The education secretary is not the great reformer he claims to be
By John Blake
—This month marks the third new school year to begin since Labour lost office in May 2010. Much has happened in education in that time and, as the first generation of Year 7s born during Labour’s second term in government reach secondary school, it is a good time to reflect on the changes to education and what they mean for the party.
These changes are indelibly associated with one man: Michael Gove. Using the platform of the Department for Education, he has become one of the most powerful ministers in the coalition and education in England now unmistakably bears the stamp of his time in office: more than half of secondary schools are now academies; the barriers to becoming a teacher have been swept away to allow high-achievers from other professions to enter the classroom; and examination reform will soon craft qualifications that are the envy of the world.
Well, not quite. Actually, none of those are ‘unmistakably’ Gove’s policies at all: all of them are distortions of successful policies pursued under the previous government. Labour’s academy programme focused expertise and investment in communities with the greatest challenges, turning around failing schools to transform life chances for young people; innovation within schools was nurtured; and cooperation between schools encouraged. In contrast, the education secretary has freed schools with little promise of either greater innovation or cooperation, no clear idea of costs and no necessary focus on addressing disadvantage. Labour permitted schools to employ teachers from whatever background they thought appropriate, requiring only that new teachers seek qualified teacher status within four years – as much a guarantee of their own right to continued professional development as it was a proud statement of teacher quality. Gove’s abolition of this adds nothing but risks a lot. Moreover, Labour’s time in office was marked by real attempts to match qualifications to the needs of students, employers and universities, while the education secretary’s exam reforms have so far appeared as a Daily Mail puff-piece for his own ambitions and little else, criticising exams which are being taken up all over the globe. Education reform is essential, but the meal of it Gove has made is far thinner than he pretends; in most cases, Labour was doing more and doing it better.
Gove will bequeath Labour a far more confused and awkward legacy than he himself inherited: provision of primary school places, especially in London, will be at crisis point; schools robbed of vital capital funding by the cancellation of the Building Schools for the Future programme will be in desperate need of repair; school sport will be suffering the arbitrary destruction of School Sport Partnerships. Dealing with the current government’s errors and oversights will require careful prioritisation, especially in an era of austerity; some changes will have to wait, others will not happen at all.
However, because many of the tools of the education secretary’s reforms are imitations of Labour ideas, there are some progressive by-products – such as the expansion of ARK, a highly successful academy chain committed to helping disadvantaged students – that Labour should be happy to support now and continue in office. Overall, Labour will accept some of what Gove leaves because we have to and some because we want to – and we should not be afraid to say that second part proudly.
We should also not be blind to the confrontation with the so-called left among education activists that this will lead to: within the leadership of the teacher trade unions and in parts of university education departments there exist many people for whom Gove and all he has done are unacceptable. These reactionaries, having often despised and pilloried Labour in office, now demand the party oppose all current changes and terminate them when back in government. When this does not happen, there will be outrage and, frustratingly, much of that anger will be expressed in allegedly leftwing ways. Labour must prepare for this now by being absolutely clear that, while there will be much repair work to do, there cannot be and, indeed, should not be a return to the status quo ante. It must also be clear that it will seek out those within the teaching profession, within the party and within the wider movement who will make an unashamed commitment to excellent education for all students, and who will use every tool available to achieve that.
—————————————————————————————
John Blake is chair of Labour Teachers
—————————————————————————————
ARK is not the success it pretends be.
The average percentage 5A-C’s at GCSE in the 5 ARK schools has dropped from 59% in 2011 to 54% in 2012.
Burlington Danes is down from 75% to 64%.
Walworth from 69 to 62. Globe from 45 to 43.
St Alban’s from 68 to 50.
The only school to improve is Charter from 39 to 49.
And ARK wants to sell off the playing fields of Elliott School in Putney to pay for building repairs after the Tory government cut BSF funding.
Trustees include the Treasurer of the Conservative Party and three former members of Goldman Sachs.
Yes, a lot of the measures brought in by Labour are a Trojan horse being used now by Michael Gove to dismantle and privatise state education and open it up to profit-making chains and Conservative peers. Labour ministers were warned this might happen and they should have seen it was possible.
John Blake seems more interested in attacking people who are not the real enemy than in proposing Labour alternatives with Labour values. He is in favour of ‘excellent education for all students’ as if other people aren’t, but his only real suggestion is that ARK (a rather mediocre bunch actually) should expand further. Those who oppose Michael Gove are mindless Trots whose views are worthless and whose opposition is inevitable.
This sort of division in the ranks is unhelpful and immoderate at a very difficult time for the Labour party because we need a strategy to deal with what we will inherit. It is that which we need to focus on, not bashing the teaching unions (whose membership has grown 37,000 this year with 10,000 fewer teachers in service: http://bit.ly/TcBXdL.) Gove is incredibly unpopular inside the profession as well as outside. It’s a silly idea, and a hostage to fortune, to come out in support of him like this.
Has Labour Teachers endorsed this piece or is John Blake writing in a personal capacity? Labour teachers, surely, wouldn’t argue that teachers needn’t be qualified. When does this organisation debate and agree policies?
The scrapping of the National Strategies Gypsy, Roma & Traveller Raising Achievement programme by the coalition was an absolute disgrace. Labour were the first government EVER to have some joined up thinking on the subject of Gypsy, Roma Traveller children, young people and their families by looking at accommodation issues at the same time as education. The Gypsy, Roma & Traveller children and young people are THE lowest achievers of all vulnerable groups and Labour were the first to address this properly and not just mess around the edges. As someone who was involved with the programme for the three short years that it ran, the gains were tremendous. Michael Gove does not even give them a mention in any of his policies – quite frankly, I don’t think he gives a toss.I hope Labour will pick this up again and include everyone in education – not just the chosen few! I will be discussing this with Stephen Twigg, who I know, has an understanding of the educational, social and inclusion issues.
Is he the Great Reformer because he wants to take us back to the fifties? What is it with Tories and the fifties? They should all be required to read David Kynaston’s book on the subject. However, they have progressed in that during the last century they wanted us to return to the “Victorian Values” of the century before.