#007 – Prof. Geoff Whitty: Realities of evidence-informed education policy (part 2)

28th July 2017

In this episode of the LKMco podcast, Iesha talks to Professor Geoff Whitty. Geoff is Professor for Equity in Education at the University of Newcastle, Australia and a former director of the Institute of Education, University of London.

They discuss the increasing globalization of educational policy and what Geoff has learnt about the importance of carefully adapting imported policies to local conditions. The first part of this conversation is in episode #006

In this episode Iesha and Geoff discuss

  • How education policy tourism is often used to legitimise political ideologies and rhetoric
  • How adapting Teach First to English sensibilities made it more acceptable to teaching unions than Teach for America is in the US
  • The ideological interplay between England and America re Grant Maintained Schools, Charter Schools, Academies and Free schools.
  • How the same policy can have different consequences in different societies
  • Why school choice policies appear to be driving inequality in China
  • What’s wrong with slogans like “no excuses” in education
  • Why good teaching is necessary but not enough on its own to tackle inequality
  • Why those in education need to link to wider social movements to affect change
  • How inequality can be tackled worldwide
  • And much, much more

Resources/people featured or mentioned

Show notes and links for this episode can be found at cfey.dev/podcast/007/ 

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Music Credits:  ‘Oui’ by Simon Mathewson from  and ‘Jump for joy’ by Scott Holmes both from  http://freemusicarchive.org

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