whole community. In this case, we see the positive outcomes of establishing a for profit school on the public.

"Despite  the  government's  refusal  to  date  to  widen  the  scheme  beyond  the  academically  able,  there  have  been  persistent  attempts  to persuade the government that the scheme's  apparent success in filling its places   justifies  more  extensive  measures  to  provide  alternatives  to  mainstream  state  education" (106-107).

The assisted places scheme is only available to poor students that exceed academically. The government does not see the benefit of offering more students free or cheaper for-profit education opportunities.  The article is rather old, so maybe this has changed. I will research this more.

"These schemes all help most those children with parents best able to play the system to escape from poor schools. They do nothing for the quality of education of the majority who remain behind" (Whitty 105).

The students that do not exceed academically seem to be regarded as less important, as they are not "assisted"  by the "assisted place scheme". However, city technology colleges were made in response to this flaw.

(7) Other than researching the possible success of inner city students through privatized higher education, I also wanted to explore the causes of failure of students as well. More importantly, I wanted to find out what the government was doing to help the inner city and how it planned to use privatization to do so. This article has given good insight into the improvement of education with government established proprietary colleges. Also, it has shown the flaws in their efforts, such as the disregarding of average students by the "assisted places scheme". This article was merely a starting point that raised my curiosity. I want to go further into the education of the inner city youth who did not make the goals set by the assisted places scheme. What other help were they provided? Also, why wasn't the current public education improved with the budget used to create additional proprietary colleges?