Public opinion is split on Gove’s reforms

Fergus Pickering

This is a case when we have to robustly ignore public opinion. Most people, including the likes of Andy Burnham, know nothing about it. They don't go to school, after all, and have no idea how bad our comprehensives are, having nothing to compare them with. The children ditto. They just think evrybody who has a better education is a snob. Labour and the unions are mines of disinformation i.e. lies. Toby Young should be supported, a sinner who has repented and gives his life to good works.

daniel maris

I think what the public are looking for is a system that raises educational and vocational attainment across the board. Most people can see that creating a separate brand of school - Free Schools -
does nothing of itself to achieve that goal. When the public find out that Free Schools are using the scam of special "Latin teaching" to impose entry qualifications, so that bankers and the like can create their own private schools for free (thanks to the public purse) they will like them even less.

If the government had wanted to be radical it could have moved immediately to an education voucher system, but it chose not to.

Capt Black

I wouldn't say opinion is split - the majority seem to be sitting on the fence waiting to see results. Voters have had 13 years of a government saying "education, education, education" - its understandable if the credibility of the education department is somewhat diminished.

BigAl

Why are private schools so much better and more successful (exam results, range of subjects, sport, music, art, drama) than most schools in the state sector? If you had a choice, would you send your children to a private school? Based on these data, it looks to me like a large number of people are satisfied with a failing, expensive and union lead school system and want no change.

Mediocrity for all, deemed 'fair' by the socialists as everyone is treated the same way is a disaster today and will continue to be. Just look as our country falls down the international league tables in the main subjects of english, maths and science. At the same time the numbers of A grades keep on rising year on year. The politicians, unions and teachers pat themselves on the back but who is kidding who?

Back to my point: private schools are still growing because the state sector is failing. We need successful state schools that will make parents choose them over paying a fortune for quality education in the private sector. Mr Gove, keep on going and stop the rot!

PayDirt

In order to succeed a school must have successful teachers and successful schoolchildren, it’s not just a matter of waving a political wand called “Academy”. To succeed any changes must bring on board the majority of the teaching profession (similar problem with NHS changes and staff attitude). The comprehensive my nephew goes to has draconian measures in place to deal with bad discipline, yet still there is much poor discipline, why? It’s a general cultural problem. Lumping all children in together in the same institution just does not work no matter how ideologically driven. Children is private schools guess what cause much fewer behaviourial problems. The bad eggs get kicked out. The quickest way to improve all schools is to weed out the kids in need of special training and pay specialist teachers more to give them what for.

Tarka the Rotter

Yeah right - Joe Public thinks schools aren't being strict enough...just try it and you get a stampede of angry parents protesting that 'My son/daughter would never do that/never tells lies/it wasn't him/her etc etc - and that's if they don't use fists, spit at you or threaten you...how do I know? Easy, am a school governor...

Fergus Pickering

Paydirt, all you say is true until the last rt of your last sentence. My daughter teaches at a school for boys who have been expelled from everywhere else. They all have lousy parents and lousy carers i.e. people who 'foster' them. Foster, my arse, they take the money and ignore them. The school is the only place they like because the teachers are nice to them. Nobody else is.

daniel maris

It is a mistake to think that most parents want "the best" for their children - they want "good enough"...and they don't want their children necessarily growing away from them as a result of enhanced educational achievement.

Havena Clew

Amalgamating schools and calling them academies which are independent of LEAs is pointless, foolish and downright dangerous to pupils and teachers alike.
Many academies have already become bankrupt and have had to dish out new contracts for teachers. Academies are often a passport to fame for a few chosen individuals.
As for Gove and his prognostications over 'getting rid of bad teachers' he has no idea about the criteria on which they are judged. Of course there are bad teachers, but the poisoned political atmosphere which infects many schools and especially academies makes it a prerequisite to get rid of older teachers, some of whom are very good. It's not difficult to make a teacher look bad, you put them under unreasonable pressure, keep at it and in no time they're off with stress. It happens. Wake up! Is Eton or Harrow about to become an academy? Academies and free schools are a way for governments of ducking responsibility, taking the credit when a school does well, making an excuse of saying it is 'independent' when it doesn't.
The losers, as ever, are the kids, where there is no substitute for being brought up well, and the teachers, who live daily with the social consequences of 'bad parenting', are under ever-increasing pressure from lame-brain politicians and other sociopathic control freaks who reduce their pay, increase their workload and look to employ ex-military people or others from abroad who will accept less money.
And as for Wales being behind England educationally, maybe it is, but does anyone really believe the league table nonsense which England produces? Lies, damn lies... and statistics.
This is how it is. Mad, mad, mad.
Not just education, but right across the political spectrum, we need change, fundamental change. Right now. None of the accepted political parties can deliver this. We need new parties, real people with sound ideas. Where are they?

Cynic

12% think education has improved? They must have been educated under Blair and have nothing to compare it with!

Michael

The basic problem being of course that all the new school variants are still not permitted to select on academic ability.

Rhoda Klapp

Daniel, I don't want my children growing away from me because they are airheads untainted by any quality education or classroom discipline, either.

Matthew Blott

@ Fergus Pickering

Good point about foster parents. I'm sure there are some good ones at there but I remember some neighbours acting as foster parents and I can tell you their prime motivation was the money. I remember one family's son telling me how terrible this poor little girl was (she did things like wet the bed, threw a few tantrums, really bad stuff like that) and they soon got rid of her when they didn't think the money was worth it.

William Blakes Ghost

What a pointless post these sorts of issues take years to register within the public consciousness.

Its way to premature to judge Gove's reforms. Come back in 5 years if not 10

escapedRoger

Privatisation of education is not the same as private schools (in the old 9 public schools plus their imitators sense) which are NOT chosen by those parents who can afford them because of academic reasons but social reasons. How many send their children to Eton because of the quality of the Maths (or any other) department? Unfortunately it is still the old (social) class issue that dominates the education problems in England, even in inner city London. Total privatisation with strict capitation allowances for all schools is the way forward.

Colin Cumner

I have nothing but praise for the education I received at Tottenham Grammar School in the 1950s. It enabled me to secure well-paid employment in my later years while also giving me a deep appreciation of literature, my English heritage and the Arts in general. I also learnt the valuable lesson of self-discipline (which came via external discipline first). Then along came successive Labour Governments with its manic 'let's all be equal at all costs' policies which abolished the grammar schools and gave us the dumbing down of the comprehensive experiment that, like most of the socialistic experiments, failed to raise the bar in education, and in time, ended up producing a generation of barely literate, foul-mouthed and ill-disciplined 'students'. So I say any measure to redress the balance by Gove or any future Minister of Education is more than welcome.

John Connor

How many academies and free schools are there in the constituencies of Cameron, Osborne and Gove? Suffolk is awash with spare capacity, and yet there are free schools opening all over the place. Weare witnessing the dismantling of state education, which is OK as long as you are academic, from a supportive family background,relatively well off and don't have special educational needs.If none of these apply, you'll have to take your chances in a climate of devil-take-the-hindmost. But never miond. the master will be in the manor house, the pauper at the gate, the natural order maintained, and all will be well. Except that there won't even be a GCSE in forelock tugging anymore.

slightlyunhinged

I'm really concerned about some of the comments on here. I teach in a 'failing' school. It must be so nice for Gove and his cronies to sit in their ivory towers pontificating about the state of the teaching profession and how to improve it whilst not having a clue about the reality of teaching in a school such as ours. Our students come from one of the most socially deprived areas in the country. Unemployment is rife as is teenage pregnancy and attitudes to school in the home are negative to say the least.

You want to know why private schools are so successful - it has nothing to do with the quality of teaching and everything to do with the attitudes of the parents. Supportive parents who value education and support what the school are trying to achieve breed successful children.

Other schools with a reputation for being successful carry an air of success which self-perpetuates. Also, they eject the students who don't 'fit'. Those children have to be taught by someone!

The truth is that education is a political football and it's time that stopped. There should be a committee made up of representatives from all the political parties along with people who actually work in education and initiatives should be driven by them.

I would argue that none of the initiatives introduced over the last 2 decades have had a positive impact. The literacy hour, the national curriculum, SATs, league tables - they've done nothing to improve standards!

It's time that education was run by people who really understand education, not by a man whose own educational background does not reflect that of the majority of students whose education he is tinkering with.

Mr Danger 1

"The truth is that education is a political football and it's time that stopped. There should be a committee made up of representatives from all the political parties along with people who actually work in education and initiatives should be driven by them."

All that on the ground experience and yet you can't think of a single suggestion other then "let's form a committee and discuss it".

Janee

If this is posted, it would appear that the Spectator blocks comments providing factual information which counters their position.

Janee

Interesting. I posted information about exam results for both Harris and Ark challenging the perceived wisdom that these are excellent chains of academy providers. I also commented that, since the 2011 GCSE results have much more information, it is now possible to expose the myth of the "success" of academies.

The headlines have been about academy success and visits by politicians to academies, rather than to the range of schools.

I also commented that the idea that ALL private schools are good can only be maintained because not all of them have results which are reported.

Fergus Pickering

Somebody has to educate them? Why? To what end? What do you suppose education is? You mean someone has to look after them, don't you? Probably the bottom twenty per cent in society will never be productive. Probably they never were. Perhaps most of the poor are useless. I don't know. Do you?

michael

"83 per cent say schools are ‘not strict enough’, while 0 per cent say they’re ‘too strict’."
Does the cosseting cosy feather nesting state have 'these' parents expecting the burden of setting parental boundaries (the hard disciplinary bit) to be taken over by schools?
In view of their indifference to results, results and discipline going hand in hand,
I would sadly conclude, yes.