Education bill - Labour depends on Tory support
THE GOVERNMENT'S controversial Education Bill, which aims to pull the comprehensive system to pieces, is getting its third and fourth readings in the Commons this week. As comprehensive education has been at the root of Labour education policy for many decades, this dismantling stirred up opposition even in the usually submissive ranks of New Labour backbenchers.
Some Labour MPs could join a 'rebellion', opposing the encouragement of grammar schools and demanding a ballot of parents before a local authority-run school becomes a trust school, the new 'independent' state schools.
However this limited opposition is highly unlikely to stop the bill's progress through Parliament. New Labour are quite prepared to rely on the other bosses' parties in the Commons to vote with them, especially the Tories, who saw the bill through its earlier stages.
Academies fail yet again
THE EDUCATION Bill will bring in more 'Trust schools' which are based on the 'city academy' programme which New Labour are spending £5 billion pushing through. They propose to set up 200 privately run state secondary schools by 2010.
Academy schools cannot charge fees but are independent of the state system. For an initial outlay of up to £2 million (that's less than 5%) individual sponsors get much more than 5% of the control. They can appoint the schools' managers and decide its 'ethos' and curriculum.
So far few sponsors have given over the full amount. But the public purse meets all the school's remaining capital costs (around £25 million each) and all the later running costs.
Ministers say this expensive scheme improves academic standards dramatically, especially the number of children getting five or more good GCSEs. But a new report shows that, even if you concentrate narrowly on exam results, academies did not improve results compared with the so-called 'failing' comprehensives they replaced.
The researchers found that the number of pupils getting five GCSE A - C grades including English and Maths had increased by 0.2% - equivalent to three pupils - across the first 11 academies.
What's more, the researchers claim, some academies were turning children away from GCSEs to boost their standing in school league tables.
Schools had switched many school students from taking separate subjects at GCSE to the GNVQ vocational qualification, which counts as four GCSEs in government tables. This was done purely for the school's short-term interests in elbowing their way up the league tables. 52% of pupils took GNVQ at the academies, four times as high as the 13% at the predecessor schools.
As the report's authors say: "Government thinking appears to be based more on faith in business sponsors and privatisation than any educational evidence." A national campaign involving teachers, pupils, parents and the wider community could put the final nail in the coffin of this discredited Blairite policy.
Teachers call for action
MOST TEACHERS want to fight this Education Bill but unfortunately some of our union leaders are against discussing industrial action to oppose it.
Martin Powell-Davies, Lewisham National Union of Teachers (NUT)
At a recent National Union of Teachers secretary's meeting I summed up the likely parliamentary arithmetic for the Education Bill debate, saying that it was likely that "the union will win the argument but lose the parliamentary vote."
I then asked the NUT's general secretary Steve Sinnott when the union Executive would be campaigning for the local and national industrial action that conference unanimously agreed should be considered.
Outrageously Steve Sinnott came out with the old right-wing accusations that some of us in the NUT were always "salivating over industrial action!"
Then he made absolutely clear that in his view "the campaign would be damaged by industrial action at the moment". In other words, don't frighten the MPs, keep lobbying rather than pursuing industrial action.
Of course, we have to go through the necessary steps of lobbying, leafleting etc - raising the issue to parents and our union members. But - and NUT members in schools are realistic about this - lobbying alone is unlikely to change this government.
They will need to feel under much greater pressure - and that's why industrial action is vital (especially in the absence of a mass party that can challenge them at the polls).
We must use this stage of the campaign to raise NUT members' horizons to the strike action that will be needed to defeat privatisation and the attacks on education - both nationally and in local struggles.
We have to urgently raise the question of "what next" if the Bill goes through. We have to raise the prospect of action, yes locally where required to defeat trusts, but also as a national protest in the autumn term when the Bill returns from the Lords. The teachers' unions urgently need to start canvassing support for action in schools.
Some Labour MPs could join a 'rebellion', opposing the encouragement of grammar schools and demanding a ballot of parents before a local authority-run school becomes a trust school, the new 'independent' state schools.
However this limited opposition is highly unlikely to stop the bill's progress through Parliament. New Labour are quite prepared to rely on the other bosses' parties in the Commons to vote with them, especially the Tories, who saw the bill through its earlier stages.
Academies fail yet again
THE EDUCATION Bill will bring in more 'Trust schools' which are based on the 'city academy' programme which New Labour are spending £5 billion pushing through. They propose to set up 200 privately run state secondary schools by 2010.
Academy schools cannot charge fees but are independent of the state system. For an initial outlay of up to £2 million (that's less than 5%) individual sponsors get much more than 5% of the control. They can appoint the schools' managers and decide its 'ethos' and curriculum.
So far few sponsors have given over the full amount. But the public purse meets all the school's remaining capital costs (around £25 million each) and all the later running costs.
Ministers say this expensive scheme improves academic standards dramatically, especially the number of children getting five or more good GCSEs. But a new report shows that, even if you concentrate narrowly on exam results, academies did not improve results compared with the so-called 'failing' comprehensives they replaced.
The researchers found that the number of pupils getting five GCSE A - C grades including English and Maths had increased by 0.2% - equivalent to three pupils - across the first 11 academies.
What's more, the researchers claim, some academies were turning children away from GCSEs to boost their standing in school league tables.
Schools had switched many school students from taking separate subjects at GCSE to the GNVQ vocational qualification, which counts as four GCSEs in government tables. This was done purely for the school's short-term interests in elbowing their way up the league tables. 52% of pupils took GNVQ at the academies, four times as high as the 13% at the predecessor schools.
As the report's authors say: "Government thinking appears to be based more on faith in business sponsors and privatisation than any educational evidence." A national campaign involving teachers, pupils, parents and the wider community could put the final nail in the coffin of this discredited Blairite policy.
Teachers call for action
MOST TEACHERS want to fight this Education Bill but unfortunately some of our union leaders are against discussing industrial action to oppose it.
Martin Powell-Davies, Lewisham National Union of Teachers (NUT)
At a recent National Union of Teachers secretary's meeting I summed up the likely parliamentary arithmetic for the Education Bill debate, saying that it was likely that "the union will win the argument but lose the parliamentary vote."
I then asked the NUT's general secretary Steve Sinnott when the union Executive would be campaigning for the local and national industrial action that conference unanimously agreed should be considered.
Outrageously Steve Sinnott came out with the old right-wing accusations that some of us in the NUT were always "salivating over industrial action!"
Then he made absolutely clear that in his view "the campaign would be damaged by industrial action at the moment". In other words, don't frighten the MPs, keep lobbying rather than pursuing industrial action.
Of course, we have to go through the necessary steps of lobbying, leafleting etc - raising the issue to parents and our union members. But - and NUT members in schools are realistic about this - lobbying alone is unlikely to change this government.
They will need to feel under much greater pressure - and that's why industrial action is vital (especially in the absence of a mass party that can challenge them at the polls).
We must use this stage of the campaign to raise NUT members' horizons to the strike action that will be needed to defeat privatisation and the attacks on education - both nationally and in local struggles.
We have to urgently raise the question of "what next" if the Bill goes through. We have to raise the prospect of action, yes locally where required to defeat trusts, but also as a national protest in the autumn term when the Bill returns from the Lords. The teachers' unions urgently need to start canvassing support for action in schools.
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