Will the Gove schools be so successful that the Scots and Welsh adopt them?

sylvia

1,2,3,4....cluck, cluck, cluck

DavidB

Now they're "Gove schools"? Ugh.

David Lindsay

The short answer to this is No.

Any legislation that has already been through the civil servants, the councillors (including the Tory ones), the local government officers and the teaching unions, never mind both Houses of Parliament, will at the very least require the local council to approve the creation of any such school. No council will ever so approve, so no such school will ever be created. Not one.

Since this is the Tories' only distinctive policy, if not their only policy at all, then what is the point of voting for them?

And even if these things ever were set up, then the simple fact that they existed in England would preclude their creation certainly in Scotland and probably also in Wales (never mind that the Educational Establishment is the most powerful interest group in Scotland, bar none), and their enemies would portray them to the English as something imposed by a Scot when they did not exist in his own country. That Gove is a Surrey MP would count for nothing in the atmosphere that the Tories' own anti-Brownery has created.

wonkotsane

You wouldn't know the Tories were only talking about England though, it says "England" once and "Britain" or "British" 5 times. I'm still waiting for an explanation from the party ... http://www.thecep.org.uk/wordpress/2010/01/18/wheres-england-dave-part-2/

Good Grief

James's man crush has just become Officially Creepy.

Snowman

The probability that Britain morphs into a republic exceeds that of the country's schools delivering success. David Lindsay has my vote.

I Albion

Was Gove talking about English schools??
because he did not mention England by name.but then he is a Scot.

TGF UKIP

Here we go again, the Speccie hacks, J. Forsyth and Never Neather in particular, shamelessly taking every half opportunity to promote their own very fave Clique member -"Gove schools" indeed!

Crushing though it's going to be for you James, but Fraser's Swedish fetish just ain't gonna happen. Not just for the reasons spelled out so clearly by David Lindsay, but it has not the slightest chance to even get off the round.

So controversial would it be and so multiple and formidable are the forces ranked against it that it would take a governement with a very large and secure majority to give it even the slightest chance of flight. And such a government is now beyond the most optimistic propspect for your beloved but hopelessly shambolic Clique.

Oh the wailing and gnashing of teeth there's going to be at 22 Old Queen Street on election night.

David Lindsay

Snowman, a vote for me is a vote, not for gimmicks, but for grammar schools, of which Thatcher closed so many that there were not enough left at the end for her record ever to be equalled. Plus a vote for O-levels, abolished by Thatcher.

And a vote for me is a vote for someone who knows the public sector, not least including its educational arms, from the inside, so won't be run rings around by it.

Liberty

Mr Gove’s plan is a huge step forward but it will show us even more starkly its critical flaw, he will maintain the ban on academic selection.
Banning academic selection assumes that people do not vary in ability, that all can be equally successful. But ability does vary a lot and holding out the hope that all can be doctors, dentists and musicians will make most disappointed. Whilst the range of ability varies from the innumerate to Einstein or the tone deaf to Mozart most of us know that to teach a child who struggles to read alongside one who reads Harry Potter for fun is cruel and counterproductive. The less able child feels inadequate and the more able one will not be stretched. They are both getting the wrong schooling. Furthermore, ability varies in kind not just degree. A test of arithmetic would produce a range between the very quick and very slow with most in the middle but a test of calculus would have more than 80% of children unable to do it at all. Higher maths requires powers of abstract reasoning that most never acquire. Exams like A level that are aimed at all fails all abilities; the less able because they cannot do them, the most able because their too easy and those in between because they test the wrong things. It is little wonder that when two children of similar ability, one from a state comprehensive doing A level and one from a selective independent doing IB are interviewed for university the state pupil is tongue tied and the private pupil is fluent and confident.
We are squandering the talent of the nation, have done for 50 years and it will continue until Mr Gove or someone else has the courage to say the comprehensive experiment has failed and sets schools free to select as they see fit and then they will compete, teachers will object at first but will then rush to exclude the ruffians, leave them to the specialist teachers while they either choose to teach the ruffians themselves for more money or teach in peace, one subject, one way and fall in love with education again all over again.

2trueblue

The fact that you nearly missed it says ot all. Nothing that the tories suggest away form the main gets a look in. Great to have such good reporting on the BBC and SKY, one owned by Liebore and one with hose biased and sleeping with Liebores people.

J H Holloway

David Lindsay. Loud, confident and wrong.

Mrs Thatcher did not 'close' grammar schools. She devolved the decision to a local level, expecting parents to rise up and force local councils not to apply to Whitehall to close them

That was the first time she mistakenly trusted the people to protect their own local interests. The second time was sending every adult a personal bill for the expenditure of the local council.

djw2009

you keep trying to push the idea that Gove is worth our votes, but I'm not buying it.

* No grammar schools
* No selection in schools
* Only a few schools allowed to opt out of local authority control
* LEAs remain in existence absorbing needless govt expenditure
* sex education continues, starting at age 6
* Multicultural education remains, and nearly all subjected continue to be distorted in order to fuel multiculturalism
* Exam results remain largely dependent on essay results and assignments that can be resubmitted time and again

Why is Gove anywhere near government? Why is he so determined not to implement a conservative education policy?

David Lindsay

"Mrs Thatcher did not 'close' grammar schools. She devolved the decision to a local level, expecting parents to rise up and force local councils not to apply to Whitehall to close them"

You really will have to do better than that!

Cogito Ergosum

@Liberty 10.20pm

I agree with every word.

Fergus Pickering

Liberty, I too think you have it inn a nutshell. Do you know that even the education at Eton and Winchester is going downhill? The children are lazier and stupider. I have it from the inside. We are becoming invincibly ignorant and I fear there is nothing to be done. Beethoven? Who's he? Shakespeare? What's that? The triumph of Democracy. Everyone's a somebody so no-one's anybody.

By the way, Gove can't be a true Scot. Where is the weight of unassuageable wrong? Where is the defensive infantilism? Where is the anti-English rant. I don't believe he's a Scot AT ALL.

Tim Carpenter LPUK

The Gove plan will not allow anyone to set up a school, but will give central govt the right to give the yay or nay to an application from those organisations that have been previously ok'd by LEA's.

It will create all manner of unintended consequences and will not bring the benefits in the scale that a truly free system would. LEA and central govt should not decide who can open a school, only that if the school recieves state funding it delivers according to a basic set of rules ( numeracy and literacy and nothing else).

terence patrick hewett

If you really want to know what is likely to happen, follow the link to the Centre for Policy Studies and scroll down to the paper: School Quangos: A blueprint for abolition and reform.

http://www.cps.org.uk/cps_catalog/New_Publications.html

If you can't be bothered this is a précis:

* While politicians have repeatedly called for reducing the size and influence of Quangos, little has been achieved.

* This paper analyses the 11 Quangos (with public funding of £1.2 billion in 2007/08) which have the greatest impact on schools. A central recommendation of this report is that the DCSF should be replaced by a Department of Education solely responsible for schools.

* Most of these Quangos have grown hugely in recent years (for many, their budgets have in real terms increased by between 10% and 15% a year). This has happened while the DCSF has published data to show that its own productivity has fallen by 0.7% a year.

* This report details how the functions of these Quangos can either be abolished, or transferred to the Department or moved out of state control.

Recommendations

* The QCA (shortly to become the QCDA and Ofqual) should be abolished. Schools should be free to develop their own curriculum. A small, unpaid Curriculum Advisory Board should be created which would draw up a curriculum to reflect the standards required for success in academic, vocational and higher education.

* Ofqual should be only responsible for ensuring the validity, reliability and equivalence of examinations. It should be reconstituted so that it is comprised of university professors, leading head teachers and other leaders in academic disciplines.

* Ofsted should focus exclusively on inspecting failing schools. More attention should be given to classroom inspection and less to desk analysis.

* The TDA should be abolished. Teacher training should be employment-based. Trainee teachers should be funded through a voucher scheme.

* The NCSL (and the mandatory nature of the NPQH), Becta, 11 MILLION, Teachers' TV, and STRB should all be abolished, while the remit and funding of PfS should be reduced.

* The GTC and SFT should become voluntary organisations and should receive no government funding.

seb

One occasionally hears the plans that well-intentioned people have for the independent schools that they'd like to set up. Often, these people are wealthy and creative sorts - Hampstead Luvvies. They appear, often, to hanker after schools where Tamsin and Oliver will have most of their lessons outside the classrooms, sat beneath a leafy bough with a tome of Carol Ann Duffy's lates odes to peruse.

Gove's reforms are to be welcomed. Sadly, they'll fail utterly unless it is realised that why our schools fail today. A child who spends his time sat around a table engaged socialising with his pals is not learning. A child who is given anile sh*t to occupy his time rather than something difficult is not learning. Does no one out there understand this? It's not who runs the school. It's not who pays for the schools. It's whether or not the school provides real lessons or whether it's just a tenth rate day-care centre for parents to leave children for thirty hours a week.

Beer Moth

Gove speaks and I hear: 'supply side revolution'...'step up schools' etc, and it's just - yet again - so much wistful initiative.

David Lindsay talks and we get concrete proposals for a return to the GCE standard, with no-nonsense recognition of the worth of Grammar Schools and the opportunities that were dashed with their fall.

Liberty insists that we return to the basic need to stop waffling to our young people and start, honestly and responsibly, doing the best we can for them.

And which one of these is the one in - OK, almost - power?

Beer Moth

tph.

Very enlightening on the quangoes, thank you.

Surely we could pare them all down drastically to end up with just the one, which could itself be monitored closely?

We could call it Offtoss.

Richard Manns

@ David Lindsay

You seem convinced that local councils won't allow a single one of these schools. Are you scared of councils? Thatcher wasn't. Two words for you: Liverpool, Militant.

Michael

Cogito Ergo Sum:
"I agree with every word."
But, one hopes, not with some of Liberty's spelling...

denis cooper

Before we embark on any such educational reforms, wouldn't it be wise to check whether our EU partners agree that we'd be heading in the right direction?

http://europa.eu/pol/educ/index_en.htm

Ostensibly it remains at the level of "incentive measures" and "recommendations", which are not legally binding, but nevertheless the Lisbon Treaty has significantly increased the scope for the EU to interfere with national education.

Previously, Article 3 TEC stated:

"... the activities of the Community shall include ...

(q) a contribution to education and training of quality and to the flowering of the cultures of the Member States ... ",

but that has now been strengthened in Article 6 TFEU:

"The Union shall have competence to carry out actions to support, coordinate or supplement the actions of the Member States. The areas of such action shall, at European level, be ...

(e) education, vocational training, youth and sport ...".

Those who favour selection by academic ability, and who can't understand why all the main UK political parties are adamantly and irrationally opposed to this concept, may care to give particular attention to a 2006 Communication from the Commission on "efficiency and equity in European education and training systems":

http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/education_training_youth/general_framework/c11095_en.htm

where even early "streaming" within schools is condemned:

"For instance, procedures such as early "tracking", in other words the streaming of pupils aged between 10 and 12 according to their ability level into different programmes, should be avoided because this is a source of inequity, particularly in the case of the disadvantaged and immigrant populations."

Holly ......

When all you moaning whinging 'it will never get off the ground' typical English victims STOP and look around how mega successful the current education system is at churning out cabbages, then and only then will anything change!!!!
You are so sure it will fail,before the people gunning for change have even been elected.
Why fricking bother if the so called population don't think it will get off the ground?
Leave you to wallow in your glee at being right and just vote Brown and Balls back in.
Acording to David Lindsay TGF UKIP ect they think Balls and Labour have done a cracking job so why change now.
I suppose I should not give a shit,I have no children who are going to be screwed up by the British education system,so what is it to me?
I hope Cameron gets a MASSIVE mandate succeeds in fixing the shambolic,how to pass a test scope of education these days and shuts folk like you two up.
Life is depressing enough without screwballs like you two making people feel oh well why bother if they are going to fail.
HOW DO YOU KNOW?
Is it the make up of British society?
To say your feeble attitude is annoying is an understatement.
Which other party today has the ability to put right what Brown has done?
Lib Dems? BNP? UKIP? Green party? A fist full of rag tag independents?
Your'e so clever please pass on your superior knowledge.
Some of the above say they will pull us out of Europe,wow,that will fix everything won't it?
One will tax anything that is 'in their' view polluting. Great stuff.
One will tax everything that they view as poluting,give it all to Europe and join the Euro.
The rag tags will go on whatever 'local' issue got them elected.
Choices,choices.

O'Harlan

Wouldn't Gove's proposals lead to a boom in the number of madrassas in England? If so, it needs to be reconsidered.

Beer Moth

Holly.

Perhaps one or two of your most strongly felt points would be a better starting point? This scatter gun of yours just makes this reader duck for cover.

Tiberius

James, I thought your piece in this week's magazine was the best you've done since becoming Pol Ed.

As for some of the bizarre, critical posts above (over which I am speechless), I would point to Janet Daley in Today's ST. She not only recognizes the value of the Tory education policy, but demonstrates an understanding the Tory approach generally.

As for grammar schools - they were yesterday's solution, and not saving them was yesterday's politicians' failing. It is always difficult to turn the clock back, so today's solutions are: more rigorous marking of exams; uncompromising discipline; and streaming (which gives students a second chance to shine post-11, and can relegate the clever wasters. At my grammar school, about 10-15% of the intake were not worth the effort.)

Snowman

Holly… @ 12.33:

Why importing an idea that may work in Sweden when we had a system that, whilst perhaps not absolutely perfect, worked by far better than what we replaced it with? What’s this obsession with Sweden anyway. Fraser extols the virtues of their banking, James of their schooling, what’s next? The joys of the Swedish sex industry on Liddle’s blog?

We sacrificed a system of education that served the country well for decades, if not centuries, for the pursuit of an ideological dogma that feels noble, compassionate, and heart warming, but has failed to deliver. The fifteen per cent illiteracy rate proves it. To add insult to injury, social mobility has got impeded, too.

The comprehensive nonsense imposes a ‘one size fits all’ on a universe of vastly diverging talents. Cannot work. The end result should have been bleeding obvious – the best brains get undernourished, the struggling ones demand a greater share of resources, and less demanding syllabus, which pulls the majority of the class down. In any classroom made up of the top and bottom brains the highest pass rate can be had only if the claim on the brainpower of all is adjusted to encompass the below-the-average segment.

I stick to my voting for David Lindsay.

Polly Gamma

Here are a few extracts from a debate in the House of Commons July 8th 1970 when Margaret Thatcher was State Secretary for Education under Edward Heath.

This was at the end of a debate about a short circular (correct protocol) in response to previous labour party Prime Minister Harold Wilson and Edward Short MP for Newcastle Upon Tyne who between them (by circular) had tried to impose and finalise legislation on all local education authorities making country wide comprehensive education compulsory no matter what those education authorities may have wanted or how astronomical the cost or consequent drain on resources would have been. The conservatives had pledged in their manifesto to negate the circular and this debate was the formal finalization of the withdrawal of Wilson and Short's circular.

Here is one of Margaret Thatcher's observation's made during the course of the debate regarding what had been happening in education whilst Labour had been deconstructing it during their tenure:......

“”Hon. Members will know that if local education authorities did not toe the right hon. Gentleman's line, approval was withheld from building projects, even though those projects were part of the basic needs programme and their absence would materially affect the education of the pupils.””

After more to-ing and fro-ing the debate ends with these comments……

“”The Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mrs Margaret Thatcher):-

I believe that it is possible - the right hon. Gentleman does not - that it is possible to have a mixed system of both comprehensive and grammar schools – I believe this to be so.

Mr. Edward Short (the right honorable Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne Central:-

That is a contradiction.

Mrs. Thatcher:

This is not a contradiction. There are existing systems, as the right hon. Gentleman knows, so how can it be impossible? It varies enormously with the catchment area. Certainly, with a small rural area, I do not believe that it would be possible to have a comprehensive school and a grammar school, but in some of the very large urban areas it is possible, because the grammar school and direct grant school have quite different catchment areas from the comprehensive school. [Hon. Members: "Impossible."] It is of little avail for hon. Gentlemen opposite to say that this is impossible, because it happens now. Some of the best comprehensive schools are in areas where there are very good selective schools. The right hon. Gentleman is always putting forward Tulse Hill as one of the best comprehensives in London. This school is in an area where there are a number of very good selective grammar and direct grant schools. It has not prevented the grammar, direct grant and comprehensives from being extremely good schools.

Mr. Eric S Heffer ( Liverpool - Walton):-

I entirely agree with the right hon. Lady that there are local authorities which have the two systems running side by side. We have this in Liverpool. Is she aware, however, that it is a totally unsatisfactory system and that it creates more than enough problems? She must understand that one either has one system or the other. [Hon. Members: "No."] The system that is obviously required and that has been [685] shown to be totally necessary in the interests of the children is the fully comprehensive one.

Mrs. Thatcher:

I obviously disagree with the hon. Gentleman.

I was interested in an article in New Society of 25th June, 1970, by David Donnison following an extensive survey—a much more extensive one than the pollsters did—about what the British public wanted from their schools. He pointed out that the majority said that they favoured comprehensive education and that that majority was growing. [Hon. Members: "Hear, hear."] However, an even larger majority wanted to "retain grammar schooling". I believe that if one is not doctrinaire and rigid about this it is possible to have the best of both systems. That is the difference between us.

The main purpose of this circular is to honour an election pledge to reject compulsion on democratically elected authorities. I ask the House to reject the Amendment”"………END OF DEBATE..

Obviously the “long march” was directed into local authorities in subsequent years and those local authorities were filled with manipulators who abused the power awarded at this stage in history and gradually managed to force the closure of many grammar schools by stealth anyway.
The myth that she was instrumental in destroying the grammar school system is one of the many examples of the way Margaret Thatcher’s motivations and achievements have been twisted and misrepresented into a grotesque web of lies by malignant delusional educators and media puppets. It is telling that even though she be in her dotage far too many people doth protest too much about the Iron Lady and either become apoplectic at the mention of her name or quake in their boots and become shrill lest she may excoriatingly show up their appalling lack of authenticity.

Holly ......

Beer Moth
Intentional.

Pricky Gayes

I seriously doubt it. Even if Gove's plans produced the finest secondary schools in the world, the vested interests of Scotland's teachers, unions, local authorities - all of whom maintain a worldview that is well to the left even of the average Glaswegian - would present an insurmountable check on reform.

Beer Moth

Holly

Come on, don't be like that.

Kennybhoy

Snowman wrote:

"I stick to my voting for David Lindsay."

Which election is he standing in then...?

jonnyjackhammer

Now I seem to remember that most of my liberal left friends are always happy to "celebrate diversity" as long as it does not apply to the diversity of schools. All right thinking P.C. liberals pride themselves on their cultural sophistication (read relativism) but are totally unable to understand why the Comprehensive Education system is so dysfunctional, and why so many children are a nightmare to teach. The Statist and illiberal private and independent school extermination programme to which they are all committed has very strong support in Universities, and the “Balls” Education Department. Of course, I blame their ideological parents (60s & 70s Cultural Marxists ) for passing on their juvenile thinking to today’s functionaries and politicians, and I only hope Michael Gove is successful in defeating all those apparatchiks who know nothing and understand less. Without a structural freeing up of education, the absolutely essential ability of the UK limited to educate those who really want to learn and contribute to society is doomed. We will have no chance of even feeding ourselves in the future.

mr x

Where is all the money for all these new schools coming from?