Posts Tagged ‘Party Policies’
How Labour could respond to the Coalition’s education reforms
Some months ago I was asked to deliver a lecture to Labour Party members, and others, in David Cameron’s constituency of West Oxfordshire about how Labour should respond to the Coalition’s education reforms. The lecture was part of a series and in memory of local activist, campaigner and educationalist Brian Hodgson. It was chaired by […]
There is no plan B for schools
Last month I wrote in the Guardian about Michael Gove’s speech to the Tory Party conference. He opened his remarks by saying he wanted to tell his audience “what was changing”. I was on a train at the time and as I struggled to make a satisfactory internet connection to hear the rest of the […]
Time for the Lib Dems to step up to the plate on schools plan
Link to original article in Guardian Education It is almost exactly five years since the last Labour government introduced its controversial Education and Inspections Bill. It followed a highly contested White Paper which promised to create a system of independent non fee paying schools. Companies, faith groups, charities and parents were going to set up […]
Comprehensives can do much more than just get bright pupils in to good universities
First posted on the Local Schools Network I think I am going to enjoy Simon Hughes period as the university access Tsar. He so desperately wants to brand himself as a progressive firebrand that he can’t help shooting from the hip, then he invariably rows back and doesn’t quite deliver ( ie fulminating, then abstaining […]
The truth about celebrity speakers, ‘dregs sifting’ and charter schools
Link to original article in Guardian Education I have been in two minds over whether to write about Katharine Birbalsingh, the South London deputy head whose scathing attacks on state schools was lapped up at the Tory Party Conference. Over my several decades as a journalist I have seen several Katharine Birbalsinghs come and go. […]
Schools can’t make society fairer on their own
Is anyone is seriously surprised at the findings of the latest report from the Equalities and Human Rights Commission. The conclusion of ‘How fair is Britain’? Our nation has glaring inequalities between men and women, rich and poor, and different ethnic groups. No wonder all our young political leaders are in a fight to the […]
Labour leadership candidates need to make a break from the past
Link to original Comment is free article It was gratifying to read about Cllr Elaine Costigan, the Tory councillor who defected to Labour over her party’s education policies and the shoddy way in which her own government withdrew funding for new school buildings. Maybe she could encourage a bit more frankness among her new colleagues. […]
Questions for the New Schools Network
Just discovered this organisation –The Other TaxPayers Alliance – interested in ‘fair’ rather than ‘low’ taxes. One of its current projects is to discover how the New schools Network, a registered charity, was given £500,000 by Michael Gove to deliver the government’s flagship policy of helping parents start their own ‘free’ schools. There are several […]
Join the fight back on BSF and Gove’s pet projects
Once upon a time there was a Tory Secretary of State for Education called John Patten. He was generally thought to be a hapless disaster, whose time as a Cabinet minister in the early 1990s was taken up with trying to get as many schools as possible to opt out of local authority control. He […]
