Open AccessPayment by Results
Author(s) -
Brendan A. Rapple
Publication year - 1994
Publication title -
education policy analysis archives
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1068-2341
DOI - 10.14507/epaa.v2n1.1994
Subject(s) - accountability , payment , welsh , control (management) , sociology , school system , school choice , public administration , economics , political science , public relations , law , pedagogy , management , finance , history , archaeology
Today the public is demanding that it exercise more control over how tax dollars are spent in the educational sphere, with multitudes also canvassing that education become closely aligned to the marketplace's economic forces. In this paper I examine an historical precedent for such demands, i.e. the comprehensive 19th century system of accountability, "Payment by Results," which endured in English and Welsh elementary schools from 1862 until 1897. Particular emphasis is focused on the economic market-driven aspect of the system whereby every pupil was examined annually by an Inspector, the amount of the governmental grant being largely dependent on the answering. I argue that this was a narrow, restrictive system of educational accountability though one totally in keeping with the age's pervasive utilitarian belief in laissez-faire. I conclude by observing that this Victorian system might be suggestive to us today when calls for analogous schemes of educational accountability are shrill.