Does the government now oppose the setting up of academies?
James Forsyth 11:32am
The Guardian reports that the new schools minister Vernon Coaker is a member of the Socialist Educational Association. The SEA campaigns, among other things, for 'the Government to end the setting up of academies'. So, we have a schools minister who is opposed to the biggest educational innovation Labour has made in its 12 years in power.
With Brown so weak, we can expect a lot more of this kind of thing. Every Labour pressure group will be pushing at an open door until Brown finally goes. Policy will be decided not on the basis of what is good for the party, but on what might just keep the party behind Gordon.
One wonders what Lord Adonis, the great champion of academies, makes of all this. He might be sitting in the Cabinet now, but his greatest achievement is being destroyed by the government of which he is a member.
PS This passsage from an interview that Lord Adonis did with Fraser back in January 2007 rings particulalry hollow now:
One suspects that Coaker won't be putting much positive energy into the academies' agenda.‘The issue ahead — both for Gordon when he’s Prime Minister and also because at some stage in the future there will be a Conservative government — isn’t about the broad principles of education policy,’ he says. ‘It is about the actual energy and implementation drive of delivering it.’
Previous
Nicholas
June 9th, 2009 11:53am Report this commentLooks like a pillock.
Publius
June 9th, 2009 11:54am Report this commentThe only way this joke of a Cabinet will stay together is by doing nothing.
The very best that Brown can hope for over the coming months is drift.
And in some ways it will be a pleasure not to have these interfering nonentities messing up our lives any more.
Victor, NW Kent
June 9th, 2009 12:05pm Report this commentForgive my scepticism but isn't the academy system largely an exercise in renaming? A bit like Foundation Hospitals which benefit mainly a tier of management, not the patients.
New Labour has many ground shaking innovations of this type. The tremors have sometimes been felt as far away as Islington or Kensington.
John Page
June 9th, 2009 12:19pm Report this commentDoubtless handpicked by Balls.
Samantha
June 9th, 2009 12:32pm Report this commentReading this you would think the government was getting rid of academies.
At the least surely they have now committed not to create any more?
Oh wait, they are creating hundreds of new ones?
One wonders at what point journalism passes into straight party-politics and then one reads this kind of article...
Vulture
June 9th, 2009 12:34pm Report this commentIt hardly matter what their policies are : its too late to get anything substantive through the Commons before the bell tolls in May 2010.
BrianSJ
June 9th, 2009 12:34pm Report this commentI expect that the unions have already delivered a scale of fees, with donations per policy. The return of the closed shop might provide quite a big boost to the election funds. ZNL is not just broken, it is broke.
dorothy wilson
June 9th, 2009 12:39pm Report this commentActually, this highlights Labour's dilemma. On the one hand, the favourite to take over from Brown is Johnson - Old Labour. On the other Milliband on the Today programme this morning was pushing the NuLabour agenda.
Then they have the cheek to rib the Conservatives about splits.
Hysteria
June 9th, 2009 1:14pm Report this comment"Policy will be decided not on the basis of what is good for the party"
shurly shome mishtake..??
shouldn't policy be for the good of the country?
TomTom
June 9th, 2009 2:05pm Report this commentGovernment should NOT have an "education policy". It should not be involved. This notion goes back to Prussia and its obsession with The State as the fount of all identity...it is time that schools operated without the dead hand of State Ideology.
Academies are NON-Academic. this is the Realm of Newspeak. What we need are Schools that are Academic or Technical or General but that have the ability to SELECT pupils by ABILITY and APTITUDE.
Everything else is simple to force-fit people into large prison camps where an enforced regimen crushes individual identity.
Vernon Coaker is not the problem...his job should NOt exist. We do not need a State Ministry of Education imposing its will
Fabio P.Barbieri
June 9th, 2009 2:25pm Report this commentIn Salford, the local powers are using academies to shut down Catholic schools. The procedure is: shut down two efficient and successful Catholic schools, set up one untested and unnecessary Academy on their ruins. In other words, there is no idea that these people cannot twist to their politics-of-hatred advantage. The sooner they go the better - except Cameron looks too much like one of them for comfort.
Wily Trout
June 9th, 2009 2:34pm Report this commentEducation is one of the areas where Mr Broon tells us we can expect his vision to be set out in radical new policies. Mr Coaker looks just the man to drive innovative new policies forward. Not.
Disillusioned
June 9th, 2009 3:08pm Report this comment@Nicholas I second that.
Verity
June 9th, 2009 3:19pm Report this commentWhat's with the haircut? Is he mad?
Roger Thornhill
June 9th, 2009 3:27pm Report this comment"Big Vern" Coaker was suited to Law and Order. He looks out of place in Education.
If he is a socialist, the last place he should be is an environment where people are supposed to attain greatness. They level down, are entropic.
Expect the worst.
Bocephus
June 9th, 2009 3:39pm Report this commentIn Chicago there are "Gifted Schools" which usually feature in the Top 10 schools in Illinois.
Why can't we set up "Gifted Schools" in London for the children on free school meals. They would have to sit a test to get in but if it was restricted to people on free school meals the middle classes couldn't hog all the places. You would have a school of highly motivated working class kids who, like Michelle Obama said, thought it was cool to get A's.
Maybe this already happens and I've never heard about it. It just seems so obvious.
Verity
June 9th, 2009 4:15pm Report this commentFabio P.Barbieri ... "except Cameron looks too much like one of them for comfort."
Yes, indeed. Cameron is not to be trusted.
chris
June 9th, 2009 6:10pm Report this commentWe in Nottingham have the misfortune to have this individual as one of its hapless labour MPs.
Another one of them, called Graham Allen, openly spoke up yesterday, and called for Bruin's replacement. Another one, Alan Simpson, hates the lot of them.
Goodness knows what Paddy Tipping thinks, another one.
Never mind, they will all be drawing taxpayers' money for the rest of this parliament, and probably thereafter, as the other parties seem to have all but given up in this city.
Victor, NW Kent
June 9th, 2009 6:42pm Report this commentFabio - discuss your problem with your hard-working MP. Her name is Hazel Blears.
The only resemblance between Cameron and the Labour cabinet is that they have the same number of limbs. He is, however, a vertebrate and they are not.
mac
June 9th, 2009 7:45pm Report this comment@Nicholas
Whereas Ainsworth - masquerading as a Secretary of State, no less - incontrovertibly is one.
Chris lancashire
June 9th, 2009 9:45pm Report this commentVernon who?
Michael Booth
June 10th, 2009 9:07am Report this commentoh dear another ex-communist with his hands on the nation's education system...now that Blinky Balls has the power to dictate what textbooks schools must use we can assume the 'airbrush' will be applied to huge swaithes of British history. What? It already has been? Lawks a mercy... More Stalinism anyone?
TomTom
June 10th, 2009 1:46pm Report this comment"Another one, Alan Simpson, hates the lot of them"
and his property portfolio through the taxpayer Fees Office is something to behold embracing as it does Tuscan villas
Alf Tupper C.R.O.F.
June 11th, 2009 10:30pm Report this commentVernon Coaker.
Any playwright would be proud to come up with a name like that.
He looks like a heavily-made-up Timothy Spall.
Back to top