Ed Balls’s announcement today of 100 co-operative schools deserves to be taken seriously, as it shows sign of Brown responding to Cameron’s “choice” agenda in schools. First, Brown dismissed choice as he had done under Blair. Now, he realises he has to respond to it and today’s move is, as Joe Murphy says, a “battle over parent power”. Michael Gove (in Sweden right now, looking at the schools model he proposes for Britain) scored a success in his version of parent power, where they’d be free to choose whatever school they want. Balls proposes a “co-operative” model which sounds a lot more radical than it is. It would – in theory – mean schools run by parent boards, rather than by the local authority. An improvement, but a small one.
First, let’s remember the scale. We’re talking about an extra 100 schools in a country with 17,600 primaries and 3,300 secondaries. Next, would the schools be under LEA control? If so, then any additional schools can expect to be blackballed somehow, usually by having planning permission denied. Blair’s “trust schools” hardly took off, for those reasons. And if it’s an ownership model that would replace existing schools, the word “co-operative” and “community control” may amount to little more than a new PTA committee.
Balls is also deeply sceptical about the idea of parents setting up their own school. Whatever he says today, his belief is that parents can’t be bothered to do this and that he’s had no applications from parents in all his time as schools secretary. The Tory proposal, of course, would open the door to the new breed of school providers – ARK, Kunskapskolan – to do it. They certainly have the means and determination.
The Tories believe that “control” means being able to take your child out of a bad school, and putting them into a better one. Gove wants to give the poor the same kind of control – and choice – that the rich have today. Choice is power, and this is what Labour cannot understand. Say you had a child in a failing school. Labour says “we’ll give you a chance to join the board and help turn the school around.” The Tories say “we’ll open a new school, from a successful provider. You can enrol your child there.” It would be a no-brainer. This is what the Tories would do: move from Labour’s Grange Hill model of 1,000-pupil schools to smaller, more manageable boutique schools. That’s why parents will, if told what’s on offer, prefer the Tory option.
As Blair found to his cost, the Labour Party has a fundamental problem with school reform. It is financed by people whose vested interests lie in the status quo. Labour is not the party of parents, not the party of children, but the party of the teachers’ unions and the bureaucrats who want to protect their privileges. City Academies are an exception to this – but Blair had to take on his party and even now, for Adonis, it’s day-to-day battle. Ballls’ new co-operative model is not a threat to the way things are, nor is it intended to be. It’s an improvement, but an incremental one. Only the Gove model can bring to state education the revolution it so badly needs.
Comments