Preparing for a schools revolution
Fraser Nelson 1:00pm
I'm at a seminar with David Cameron and Michael Gove on education reform, a favourite subject of ours here in Coffee House. Cameron’s pledge was unequivocal: “A great education reform bill will be a very big part of the first months of a Conservative government”. There are about two dozen people here to discuss what that will mean, a few Swedes, and many good points. Cameron stayed for about half an hour, yet even in that time some fascinating views were expressed. Two main themes: what Cameron is planning, and why it may not work. Here are some of the points I've jotted down:
1. Gove says that in countries that do well, teaching is a high prestige job. In Singapore, only the top 30pc of graduates qualify as teachers he says. We need the same in teachers, so “greater flexibility in pay and awards”. Such an innocent phrase but what he means, if I have understood it right, is abolishing collective bargaining which would likely mean taking on the teachers unions.
2. We were all issued with a Gove speech where he frames this as a spat with Matthew Parris. Yet none of it was used. Gove ignored his speech, and spoke verbatim. I do like that in a politician: with enough confidence in what you say and your mission, you don’t need a script. I wonder if his words will be quoted as if he had said them, though – one of the stranger aspects to political reporting. So often, politicians never say the words attributed to them.
3. Cameron asks for opinions. The first one is from a teacher, who tells him that in many schools equity is more important than excellence. They are in hock to the unions – and it’s a cultural thing, a collective mentality. So his freedoms won't be used in many places. “You won't want to hear this” he says to Cameron, but there should be mandatory performance pay or his scheme won’t fly.
4. Amanda Spielman from ARK points out that even the City Academies don't, in the most part, use powers to pay different teachers differently. Tells Cameron he's in danger of creating a whole lot of freedoms that just won't be used.
My take: this is a crucial point, which politicians often fail to realise. This is why so little changes in government. Politicians blithely assume that if they grant powers, they’ll be used. In fact, the system will fight you. The “forces of conservatism” as Blair once said, will win. Head teachers may be discouraged from individual pay bargaining, let’s not forget that state sector teachers are brought up in this collective bargaining system and taught it protects them. They’re not necessarily itching to get out. Especially not if they see individual pay bargaining as part of a wicked, Hayekian plot.
5. Gove asked how many liberalised schools you need to reach a tipping point: 25%? 30%? The Swedish experience teaches that the tipping point is 10%. When 10% of the state schools are independently-run, this is when real competition starts – ie, when schools realise that if they don’t shape up, they’ll lose pupils (and cash). At this point, power is transferred from the bureaucracy to the parents. Gove’s mission is easier than he seems to think.
6. Liz Sidwell, CEO of Haberdashers Federation (an aspiring City Academy chain, with two schools) says “you don't need an awful lot of freedom to do a lot of interesting things”. Again, another crucial point. There are so many heads in former sink schools (I have one in Dagenham in mind) who have turned around the schools by heroic efforts. They do it not from fear of losing pupils, but because they can’t bear to see bright kids fail. They are the solution: we need more people like this. The next seminar Gove and Cameron have should get these guys round a table and say: how can we help you? How can we get more of you?
7. Gove says “Our friends the Liberals are outlining their plans on education reform today, some of which are fantastic.” An interesting reminder of how close the LibDems and Tories are on this issue.
8. Gove asked for a straw poll asking if reducing class sizes is a priority for primary schools. Only David Green from Civitas put his hand up. I like that about Green: in this same room, he was the only guy supporting the police strikers. Private schools have smaller classes, he says: that’s for a reason.
My hand was down: there’s plenty evidence that two teachers in a bigger-size class works better than splitting them down in one room. Its one of those metrics that can mesmerise politicians. The weird fact is that average class sizes have hardly changed at any point in the past 20 years.
Gove cites McKinsey research on this: California spent a bomb reducing class sizes, and remained 48th in terms of education performance in America.
When I interviewed Gove last September and asked him to sum up what Tory school reform would mean to the average voter, he put it simply and powerfully:
This is an incredibly powerful message, one which – if properly projected – is capable of capturing the imagination of swing voters. Yet right now, there’s almost no one outside of Westminster who is aware of this message. So it’s great to see Cameron pushing education so hard. I hope he keeps on going, right up to the election."In your neighbourhood, there will be a new school going out of its way to persuade you to send your children there. It will market itself on being able to generate better results, and it won’t cost you an extra penny."
Previous
kinglear
February 5th, 2009 1:43pm Report this commentI couldn't agree more. If we are to have any chance in the next 20 years it can only come from educating and differentiating between those who need extra help because they have a problem and those that need extra help because they are more intelligent than the average
Susan Hill
February 5th, 2009 1:44pm Report this commentThis is indeed a powerful message and parents will latch onto it so long as the Tories really ramp it up, get the message out there... parents want the best schools for their children and they will go for this. Gove is absolutely spot on about this and he needs to be given his head. It really is one of the Big Issues and it shouldn`t take much to make a real impact. But they have to take on the Teachers' Unions... and take on the general lack of aspiration and almost total mistrust of cleverness and excellence among so many in the profession. I have heard of teachers effectively crushing and bullying the bright children in their classes in the name of 'equality,' which can so often simply mean dropping everything to the Lowest Common Denominator.
So Go Gove, go go go..
TomTom
February 5th, 2009 2:05pm Report this commentSelection breaks the rigidity of schools and creates flexibility because it creates a different ethos at all levels.
Just reorganising comprehensives will not work and with PFI leasing costs and public spending contraction any other system will be mired in inertia.
Sweden has a smaller population than Central London - by all means replicate Sweden in London but do not think you will do it throughout England.
The mess came from Kenneth Baker's National Curriculum and it gave Central Planners absolute control over education so that noone who can think wants to teach
Wily Trout
February 5th, 2009 2:13pm Report this commentThe trade union convenors and reps are very very often officers in the Local Authorities, and the LA stance is usually indistinguishable from the union stances. They will fight all this with everything they've got.
John Page
February 5th, 2009 2:22pm Report this commentVery interesting. In brief -
1. But academic achievement alone doesn't make a good teacher. We have too many poor teachers in post.
3. How would "performance" be judged? Just tests? Boo. Or flabby evaluations? And doesn't "mandatory" imply central direction?
6. Great idea.
7. But maybe "market itself" isn't the best phrase to use. "Offer itself", maybe? Not brilliant but it avoids lazy "market" jibes.
Ian C
February 5th, 2009 2:24pm Report this comment1) Of course the Unions have to be confronted - they are staffed by people who are communist in their thinking and their definition of equality ('you'll all be worst together if anybody has to be') blindly drives them. This is the result of a bunch of people who have no idea of the benefits of ambition, why is beyond us all. They must be defeated.
2-6) On the tiping point, Gove must not count on it. There must be massive and obvious incentives for schools to follow the reform agenda to the extent that those resisting are stigmatised loudly in their local community. Vouchers are the obvious route to go, but he is not proposing that yet and will be a measure of failure if forced to introduce them later. So he needs to be much more radical and be utterly prepared to take no prisoners whatever.
7&8) If you can get much better results from doubling teacher per pupil ratios without needing more classrooms this must be tried. But there needs to be freedom for (especially new) schools who want to go the smaller class route. There needs to be minimal prescription and maximum incentive to modern different methids to a high quality of national standards in edcuation.
We know small classes work in the private sector so it has to be part of the mix.
Eeyore
February 5th, 2009 2:37pm Report this commentThe problem with citing Sweden as the Left always does, is that it has a highly educated population whose parents care about education. The UK haa a poorly educated population whose government cares chiefly about equity which is easily achieved by giving more people top grades in worthless exams. .
Rhoda Klapp
February 5th, 2009 2:45pm Report this commentAnybody daft enough to want to be a teacher is probably not able to give any improvement in education. It's a lousy job. Better pay for results mught help, but there just is not enough authority remaining in the job to deal with the disruptive pupils. There are no ultimate punishments. Bad kids get a few days off, really bad kids get excluded entirely. You can't lay hands on them. If they make accusations they can have you suspended, put into limbo or eventually sacked. The kids go on to ignore all other authority until they exhaust the patience of the justice system.
No wonder the teachers' unions act like they are under siege. And will resist all change, as a matter of course.
mart
February 5th, 2009 2:56pm Report this comment"Our friends the Liberals are outlining their plans on education reform today, some of which are fantastic."
Great article Fraser, but it was worth reading just for that one quote.
Gove is be congratulated. It is wise to describe what he likes about someone else's policies, because it makes politics about policies not about tribalism.
Bishop Hill
February 5th, 2009 3:12pm Report this commentThis will be a monumental failure, because Cameron refuses to contemplate privatising the whole kit and caboodle.
TGF UKIP
February 5th, 2009 3:15pm Report this commentOver the past decade teachers are one of the Labour client groups which have enjoyed lashings of taxpayer cash. From what I have been told by teachers, you now need to be pretty useless just to remain a basically paid classroom teacher because of the huge job promotion scam which has taken place. Heads of year, Heads of subjects all with deputies, bullying specialists (and no doubt diversity specialists) so here's my question before Dave and Gove go lashing round more taxpayer cash, just what would a deputy head of year in a thousand pupil comp be earning in his mid thirties. (And let's not forget the pension scheme is worth at least 20% on top, plus the additional holidays enjoyed over and above his private sector colleagues and last but not least his absolute job security.)
It is this last point, Fraser, that should come a long way before performance pay - unsatisfactory performance should be a ground for dismissal in practice and not just in theory as at present - and that is something which goes for virtually the entire public sector. It's not just in pensions where there is one rule for the public sector and an entirely different one for everyone else.
FF
February 5th, 2009 3:43pm Report this commentSweden is a good country to benchmark against, but you need to be careful when making comparisons.
Prior to the opt-out pogramme, Local authorities controlled Swedish schools 100%. Even now they have far greater power than their equivalents in England. You need to consider the 90% of schools that haven't opted out as well as the 10% that have.
The opt out programme has not improved educational outcomes and no Swede, I believe, has ever claimed it would. Educational outcomes were already excellent under the original highly collectivised system.
The Swedish justification for the opt-out was that choice is of itself a good thing. It allows parents who want something different for their child - usually a more liberal or a religious education - to escape the clutches of the State. But it was never seen as a replacement for a top quality "standard" education provided by the State for the bulk of the population.
Adrian Hilton
February 5th, 2009 4:09pm Report this comment"Gove ignored his speech, and spoke verbatim."
Sorry to sound like a teacher, Fraser, but do you not mean 'spoke extempore'?
luke
February 5th, 2009 4:19pm Report this commentSo I wasnt clear from the article what the big ideas are?
1- Paying teachers more
2- Smaller class sizes (more teachers)
3- Better incentives on schools
All sounds good, but not really radical and most of all, it sounds expensive.
THX1138
February 5th, 2009 4:24pm Report this commentI totally support Gove & Dave on this we need to park the ideological baggage left & right and do what works so that kids get a better education.
Alfred T Mahan
February 5th, 2009 4:43pm Report this commentI think it's potentially terrific but the devil will be in the detail.
For instance, why exclude profit-making organisations from running schools? It's the best way to attract entrepreneurial talent and create real competition.
What are they planing for inspections? A regime along the lines of the Commission for Social Care Inspection? If so they can kiss goodbye to radical changes - the dead hand of regulation will still be there, even without LA control.
And so on.
FF
February 5th, 2009 4:52pm Report this commentLuke, perhaps the small ideas are actually the important ones. I would rate Fraser's point 6 above all the others. When good teachers make the difference, the system doesn't really matter too much.
Aidan
February 5th, 2009 4:52pm Report this commentAt least Michael Gove is literate, unlike our current Schools Minister - see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7872240.stm
Kenneth Briggs
February 5th, 2009 5:37pm Report this commentInteresting but puzzling. I don't for example understand the distinction in:-
there’s plenty evidence that two teachers in a bigger-size class works better than splitting them down in one room.
And - all these new schools that Michael Gove is saying will exist - financed by what in the current climate? let alone the empty claim that they will generate better results - better than what? And how can anyone know in advance?
So it does rather sound like empty rhetoric until/unless there is specific accounting
The differential pay issue is also, obviously a hot potato, but the options are already in place with Advanced Skills Teachers doing rather better financially than most. And the opposing argument for the need for teachers to work as a team rather militates against excessive differentiation.
Michael Gove's populist style in his Times columns does not convince me that he understands the schools situation from inside, but clearly Mr Nelson finds him personable and capable of stringing his own sentences together, so that might be a reasonable start!!
Gwlithyn Bartlett
February 5th, 2009 5:39pm Report this commentas a retired infants teacher I know small infant classes will give young children the attention they need and deserve.Politicians need to get out of education and leave the teachers to get on with teaching. Instead of all these sheets of plans a teacher record book like those used in Wales in the 1960 with lesson notes and dailey assessments would have all the information required to assess a puplis progress. Head teacher would take the record books i weeklt and mark them.Not all children use phonics to learn to read, teachers must be allowed to use the method that suits the child. English unlike Welsh is not a phonetic language. Not all teacher unions would be against change. Teachers do need insurance more now than ever.
The Watcher
February 5th, 2009 6:00pm Report this commentIt is quite shocking just how hard left and indoctrinating the teachers are. I had a friend from university in Belfast in the mid 1990's, she was very apolitical and was quite moderate in her views. She then went to England to do a PGCE. Last year I got in contact again with her via Facebook, looking at her profile and the groups she is a member of, she has become a borderline communist!
Puncheon
February 5th, 2009 7:30pm Report this commentThis will not be easy. Gove will have to: Get rid of the LEAs; confront and defeat the unions; confront idiotic, anti-social and delusional parents; close all teacher training colleges; allow any graduate from the top universities to teach; make it absolutely clear that a degree in media studies from Netherwhopping Uni is not the same as a degree in theoretical physics from Cambridge. He should also create a small number of instutions devoted to top quality vocational studies, eg Myerscough College near Preston. We need to be elevating vocational/technical training, not dumbing down academic institutuions. Above all he should be promoting and rewarding excellence and ignoring the left wing Caliban screams of elitism.
Cogito Ergosum
February 5th, 2009 8:32pm Report this commentIt's all very well to reorganise the schools but what about the children?
In the immortal words of Tony Hancock: "But stone me! You've got to start with something.".
Until the issue of selection is confronted and overcome, no worthwhile result will be achieved.
David
February 6th, 2009 9:03am Report this commentAre you being disingenuous about class sizes? It is my understanding that the number of children per teacher in primary schools has indeed gone down in recent years.
Is Singapore really an applicable social model?
Looking at OECD figures, it strikes me that countries doing well are also spending more of their GDP on education. Maybe they spend less time doing down teachers and their unions as well.
"Schools in your neighbourhood" is a powerful political message for Tory marginals - it is a long way from producing improvements in opportunity for poor children across the country.
Susan Hill
February 6th, 2009 9:38am Report this commentA by-word. A friend has 2 sons. One is at a local comprehensive which has been closed for this week - snow. They have had great fun playing and no one from school has been in touch in any way.
The second son is at a Grammar School (11 plus county.) They have also been closed. Staff are setting Snow-work daily, by e-mail, it has to be done, returned by e-mail, is marked. Reading lists, essays and assignments have been issued across the entire school. They have been told that this is a normal school day in all but physical presence and that sports hour can be playing in the snow.
Aspiration leads to hard work leads to achievement. There`s still time for play. The comp children meanwhile are, as one put it, 'bored out their skulls.'
Beagle
February 6th, 2009 10:04am Report this commentPlease Michael Gove do not forget further education colleges whose teaching staff are under the malicious and destructive control of the UCU - the Universities and College Lecturers Union. The UCU's proud boast is that it is unreconstructed hard left.
Teacher's Daughter
February 6th, 2009 12:13pm Report this commentThe main problem for teachers in the last 20-30 years is not pay but professional status. My father became a teacher (or schoolmaster, as it was then known) in 1951, at which time entering teaching was considered a PROFESSION on a par with the law, accountancy etc. Since the advent of the National Curriculum and other initiatives teachers have had ever-decreasing and now zero freedom to use their professional judgment in what or how to teach. They must follow the detailed prescriptions of central planners for each & every 15minute slot of the teaching day. Until this situation is abolished very little can change - good teachers will continue to quit in droves, and bright graduates who could be good teachers will continue to be put off. If Gove really detests centralised planning as much as he says, then why is he not proposing to abolish the most centrally planned element of the entire state education system - the National Curriculum?
David
February 6th, 2009 3:21pm Report this commentTeacher's daughter has it right,
the National Curriculum was brought in by conservative governments in order to exert ideological control over the teachers of the nation's children. Nothing has been as destructive as this (except perhaps selling off playing fields and underfunding the whole system for decades).
As FF points out, these countries already had superior education BEFORE the opt out policy. To now turn around and cite Sweden and the Netherlands as models - while refusing to match their resources - is simply disingenuous. Meanwhile, the ambition of achieving 10% of schools opting out, which may then be rewarded with extra budget, just looks like extension of privilege rather than increased freedom.
The non-opted out state sector will then struggle on, underfunded and undervalued, while superficial improvements in this 10% are held up as a sign of progress.
The incentives for improvement already exist in the form of league tables and choice of school within larger catchment areas - just free up the teachers (and spend more, that's what other countries do).
hadrian
February 6th, 2009 9:33pm Report this commentAs a former schoolteacher I agree wholeheartedly with the voucher proposal scheme. However, towards the end of my career I really began to despair of ANY state education, I must admit. Our systems have been thoroughly infected with humanistic-state-as-god mentality that time and again obviates any improvements. Happily there are many exceptions where strong individuals with real moral sense and courage have prevailed but the system in the main is freighted with deadweight. All too often teachers have been their own worst enemies, bleating on about the 'abusive effects'of traditional methods and discipline. Sheer bliss to leave these moaners behind!
My one reservation about these government issued vouchers is summed up in the old maxim, 'Easy come, easy go!' Where the fees have been hard earned they will be wisely spent; where not, perhaps just casually used. However, from what you've been reporting, Fraser, it seems that once most parents are financially empowered like this, it does have long-term, beneficial effects. Well, bring it on, in any case, I say! It won't be any worse than the present mess.
simon baker
February 6th, 2009 9:54pm Report this commentDavid,
The government has already poured money into the education system and teachers' pay has gone up accordingly, they earn a mean of £35,000, well above average and above many lawyers (particularly those doing legal aid work). There is also no reason why vouchers should lead to an educational divide, provided the same funds are given to all parents they should lead to new schools opening up and raise the standards of existing schools. Teaching remains a respected profession, with a 2002 Today programme poll putting it in the top 10 most respected professions, but the ideologues and NUT fanatics remain a problem in some areas, vouchers would go some way to solving that. As for the National Curriculum, there is nothing wrong with ensuring that pupils learn a broad curriculum based on proper subjects, what is needed is a reduction in the bureaucratic elements that accompany it.
Francis Norton
February 7th, 2009 9:14pm Report this commentI'm totally sold on this proposal, including the first-come first-served non-selection principle (with the only exception being the pointless no profit-making rule).
I think we need to start some serious marketing. A good step would be to come up with a sellable label - given that "independent" and "public" have already gone, how about "open schooling", being open in the sense of "open" to pupils regardless of wealth or exam-passing skills, and also "open" in the sense of open to new school start-ups wherever parents and pupils feel failed by the educational establishment.
francis norton
February 8th, 2009 10:41am Report this commentI should have said above:-
"open" to pupils regardless of wealth, ability to pass exams or religious beliefs
- as the proud proprietor of a lively three year old, nervously assessing educational options, I think politicians might be surprised by the depth of resentment felt by many of my fellow-parents about the handing out of privileged educational franchises to the faith-based establishments.
David
February 9th, 2009 11:08am Report this commentThe government has RECENTLY poured money into the education system, but still spends less than most comparable countries - the record over the last generation or so is even worse.
The danger of this scheme is that it will provide 'desirable' schools for just enough people that opportunities for the rest of the country's children will be ignored even more.
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