Commodifying Education with Michael Gove
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32 schools to reopen as academies |
More of the SameDavid Cameron has had interesting things to say about education; he may not have read Ivan Illich, but he appears to have understood the scale of the problem ... Four in every five youngsters receiving custodial sentences have no qualifications. More than two-thirds of prisoners are illiterate. And nearly one-third of those excluded from school have been involved with substance abuse ... Forty-three per cent of 11-year-olds cannot read, write and add up properly. Last month, more than 20,000 pupils left school without a GCSE. And right now, more than a million young people are not in education, work or training ... ... and appears to realise that schools cannot be micro-managed from Whitehall. [In Sweden] standards have been raised by allowing innovative organisations to set up new schools in the state sector, championing excellence and giving parents more control and choice. Sounds fine until you read The Economist's report of his visit to Mossbourne Community Academy, which concluded: Mr Cameron did not confine himself to talking about new schools and parental demand. He also laid out detailed plans for bossing schools around. All are to bring in uniforms, all are to group children by ability—and all are to teach reading in a particular way. A pity. The Tories are not into Ivan Illich after all. But they are still into privatisation. |
32 schools to reopen as academies
Official figures from the Department for Education will today show that six weeks after the legislation became law, only 32 schools have completed the process to open as academies this month, with 142 in total expected to convert over the coming academic year. More than 2,000 schools have expressed an interest in becoming an academy.
Announcing that every school could apply for the freedoms in May, Mr Gove said academies could become "the norm" in England's education system, adding he anticipated a high take-up of his offer. He insisted it was down to individual schools to make the decision.
Schools rated "outstanding" by Ofsted were pre-approved, meaning that those under this category who applied immediately are the most likely to open as academies first ...
Chris Keates, general secretary of the NASUWT teaching union said there were concerns that schools had not properly consulted with staff, parents and their local community over decisions to convert.
uk.news.yahoo 01 Sept 2010Faith groups lead first wave of ‘free schools’
Today's research suggests that fears of a dramatic decline in the skills of British graduates and school-leavers are driving employers to look abroad.Immigration cap will devastate UK companies
Will your 'reforms' address this problem, Mr Gove?
Of those questioned, 42% felt the literacy skills of British graduates had fallen over the past five years, compared with just 6% who said they had improved.
For numeracy the corresponding figures were 35% and 5%, and for communication and interpersonal skills 34% and 19%.
There was a similar pattern when it came to British school-leavers.
Many firms are also looking to recruit from abroad, with one in six saying they will bring in migrant workers in the third quarter of this year.
Gerwyn Davies, public policy adviser at CIPD and author of the report, said the government faced a "complex juggling act".
"The proposed introduction of a migration cap comes at a time when many employers are still struggling to fill skilled vacancies despite the high unemployment rate," he added.
"The training of local or British workers to fill skilled jobs currently occupied by migrant workers will not happen overnight." ...
"Companies want to hire local people, but they often have trouble finding local residents with the basic skills, drive and attitude needed to help the business succeed," said Adam Marshall, director of policy at the British Chambers of Commerce.
He added that the "unintended consequences" of the cap could be widespread ...
Observer 22 Aug 2010 Global Labour Market Rebalancing Britain's EconomyThe cap on immigration cannot hold
The government has put on hold the implementation of rules forcing schools in England to co-operate locally over excluded pupils.'One in, one out' school exclusions rules on hold
Another step towards a two-tier school system: 'selective' academies; LEA 'sinks'
Due to come into force in September, they would have meant all schools, including academies, had to join local behaviour partnerships.
Under these, schools expelling one pupil often would have to take an excluded pupil from another school.
The government said it wants to reduce bureaucracy to tackle poor behaviour.
However, with the coalition pushing to expand academies, which operate outside the control of local authorities, there are concerns that if schools are able to pull out of local arrangements, those with a higher proportion of disadvantaged pupils will suffer.
The Nasuwt teachers union said the decision to remove the requirement for cooperation risked increasing classroom disruption, bullying, gang-related violence and truancy.
BBC NEWS 12 Aug 2010 Corporate Public 'Services'Ofsted warning over 'untracked' children
Tough talk on school discipline
Large drop in pupil expulsions
What a curious beast is the New Schools Network, the "independent charity" that championed the plans for "free schools" now being rushed through Parliament by Education Secretary Michael Gove.New Schools Network: questions for Michael Gove
The reality of Dave's 'big society' in action.
Click on the group's online form to "Sign up for more information" and a message appears:
"We may pass relevant details to the Department for Education so they can provide assistance. If this is a problem please email us on info@newschoolsnetwork.org."
How many other "independent charities" pass your details to government unless you email to object?
Then again, how many other charities get £500,000 from the government to implement the very policy they've been lobbying for? ...
The Other TaxPayers' Alliance 'Broken Britain' ... 'Big Society'Gove fails to respond to our Freedom of Information requests
New Schools Network lacks transparency
Nursery World
New Schools Network
Premier League aims to score big with 'free schools' plan
Following the widespread popular backlash to England's dismal performance at the football World Cup this summer, Michael Gove's schools reforms have struck a chord with the Premier League.
Richard Scudamore, the League's chief executive, is seeking meetings with officials from Gove's Department for Education with a view to setting up schools where the curriculum is based around sport.
"I think there will be a radical development," said Scudamore. "I can envisage the day when there is a Premier League school. We are working with the clubs and we are taking a look at Michael Gove's education reforms to see clubs having relationships with schools.
"If you have an elite athlete why not work on their education? We need coaching, schools and schooling to be very closely embedded for football." ...
Gove's claim in the Commons of 700 expressions of interest in the idea has translated into only 62 formal applications.
If each of the 20 Premier League clubs were to add their name to the scheme that number would be boosted by almost a third ...
Guardian 03 Aug 2010The case against 'Free Schools'
School buildings scheme scrapped
Hundreds of school building projects are being scrapped as England's national school redevelopment scheme is axed by the government.
Education Secretary Michael Gove said 719 school revamps already signed up to the scheme would not now go ahead ...
BBC NEWS 05 July 2010 Coalition LogRebuild plans for 75 schools scaled back
School building programme scrapped
School buildings projects scrapped to save £5bn
Osborne orders capital spending purge
Schools Minister: children are deprived of knowledge
A generation of schoolchildren has grown up without knowing who Miss Havisham was and thinking Nelson won the Battle of Waterloo, Schools Minister Nick Gibb said yesterday.
In his first keynote speech since taking office, Mr Gibb – who is responsible for the delivery of the national curriculum – made it clear he believed schools no longer put enough emphasis on imparting knowledge to pupils.
He called for an emphasis on "facts, data and narrative" in history and "the rich language of Shakespeare" which, he said, "should be the common property of us all". He added, speaking to an education conference organised by the think-tank, Reform: "Yet, to more and more people, Miss Havisham is a stranger and even the most basic history and geography a mystery."
A survey of first-year history undergraduates revealed that twice as many students thought Nelson was in charge at the Battle of Waterloo rather than Wellington.
Ninety per cent could not name a single British Prime Minister of the 19th century.
"Knowledge is the basic building block for a successful of life," Mr Gibb said ...
Independent 02 July 2010 Education for the Good SocietyThe Importance of Knowing How
School plan 'takes money from poor'
Leaked memo shows how coalition government ministers discussed raiding free meals budget ...
Tonight it emerged that ministers considered taking millions from a budget that gives free school meals to the country's poorest children, to pay parents to set up their own schools.
It was reported by Channel Four news tonight that a memo written by one of Gove's leading officials last week recommended that £35m be taken from funds for free school meals and redirected into the policy of free schools.
Gove appears to endorse the idea in the memo, which was leaked to Channel Four. Tonight the Department for Education would not deny the memo existed, but said it planned to use £50m from a pot that helped schools choose the right computer equipment to fund the new schools and to argue for more money from the Treasury in the spending review.
The Department for Education said no money was coming from free school meals to fund the schools.
Gove unveiled plans for the free schools today, emphasising that most would be run by teachers.
Some 750 groups are poised to apply to start a new school, which will be run independently of the local authority.
He said they would reduce some costs and make the programme more flexible by scrapping planning laws to allow schools to spring up in former shops, homes or banks ...
Guardian 18 June 2010Free schools could be set up in shops and houses
Half of schools 'not good' - Ofsted
Education for the Good Society
Neoliberalism and education
The importance of knowing how
Academies bill is anti-democratic, lawyers warn
Opponents say Michael Gove's draft legislation will place fate of country's schools into too few hands ...
... the draft legislation, which will have its second reading in the Lords today ... dispenses with parents' and teachers' legal right to oppose such plans and removes local authorities' powers to veto a school's attempt to switch status ...
Teachers and lawyers said this contradicts the Tory vision for a "Big Society", handing public services to "little platoons of civil society" ...
David Wolfe, an education barrister at Matrix Chambers in London, said:"It is hard to escape the conclusion that this bill is undemocratic. What this does is remove the public process. Nobody, apart from the education secretary and the governors will be able to stop the process. It seems to be entirely out of kilter with the idea of a 'Big Society'. You are handing power to the governors to steal the school. If they want to change the ethos or make the pupils wear the uniform of Etonians, they will be able to, and parents and teachers will be powerless to stop them."... an expert on the labour market for teachers has warned that a mass expansion in academies is likely to drain state schools of teachers in shortage subjects, such as physics and maths.
Professor John Howson ... said academies would swallow up teachers in shortage subjects because they could pay them more ...
Guardian 06 June 2010
Coalition pledge on 'slimmed down' national curriculum
The message is clear: in practice the local authority - marginalised by the policy of, er, 'choice' - will be left to provide for those children 'free' schools have deselected.The national curriculum will be overhauled under a government plan to restore vital “bodies of knowledge” to lessons ...
The review forms part of the new Education and Children’s Bill announced as part of the coalition government’s legislative programme on Tuesday.
Government sources said that the “slimmer” curriculum would prescribe subject content but give schools more freedom to decide how to teach lessons.
The Bill will also introduce a new reading test for 600,000 six-year-olds in England every year – identifying those struggling the most.
This follows research showing that children who fail to master reading at a young age fall much further behind by the end of secondary school.
Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, said an overhaul of the curriculum was vital to restore subject knowledge ...
Telegraph 25 May 2010David Cameron will start to turn his "big society" rhetoric into reality today when he uses the coalition government's first Queen's speech to promise to let 500 secondary schools and 1,700 primary schools have the freedom of city academy status by the summer.Coalition's schools plan to create 2,000 more academies
He will promise all schools judged outstanding by Ofsted the opportunity to become academies, lifting the remaining constraints from local authorities.
Academies have greater freedom to set their curriculum, pay rates and admissions policies.
The education secretary, Michael Gove, is convinced that experience from the relatively small range of existing academies shows they raise standards, promote social justice and can give working-class parents greater choice ...
Guardian 25 May 2010A radical overhaul of school league tables is being planned by the coalition government, it has emerged.Coalition government plans radical overhaul of school league tables
One suggestion being considered is a shift to a "like-versus-like" system, in which schools in the poorest parts of the country will only be compared to those facing similarly difficult situations ...
The number of parent groups that have shown interest in starting their own school has now surged to 550 ...
Local authorities fear that they will be sidelined in the process.
Dame Margaret Eaton, chair of the Local Government Association and a former teacher, said she was convinced the free-schools model could work and would benefit pupils. But she warned the Tories to ensure that councils were able to protect the rights of any pupils who fell through the net.
Guardian 25 May 2010 Coalition LogGove urges all schools to become academies
300,000 teachers off sick last year
'Market-driven education'
All top state schools to be offered instant academy status
Stressed teachers are 'ticking time bombs'
Academies
Economic recovery may miss unemployed
Fears that economic recovery will fail to stem a tide of rising unemployment are likely to be stoked today by revelations that businesses are reluctant or unable to recruit new staff.
The Institute of Chartered Accountants for England and Wales says in a report that although businesses’ confidence stabilised in the second quarter, they plan to increase their workforces by only 1.1 per cent in the coming year.
The CBI and EDI, a body that awards qualifications, meanwhile have found that companies are struggling to fill posts because they cannot find applicants with adequate skills and training ...
A fifth of employers are reported to have been forced to arrange remedial for young recruits in literacy, numeracy and IT in the past year in efforts to get their staff up to speed ...
Times 17 May 2010 Debt,Cuts, Jobs
Change in Education: The Gove Era Begins
Gove spells out education priorities for 'a new era'
It's entirely appropriate that Michael Gove's first test will involve the SATs boycott.The new Education Secretary confirmed that Conservative plans for "free" schools and more academies would be the focus for change.
SATs is the driver of teaching-to-test which has become widespread since Kenneth Baker introduced the bureaucratic National Curriculum in the late 1980s.
Worse, it's an indicator of the degrading of education into mere training.
It has become a utilitarian vehicle consonant with the wider agenda of the state's role in preparing pupils for life in a neoliberal (global) 'society'.
This is, of course, an oxymoron, since the policy of Governmentality is intended to prepare the pupil for a lifetime of personal entrepreneurship - a lifetime of risk and uncertainty - which will demand what Patrick Fitzsimmons calls the " ... continual reconstruction of self ... " and the development of an "independence ... gained at the expense of discarding social obligation for the other members of the community".
Social obligation - the notion of care for, and service to, others - is an ethic incapable of being commodified and therefore detrimental to, and subversive of, market norms.
This presents the state with a conundrum, for it must both control education and commodify it.
For this reason, there has been a bi-partisan aim to downgrade the role of the local education authority as a school provider.
Using the third face of power this objective has been both gradualised, and camouflaged, by the all-purpose term 'choice'.
Here, Michael Gove's previous statements indicate a desire to pluralise provision as confirmed by his interest, for example, in the Goldie Hawn Foundation.
He said nothing was more important to the fairness of society and the country's future prosperity than getting education right ...
(He) set out the priorities, saying: "I believe, nothing is more important to the fairness of our society and the future prosperity of our country than getting education right.
"Too many children still leave primary school every year without meeting basic standards in English or maths and too few 16-year-olds get five decent GCSEs.
"So improving literacy, raising pupil attainment, extending parental choice, freeing teachers from bureaucracy, improving discipline and closing the widening gap between the richest and the poorest should be our shared goal." ...
BBC NEWS 13 May 2010 BlogCan schools be free and accountable?
Education overhaul gathering pace
Broken Forms of Public Service
Education for the Good Society
State Theory of Learning
Radical Pedagogy
The importance of knowing how
Coalition pledge on 'slimmed down' national curriculum
The national curriculum will be overhauled under a government plan to restore vital “bodies of knowledge” to lessons ...
Telegraph 25 May 2010David Cameron will start to turn his "big society" rhetoric into reality today when he uses the coalition government's first Queen's speech to promise to let 500 secondary schools and 1,700 primary schools have the freedom of city academy status by the summer.Coalition's schools plan to create 2,000 more academies
He will promise all schools judged outstanding by Ofsted the opportunity to become academies, lifting the remaining constraints from local authorities.
Academies have greater freedom to set their curriculum, pay rates and admissions policies.
The education secretary, Michael Gove, is convinced that experience from the relatively small range of existing academies shows they raise standards, promote social justice and can give working-class parents greater choice ...
Guardian 25 May 2010A radical overhaul of school league tables is being planned by the coalition government, it has emerged.Coalition government plans radical overhaul of school league tables
One suggestion being considered is a shift to a "like-versus-like" system, in which schools in the poorest parts of the country will only be compared to those facing similarly difficult situations ...
The number of parent groups that have shown interest in starting their own school has now surged to 550 ...
Guardian 25 May 2010 Coalition Log Tory Educational Reform'Market-driven education'
All top state schools to be offered instant academy status
Stressed teachers are 'ticking time bombs'
Academies
MICHAEL GOVE, the shadow schools secretary, has signalled that profit-making companies will be allowed to run chains of state comprehensives under his plan to let parents set up hundreds of new schools.Conservatives to let private firms run state schools at a profit
Parents’ groups will be able to subcontract private education companies to run the schools, without any need to change the law. “I do envisage a role for the private sector,” said Gove ...
The Tories already hope that several hundred of the new schools will have opened by the end of their first term in office, starting from September 2011.
The decision to harness the profit motive is expected to boost the programme’s chances of success.
Other policies outlined by Gove in an interview in today’s Sunday Times News Review include a pledge to eliminate illiteracy before the end of primary school by the time he steps down as education secretary.
He believes this can be done through nationwide use of the systematic synthetic phonics teaching method, with progress measured by new reading tests for primary school children. It involves teaching children to read by using the sounds of letters ...
Under Gove’s scheme, parents’ and teachers’ groups unhappy with local schools would be permitted to set up their own schools funded by the state. They could either run the schools themselves, if able to do so, or link up with existing operators such as schools, charities or, in fewer cases, private companies.
Local authorities will lose their power to veto new schools and there will be a rapid expansion in Labour’s city academies programme, with many existing comprehensives gaining semi-independent status.
Private firms could make a profit by signing long-term management contracts but would not be allowed to own and govern schools.
The main contender at present is Kunskapsskolan, a company that runs 32 schools in Sweden with an informal approach in which children set their own targets. It is opening five non-profit academies in England and would like to run 30 free schools, but will not do so unless it can make a profit ...
Times 11 Apr 2010 Election 2010Cameron's parent school promise
A teachers' union has been challenged to open its own school - in a debate with the Conservatives about their "free school" policy ...Tories challenge teachers to start their own school
In a sharply-delivered exchange of ideas, Mr Gove promised his commitment to promoting the professional integrity of teachers, and Ms Keates pushed him for promises on the future of state education under a Tory government.
Against some heckling ... Mr Gove defended his proposals for free schools - which would give state school funding to other providers to run their own schools.
Challenged on whether he would guarantee that there would be no profit-making companies taking part in this project, he said that he could not give such an assurance ...
Mr Gove challenged the idea that state education always had to be provided by the state - saying that historically it had had many different and diverse providers, such as faith schools.
And he argued that if there was evidence from other countries that a wider range of providers raised standards then it would be "perverse not to pursue diversity" ...
The Conservatives want a cutting down to size of Ofsted, a less prescriptive curriculum and the scrapping of plans to make teachers have a renewable "licence to teach".
Mr Gove also promised to do more to protect teachers who might have their careers ruined by malicious allegations from pupils ...
BBC NEWS 03 April 2010 Election 2010
Business will seek to run state schools after shift in political attitudes
Marketising schools is bipartisan, only the pace may differ. Democratic accountablity, never strong, will vanish.
Businesses are looking to revolutionise state education by bidding to run hundreds of schools, as politicians open the door to new education providers.
Companies want to create national chains of state schools, eclipsing the current groups of charitable academy sponsors, which tend to be small and geographically based.
Although both the Government and the Conservatives say that organisations driven by profit should not run schools, both have created a path for them to enter the sector. Governing bodies of new, or existing, schools can appoint a contractor to operate the school on their behalf — a model used widely in the US.
VT Group, Serco and EdisonLearning are among companies that have applied to be accredited schools providers under a vetting system established by Ed Balls, the Schools Secretary, allowing them to be involved in running of a handful of schools ...
• Edison Learning: A subsidiary of EdisonLearningInc, which operates and supports schools in 24 US states. Founded in 2002 and based in Colchester, Essex, works in partnership with 100 schools, from rural primaries to urban secondaries
• VT Group: Claims to operate one of the largest education and training companies in the UK, employing more than 4,000 staff. Already works in partnership with 403 schools in Surrey and 87 in Waltham Forest, East London
• Serco: a FTSE 100 services company with a wide range of public contracts including new school building consultancy, Ofsted inspections and facilities management. Has 110 school partnerships in Walsall, 180 in Bradford and 90 in Stoke-on-Trent
Times 31 Mar 2010 Policy, Delivery, Accountability
Conservatives would allow public services to run co-operatives
It might appear that Osborne has been reading up on Ivan Illich, but - as Robert Peston points out - this may be a new route to privatisation.
As part of a Conservative pre-election appeal to Labour-leaning public sector staff, Mr Osborne said a Tory government would offer a “power-shift to public sector workers”. The move could allow teachers and nurses to remove underperforming managers and take over the running of schools and hospitals themselves ...
He added: "This is a power shift to public sector workers so that they take control of their own working environment and they get away from these top-down bureaucracies which have made life a misery for so many people in the public sector." ...
Mr Osborne said that collectives would still face some central control on the way they provide services.
"The check on quality here is that they would be contracting services to the local authority or the National Health Service and they would be providing a contract, for community nursing or for primary education.
"And we would be making sure, as taxpayers, that we were getting value for money and it was appropriately run and the standards the kids were being taught to were at the right level and the like. So it is not a complete free for all."
Standards such as the national curriculum would remain ...
Telegraph 15 Feb 2010
David Cameron Policy, Delivery, Accountability Reforming the RegimeConservatives need to work on their credibility
Tories renew pledge to allow public sector workers to form co-operatives
The John Lewis state
The Tories are in talks with foreign educational groups - including one run by Hollywood actress Goldie Hawn - to set up state schools in England.Goldie Hawn talks to Tories about setting up schools
Shadow Children's Secretary Michael Gove says he is talking to the French government and a Swedish schools chain.
And he told The Sunday Times his team had also spoken to Ms Hawn's charity, which promotes Buddhist values ...
Mr Gove told BBC One's Andrew Marr show he wanted to give state schools the same "freedom" as fee-paying schools to set their own curriculums, which he claimed would boost the chances of pupils from poorer backgrounds reaching top universities.
"What we want to do, for example, is to allow organisations like a Swedish company, the International English School, the chance to come here to teach the sort of rigorous academic curriculum which too many students, particularly students in poorer parts of the country, are denied." ...
BBC NEWS 14 Feb 2010 David CameronTory Swedish model for schools
Class, say hello to Miss Hawn
Hawn Foundation
The Conservatives are promising to make teaching "brazenly elitist" by improving the quality of graduates entering the profession ...Tories promise to make teaching 'brazenly elitist'
The plans include raising the required standard of entry and setting up a Teach Now scheme to encourage people who have succeeded in other professions to go into education.
The student loan repayment scheme will only apply to graduates getting a first-class or higher second-class degree, Mr Cameron will say.
Shadow education secretary Michael Gove told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that in some countries, such as Finland, teaching was restricted to top-level graduates.
He said: "What we want to do is restore esteem to teaching, to make it an unashamedly elitist profession."
Mr Gove added that the Tory plans would raise the "respect" with which teachers are regarded.
But raising standards did not have to involve significant salary increases, he added.
BBC NEWS 18 Jan 2010Teach First
Tories back 'Teach First' scheme
Teach First is a brilliant idea ...
Can top graduates really teach after just six weeks' training?
Our immigrants' success is not down to Labour
Tories plan league tables review
Tory plans could see schools get extra league table points by moving more pupils through what they call "harder" A-levels, such as maths and physics.
The proposals for England also suggest awarding fewer points for subjects seen as easier, such as media studies.
The Conservatives claim the exam system has been "dumbed down" and that league tables are partly to blame ...
Michael Gove, the shadow education secretary, told the BBC's Andrew Marr Show that he felt the current system of ranking schools on the proportion of students attaining a C grade and above at GCSE was flawed.
He said teachers felt pressured to concentrate on borderline C-grade pupils while the needs of more able students were ignored.
"The truly brighter students aren't being stretched because there's no emphasis on getting people from a B to an A or an A to an A*.
"And what's even worse in my view is that those weaker students, who could really benefit from extra care and attention aren't focused on either."
His party argues that pressure for schools to perform in the league tables could mean pupils are pushed to take subjects that might be easier in order to achieve a higher rank ...
BBC NEWS 16 August 2009Tories announce major overhaul of school exam system and league tables
How we can improve Britain's exam system
State schools may be run for profit
STATE schools could be run by private companies for a profit under plans being considered by the Conservatives.
The Tories had said that only charities and non-profit-making bodies would be allowed to create new “free schools” supported by the taxpayer.
However, the party is ... concerned that too few voluntary bodies will come forward to set up the schools.
“We are considering whether private companies should be allowed to join the scheme,” said a party insider. “We have not made a final decision.”
Among organisations that would be interested is Civitas, the conservative think tank, which runs private schools with fees of about £5,000 a year. Investors in Civitas can make profits, but the size of the dividend is carefully limited.
So far the Tories have insisted they would not let private firms join, partly for fear of being portrayed as “right-wing ideologues” by Labour.
Some Labour politicians have also begun to talk about reform of the school system. James Purnell, the former work and pensions secretary, said last week: “If allowing state schools to be run by profit-making companies encourages equality of capability, we will have to allow it.” ...
Sunday Times 26 July 2009Give parents the keys to a better school
Tories plan to create 5,000 new schools
UP to 5,000 new private schools funded by the taxpayer are to be created under Tory plans to revolutionise the way children are taught.
David Cameron will this week reveal the scale of the party’s ambitions to transform the education system, detailing proposals to replace failing comprehensives and primaries with new “free” schools run by parents, charities and private firms.
They will be given extraordinary freedom to set their own curriculum and will be allowed to abandon GCSEs and A-levels in favour of the International Baccalaureate, European or American exams.
A senior Tory source said: “The mission to shake up our failing schools will be the central feature of our campaign to become the next government.” ...
The full extent of the Conservatives’ plans were set out by Michael Gove, the shadow education secretary, on the eve of the Tory party conference in Birmingham. In an interview with The Sunday Times he said: “It is our intention from day one to make the changes necessary to get new providers into the state school system. We want as much choice for parents as possible.” ...
The Times 28 September 2008
Improving schools
Best for everyoneA decade of education reforms—and lessons still unlearned
THE building is striking enough, if you like that sort of thing—chunky render painted azure and sunshine yellow; the school's name on the side in huge lettering. Inside, though, it is beautiful, with airy walkways and bright, quiet classrooms. The head teacher, Sir Michael Wilshaw, shows visitors the sports hall and theatre with pride. “Who knows what a journalist is?” he asks a class of children with severe learning difficulties. Hands shoot up.
This is Mossbourne Community Academy in Hackney, east London, which was opened in 2004 to replace Hackney Downs, a notorious failure. It is independent from local government although entirely state-funded. Its sponsor (Sir Clive Bourne, a local boy-made-good who died this year) chipped in £2m towards the buildings and plenty of good advice. The uniforms are aggressively smart, classes are grouped by ability and rules on behaviour are unbending.
David Cameron, the Tories' leader, and Michael Gove, their spokesman on schools, chose Mossbourne to talk on November 20th about what their party would do to improve education. More schools like Mossbourne, was the gist of it, to be set up by philanthropists, charities and parents, with local government kept well out of it. Mr Cameron called it a “supply-side revolution”, and invoked Sweden's school-choice reforms of 1992.
The choice of venue was pure political theatre, enlivened by some audacious cross-dressing. Of all the “academies”, as these independent state schools are known, none was dearer to the previous prime minister, Tony Blair, than Mossbourne. In 2006 he gave a speech there on his education reforms, his successor, Gordon Brown, by his side.
By planting himself in front of the cameras at Mossbourne Mr Cameron conveyed two messages: that the Tories would continue Mr Blair's reforms—and that Mr Brown would not. Evidence of the latter is growing clearer. Earlier this month Mr Brown ordered an urgent review of academies. More are to open, bringing their number to 400, but they will have to follow the national curriculum (although innovation in teaching was an aim of the programme). And local authorities may now run academies (although prising their grip from schools was another).
It takes political determination to counter the inertia of local government. In 2005 Tower Hamlets turned down an offer from Goldman Sachs, a bank, to sponsor an academy, saying it could run schools just fine itself. And earlier this year another London council, Haringey, competed to open a school under new rules—and won the competition (which it ran itself).
The contradiction at the heart of Mr Blair's reforms was always the absurdity of removing the dead hand of local government, only to impose an even tighter grip from the centre. Over the past decade schools have been showered with directives on everything from school meals to classroom layout. Syllabuses and teaching methods have been specified narrowly. Although academies can ignore their local councils, to set one up requires approval by the schools department in Whitehall.
Centrally imposed targets have distorted both what is taught and measuring how well it is taught. Nowhere is that clearer than in official figures showing that standards in reading and writing have soared. Independent observers say these are unreliable, because teachers have learned to coach children and there is unspoken pressure for scores to rise. In 2005 the Statistics Commission, a numbers watchdog, backed private researchers who said most of the claimed improvement in the performance of children leaving primary school was illusory (see chart).
Sadly, this lesson appears to have gone unheeded. Mr Cameron did not confine himself to talking about new schools and parental demand. He also laid out detailed plans for bossing schools around. All are to bring in uniforms, all are to group children by ability—and all are to teach reading in a particular way. A pity.
The Economist 22 November 2007
To fix broken Britain we shall start at school
David Cameron writes in the Daily Telegraph:
The biggest challenge facing Britain today is mending our broken society. That will not happen overnight: long-term social change needs long-term thinking. And the Conservatives are the only party doing it. We are showing how we will do more to support families, because responsible parents give children the secure and loving start they need. Last week, we laid out our plans to tackle Britain's crime crisis, through reforming our police, tougher sentencing and increasing prison places.
But a long-term plan for tackling social breakdown has to include fixing our education system. Take any marker of our broken society, and educational failure lies at its root. Four in every five youngsters receiving custodial sentences have no qualifications. More than two-thirds of prisoners are illiterate. And nearly one-third of those excluded from school have been involved with substance abuse.
The evidence is clear: if we do not get education right, we will not get our society right. So what is happening under Labour? Forty-three per cent of 11-year-olds cannot read, write and add up properly. Last month, more than 20,000 pupils left school without a GCSE. And right now, more than a million young people are not in education, work or training. Labour has not just presided over educational failure, it has also overseen glaring inequality. At the age of seven, children on free school meals are 19 per cent less likely to do as well in core subjects as those who don't get free meals. By GCSEs, this gap rises to 28 per cent.
Should we accept this? Absolutely not. Take Sweden. There, standards have been raised by allowing innovative organisations to set up new schools in the state sector, championing excellence and giving parents more control and choice. Compare this to Labour's methods: obsessive micro-management and rigid attachment to old-fashioned ideas has entrenched deprivation, shut doors and closed minds. ...
Telegraph.co.uk 02 September 2007
Parents can reclaim the education system
In the second of our Think Local series, in which a group of young Tory MPs and the Centre for Policy Studies set out their vision of a radical unbundling of the British state, Daniel Hannan and Douglas Carswell tackle education
Ministers have tried everything. They have decreed literacy and numeracy hours, new timetables, discipline codes, school dinner strategies. Nothing has worked.
On the contrary, the sheer pressure of targets and initiatives has immobilised our school system.
Our exam results may improve each year but, in the real world, employers and universities are offering remedial courses to bring school leavers up to the standard of previous generations, while international benchmarks leave British pupils close to the bottom of the league.
Grades are kept up by constantly dropping the pass mark: in 1989, you needed 48 per cent to get a C grade in GCSE maths; 11 years later, that figure was 18 per cent.
Excessive state intervention is the problem, not the solution. The Government micro-manages our schools, yet when things go wrong politicians of all parties promise to impose yet more solutions - synthetic phonics, or better discipline, or more (or fewer) grammar schools - from the centre.
The truth is that no minister, however well-intentioned, can thrust his hand into every classroom in the land.
The people best placed to improve the system are those with the strongest interest in the welfare of the children in it: their parents. The accumulation of their millions of individual choices will invigilate and ameliorate schools as no single bureaucracy can. ...
Telegraph.co.uk 28 May 2007