Letters | 22 September 2016

Remote control

Sir: Rachel Wolf argues that in education policy ‘the trend, from Kenneth Baker onwards, has been towards giving schools autonomy and promoting a system where parents choose schools’ (‘Bad grammar’, 17 September). Unfortunately, freedom from local authority control has been replaced with unprecedented central interference and control. For teachers, the burdens created by Ofsted inspections far outweigh those imposed by councils. In real terms, education spending has doubled since the introduction of the national curriculum in 1988, yet academic standards have at best stayed still.

Wolf cites the success of a few academy chains, ignoring the indifferent performance of most. Her hero Michael Wilshaw has admitted that academies are no better at rescuing failing schools than those under local authority control. The grammar-school issue is almost beside the point: politicians have been shuffling the deckchairs for long enough. Several primary school heads I’ve talked say they don’t have time to even read all the guidance they receive — let alone act on it.

I shall leave the final word to Nick Davies, writing in the Observer 16 years ago: ‘The great irony is that David Blunkett sits in his office, lost in admiration for the success of the private sector, entirely failing to understand that the secret to that success is his own absence from their schools.’
Prof Tom Burkard
Norwich

Long division

Sir: Can those who claim grammar schools lead to greater social division explain why their abolition many decades ago made not the slightest difference to social division? Could it be that the two are unrelated?
Robert Thompson
Alnwick, Northumberland

It takes a village

Sir: I wish Geoffrey Wheatcroft every success with his village campaign to save his local pub (‘Local heroes’, 10 September). It can be done, and in this village we have done it.