The education battle opens
David Blackburn 3:25pm
Michael Gove has announced that 32 schools will open as Academies at the start of the new term. More schools are
set to open over the next academic year, but it is a
disappointing figure. However, it could’ve been worse – I’ve heard rumours that as few as 10 schools would adopt Gove’s reforms. The figure of 32 is at the upper limit of
recent estimates knocking around Westminster.
Disappointing it may be, but slow progress is unsurprising. These are radical steps and teachers are hesitant in the face of change. Blair’s original academy reforms were frustrated in part by teachers and governors eager to preserve the status quo. However, first Blair and now Gove are committed to an attritional struggle with the recalcitrant Educational Establishment.
One of the reasons that teachers are so cautious is that their union is extremely well organised in its opposition to anything that will empower teachers, parents and pupils at its expense. Janet Daley has joined the Spectator in questioning the Nation Union of Teachers and its strategy of obfuscation.
The NUT and Local Education Authorities are vested interests that must be broken. Michael Gove’s tactics have lacked finesse to date. His numerous gaffes in the coalition’s first hundred days have undermined his reputation if not his cause, which is the coalition’s best. It is time to re-group and win the argument with the positives of reform. His target is not teachers, the teaching profession, partisanship or the poor. As so often with this government, it is the monumental impediment of the state. As Tony Blair puts it, this is both the time and opportunity to reform for better public services.
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Cuffleyburgers
September 1st, 2010 4:20pm Report this commentThe coming battle with the NUT is even more important than smashing Scargill's NUM was.
John Agnew
September 1st, 2010 4:35pm Report this commentIt seems to me as a complete outsider that this whole process is being rushed, essentially for political purposes. I'm all for schools having the ability to run their own affairs, but it would not be surprising if many schools are taking their time before rushing into the unknown.
Chris lancashire
September 1st, 2010 5:09pm Report this commentI find it amazing (and heartening) that as many as 32 schools are ready to convert given that this policy change has only been in existence for a couple of months. Gove is very capable (despite the attempted torpedoes from his own Dept.), the cause is laudable and I have little doubt it will gain momentum over the life of this Parliament.
John Moss
September 1st, 2010 5:12pm Report this commentIf you were to set up a "state" school system from scratch, would you invent Local Education Authorities, or just fund parents?
Minnie Ovens
September 1st, 2010 6:03pm Report this commentI'm all for schools having the ability to run their own affairs, but it would not be surprising if many schools are taking their time before rushing into the unknown.
Rushing? Well if over 13 years to contemplate the mess that been created and with a mass of empiric evidence as to what has, and has not,been successful over the past 100 years is rushing..............
Cameo Parkway Kid
September 1st, 2010 7:18pm Report this commentWhy would anybody take Gove seriously?? When put up to close scrutiny, his model based on the 'much vaunted but even more much misrepresented Swedish model' has more holes in it than sieve. His performances so far are more akin to wearing a big red nose, with floppy red shoes. If Charlie Caroli was still alive, I'd be worried for my job.
Bob Roberts
September 1st, 2010 9:00pm Report this commentGiven the time since the election 32 sounds pretty impressive. As a Chair of Governors, at an Outstanding school, we're really interested in academy status, but didn't have what we estimated as 2-3 staff needed full time to dedicate to this to achieve in a few months.
Holly
September 1st, 2010 10:15pm Report this commentFrom tiny acorns.
The unions will keep the poor trapped at the bottom,as bloody usual,then blame the nasty middle classes,the Tories or the rich.
Pathetic the whole lot of them.
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