Which side are you on?

Rhoda Klapp

The problem with the free school policy is that it does not do anything (but bad) for schools which do not want to improve. One might restate it as 'we aren't going to do anything for the worst 90%'. There must be a way to find out what causes the improvement, if it is not actually a notional improvement based on box-ticking, and apply that to all schools, no excuses, no opt-outs. Making schools stand-alone without an LEA and with a far smaller education department might be a start.

Here's a question, not rhetorical, I do not know the answer. What is our literacy rate now, compared with the victorian school system with its slates, unqualified teachers and mixed-age classes?

Rhoda Klapp

Oh, and re the Guardian, that would be 'blinkered progressivism', if they were intelligent you would not have had grounds to write the post.

Colin Cumner

When I was at school in the 1950s, discipline and respect were the by-words for a 'good' education and I came out the other end equipped to make my way in the adult world. Now it seems, an unholy rabble inhabit many of today's State-run schools with teachers unable to exert any kind of discipline. More and more money is pumped into these 'hell holes' and the end product is a foul-mouthed, hardly literate mob whose main aim is to be as anti-social as possible. Sure, there are exceptions but they are just that - exceptions. Unless we get a Government that is determined to reverse the liberal policies of the recent past, the situation will only get progressively worse. Where exactly are the true Conservatives?

alexsandr

educate the parents. Preferably during pregnance. If parents nurture kids pre school they will do better at school. Teach em how to do simple stuff like counting games and play with letters. Just give every kid at age 1 a set of fridge magnet letters and numbers so they are on the way to literacy.

Braveheart

"...Look at the Harris results: they destroy that dangerous lie that there's nothing can be done about sink schools..."

But Gove's policy is not about creating Academies to replace "sink schools", It is about letting middle class parents or religious groups take money out of the local sysem to fund schols that suit their own aimd and interests. And to hell with the local authority's reduced budget to deal with all the other schools... including, BTWm "Sink schools".

"City Academies, a Labour policy, are proving to be perhaps the most rapidly-vindicated social policy in recent European politics...."

Yep. Labour builds schools and improves existing schools. Gove refuses to build schools and allows factions to take money from those that need it most...

Is Gove a Tory? Do you have to ask...?

Sterence

Well, Braveheart, what you say might be true - if you ignore the pupil premium that will bring more money to those who educate underprivileged children; if you assume that the free schools will be exclusively for the middle classes (when none of them is permitted to be selective); if you assume that the interests of 'factions', whatever you mean by that, are different from those of everyone else. Meanwhile, the current system continues to fail children.

sinosimon

editorial line normally pretty defensible?
so toynbee's description of government plans to limit housing benefit to £25000 as 'a final solution for the poor' is defensible?
she has equated the deliberate extermination of millions of humans with giving £500 per week of taxpayer's money to claimants. if you think she and her editors are defensible you need a bit of a rebalancing of your morals. they have sunk beyond parody into the gutter, where the deaths of 6 million people can be deployed in an argument over wildly generous benefits. if you support that you shouldn't be writing in the mainstream media , never mind at the spectator. stop apologising for bigoted socialist zealots or get out.

Ian Walker

Braveheart, your premise only holds if the parents of pupils in successful state schools take their children away.

I can't see the parents going through the rigmarole of setting up a free school unless the state alternative was truly dire, can you?

So the state will have got rid of the expensive sink schools, and have more money to spend on getting the middle-tier schools up to top-tier standard.

Victor Southern

Labour built its new schools mostly on PFI, storing debt for the future.

Gove has not retreated from the creation of Academies - many new ones have been created and many others are in process of change.

What we can have in schools is what we can afford so every pound must be spent to the greatest effect.

I dislike the socialist attitude that choice is a bad thing for children. They had no problem with introducing pretend choices in hospitalsiation.

Simon Stephenson

I think Braveheart's first point has to be dealt with, Fraser. What is the free schools programme all about? Is it's intention to improve education generally, so that child development becomes less dependent upon the circumstances and ambitions of the parents - where social hierarchies become more representative of ability, and less of parental connections? Or is it really no more than a device to ease the process by which certain parents may arrange for their children to be given a superior education to that which is received by the masses, and consequently a flying start in what has become the rat-race of adult life?

This should be about what will create a generally better society, not about allowing parents with power to fasttrack their children into the power-positions of the future, no matter how their level of talent compares with other children from less powerful backgrounds.

A state which is about enhancing the strong at the expense of the weak has surely got things the wrong way round.

Braveheart

The main visibility I have of anyone wanting to set up their own school was the middle class journalist (or is it author?) Toby Whatsisname from the Guardian and the religious groups mentioned in today's Guardian article.

And of course religious groups don't care if the local school is "truly dire", they care if it teaches the kids their particula brand of religion...

And anyway, even successful local authority schools will lose out if the Local Authority is forced to give money and resourses to a school which repoports to Westminster but still claims local resources.

If the Local Authority is forced to give money to the new school, all the other schools in its budget will sufer a reduction, QED.

And BYTW, what about "localism"? The new schools will report directly to Gove in London...?

It's a mess, it will damage existing schools and it is not locally democratic...

It is the most contradictory and ill-thought-out policy ... unless it is actually aimed at damaging local education and local democracy, in which case it is well targetted indeed.

Dimoto

But the academies are NOT a "Labour" idea.
They were set up by Blair in the teeth of opposition from the Brownsters.
Blair is now a very dirty word in the Labour party, (and in the Guardian).
The Brownsters rule the Labour party - just have a look at the cabinet.

Or hadn't you noticed ?

Nicholas

The clue is Braveheart's phrase "take money from" - a new set of code words for the Left which sees almost everything in terms of state funding. The phrase seems to have originated with those grave robbers Brown and Darling and is now widely used by leftists and the BBC to send out the subliminal Animal Farm signal "Tories Bad, Labour Good" at every opportunity in the archly manipulative way the Left selects and uses its language.

These people believe it is better to continue to fund something which is really, really bad than to surrender state control. In fact the more it fails the more money is thrown at it, even money the government doesn't have, in the deranged belief that bricks and mortar will somehow do more to educate children than the rotten politicised teachers who have lost control of their classrooms and the rotten, politicised syllabi that regurgitates sloganised LabLeftCommie cant. Truly soviet.

perdix

Fraser, The Guardian "IS" tribal.Read some headlines (esp on-line) announcing the end of the world and then read the text.

Braveheart

@Nicholas "...The clue is Braveheart's phrase "take money from" - a new set of code words for the Left which sees almost everything in terms of state funding. ..."

Not sure if you understand Nicholas, but Gove's law says that the local authority must fund these new schools regardless of other considerations. It is truly taking money out of the LEA budget and handing it to a group of people who then report to Gove at Westminster.

And that's not all. Supposing there is a good local school with (say) 70% occupancy. It is just viable financially. Along comes this new school, it takes all the Muslims or Cathlics or Baptists out of that successful school.

School roll now 50%...it's not viable financially and it struggles to operate as well as it did...

Meanwhile the new chool is run by people who are more interested in religion than education..... but the parents of the children at the "old" successful school now have a failing school and they must also pay, through their national and local taxes, for the religious school...

I'm sure this position is defensible, but I wouldn't want to be the one doing the defending.

Braveheart

@Sterence

I have no problem with a well targetted Pupil Premium. But it has nothing to do with Gove's new schools. Not a thing. (BTW, don't know if you noticed, but the Pupil Premium is not new money, it is being taken from the already slashed school building programme... do you approve?)

.."if you assume that the free schools will be exclusively for the middle classes (when none of them is permitted to be selective);

How many of the 16 under approval at the moment are in sink areas and run by unemplyed people or labourers? And if not selective, why are the religious so interested?

"...if you assume that the interests of 'factions', whatever you mean by that, are different from those of everyone else..."

The interests of factions are by definition factional. Religious factions for example...

"...meanwhile, the current system continues to fail children..."

Some children, although the article says Academies are a great success.... but Gove's law is not about targetting failing schools, (as Labours Academies have done successfully), it is about giving middle class parents (including religiously inclined middle class parents) control of the local authority budget, regardless of the voters, to create their own factionalised schools....

Nicholas

Braveheart, yes, I do understand - fully. But I'm struggling to see why schools being "run by people more interested in religion than education" is any worse than the schools which are now being run by people more interested in politics (to include political correctness) than education? And are free schools limited to religious schools, or is that just the Marxist bete noir in this case?

Norman Dee

You are all very tribal in the London Ivory tower, don't be too hard on the Guardian regardless, because you never know when you might be desperate for a job. Politicians never look too closely at each other publically, why is nobody in the HoP chasing the missing members from Scotland?, why is nobody asking searching questions about the source of incomes for certain ex Labour high fliers ?, why is Blair not being pursued for his expenses ? You are all in it together.

Braveheart

Nicholas, struggle no more.

LEAs are interested in education not politics ...except that politicians must make the decisions and get voted out of office if the public doesn't like the decisions the take... which is known as democratic control

I'm struggling to see how taking the schools out of LEA control (but making the LEA pay for them) and centralising the political control in Gove's office is the devolution to "localism" that the Tories said they would provide, and how it is an an improvement in any educational rather than social engineering manner.

Do you know?

London Calling

Which side are you on? … Hopefully on the side of intelligent neutrality, considering all the facts, the motives and the consequences. Just because you support a political party doesn’t constitute a clone mentality and towing the political line. No doubt the Free schools debate will rumble on, however it is guided discipline as mentioned and responsible citizenship that needs to be implemented in all our schools to improve education standards and social cohesion. Its all very well pursuing pocket holes of success but Free Schools do not address the overall educational reform that is so needed from this point forward and it is also very undemocratic to redirect funding for this FS project whilst many schools are in such poor repair and in need of raising aspiration for all pupils.

Due to GCSE’S being downgraded in recent years to accommodate poor pass rates, we have to go back to the drawing board and reverse this trend, by considering all the facts, the motives to move forward and the consequences for which we all agree is in the best interest for the pupils, not for the Government, Unions, parents and private investors, education is not a commodity…

Simon Stephenson

Nicholas : 12.11pm

"But I'm struggling to see why schools being "run by people more interested in religion than education" is any worse than the schools which are now being run by people more interested in politics (to include political correctness) than education?"

Er.... is it really correct to promote something bad on the basis that it's no worse than the other choice on offer? Why not criticise both, on the basis that education should be about broadening minds, not narrowing them?

Marcher Baron

"The Guardian, as a newspaper, is not tribal leftie - or partisan to Labour." Apart from its wobble over supporting the Lib Dems before the election (anything to keep the Tories out), you could have fooled me! I read it regularly and wonder sometimes what planet its journalists (particularly la Toynbee) are on.

Ruby Duck

London Calling,
"Free Schools do not address the overall educational reform that is so needed "

While you're working on that, do you mind if the rest of us support what Gove is doing ?

Nicholas

Simon Stephenson, probably not (correct) but religion in schools reflects the reality that many children are still being brought up, without free choice, in the religion of their parents. For me, with the possible exception of Muslim extremism, this a lesser evil than the wholesale Marxist takeover of state education. It is a personal viewpoint not necessarily a correct one but I am less alarmed by the beliefs of a Seventh Day Adventist parent than I am by the beliefs of a foam-flecked lefty activist squatting in a public sector post with power over schools. Also I can understand why parents should want to improve the education of their children on an individual basis but I am struggling to understand why representatives of the state should get so upset about not having (some) children under their control.

Braveheart your view of the "independence" of LEAs is charmingly naive. And no, I don't know the answer to your second question because I do not know the methodology envisaged in Gove's "direct" control.

You state that the issue is about education, then why is it that political ideology is driving so much opposition to the proposal - or is that just a coincidence?

Skraper

Fraser, will you EVER write about economics or social policy without mentioning some song, actor or magician from the 1980s?

TGF UKIP

Posted by Fraser Nelson at 9.04 am, now 3.30 pm and no response from Rusbridger or minions. Clearly, "progressives" speak only unto "progressives" so nobody appears to have told them of your own impeccable "progressive" credentials Fraser.

John Richardson

Nicholas.

I fear your suspicions are correct on every level. Yet it's worse than you think. Honest.
There is no new 'schools policy' whatsoever.
The entire charade is pretend politics.
I've blogged it before & I'll blog it again.

THE ALLEGED POLICY IS A FRAUD.
IT SIMPLY PRIVATISES THE CORRUPTION OF PROGRESSIVE 'INCLUSIVE' EDUCATION.
SO MUCH SO THAT AN INDIVIDUAL WHO SETS UP 'HIS/HER OWN' SCHOOL CANNOT ENSURE A PLACE FOR THIER OWN CHILDREN AS ADMISSIONS MUST BE 'INCLUSIVE'.
THE WHOLE THING IS BOGUS.
THE 'RELIGIOUS' ANGLE IS A RED HERRING OR A DISTRACTION FOR THE IGNORANT.
Pheew.

Think:-
'crack down on crime' or
'listening to the people' or
'crack down on illegals/scroungers' or
'intensive public consultation' or........

The 'policy' is to make the general population think there is policy.
That's how cynical they are.

TGF UKIP

Yes.
They're behind you !

David Bouvier

Braveheart: I would love to know where you find good local schools with 70% occupancy.

In most areas GOOD local schools are over-subscribed. And if parents are willing to take a chance on a free school rather than the established "good" school you have to ask how good it is.

"A good local school" of course is current Labour slang for "whatever your are given and be grateful for it".

All schools presumable ought to be thinking about how to manage costs and staffing to reflect the number of pupils in each year and subject. Is your best shot against free schools really the higher maintenance cost of a school with a few extra moth-balled shuttered class rooms? (the first few make great project rooms and facilities for challenge classes etc anyway).

Fergus Pickering

Braveheart, are you REALLY happy with our schools the way they are. You know those international tables. Are you REALLY happy with our position on them? Are you REALLY happy with our illiterate youth? I don't know about Gove's reforms. But there surely needs to be SOME sort of reform, and your lot came up with sweet fanny adams, now didn't you? Or is it OK to be sixteenth and twenty-seventh, or whatever it is? Tell us, do. Are you REALLY happy?

Fiona Murphy

All
A few points on the situation in CONSERVATIVE run Bromley.
Bromley Council held a sponsor "competition" for Kelsey earlier in the year.I discovered details of this in May. They said it was a competition, then they said it was not a competition, then they said it might have been a competition. The whole sorry tale is on BECKTOWN.US.
We are not trying to create an exclusive free school,CONSERVATIVE run Bromley Council will not let an Independant Academy providor into the Borough. We wanted to improve the school we have for everyone. We think Harris can improve Kelsey quickly for the kids there and future intakes.Kelsey is currently in "notice to improve" and has 75 EMPTY seats for year 7 alone.We want to quickly turn it into an Outstanding local school and 1000 parents who signed our petition think Harris can do that.
We are now going down the "Free School" route for a Harris Academy (1000 signatures either on Kelsey or another site)as we have no choice;our first choice was to improve the local school but Bromley Council will not let us.
This is an option Bromley cannot block; we do not need to prove a need, just a demand.Yes Bromley provide enough school places, what they fail to grasp is it is not school places parents WANT.Reference the 75 empty year 7 places at Kelsey.
Excellent quote from another parent on our Becktown blog today discussing the Full Council Meeting we all attended last night:
"A lone LibDem being a Tory, whilst the majority 50+ Conservative councillors acted like Labourites."
Is it any wonder we are all confused!
Fiona Murphy