Shadow education secretary Stephen Twigg’s speech today had a vital job to do. How can we build on the very best aspects of Labour education reform – some of which has been continued by Michael Gove – while also identifying where the Tory version of education reform has fallen short? Gove and the Tories want to paint us as ‘conservative’ on education and resistant to change. Given Labour’s record in government, this would be a travesty – and in the speech, Stephen made some important steps to refute this and to set out a positive Labour programme.
First, he clearly identified the need for innovation and the freedom for schools to do the best for their pupils. Labour’s academy programme brought new partners and new ideas into education. Some free schools have done the same. Where that has led to higher standards, our job should not be to resist freedoms for some, but to demand them for all. Stephen rightly separates the structural issue of status from the freedom to innovate and argues that this should be available for all schools.
However, the success of Labour’s academies is not just about independence, it is also about governance – and, in particular, it is mainly about a strong external sponsor providing direction and accountability.
The ‘cream’ of the private school system and the most academic grammar schools have always taken for granted the support and sponsorship of rich and influential people and interests through their governors, their alumni and the foundations which support them. To demand the same for the comprehensive schools educating the young people who most need the additional support is a wholly progressive demand and the success of the academy programme and the transformation of schools which it achieved is one that Labour members should be proud to claim as their own.
However, this raises an important issue about whether the current growth of academies which are largely ‘converter’ academies will achieve the same impact. They have ‘independence’ from local authorities, but is this enough to ensure the accountability and drive that has transformed many ‘sponsored’ academies? And what happens when there is failure in the new system? This government has created the most centralised system in the history of education policy. There is no local voice in the planning of education, nor is there any quick external challenge where standards are slipping. So while there has been a big growth in the numbers of academies, it is less clear that the conditions are still in place for them to drive higher standards. As Stephen said, Michael Gove is playing a ‘numbers game’ on education reform. In their academy programme, this government has settled for quantity rather than quality of school reform.
Step forward local authorities! As I argued last year, freed from their bureaucratic role in ‘managing’ schools, local authorities can now play the role of champion of parents and children, guardian of standards and broker of the relationships with external partners and sponsors for school governance and improvement. Stephen has asked David Blunkett to lead a review into how this role could work. This is a real opportunity for the Labour councillors around the country who care passionately about the quality of the education provided in the communities they serve. But this must be a new role for local authorities, not a reimposition of a stifling and bureaucratic approach.
And let’s identify those – successful schools, universities, business leaders, philanthropists – who haven’t yet stepped up to the mark to support the education of future generations, inspire them with what could be achieved and matchmake them with the schools which need their sponsorship. Stephen spoke of collaboration within the education system. We mustn’t give up on demanding support from outside too.
Stephen proposes the ending of the free school programme in its current form. It is undoubtedly centralising and fails to fully reflect the needs of local areas. But it has brought some fresh ideas and new people into the provision of schools. That’s why I’m pleased that he is proposing, in its place, the development of parent academies where groups of parents can set up schools in areas of need. Free schools are effectively academies without a forerunner school. It will be interesting to see how different the parent academies are. They should focus on where there is real need – in terms of disadvantage and a shortage of school places.
Finally, Stephen highlighted the role of teachers. I believe that Gove wants teaching to be a high status and effective profession. So the fact that he’s happy for one in 10 teachers in free schools to be unqualified is bizarre. As an education minister I worked to expand new ways into teaching like Teach First and fast track. But these were quicker ways of getting good teachers qualified and working, not backdoor ways of allowing unqualified people into our classrooms. Stephen is right to emphasise quality and qualification for our teachers.
Innovation, quality teachers, decentralisation, local accountability and collaboration. These are important themes which must now be further developed so that Labour can regain the initiative on education reform. This is a good start.
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Jacqui Smith is former home secretary, writes the Monday Politics column for Progress, and tweets @smithjj62
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Senior Progress member agrees with other senior Progress member about proposed schools reform shocka ! Do Progress HONESTLY think that the average Labour voter or activist backs this ? Have Progress actually consulted ANYONE in the teaching profession about this reform ?
The Conservative response to Stephen’s speech tried to represent it as bringing academies back under local authority ‘control’. What I heard him say was that he wanted to devolve responsibility to communities for overseeing their schools. The question that raises is whether local authorities are capable of ensuring communities have that oversight, and who is in that community. I think there should be less focus on governors and more on inclusive processes that engage leaders, staff, students, parents and wider stakeholders. I’ve written about that in a Demos report making the case for multi-perspective inspection. This would be the radical devolution that Stephen promised at the beginning of his speech, but failed to describe. I’m happy that he’s setting up a review to look into that, but don’t feel very confident that David Blunkett will come up with the sort of fresh thinking that is needed.
One of the many issues people have with Academies and Free Schools is representative governance – I know Progress in general and Blairites in particular have a real problem with local education authorities as a barrier to change and hence have always expressed a profound dislike of current governance arrangements. The fact of the matter is that the representation of governing bodies has evolved over time to represent all stakeholders in education – academy governance reduces this to a self-selecting elite of businessmen (and it is usually men), with precious little appropriate knowledge and usually a clear agenda – and not one for educational improvement. Current governance arrangements represent a collegiate approach – academy arrangements represent the board of directors of an SME. Current governance arrangement do engage leaders, staff, students, parents and wider stakeholders – I cannot see how, outside of the occasional cosmetic consultation, academy or free school governance does this. Blunkett is an old style ‘bring back the grammar schools, rote learning, and strict uniform laws’ demagogue. Waiting for radical proposals from him will be “comme attende Godot”
I suppose we have to try and understand why Twigg gave the job to Blunkett: I could feel a collective sigh of despair from the people sitting around me in the RSA yesterday. Is this Blue Labour trying to prove to New Labour that it is not Old Labour? If so, is that not truly depressing? Why can’t Twigg’s people find the courage to throw off the baggage, sit down with a sheet of paper and work out an approach that will devolve power and improve schools – drawing on everything that has gone before but not being constricted by it. It’s not about going back, it’s not even about rubbishing what has gone before, it’s about working out a new way forward that will attract enthusiastic support from teachers, headteachers parents and even students.