A SKEPTICAL VIEW OF THE LATEST BRITISH EDUCATIONAL REFORM PROPOSALS

UK prime minister Tony Blair's latest education reforms, designed to give schools more 'autonomy', have caused something of a controversy within his own government. Blair says that his plans represent a 'pivotal moment' for schools, and the move has been widely seen as an attempt by the prime minister to revive his credentials as a bold reformer. Some, including deputy PM John Prescott, counter that this will flatter the middle classes while disadvantaging the poorest pupils.

Who's right? Who knows. Blair's big reform, with its rhetoric of expanding parental choice and new freedoms from local authority control, clearly is a sop to the middle classes, whose desperate search for control over the minutiae of their child's education has been widely noted and frequently ridiculed. Then again, given the empty character of these reforms, it is doubtful whether poor children will find themselves really disadvantaged, or merely aggrieved. Whatever 'autonomy' means in Blair's dictionary, it does not mean the freedom of schools to provide a decent, rigorous, liberal education - or the ability of parents to choose such an education for their child.

The new proposals, outlined in a White Paper published today, involve allowing schools to opt out of direct control by local education authorities (LEAs), allowing schools themselves to decide how pupils are selected and the courses and teaching methods they offer. Under this new regime, promises Blair, every school 'who want[s] it' will be able to transform itself into 'a self-governing independent state school', backed by businesses, faith organisations and parents' groups (1).

So it's goodbye to the state-run bog-standard comprehensive, and hello to a kind of private education on the cheap, where a certain kind of parent can choose the school he or she wants without shelling out thousands in fees. 'What we do have to do is raise aspiration and get people to think about the education that best suits them, put their parents in the driving seat, as it were, so that parents can exercise real choice', said education secretary Ruth Kelly (2). If you are the kind of parent who wants the best for your kids, goes the argument, you will want to put in the time and emotional energy required to tailor-make their education. And if you want to tailor-make their education, you should be allowed to do so.

But is a good parent one who wants to insinuate him or herself into every detail of a child's education? What if parents would prefer to spend their home life playing with their kids and introducing them to new experiences, rather than hunching over a revision guide or ferrying them from one extra-curricular hot-housing activity to another? Yes, many parents have become quite obsessed with their children's schooling, and demand more involvement. But part of this is because the education system has become so chaotic and mediocre that they do not feel able simply to let the schools do their job; part of it is because politics has narrowed so much that parents increasingly try to live their lives and achieve their ambitions through their chilren. Either way, for the government to pretend that parental involvement in schools is not a necessary evil but something that parents really really want is a typically dishonest manoeuvre.

And what does 'opting out' of state control really mean, anyway? If a bunch of parents were to opine that teachers were spending far too much time and energy on teaching kids about safe sex and healthy eating and scrutinising them for potential signs of trouble at home when they should be teaching Latin instead; if they were to decide that their schools' meals did not in fact have to be healthy, organic, locally sourced and expensive, and that children would do better to provide their own lunches; if they were to argue for a return to frowned-upon methods of classroom discipline, like the odd telling off; if they were to rule that basic literacy and numeracy targets were a waste of time and should be replaced by the whole-class teaching of entire Shakespeare plays and the recitation of multiplication tables..

If one of Blair's new parent-power schools were to decide that what they wanted for their pupils was a traditional liberal education, would they have the freedom and autonomy to go down that route? It's hardly likely, given that for every mention of 'autonomy for schools' the government brings in at least two other policies exercising more central control over what children eat, how teachers teach, how schools structure their timetables and how parents help their children with their homework. When it comes to education, the New Labour administration just can't leave it alone. This is the politicisation of education, and its consequences are equally terrible for all.

There are many criticisms to be made about the comprehensive school system, just as there are about the grammar school system that preceded it. But both, at least, were coherent systems of education, rooted in a distinct educational philosophy. The New Labour approach, by contrast, continually presents education policy as a means to instrumental ends - social inclusion, the politics of behaviour, flattery of its core voters among the middle classes.

Having destroyed the ethos of education, through insisting that schools play a greater role in everything from healthy eating to bullying prevention to teenage pregnancy reduction, the government now intends to abdicate responsibility for a school's performance on the learning front

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Anti-bullying programs for all schools

Good if they can make it work

AUSTRALIAN Government schools which don't adopt anti-bullying programs from next year may lose their funding, the Federal Government said today. Education Minister Brendan Nelson, speaking via video to the second conference of the National Coalition Against Bullying (NCAB), said there would be reporting requirements for all schools to show how they were tackling the issue from January. "Research shows that one child in six is bullied by peers each week in Australian schools," Mr Nelson said. "Up to 50 per cent of children have been bullied in the past year. Victims of bullying are two to three times more likely to contemplate suicide than their peers and school bullies are four times more likely to engage in serious criminal activity as adults. "This disturbing research was the catalyst for the development of the National Safe Schools Framework."

A spokesman for Mr Nelson said the Government had allocated $4.5 million to implement the framework. The Government's four year school funding program would be contingent on schools participating. "It is a condition of the Government's $33 billion school funding program that schools implement the anti-bullying strategy," he said.

NCAB chairman and former chief justice of the Family Court, Professor Alastair Nicholson, said victims of bullying were more prone to depression and poor academic results. "For the bully it can mean an equally uncertain life that is likely to involve a breakdown in relationships, possible criminality and a lifetime habit of controlling those who are weaker and more vulnerable, thus perpetuating the problem," he said.

Prof Nicholson said a good friend had recently confided in him about his experience of bullying and sexual abuse at a boarding school during the 1960s. His friend told him it had "left him without a partner, no kids and no trust in love or relationships". "I felt enormously sad when I heard this story," Prof Nicholson told delegates. "But it made it even clearer to me that we are on the right track in tackling this problem and seeking to prevent yet another generation of children being subjected to this sort of treatment."

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NYC: Poor kids shun tutoring: "More than 84 percent of poor students in the city's worst schools entitled to free tutoring this year have not signed up for the benefit, according to city Department of Education data released yesterday. Education officials said the agency has received applications for tutoring from 32,307 of the 205,322 kids who are eligible because they attend schools funded by federal poverty aid and failed to meet state standards. Under the No Child Left Behind Law, students in such schools may transfer to a better school or get tutored for free. The percentage of eligible kids whose parents do not sign them up prior to the start of the tutoring service has crept up slightly in each of the last two years, prompting criticism the city does not do enough to promote the benefit".

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL schools should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the poor and minimal regulation.

The NEA and similar unions worldwide believe that children should be thoroughly indoctrinated with Green/Left, feminist/homosexual ideology but the "3 R's" are something that kids should just be allowed to "discover"

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