Education

Friday

Rachel Halliburton

LA gangs, Arab feminists, and learning Classics

‘There are more people teaching Ancient Greek in China than there are in Britain,’ declares Professor Edith Hall from the distinctively academic chaos of her study at King’s College, London. ‘Now you can either wring your hands about this, or do what I intend to, and go and talk to them! At the Zhejiang University [one of China’s C9 universities, their Ivy league] they’re translating Greek philosophy — Plato and Aristotle. They’re also looking at ancient Athens with a view to instituting a big discussion about democracy. This is the next frontier for Western classics.’   Professor Hall is in a particularly strong position to appreciate the irony that while

Tuesday

Martin Bright

Is Michael Gove the government’s only true radical?

I have been waiting more than two years for this government to say or do something really radical. By this I don’t mean taking the Blairite revolution to its logical conclusion (or is it reductio ad absurdum?) by introducing pseudo-markets deeper into every area of the public sector and reforms to the welfare state New Labour certainly considered but never dared to carry out. But what was genuinely counter-intuitive for the Labour Party is not necessarily so for the Conservatives. For Tony Blair to embrace the private sector, distance himself from the trade unions and challenge the received wisdom of Labour’s state-ism was a genuine break with the past. For

Sunday

Steerpike

Penny’s non-violent clash with Starkey

The self-styled enfant terrible of the new radical left, Ms Laurie Penny, has taken her one-woman revolution to the heart of the establishment. Yesterday, she caused quite the ruckus at the Sunday Times Education Festival, hosted at Wellington College on a panel with David Starkey. As well as being banned from the speakers dinner at the behest of the Sunday Times, Penny later alerted her Twitter followers to the fact that ‘violent old thug‘ David Starkey had ‘attacked‘ her ‘on stage’. ‘That’s what racists do when you call them out on their bigotry’ she Tweeted. ‘Bit shaken but I’ll be ok.’  Penny’s version of events was soon questioned, not least

Thursday

Alex Massie

The game is up

Michael Gove’s plan to scrap GCSEs and replace them with a beefed-up O-Level are, as Brother Blackburn observed earlier, threatened by the Conservatives’ coalition partners. It seems quite probable that Gove’s proposals will be watered down following the usual “consultation” with the Liberal Democrats. This will, understandably, vex Tories. Gove’s proposals have considerable merit even if, as always, the advantages of his plans are (partially) offset by their drawbacks. As successive governments have discovered it is difficult to build an education system that is demanding, universal and equitable. There must be winners and losers and the argument is chiefly about defining those terms. Today’s developments also demonstrate that neither partner

Jonathan Jones

More pupils, fewer schools

On Tuesday next week, The Spectator will hold its third annual Schools Revolution conference. On the agenda will be the striking failure of new ‘free schools’ to keep pace with the rising pupil demand. Michael Gove, the education secretary, will be our keynote speaker. To book tickets, click here. A couple of month’s ago, Fraser warned that the recent baby boom would lead to a schools crisis, with demand for places outstripping supply. Today’s new figures from the Department for Education show that the crisis has already begun. This year, there are more primary school pupils than there were 30 years ago, but 3,800 fewer primary schools. Since last year,

David Blackburn

The yellows imperil Gove’s schools revolution

Michael Gove has caused a storm this morning, with his proposal to split GCSEs. The Mail has the scoop, but, essentially, this is in a bid to improve standards — Gove plans to replace GSCEs in maths, English and the three sciences, which will be awarded separately rather than as a block, with something similar to the old O-level; he also want more rigorous exams in history, geography and modern languages. Modules are also to be a thing of the past; Gove’s curriculum will be a test of memory as well as a test of understanding. Courses may be completed in 2 years or 3 years (ie, aged 17), depending

Mark Lehain

Obstruction overruled

The Spectator’s Schools Revolution conference is being held on Tuesday next week. One of the speakers, Mark Lehain, writes below about his experience setting up a free school. Other speakers include Michael Gove, Michelle Rhee and Barbara Bergstrom, all of whom will take questions from the floor. There are still tickets available: to book, click here. When I’m asked why I’m setting up a free school, or why I think they’re necessary, I tell a story about a Trades Union Congress meeting on the subject that I went to in December 2010, a few months into our campaign to open a new school in Bedford. I knew the teachers’ unions

Tuesday

Fleur Macdonald

Repeat after me…

The fuss stirred up by the mere suggestion that poetry might be part of the school curriculum was extremely suspicious. Just as George Osborne quietly announced his u-turn on the charities tax during the less soporific sections of Leveson, the proposal that children should have to learn poetry off by heart smacked of a smoke screen.   What evil is lurking in the small print of Gove’s national curriculum? Will school dinners get even smaller? Have all our schools been sold to Google?   But when it comes to poetry, there seem to be two main objections to Gove’s plan. First, though Gove may ostensibly want to give teachers more

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

The schools revolution

This time next week, we’ll hold the third Spectator School Revolution conference, and it’s our best-ever lineup. If any CoffeeHousers are in the world of education, or know anyone who is, then I’d strongly recommend coming (more for details can be found by visiting spectator.co.uk/schools). The keynote speaker is Michael Gove, the education secretary, who needs no introduction here. But I’d like to say a little more about the others.   Michelle Rhee is best-known for her three years time as head of schools in Washington DC, where school reform is a battleground. She fired a thousand teachers in her time there, which made her No.1 on the unions’ target

Friday

Sebastian Payne

The ideological quandary over Gove’s curriculum reform

Primary school children studying subordinate clauses and foreign languages? What an outlandish but suddenly very real idea. Michael Gove announced earlier this week a curriculum reshuffle to restore rigour and aptitude to primary education. But why is liberalising Gove instigating a top-down approach, prescribing what teachers teach?   It’s not the first time that Gove’s policies have become contradictory. Earlier this year, Tristram Hunt MP wrote a magazine article about the Tory divide over forcing secondary schools to teach British history while also increasing their freedom.   The Times’ Alice Thompson (£) provides an answer for these dilemmas in her column this week. She wrote: ‘Some schools have given up

Sunday

David Blackburn

Labour’s education dilemma

The Labour Party has a problem with education. On the one hand, it recognises that the academies programme which it inaugurated is very popular with parents. But on the other hand, it knows that the unions, upon which it depends financially, are opposed to reform. This creates tension where policy is concerned: how can the party satisfy voters and the unions? This tension is embodied by the reform-minded shadow education secretary Stephen Twigg (a driving force behind the original adoption of academies), who appeared on Andrew Neil’s Sunday Politics earlier this morning. His words (and there were a lot of them) speak volumes about the party’s difficulty with the word

Saturday

David Blackburn

The plot against public schools

Matthew Parris has launched a critique on the charitable status of public schools in this morning’s Times. Matthew is not opposed to private education, just to the arrogance of the bastions of privilege that sell a lifestyle and connections as well as an education. Echoing the government’s social mobility Tsar, Alan Milburn, Matthew argues that these schools should earn their breaks by doing more for the communities that surround them, the vast darkness outside their hallowed walls.   He then urges the government to take the fight to the public schools, and, by extension, the legal system that protects their special position. He also backs publicly funded scholarships, a proposal

Wednesday

James Forsyth

Social mobility — more than a political battle over universities

Nick Clegg wants to make social mobility his big theme in office. This is an ambitious target and one unlikely to be motivated by electoral consideration given that visible progress on this front is unlike to be achieved by 2015. The publication of the former Labour minister Alan Milburn’s report, commissioned by the coalition, into the professions and social mobility takes us to the heart of the debate: when can most be done to aid social mobility. Personally, I think the emphasis should be on education reform and family policy. Others, argue that more can — and should — be done later. Politically, as the row over the appointment of

Tuesday

Peter Hoskin

What to make of Gove’s remark about for-profit free schools?

Garlands from all quarters for Michael Gove’s performance at the Leveson Inquiry this afternoon (well, not quite all quarters) — but the most significant thing that the Education Secretary said wasn’t actually related to the media, but to his ministerial brief. When asked about the prospect of profit-making free schools, he replied that they ‘could’ happen ‘when we come to that bridge’. It’s probably the clearest statement that Gove has made, on record, to demonstrate that he’s not averse to introducing the sort of profit arrangements that could give his agenda an almighty boost. The question is: when will he get to that bridge, then? My understanding is that it’s

Monday

Alex Massie

Why are London Schools so Good?

Or, rather, why do children from poorer backgrounds do so much better in London than they do in other parts of England? That’s a question Chris Cook asks, almost as an afterthought, at the conclusion of a post that, to my untrained eye, makes a good case for ignoring much of the attractive* nostalgia for grammar schools. That is, grammar schools are grand for some of those who get in but, looking at a wider picture, they do much less (these days anyway) to promote social mobility than their advocates claim they do. Or, simply, poorer pupils do worse in Kent (a representative grammar school county) than they do in

Friday

Peter Hoskin

The unions versus the Department for Education — continued

Oh dear, seems that the one of the union officials behind that presentation I posted earlier isn’t happy that it made its way on to Coffee House. Here’s an email exchange — leaked to me by a different Department for Education source — that starts off with one from that union official, Brian Lightman, to various union and departmental types. Names and email addresses have been omitted to protect the innocent: From: Brian Lightman Sent: 18 May 2012 15:40 To: Numerous union officials and Department for Education staff Subject: RE: Education forum Sorry – the first half of this message was sent before it was complete.   To all members

Peter Hoskin

The unions’ lazy opposition to schools reform

ATL ASCL Presentation to Edu Forum 16May12 Now here’s a peek behind the Westminster curtain that you’ll find either amusing or dispiriting, depending on your mood. It’s a presentation delivered by a union delegation at the Department for Education this week, which Coffee House has got its hands on. You can read the whole thing above. We’ll get onto why it’s amusing (or dispiriting) shortly, but first a bit of background. Various school unions are invited into the DfE each month to meet with a minister or two, as well as with their advisers and civil servants. The idea is that they’ll talk policy; presenting problems and solutions in a

Tuesday

Fraser Nelson

Choice matters more than tuck shops

Does it matter that academy schools are defying Jamie Oliver’s fatwa against sweets? An organisation called the School Food Trust has found 89 of 100 academies guilty of harbouring tuck shops. Selling crisps, chocolate and even cereal bars. The Guardian is shocked and has made the story its page two lead. Schools with tuck shops, says the Trust’s director, ‘should be named and shamed for profiteering at the expense of pupils’ health… Mr Gove is putting ideology above children’s wellbeing’.   I plead guilty to having once been behind the counter at the tuck shop of Rosebank Primary in Nairn, blissfully unaware that I was poisoning Highland children with this

Monday

Jonathan Jones

Clegg goes mobile

Just as David Cameron is trying to move on from a tough few weeks by returning to themes that worked for him earlier in his leadership, Nick Clegg is also focusing on familiar territory. He’s given a speech this morning on the pupil premium — which he made a key component of his Lib Dem leadership bid back in 2007. And today’s speech marks the start of a two-week push on a key Clegg concern: social mobility. It’s not as if Clegg’s been silent on the topic recently, but this is the first time it’s been at the top of his agenda since he launched the government’s social mobility strategy

Matt Cavanagh

Another voice: How ministers are gaming the net migration target

International students are currently the largest single category of immigrants who count in the net migration figures, which cover all those intending to stay more than a year. In the most recent figures (the year to June 2011) there were 242,000 such students — making up 40 per cent of so-called ‘long term’ immigration. However, as a new report by IPPR sets out, international students are not really ‘long term’ immigrants at all. They are far more likely to return home after a few years than the other main immigration categories of work and family: the evidence suggests only around 15 per cent stay permanently. Clearly, it would be wrong