David Cameron has said:
One of the most important things in your life — the education of your children — is largely out of your hands. Our reforms will take the power over education out of the council's hands and put it directly in parents' hands, so they have control.
I think this is incredible: it shows how out of touch with reality David Cameron is, and how unbelievable his policies are.
I have spent 15 years as a school governor at three schools in two London boroughs, many as Chair, a lot of the rest as Vice Chair, almost always chair of the finance committee. I seek no thanks: I simply make the point that this takes a lot of time. I’m not a governor right now; not least because I had the time to do this before becoming a parent, now I am a parent time is in much less supply.
But Cameron says parents should take full control of schools. It’s hard enough with education authority support, nigh on impossible without I should think — and the budget to do so is, I suspect just not available without bias against LEA schools being shown — which makes no sense at all.
So who are these parents? Certainly not those with two jobs needed to pay the mortgage: they have no time to run a school on the side. It’s hard enough to get them on the PTA or the scout committee. So they’re either those committed to politics (back to the past then) or those who can afford not to work (who will in that case be paying school fees, and so be entirely uninterested) or those who seek to profit from doing so.
Sorry — but that’s the real agenda here. Cameron wants to privatise schools. Most of his cronies have no idea how to make real money, I am sure. Just like those who tried to exploit the state through PFI, or those who want to do so by exploiting the NHS in this case they want to profit from state education.
That’s what Cameron wants. If he had any sense he’d know parents don’t want to run schools: they just want all schools to be good enough for their children. That is possible. Many states prove that. The UK does not. But it doesn’t require privatisation to solve it.
I readily admit Labour has not solved this: it’s dedication to the absurd concept of market measures of success through measurement of most things that are not important has ensured that. I hate the absurdity of the syllabus my children have no choice but follow, so much of it either absurdly irrelevant or absurdly beyond the reasonable reach of children of their age (and I genuinely wonder what on earth will be left for them to do at secondary school, so crazy is the demand on children by the age of 11). But privatising schools will not solve that. Trusting teachers will.
What Cameron shares with Labour is a complete lack of trust in the professional, the expert, those who are competent, and does instead place faith in the power of ‘consumer choice’ — most of it crazily uninformed. That’s the reason we’ve got the education system we have . And Cameron is going to add to that the burden of making a profit too — for that is the only way in which those new state schools will happen — and a very dim prospect for education as a whole that offers.
Like Blair and Brown Cameron shows he has no understanding of what is important — not least being education itself for education's sake and the parallel importance of letting children be children.
And he demonstrates the bankruptcy of the current ‘either / or’ political choice as a result.
If parents had their way they wouldn’t choose New Labour or the Conservatives to run education.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
Your are spot on as ever, Richard. Teaching has been replaced by testing; league tables have helped deepened the divide between schools.
We should empower teachers, parents and pupils – but to allow big business into schools would cost us big time. We don’t want our kids growing up thinking of themselves as passive consumers – we want active citizens.
I am very much in favour of the pupil councils that some schools have which allow kids to elect their representatives and hold them to account, and to have some say in their school.
There is not one word of Cameron’s outpourings yesterday that one can believe in. Every single proposal in it is bogus and hides an ulterior motive as you have so well highlighted here with respect to schools.
BTW, this is a phenomenally good blog, learning a hell of a lot, thanks very much indeed for all your efforts.
Difficult to improve on what has already been said here; Strategist is right, Cameron just can’t be trusted. If ever there was a product of the last 30 years of neoliberal ideology, where wealth inequality has grown and grown and social mobility stagnated, he’s it.
Educated at one the most expensive schools in Britain, straight into Oxbridge then into politics via a stint as (God help us) a PR career, he’s going to represent only the interests of the privileged elite he comes from. To fix the crisis caused by these self same people, he’ll attempt to slash public spending by continually attacking the public sector, and positing yet more privatisation as the solution.
What you won’t do is find him holding his friends in the City to account, or doing any genuine reform of the tax system to cut tax avoidance or redistibute wealth. And due to our stupid voting system, he’ll probably get a huge majority in our (discredited) parliament at the next election. The future looks bleak.
Totally, totally agreed fellers. I happen to think that policy, not personality, is the key to Britain finding its way out of this mess. But if I’m wrong, this vacuous twerp is not the man to prove it. Was it Rockfeller or Getty who said “The door swung open, I stepped through, and before anyone else could follow, the door closed.” The door must have been the one to THAT Conservative Party Conference. One half decent speech, without a shred of substance to it (could someone have slipped a little something in David D’s tea that day?) and the Tories had lumbered themselves. He tried the same trick with his ‘My word I’m so dynamic I almost frightened myself’ speechifying, announcing the setting up of his ( no terms of reference/ meet in secret/ purely internal I know, but it could help me be rid of a few of the awkward squad like Boris-oh he’s gone has he?) Star Chamber. Gawd help us.
Hullo Richard
RE FREE MARKET IN EDUCATION level the money playing field to free it
When I arrived in the UK from Australia in the mid-70s you had a half-decent comprehensive education system. Conservative policies in the 1980s and 1990s had a lot to do with wrecking it..
Why was there a lot of industrial action? Withdrawal of support by teachers resulted. At least Labour spent the money on fixing the roofs neglected for so long. But you mention elsewhere expensive consultants..
One of your correspondents says the future looks bleak. Indeed.
The main thing I want to say is that the abolition of published league tables is long overdue, and I’d like to hear your opinion on that.
I submit that those tables have helped to destroy the fabric of society. Parents chasing after a few points of difference have moved house, cart their kids across cities: pollution, time poverty, etc etc.
Exacerbating of “divides” is also a lot due to wealth differences that accountants know about. Mixing the people groups and helping them to take an interest in their local school of a good and reasonable standard is surely the way forward?
Lets get rid of fear, shop local and educate local. What do you think, as an experienced governor?
Kind regards to all
Ian
PS similar sorts of rubbish in selfish human behaviour are happening in Australia. Isn’t diverting part of the money supply as I have said before on this blog one of the main answers?