It has not been a good week for state education in Britain. First came a study from London University’s Institute of Education (reported by dehavilland and the UK press). It explored whether smaller class sizes do indeed produce better results. Smaller classes formed a key Labour pledge when it was first elected. While doubts have been raised about older children (11+) level, it had been widely assumed that smaller classes at primary level (5+) gave better results. The report says:

No evidence was found that children in smaller classes made more progress in mathematics, English or science.

Indeed, a counter-indicator emerged, in that levels of literacy among children aged 11 in classes of fewer than 25 pupils were lower than those who were in groups of more than 30 children.

In fact family poverty, rather than class size, had the biggest effect on results. Those eligible for free school meals (taken to be a social indicator) fell further behind in English and maths as they progressed through school.

Now the Commons Education and Skills Select Committee has said there is no evidence to support the claim that more money in education equals better results. The Labour-dominated committee says bluntly that the Government is wrong to claim that billions of pounds in extra funding for schools has produced better examination results.

Despite Chancellor Gordon Brown’s claims to the contrary, the committee said that GCSE exam results had improved no more rapidly during Tony Blair’s Government than when the Conservatives were in power, even though public expenditure on secondary schools had risen up to ten times faster.

The Government needs to take great care in making claims about the effectiveness of increased investment in education in increasing levels of achievement which the evidence cannot be proved to support. Links between expenditure and outcome remain difficult to establish.

The select committee’s report on public expenditure in education said that the Treasury had “simply asserted” a direct link between spending and exam performance in the 2004 Budget, with no supporting evidence. These two reports do not, of course, prove any case, but they do suggest that the link between extra money and better results might be more tenuous than the UK government, and especially its Chancellor, has assumed. It could be that the mountain of additional spending might bring forth only a mouse of achievement.