One of the more disgraceful aspects of the Sats scandal is Ed Balls’s attempt to deny all responsibility for the fiasco. Michael Gove rightly roasts Balls for this in The Guardian this morning:
“Balls is keen on accountability when it suits him. He has used the power of his office to harry successful faith schools and to name and shame those schools the prime minister calls “failing”. We have been concerned that some of the faith schools were unfairly smeared and the blanket condemnation of 638 schools didn’t help those on the path to improvement. But if he wants to operate in that sort of fashion, he must expect that he will be held similarly accountable. No excuses allowed, guilty till proven innocent: this appears to be the Balls code – but one he won’t apply to his own handling of this exams fiasco.
When Morris was faced with a similar crisis of confidence in the handling of exams, over A-levels in 2002, she appointed a distinguished schools inspector, Mike Tomlinson, to investigate.
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