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England: Restructuring Education and the Demise of the LEA

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Education Policy Reform Trends in G20 Members

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Abstract

This chapter focuses on developments over the past 25 years in England, where almost 85 % of the population lives. The review goes back to 1988, when there were 107 Local Education Authorities in England. The number of local authorities has increased to 152 today, as the result of various local government reforms, yet the local authorities’ powers and responsibilities have diminished. The chapter illustrates such a continuing process of reform by three distinct but unequal phases, which largely followed the changes of the essentially two-party political system. The chapter describes the reform conceived and implemented by each government and analyzes their assumptions underpinning the reform and the evidenced-based impact. Finally, it delineates external factors that have contributed to development of education standards in England and potential lessons for replication.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Manchester, Manchester, England, UK

    Mel West

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  1. Mel West
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Correspondence to Mel West .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of International Cooperation, National Institute of Education Sciences, Beijing, People's Republic of China

    Yan Wang

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West, M. (2013). England: Restructuring Education and the Demise of the LEA. In: Wang, Y. (eds) Education Policy Reform Trends in G20 Members. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-38931-3_5

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