Introduction

In August 2020 the examination results for 16- and 18-year-olds in England were released. The COVID-19 pandemic lockdown meant that assessment was undertaken by teachers who provided an estimated grade for each student and a comparative ranking to allow for standardisation. An algorithm was used to adjust the grades based on the school’s performance in each subject over the previous 3 years. When the A-level results were published, ‘36% of entries had a lower grade than teachers recommended and 3% were down two grades’ (BBC 2020a: NP). It became clear that students who attended fee-paying schools had their estimated grades protected through a combination of selective entry into school, smaller classes, and better funding, because ‘an algorithm based on past performance will put students from these schools at an advantage compared with their state-educated equivalents’ (BBC 2020a: NP). Smaller classes in private schools meant that the standardisation process could not operate and so teacher estimates were used, but a student in a larger class in a school or FE college would have their grade adjusted according to past performance. The design and deployment of a ‘neutral’ algorithm enables the segregated education system to be preserved through the supportive use of narratives that enable and sustain the wasting of talent: first, students in a state school cannot be awarded the highest grades and so the reality of ‘bright’ and ‘able’ students outside of the private sector is disavowed; and second, the exercise of professional judgement in a state school is distrusted because larger classes and limited resources incentivise grade manipulation by teachers. This example illustrates how the ERC requires authorisation through governing by knowledge production whereby what is known, how it is known, what is worth knowing, and who the knowers are is integral to how structures operate in regard to strategic and tactical public policy design and enactment. Policy is infused with eugenicist populism where the ERC is replete with justifications of exceptionality: