John Marks

Professor John Marks is a British nuclear physicist, educator and author. He has written extensively on British education and has co-authored, with Caroline Cox, This Immoral Trade: Slavery in the 21st Century, and The West, Islam and Islamism: Is Ideological Islam Compatible with Liberal Democracy?

Education policy

Marks was a contributor to the 'Black Papers' on education, published in the 1970s.

Marks and Caroline Cox published a survey of school standards in 1983. They later claimed they were the subject of a smear campaign, after an official briefing questioning their methods leaked to the press. Critics argued that the report was statistically unrepresentative and did not take enough account of social class.

Women and Families for Defence

In 1984, Marks produced a report for Lady Olga Maitland's Women and Families for Defence, which claimed that peace studies in schools had become the subject of a disinformation campaign on the nuclear issue.

Marks charged:

'It is not that all the items are uni-lateralist or pacifist; rather, it is that most of them are.

'It seems as if those who draw up these lists realise that a completely one-sided list would be self-defeating in its obvious imbalance. So a few token items are included to try to create the impression of balance while denying it substance.'

Fred Jarvis, the General Secretary of the National Union of Teachers, responded that:

'John Marks' attempts to spread smears, innuendos and half truths are a substitute for hard evidence and rational discussion which will deceive nobody. The senior inspector responsible for peace studies has said that peace education is being taught with professional integrity and academic responsibility.'

Patrick Harrington

In December 1984, members of the lecturers union sought to have Marks disciplined for praising Patrick Harrington, a National Front member who was studying at North London Polytechnic. The Guardian reported:

Dr John Marks, a lecturer at the college and associate of Baroness Cox, described the NF philosopher as an 'exemplary student' in Saturday's Daily Telegraph. Members of the higher education union, NATFHE, at the college wondered how Dr Marks should know, since Dr Marks is in the applied physics department - not a subject Mr H has hitherto shown much interest in.

The lecturers condemned Dr Marks for making comments based on 'no knowledge of Mr Harrington's academic career' - remarks, they said, that were 'without foundation.' It was 'serious professional misconduct .. to make unsubstantiated statements .. in order to score political points.' They now want the polytechnic's directorate to discipline Dr Marks and prevent him from repeating his behaviour.

Standards in English Schools

Marks published his second report on standards in English schools for the [[National Council for Educational Standards in July 1985. The Guardian reported that his findings were disputed by other educationalists because they did not consider differential ability levels in the pupil intakes of different schools:

Dr Marks himself admits that more research needs to be done - although that does not stop him from making some fairly sweeping policy recommendations based upon his conclusions so far. His academic opponents amongst educational statisticians, though, are on the whole unrepentant. Many are still highly critical of his research methods as a basis for making comparisons between the performance of different types of school, and in particular his assertion that grammar and secondary modern systems produce better examination results than completely comprehensive systems.

Hillgate Group

Marks was one of the contributors to The Wayward Curriculum: A Cause for Parents' Concern?, a pamphlet issued by the Social Affairs Unit in May 1986.

Marks was also one of the founders of the Hillgate Group, which in December 1986 issued a pamphlet, The Reform of British Education calling for the removal of state schools from local authority control and the reintroduction of selective education. It also called for an inquiry into the Schools Inspectorate, which was criticised by Marks in an interview with The Times:

'They have failed to act as the guardians of a good system; they are the dog that didn't bark.

'What have they done about anti-racism, for instance? Now we see it exploding in Brent over the past three months, but it's been around for the past two or three years in the borough.'

In the same month, Marks was one of four people appointed to the Conservative Collegiate Forum, the body which replaced the disbanded Federation of Conservative Students.

The New York Times credited Marks with significant influence on Conservative education policy in 1987:

it is not parents' demands that have given political shape to Conservative education policy, but lobbying by a small group of radical ideologists on the right of the party. Among the most energetic campaigners have been Lady Caroline Cox, Dr. John Marks and Prof. Roger Scruton, a philosopher-journalist of Birkbeck College, London. They have appeared wearing hats as associates of the Center for Policy Studies, the National Council for Education Standards, the Hillgate Group and the Institute of Economic Affairs, whose present education consultant, Stuart Sexton, spent six single-minded years inside the Education Department as political adviser to successive ministers.

Marks wrote to Education Secretary Kenneth Baker in March 1987, asking him to block the creation of an A-Level course in peace studies.

Marks published Choosing a state school in 1989, with Cox and Robert Balchin. In a review for The Independent, Professor Harvey Goldstein criticised their methodology for judging schools exam results:

The authors base these 'targets' on research that two of them carried out in the early 1980s. But their suggestions for parents fail to take account of the single most important factor in a school's results: the achievement of its pupil intake. For example, schools with relatively poor exam results may nevertheless be doing a fine job with a low achieving intake. It is the progress children make between entering and leaving school which should be measured, not merely their final results.

The procedures recommended by the authors could pass very unfair judgements upon many schools, both good and bad. Moreover, their research used only the overall average results for each school. It is now widely accepted by those working in this area that school comparisons should be based on an analysis of individual children's results. Recent work in the Inner London Education Authority has shown how misleading it can be to compare schools merely on their average results.

Marks criticised proposals by the National Union of Teachers to address anti-racism in the national curriculum in 1992, saying:

'It is not a function of the Curriculum to seek out racism explicitly and attack it. Such tactics often raise such antagonisms. Black parents want their children to be engineers, nurses, doctors - they want to make their way in British society. Much of this anti-racist spouting exacerbates the problems.'

The Right after the fall of the Wall

In January 1990, Marks and Cox attended a Prague conference on 'The Future of the Right in East and Central Europe' organised by the Conservative Council of Eastern Europe. According to Richard Gott, Marks suggested that "that Czechoslovakia should be purged of Communists in the same way that Germany was de-Nazified after 1945."

Baroness Cox explains how 'the moral legitimacy of British society has been undermined by Marxists in key institutions, particularly educational establishments'. Universities, schools and training colleges have all suffered, she says. The social sciences and history have been 'particulary infected'. The church, too, is suspect. 'Many of our church leaders have been infected by liberation theology'. John Marks adds that the British know well 'how much wrecking power Communist parties can have, even when small'.

Affiliations

• Schools Examination and Assessment Council, 1990-3
• The Future of the Right in East and Central Europe, attendee, 1990
• National Curriculum Council, 1992-3
• Schools Curriculum & Assessment Authority, 1993-7
• Centre for Social Cohesion - Advisory Council
• National Council for Educational Standards - Former Administrator
• Educational Research Trust - Co-director
• Prague Society for International Cooperation - Member
• Panellist at Identity Crisis: Can European civilization survive? a conference held in Rome on 13-14 March 2008, under the auspices of the European Freedom Alliance in conjunction with the European University of Rome and the Lepanto Foundation.

Publications

• Relativity: A Non-Mathematical Introduction to the Classical, Special and General Theories of Relativity, Geoffrey Chapman, London, 1972.
• Science and the Making of the Modern World, Heinemann, Oxford, 1984.
• Peace Studies in Our Schools: Propaganda For Defenceless, Women and Families for Defence, 1984.
• With Maciej Pomian-Srzednicki, Standards in English Schools - second report, Sherwood Press, 1985.
• With Caroline Cox, The Insolence of Office, Claridge Press, 1988.
• With Caroline Cox and Robert Balchin, Choosing a State School, Hutchinson, 1989.
• Fried Snowballs: Communism in Theory and Practice, Claridge Press, London, 1990.
• The Betrayed Generations: Standards in British Schools 1950-2000, Centre for Policy Studies, London, 2001.
• With Caroline Cox, Islam, Islamism and the West: The Divide Between Ideological Islam and Liberal Democracy, American Foreign Policy Council, Washington, 2005.
• With Caroline Cox, This Immoral Trade: Slavery in the 21st Century, Monarch Books, Toronto, 2006.