Gove must guard against the vested interests
Fraser Nelson 7:57pm
Polly Toynbee was on ‘mute’ on Sky News in my office, the remote
wasn’t working, which is frustrating because I’d love to hear how someone mounts a passionate defence of why local government should have monopoly control of state schools. Very few
things in politics are indefensible, but a system which doles out sink schools to sink estates is one of them. When Michael Gove was a journalist, he described comprehensive education as the
greatest betrayal of the working class. And now, as Education Secretary, he is outlining a system that will give the poor the same choice of schools that the rich have. Who on earth could be
against that?
Polly, I suspect, would have been able to make a better argument than the teachers’ unions who have today been informing us that parents don’t want these schools. Really? If
that’s true, then no new schools will open. The beauty of the system lies in its simplicity. Giving schools freedom over their budget means that the school gets more money: specifically the
slice of money taken by the local authority bureaucrats. It’s said to be about 20 per cent - the figures are constructed in such a way that no-one can work out the exact figure. And, yes, an
‘unplanned’ system would mean things would be unpredictable: no one could tell where new schools would open, or what type of education they would offer and in what calibre of
accommodation. This prospect is either thrilling or terrifying, depending on whether you are a parent or a civil servant.
What I am looking forward to is the teachers’ unions being told by their members to shut up – as they were in Sweden. For it is the teachers who stand to gain the most from this. A free
school would be able to pay their teachers what they want: great, talented, hard-working teachers could be paid proper salaries. Hero heads could get well into six figures. Bureaucrats like shiny
new buildings: parents like quality of tuition. So Balls is right: money will come out of his ‘Building Schools for the Future’ fund – and under the free school system it will be
allocated according to the priorities of parents. That means giving it to the very best teachers. The Swedish experience shows that teachers are better-paid in ‘free schools’ and enjoy
their working conditions far better, as they are freed from a bureaucracy.
I have heard Polly’s argument often: she believes in a planned system, and talks about social segregation etc. and the regressive effects of a free market in education. The reverse will
happen. Right now, the quality of state education that pupils get depends almost entirely on whether they live in expensive houses within a posh catchment area or not. Don’t think for a
minute that parents in the best state schools have not paid for their education: they have, in the extra the pay for their house. Nowhere (apart from protection from crime) does the money spent on
behalf of the poor buy them so much less than money spent on behalf of the rich. The market does not discriminate in that way. Gove’s profit-seeking schools will open where demand is greatest
(by definition, in the areas where dissatisfaction with local schools is the highest). As even the Swedish left accepted, the profit motive is the surest guarantor of social justice.
Will it take money away from "schools”? Only if they are unable to persuade pupils to stay there. The money follows the pupil: this simple concept means the education system will kowtow
to the parent, not the bureaucrat or the union. And that is why the local authorities and unions hate this system so much. The Gove reforms represent a massive transfer of power from bureaucracy to
individual, from state to the society. And the vested interests who will lose power are complaining long and loudly right now. The louder they protest, the surer one can be that Gove is on the
right path.
Gove’s plans today are the real McCoy. He has not given any concession that I can see. It is crucial that he does not let his Bill become hijacked as it passes through parliament, in a way
that makes it vulnerable to the wrecking efforts of local authorities or EU Directives. Saying that a school company can only make profit as a contractor, for example, means it might fall foul of
the EU Procurement Directive, and have to compete with its rivals to run a school after it did all the legwork finding the location and rallying the parents. The enemies of school reform use the
courts, as well as parliament, and any amendment inserted into the Gove formula could make it vulnerable to such an attach. As we say in The Spectator leader tomorrow, this is why the next few
weeks are so important to Gove. Blair had a great education policy launch day, the famous introduction to his white paper. State schools, he announced, could be independent. This was shot to pieces
in parliament as the enemies of parent power got to work. They will be at work now, and Gove will have to watch like a hawk to spot any attempt to spoil his legislation.
Properly-drafted, the Gove education reform could be the single most powerful piece of legislation passed by the coalition government. There are thousands of parents, desperate for a better choice
for their child. There are scores of new school providers, queuing up to provide them with that better education. Gove is simply proposing to get government out of the way – and let the
people do the rest.
Previous
SUSAN HILL
May 26th, 2010 8:30pm Report this commentI have despaired of state education for many years and said that it has represented the greatest betrayal of three generations of young people. The teaching unions and the local council education departments have seen to it that, quite contrary to the stuff they spout, children from poor and disadvantaged homes have had no chance of rising out of them by means of education, as many of my and the next couple of generations did. Instead of aspiration we have had the lowest common denominator and the social engineering that has taken place has been nothing short of a scandal. Now at last, at LAST, there is a plan to help those who really do need it. If the schools are brave enough to accept Gove's scheme then the money and the pupils will follow.
We have two very good local primary schools in my area, one Church of England, one Catholic, and a Comprehensive which isn`t bad but ought to be better. I am fairly sure at least one of the primary schools will become an academy - its results are already excellent and they will be even better.
Now if only something can be done about teachers who believe any form of aspiration is politically incorrect and who pass that attitude on to the children.
Gove has been planning this for years, which is why he can put his plan into action so quickly. It didn't spring fully formed out of Zeus's head.
JohnRS
May 26th, 2010 8:33pm Report this commentYou said "The beauty of the system lies in its simplicity".
Which is exactly why the Polly T's of this world cannot abide it. For them simplicity means "You simply have to do as we tell you".
Gove's making very good progress, he must make sure the entrenched opposition in the DoE, LEAs, BBC, edu-quangos and (especially) in the teacher training camps are not permitted to derail the train.
King Prawn
May 26th, 2010 8:36pm Report this commentGove also does not have Brown stabbing him in the back or Ed Balls wanting to know where the dividing line is!!!
Chuck Unsworth
May 26th, 2010 8:36pm Report this commentGove's best weapon is pace and his strongest allies will be parents - particularly those who are unhappy with their local schools.
Arthur
May 26th, 2010 8:37pm Report this commentFraser, don't tell me you're a victim of comprehensive education too? Doesn't your TV have buttons on the side to turn the volume up??
David Lindsay
May 26th, 2010 8:40pm Report this commentIn true Thatcherite tradition, "free schools", in the fairly unlikely event that any are ever set up, will have to be "comprehensives". Considering that we are talking about the likes of Toby Young, that means Lenin High Schools such as the one in Havana. Without powerful Local Education Authorities, there can never again be a bipartite or tripartite secondary system. That is the real reason for wanting to abolish what remains of LEAs.
Academies, it tends not to be mentioned, are in fact private schools, but with their bills met by the taxpayer. The sponsor is in reality the owner, despite the mere two million pounds required to acquire that status. If he wants to award all contracts for construction, catering, cleaning and everything else to companies owned by himself, then he can do so, and you and I pick up the tab. Does he then make donations to the governing party, thereby securing for himself yet more such cash cows? What do you think?
BigAl
May 26th, 2010 8:42pm Report this commentIn Kent we have a school system where entry is dependent on ability to pass a test rather than where you live. These are simply the most popular schools going.......and they are still going after 13 years of a Socialist government and DC due to parent power.
The criticism of the 'Kent approach' is that students are judged and dumped early. Let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater. We need to keep selection for those who will thrive from it and ensure the best schools and resources are available to all of our children.
One size never fits all and it makes no sense to lower the standards to fit the majority. Elitism has become a bad thing in our country. I believe that elitism and its recognition as a valuable aspect of value generation in our economy and is the best way to ensure a strong economy.
The value of an education or a good business idea (not necessarily in that order) is what what needs to be valued by the tax system. The richest people in the UK pay the vast majority of taxes in this country. I hope this will not be changed.
Snowman
May 26th, 2010 8:54pm Report this commentSUSAN HILL @ 8.30:
you couldn’t be more right, yet what’s in my humble view the biggest crime perpetrated on the young by the pseudo-liberal clique ain’t going to end with Gove’s idea. It’ll get slaughtered, you’ll see. What the Tories should have done first was to destroy, or at least weaken the power of the vested interests as Lady T did before she began re-shaping the economy. Gove will get buried. Stephen Pollard in today’s Daily Telegraph says why.
toco
May 26th, 2010 9:00pm Report this commentIt has ever been Labour's mission to keep the poor,poor and the disadvantaged,disadvantaged to protect its core voter base which is dependent on the state.The very thought of equal opportunities runs against the grain for the wealthy Labour elite like Polly Toynbee and the Milibands.
Will J
May 26th, 2010 9:01pm Report this commentDavid Lindsay: As long as he can provide a quality education that parents want for the fee he's getting, does it matter that he owns the construction company?
Snowman
May 26th, 2010 9:20pm Report this commentHere’s the link to Pollard’s piece in the DT, it really is worth reading. The guy spent time in the Fabian environment, and his argument sticks.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/7765866/Michael-Goves-first-fight-is-against-the-enemy-within.html
Cogito Ergosum
May 26th, 2010 9:28pm Report this comment"...as Education Secretary, he is outlining a system that will give the poor the same choice of schools that the rich have. Who on earth could be against that?"
Me, for starters. Because the rich can choose academically selective schools; but this is not on offer to the poor.
It is no use to say there may or will be an academic stream if the school takes pupils from the population in general. A school recruiting 100 such pupils per year will find perhaps 20 of grammar school standard. When they divide into arts and science streams, that means 10 academically gifted children per stream per year. Does anyone believe that classroom will not be diluted down to 25 or 30?
In a few years we shall see that the new policy has failed. However, I suspect it will take many failures, not just one, before the essay writers start listening to the numerate graduates who understand what a probability distribution is and what the practical implications are.
Tom
May 26th, 2010 9:34pm Report this commentCan anyone tell me whether we can have free schools in Wales or is the last bastion of eastern European statism holding firm?
RMH
May 26th, 2010 9:34pm Report this commentShe probably eductaed her kids (if she has any) privatley, or bought the house near the good school.
She should bugger off to her 2nd home.
David Lindsay
May 26th, 2010 10:03pm Report this commentWillJ, there are no fees. All the costs are met by the taxpayer, in return for the sponsor's one-off payment of two million pounds. All the payments to his construction company, his catering company, his cleaning company, his bus company, whatever. We are stumping up every penny.
Sarf Lunnon
May 26th, 2010 10:16pm Report this commentSix figure salary for a hero head teacher? The head of our bog-standard comprehensive (breeding ground of one of South London's most murderous gangs) gets £115,000. And it took 8 months of FOI and direct intervention by the Information Commissioner's Office to extract that information - the school used every means they could to keep it secret). Being a Foundation School the LEA in practice does not dare to involve itself in the place either - so much for the worth of LEAs.
Frank Sutton
May 26th, 2010 10:38pm Report this commentDavid Lindsay "All the costs are met by the taxpayer..."
All the costs of state education are met by the taxpayer anyway, so how is that an objection?
SUSAN HILL
May 26th, 2010 10:47pm Report this commentRMH - Who should ?
David Lindsay
May 26th, 2010 11:05pm Report this commentFrank Sutton, there is no obligation to put contracts out to tender. Companies owned by the sponsor can charge the school anything they like, and then the taxpayer pays it. This goes on all the time. As do political contributions out of those monies. The whole thing as as corrupt as hell. And the whole thing is as expensive as hell.
But my main point is that without proper LEAs, there can never be bipartite or tripartite secondary education. It would be logistically impossible. Hence the drive to abolish even what little remains of LEAs.
THX1138
May 26th, 2010 11:06pm Report this commentI wish him well but his reforms won't make a blind bit of difference to my local inner LDN comp. I bet that in five years time parents will still be complaining about shit inner city schools.. And my kids will still be privately educated.
Read Freakeconomics, schools make virtually no difference to academic success anyway, when compared to the socio-economic class of the parents. David Miliband and Oona King both went to the same rubbish LDN Comp and they will end up as PM & Mayor of LDN because of their parents not the school.
Fabian Solutions
May 26th, 2010 11:20pm Report this commentExactly David.
We warned you Cameron would take us back to the 1980s.
But it turns out he wants to take us back to the 1880s.
First job for a new Labour Government is to shut down the public schools, faith schools, grammar schools and force everyone to be educated fairly, in comprehensive schools like I was.
Lee Jakeman
May 26th, 2010 11:24pm Report this commentFraser - is this the same Polly Toynbee that sent her daughter to a private, fee-paying school?
Fergus Pickering
May 27th, 2010 2:59am Report this commentFabian Solutions, if the first job of a new Labour Government is to do what you say, why did they not do it in thirteen years? Was it the wrong type of Labour Government? Tell us, pray, the name of the Comprehensive School at which you were educated and where exactly it was? In a working class area was it? Or was it the sort Labour Cabinet Ministers send their offspring to? Oh, and do you have any children and where exactly are they educated? The besetting sin of socialists is hypocrisy and the hypocrisy is most breathtaking in education.
DavidDP
May 27th, 2010 4:13am Report this comment" force everyone to be educated fairly,"
Silly me, and here I thought the point was to educate children well.
TomTom
May 27th, 2010 6:38am Report this commentāBuilding Schools for the Futureā fund
aka HSBC Outdoor Relief Fund worth Ā£200,000pa to Ruth Kelly
TomTom
May 27th, 2010 6:42am Report this commentand force everyone to be
Socialism or simply National Socialism ? in a nutshell
Roger Davies
May 27th, 2010 7:01am Report this commentPrimary schooled in the 1940s and of a poor working class home. The lack of Grammar schools meant we all went to Secondary Moderns. It was understood that the best way to escape our particular poverty was through education. Day release and night schools brought an ONC, then a Student Apprenticeship an HND, followed by County Council Education grants which enabled a BSc. Hons then and MSc. My elder brother researched for a PHd., all on grants funded through the Rates system. We were not unique. In those enlightened times social mobility existed and I never ever found class to be a barrier to career progress. Me thinks that Labour have cried wolf for far too long or maybe they were not prepared to put in the effort.
If we are to fight for a share of the global market particularly at the high value added end of the spectrum, then we need to give education in science and technologies a very high priority. But what are all those without much education churned out of Labour's bog standard Compos going to do?
Lady Amelia
May 27th, 2010 7:32am Report this commentChildren don't need a fair education, they need a competent, suitable one that stretches them and equips them for life and work.
"force them to be educated fairly in comprehensives like I was"
AS I was, dolt.
HJ
May 27th, 2010 9:04am Report this commentFabian Solutions:
"First job for a new Labour Government is to shut down the public schools, faith schools, grammar schools and force everyone to be educated fairly, in comprehensive schools like I was."
How do you square shutting down independent schools with human rights legislation? The Human Rights Act specifically protects rights not to be educated by the state.
How do you reconcile your advocacy of coercion with that of freedom?
Are you unaware that in Germany and France, the right to state-funded independent education is protected in law (in the constitution in Germany). In the case of Germany, this is a specific protection against the totalitarian nature of the previous Nazi regime. Or do you support Naziism (a.k.a. National Socialism)?
Do you not appreciate that "fairness" is incompatible with compulsion? What if the local comprehensive chooses not to cater for your specific needs (which may be different to those of others) - how is this "fair"?
SUSAN HILL
May 27th, 2010 9:54am Report this commentWould someone please stop Fabian using bold type in parts of his posts ? It is as bad as shouting in caps. We can all read his posts in the usual font thank you and we are all bright enough to work out which parts he wants to emphasise - i..e the class-hatred ones.
Jabba the Cat
May 27th, 2010 10:18am Report this comment@ Fabian Solutions
"...force everyone to be educated fairly, in comprehensive schools like I was"
Indeed the shortcomings of your comprehensive school edukashon shows by your inability to discern the collective fallacy that is socialism...
Matt
May 27th, 2010 12:04pm Report this commentThis exposes one of the great paradoxes of the socialist mentality: they would argue that their raison d'etre is to improve the lot of working people but they secretly despise those people and doubt their ability to judge what is best for themselves and their families. We conservatives are more democratic and more optimistic about people's ability to improve their own lives if given the tools.
Little Black Sambo
May 27th, 2010 1:32pm Report this commentFabian Solutions: ".. force everyone to be educated fairly, in comprehensive schools like I was."
Says it all, really.
Lizzy
May 27th, 2010 2:01pm Report this commentI am always surprised that anyone asks Polly Toynbee about anything and actually takes her misguided ramblings seriously. After all who is she? What has she achieved or done in her life? Apart from being a champagne socialist meeja tart?
Wily Trout
May 27th, 2010 2:44pm Report this commentBuilding Schools for the Future just pours millions into failing schools. It doesn't stop them failing: it means that they continue to fail. A better way would be to pour the ££ where the success is, and enable good schools to expand or take over the bad ones. Pouring the fertilizer on the weeds doesn't make the garden grow.
Mike Stallard
May 27th, 2010 4:39pm Report this commentThe motto of our new Goveschool is going to be "DARE TO HOPE". First parents' meeting tomorrow at 11 a.m.
Wish us luck!
Tony Hammond
June 1st, 2010 11:35am Report this commentIt's peculiar that this argument of choice improving the state stranglehold is made vigorously by the Conservatives and the Spectator to improve schools.
When the same arguments are made for giving the electorate choice over what voting system they use, the Conservatives respond with all the above vested interest arguments. Every argument outlined here of 'we know best whats good for people' pour forth asunder....
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