Terry Wrigley | ukwatch.net

Academies - attacking the poor in the name of justice

Alex Doherty — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 13:37:57 +0000

At the end of the last school year, schools secretary Ed Balls threatened nearly one in five secondary schools in Britain – 638 in total – with closure.

Balls has earmarked schools where less than 30 percent of pupils gained five or more GCSEs at grades A*-C, including English and maths.

Because this is much harder in areas of poverty and deprivation, he mainly hit schools in inner cities and council estates. In fact two thirds of schools where over 30 percent of pupils are entitled to free school meals are under threat.

But it is not the individual schools that have failed – it is government policies.

Balls intends to turn these schools into academies, even though the whole academies experiment, where control of state-funded schools is handed to private businesses or charities, has been a disaster.

Improved exam results are entirely the result of using easier qualifications – GNVQ instead of GCSE – and changing the school population – recruiting better-off pupils and pushing poorer ones into nearby schools.

Academies exclude up to two thirds more children than state-run schools.

Despite this, 26 academies are included in the list of 638 “failing schools”.

Unfortunately we have a government that just doesn’t learn. It is now talking of converting primary schools into academies.

The government digs itself in deeper every time because it is devoted to the privatisation of public services.

It is this agenda that lies behind the attack on “failing schools”. Many of these schools have had very good inspection reports.

Most had improving GCSE results and Ofsted classified several as “outstanding”.

But the academies programme can’t be sold to the general public on the grounds that it gives more power and control to the rich.

So instead, the government regularly claims that its policies of privatisation and business involvement in welfare services are ways of promoting social justice.

No socialist can be complacent about children getting low qualifications because of family poverty. But we cannot swallow government lies about privatisation.

McJobs

The root cause of low school achievement is poverty, including the demoralisation and insecurity that comes from working in a McJobs economy.

Schools can make some difference but it is difficult under the constant pressure of exam league tables, Ofsted inspections and government ministers announcing that you have failed.

Schools in poor areas need a big boost in funding, and the freedom to develop a different curriculum and more interesting ways of learning.

Though there are now signs of a relaxation of the centralised national curriculum, only schools in better off areas are likely to benefit.

Schools in the poorest areas are kept constantly under government threat.

It is beyond dispute that growing up in poverty reduces your chances of a successful education. But poverty doesn’t affect all children the same way.

For example, some single mothers with a good education, who live in poverty because of problems juggling work and childcare, are able to give their children lots of help.

Some teachers are very good at inspiring and supporting children to succeed. So some children do succeed against the odds, but the general trend is undeniable.

This is an enormous problem in Britain because there is so much child poverty.

It increased massively under Margaret Thatcher’s conservative government – from 14 to 33 percent. Under New Labour child poverty has started to rise again.

It is a scandal that, in one of the richest economies in the world, nearly three million children – one in four – are growing up in poverty.

Gordon Brown has himself to blame. As chancellor he set modest targets for improvement, 20 years to abolish child poverty, but soon let things slide.

The minimum wage is too low to keep a family and the tax credit system is often impossible to understand.

International studies of school achievement link low achievement in British schools to the extent of child poverty.

There is more poverty here, but poverty also has a bigger impact than other countries.

There are many reasons for this – the emphasis on testing makes young children feel they have failed, and a rigid national curriculum makes it difficult for teachers to relate to children’s interests and local environment. It is hard to make learning exciting.

Competition between schools has been encouraged which leaves some schools with a high concentration of deprived children.

These policies were introduced by Thatcher but have been continued by New Labour.

Countries with high levels of educational achievement such as Finland have lower levels of child poverty, but they also have education policies that mean poverty makes less of a difference.

All children there receive healthy, free school meals.

Excellent libraries and childcare make children enthusiastic readers.

Secondary schools in Finland are small, with an average of 300 students, avoiding large anonymous schools where vulnerable children slip through the net.

Classes are small too, and there is excellent help for those who are struggling.

New Labour’s education policies have failed, but Gordon Brown, like Thatcher and Tony Blair before him, prefers to blame individual schools.

Resistance

But if the government is now threatening hundreds more schools with closure and privatisation, this will only increase resistance to their policies.

Instead of isolated struggles in each area, there will be a broad and vigorous political struggle across England.

Already the NUT and all the other teacher unions, Unison and many other trade unions are affiliated to the Anti-Academies Alliance.

Now is the time to challenge a desperately weak government and its damaging neoliberal policies.

Terry Wrigley is a lecturer in educational development at Edinburgh university. He is the author of Another School is Possible. It is available from Bookmarks, the socialist bookshop. Phone 020 7637 1848 » www.bookmarks.uk.com

Children’s Plan...

Ellie Keen — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 00:35:10 +0000

Gordon Brown’s scheme ducks the key questions

The “Children’s Plan” is a bold attempt by Gordon Brown’s allies to present a new child-friendly image. It will take time to digest it properly, since it contains hundreds of proposals, ranging from positive but token measures to others which are suspect and downright harmful.

This article can only highlight a few of the issues it raises.

In the report the government has been forced to admit to some of its widely publicised failings (see “Labour: Failing the Test” below). But even here the tone minimises the extent of the problem. The plan coyly states that “some children, often from disadvantaged backgrounds, are still underachieving”.

It also attempts to win back the support of parents who are sick of their children being treated as part of an endless efficiency drive. Government policy has been dominated by this “conveyor belt” approach to schooling.

In the plan there is, at long last, a greater emphasis on play. One measure it suggests is improving play for the early years of primary schooling.

But the concrete proposals are limited. For example the plan proposes 30 new adventure playgrounds in disadvantaged areas – spread across the whole of England. At that rate, cities the size of Liverpool or Bristol might look forward to one each.

Targets

The government’s obsession with target-setting is not over. Obesity will be reduced – to the level of the year 2000. Hardly ambitious.

“Child poverty will be eliminated by 2020.” In other words, a whole generation will have grown up in misery since New Labour first took power in 1997 – a generation of lives ruined and hopes destroyed (see Growing gap between ‘leafy suburbs’ and ‘estates’).

The government will spend £8 million a year on a scheme to give individual help to children struggling with writing. That will only provide about 200 extra teachers across the whole of England.

Changes in testing are proposed, but these will not necessarily improve things. The plan is to replace testing at ages seven and 11 with tests “when the child is ready”, as is already the case in Scotland.

In practice, this can mean children being tested every year to see who can jump the next hurdle. Since teachers are still to be judged by test results, and there is no proposal to end performance related pay, the same pressures will remain. So will teaching to the test.

A review of primary education is promised – even though one is already under way, commissioned just a few months ago. The findings of that review are damning of Labour’s policies, so the government has decided to start a different one.

Skills

The plan argues for more time to be spent on literacy and numeracy – already about half the timetable. Other subjects will get “more flexibility” – maybe a euphemism for “will largely disappear”. This is part of an extended process of reducing primary education to a narrow version of “basic skills” to meet employers’ demands.

The same neo-liberal strategy of reducing education to work training is also being pursued in secondary schools. We are told that every secondary school will have a university or business partner. We could ask whose schools will have university partners? And how much influence will the business “partners” have? Will they be like academy sponsors, able to choose the staff and dictate the curriculum?

Finally, this plan sees individual teachers as both the problem and the potential solution. For instance, the report says that teachers who are not “effective” can be “helped to leave the profession”.

Altogether too many questions for comfort. Will those who see education minister Ed Balls as Santa Claus end up thinking they’ve found the white witch instead? Will our children and grandchildren step through Uncle Gordon’s wardrobe into New Narnia, only to find it’s always winter and never Christmas?

Labour: failing the test

This has been a year of bad news for a government obsessed with targets.

It began with Unicef, the United Nation’s children’s organisation, placing Britain at the “bottom of the class” in a survey of young people’s happiness and welfare across 21 industrialised nations.

Our children were growing up “unhealthy” and “unhappy”. Labour’s obsession with testing was partly to blame.

One of the report’s authors sited underinvestment and a “dog eat dog” society.

The year ends with international tests showing Britain tumbling down the league table for school achievement.

It is almost impossible to compare countries fairly, so these “league tables” should be treated with a pinch of salt. But they have worried Labour politicians and advisers. These reports and other recent research insists that poverty is a root cause of underachievement.

New Labour Policies have Failed Schools

Ellie Keen — Wed, 07 Nov 2007 00:54:40 +0000

Gordon Brown showed his true colours on Wednesday of last week with his “get tough on school failure” speech.

It could easily have been written by Margaret Thatcher or Tony Blair. He threatened to close any school where fewer than 30 percent of pupils obtain five A* to C GCSE grades including English and Maths.

Because he made no distinction between schools serving different neighbourhoods, this is in reality a body blow against schools in the poorest areas. This target is child’s play in affluent suburbs, but an uphill struggle in poorer neighbourhoods.

Brown’s 30 percent would be fine as an aspiration, but it is disgraceful as a threat. And it is hypocritical from a politician who, as chancellor, was so slow to reduce child poverty and did next to nothing to reduce class sizes.

If you look at the examination scores in any major city, you will see the scope of Brown’s assault on schools. In effect, he has just declared half of all schools in cities such as Newcastle, Sunderland and Liverpool to be failing.

Birmingham is an important example. A few years ago it was hailed by the education inspectorate Ofsted as a resounding success. Tim Brighouse was praised for his leadership and asked to run the London Challenge.

Leaving aside a few grammar schools, Birmingham is England’s biggest education authority with 68 secondary schools. According to Brown 33 are failing. In fact 22 of these “failures” have been inspected in the past 12 months. Of these only four were judged inadequate, 12 were satisfactory and five good.

The prime minister threatens to close any school not reaching his target and privatise it as an academy. This could be an own goal if it wakens more teachers to the threat of privatisation.

The irony is that most existing academies fall below his target. In fact, of the 14 academies opened in 2002, 2003 and 2004, only one reaches Brown’s target. Will the rest be put back into local authority control?

Threats

Brown’s threats will do nothing to improve standards. Urban schools already find it difficult to recruit teachers. Who will apply to work there knowing they will suffer constant threats and interference?

Once again, schools will focus attention on pupils getting Ds to lift them into Cs, ignoring higher achievers and pupils who are really struggling.

Of course we all want educational standards to improve for young people, especially those growing up in poverty. This requires eliminating the blight of child poverty now, not in 2020. And teachers need the freedom to develop a curriculum which will re-engage disaffected young people.

Meanwhile, an official review of primary schools has raised serious doubts about New Labour’s interference in teaching methods and its strategy to “raise standards” in education.

As part of the national primary review, experts were asked to look at the literacy hour, imposed on schools ten years ago. The conclusion – £500 million was spent with almost no impact on reading levels.

Cambridge lecturer Mary Hilton had already shown how the key stage two SATs tests – for ten year olds – were simplified in the very year that the literacy hour was made compulsory.

Questions requiring interpretation were replaced by easier questions based on spotting simple facts.

Assessment expert Peter Tymms from Durham university then checked official SATs results against alternative tests. His conclusion – there has been only a slight improvement in reading.

Schools minister Lord Adonis continues to trumpet the fact that 84 percent of 11 year olds have the expected level four reading standard, compared with 67 percent ten years ago.

The truth is, David Blunkett promised to resign as education minister if the literacy hour didn’t work, so they made the tests easier.

Despite protests that the literacy hour was a great success, it was abandoned last year – in favour of an even worse regime.

The latest magic answer now is phonics. The government’s new

instructions reduce reading to matching a letter to a sound. This ignores the complexity of English spelling – you simply can’t make the sounds of the letters t-h-e, say it quicker and get the word “the”.

It ignores the way we recognise sentence patterns. It ignores the many tactics we use to make sense of what we read.

Limited

Phonics are an important part of learning to read, but only a part. When you concentrate on phonics too much, you forget about reading for enjoyment. You turn reading into a chore. This is particularly harmful to those children who haven’t had books read to them at home.

The government’s new phonics regime is based on extremely limited research, but primary school teachers in England are being expected to ditch their professional knowledge and experience and follow the latest orders.

Why do New Labour’s generals always think they know better than teachers? The last ten years have seen unprecedented central control.

Michael Barber, a chief adviser to Tony Blair on education, showed his contempt for teachers when he quoted Pascal, “If you want to teach the peasants to pray, force them down on their knees.”

New Labour is now defining schools as “failing” when it is they who have been pushing the policies driving schools to failure in the first place. Isn’t it time to say no?

Terry Wrigley is a lecturer in educational development at Edinburgh university and is author of Another School Is Possible, which is available from Bookmarks.

Education and Poverty

eddie — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 16:19:40 +0000

Growing up in poverty seriously damages your education. This is well known, of course, but new research funded by the Joseph Rowntree Trust provides important new findings and shows how New Labour policies are partly to blame.

Three quarters of pupils poor enough to be on free meals have very low achievement at school – a shocking figure after ten years of New Labour initiatives.

Half of pupils who are on free school meals and are doing well at the end of primary school fall behind during secondary.

Unfortunately some newspapers have tried to create a black-white divide, arguing that white pupils are particularly disadvantaged at school.

This is a distortion of Robert Cassen and Geeta Kingdon’s careful research. For example, their report shows that African Caribbean boys have a very high chance of growing up in deprived areas, but face additional problems as well as poverty, especially at secondary school.

It shows that many Asian pupils do better by age 16 than 11, because their English takes time to develop. Bangladeshi pupils, especially girls, do far better than you would expect given poverty and parents’ education, because of strong family support.

None of this shows that white working-class pupils are more disadvantaged than black and Asian pupils. Poverty damages your chance of success whatever your colour.

The researchers also show that boys are doing worse than girls overall, but do not join the chorus of politicians who condemn young people.

The report states, “The anti-education culture may be something boys take refuge in, something that gives them an alternative identity, placing value and self-esteem in things other than those offered at school.

Teenagers

“A key issue could be the lack of forms of education that engage every child – and make them feel good about themselves and the place they are studying in.”

For example, teenagers often say they like doing a course at the nearby college because it feels more adult and they are “shown more respect”.

As well as family poverty, growing up in a neighbourhood where there is widespread unemployment or deprivation is an important factor.

The report also shows that policies of “choice” which concentrate poorer pupils into particular secondary schools are damaging.

It shows that pupils doing less well in primary school are more likely to end up in low-achieving secondary schools.

It argues that league tables and target-setting based on five A-C grades encourage schools to neglect the most disadvantaged. It leads schools to concentrate efforts on those who are just below the A-C level.

Tony Blair has worked to increase the number of “faith schools”, but this report shows that church schools do no better than other comprehensives, once you adjust for family background.

The report shows failings in the system for helping pupils identified with special needs. Often there is a two year delay before extra resources and teaching are agreed.

Poverty

It argues that poverty exacerbates special needs, because better off families are more able to help their children if the system lets them down.

It also condemns the serious neglect of children in care. A third of children in care attend three or more different secondary schools, and a quarter have six or more different homes during that time.

This report is not just a catalogue of problems. It also points the way to improvement.

Firstly it insists on the need to deal with poverty – extra income and benefits do make a difference. It shows the importance of smaller classes and money for books and resources, especially for the most deprived.

It argues that all pupils who succeed against the odds identify an important adult influence, whether a teacher or family member, so schools should work more closely with families.

The report identifies problems with many government strategies, including the literacy hour. It demands one-to-one tuition for any child who is failing to learn to read.

Poor reading and writing have a long-term effect through secondary school and into adult life. It shows that parents who read to young children make a big difference, whatever the poverty level.

The government could be providing more help, including book and toy libraries and encouraging nursery schools to work with parents.

Terry Wrigley is a lecturer in educational development at Edinburgh University and the author of Another School is Possible, £6.99, available at Bookmarks, the socialist bookshop, phone 020 7637 1848 or go to » A-C grades encourage schools to neglect the most disadvantaged. It leads schools to concentrate efforts on those who are just below the A-C level.

Tony Blair has worked to increase the number of “faith schools”, but this report shows that church schools do no better than other comprehensives, once you adjust for family background.

The report shows failings in the system for helping pupils identified with special needs. Often there is a two year delay before extra resources and teaching are agreed.

Poverty

It argues that poverty exacerbates special needs, because better off families are more able to help their children if the system lets them down.

It also condemns the serious neglect of children in care. A third of children in care attend three or more different secondary schools, and a quarter have six or more different homes during that time.

This report is not just a catalogue of problems. It also points the way to improvement.

Firstly it insists on the need to deal with poverty – extra income and benefits do make a difference. It shows the importance of smaller classes and money for books and resources, especially for the most deprived.

It argues that all pupils who succeed against the odds identify an important adult influence, whether a teacher or family member, so schools should work more closely with families.

The report identifies problems with many government strategies, including the literacy hour. It demands one-to-one tuition for any child who is failing to learn to read.

Poor reading and writing have a long-term effect through secondary school and into adult life. It shows that parents who read to young children make a big difference, whatever the poverty level.

The government could be providing more help, including book and toy libraries and encouraging nursery schools to work with parents.

Terry Wrigley is a lecturer in educational development at Edinburgh University and the author of Another School is Possible.

Education - Worst Of The Worst

jo — Wed, 12 Apr 2006 14:42:17 +0000

Through the vaguest promises, Tony Blair has managed to dissuade many backbenchers from open revolt against his education plans, though others remain firm.

It is not too late to oppose this bill. Everything now depends on a strong public campaign, with union branches and others organising meetings in every city. Every education union conference will criticise the bill this week.

The local elections provide a key opportunity to oppose it.

Opposition exploded when ministers announced that schools could set their own admissions policies. Every school, primary and secondary, could decide which children to allow in and which to turn away.

Blair overplayed his hand and had to pacify backbenchers with the promise of a compulsory admissions code, but doubts remain. Selection by ability is banned, but not by aptitude, whatever that means. Interviews are banned, but not auditions.

Schools are permitted to hold tests and choose a proportion from each ability band. At first sight this seems fair, but deviously it presents alternative methods of selection.

A school in a very deprived city is allowed to set bands according to national averages. This means it could draw the highest achievers from across the city to make up its top band and deprive other schools.

One of the new academies holds tests on a Saturday morning. This is a clever way of making sure that only the keenest and most organised parents get their children in.

The new law encourages trust schools or independent state schools. Blairs expressed aim is that all schools go down this route. The White Paper preceding the bill promised to make inspections much tougher, forcing schools to fail so that they could be closed and reopened as trust schools.

They will be run by business sponsors and faith groups who can appoint almost all the governors, employ the head and staff and decide how the school is run.

Though funded from our taxes, they will be beyond any democratic control. Parents can no longer appeal to local councillors if things go wrong.

Although the sponsors cannot make a profit from a schools budget it is a kind of privatisation.

They are formally run by charities but there are many charities whose chief executives pay themselves massive salaries. Like some academies, the trust schools will be able to buy services from the sponsors and their cronies without the usual restrictions.

Worst of all, this private management of schools will help distort the curriculum to fit a neo-liberal agenda. It will accelerate the changes embodied in clause 61a section which has largely gone unnoticed.

The new law divides the curriculum into two. Fourteen year olds must choose between a vocational diploma or a broad academic curriculum.

Clause 61 expressly states that their entitlement is either/or. If they opt for vocational, they have no entitlement to history, geography, art, music, drama, media, technology or a language.

This is completely new. In comprehensive schools of the 1970s and 1980s, nobody ever suggested that pupils doing car mechanics or childcare should be barred from history or drama.

Even Margaret Thatchers national curriculum was based on a common entitlement for all. It has taken New Labour to divide pupils into vocationals and academics. We now face a secondary modern within each comprehensive school.

Everybody will study English, maths and science, but the government is even creating alternative versions of these. The vocational track will do functional literacy instead of English, stripped bare of personal writing, fiction and drama, debate and media.

In effect, this is a recognition that all the talk about the opportunities of a knowledge economy was cant. Neo-liberal policies have increasingly divided us into higher skilled knowledge workers and low-paid service sector. Both groups, of course, are to be flexible and exploitable.

Preparation for the knowledge workers is through a broad academic curriculum, though delivered under such high pressure that it will prevent any deeper, more critical thinking.

The service sector, on job training from age 14, will be graced with a diploma but still trapped in low-paid occupations. They will have been denied school subjects that might provide a foundation for understanding society.

As the US historian Howard Zinn said, If you dont know history, its as if you were born yesterday.

We should be demanding an entitlement to a broad curriculum for all young peoplehelping them understand issues such as poverty, war and global warming, and to express their ideas in different styles and media.

The new law also gives schools unprecedented powers over young people. Penalties include detentions on Saturdays and Sundays. Non-teaching staff and unpaid volunteers are allowed to give out punishments.

It permits the use of force not only to prevent violence but even to stop people damaging their own property.

When parents dont support this, these privately run schools can ask the courts to impose a parenting order. What kind of democracy could even consider this?

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