Gove has squandered £millions! Labour can and must do better!

Mags Waterhouse published on Labour Left website May 2014

Late on Friday evening I watched the Rolling Stones’ concert from last year.  They might not be as young as they were but they were as raw and as exciting as ever.   How have they endured their enthusiasm, their level of energy and determination to put on such an outstanding performance ?

It made me think of the level of determination and enthusiasm so many of our teachers and headteachers give to the education of our children day in, day out.  After all a classroom is a theatre of sorts - teachers learn and rehearse the points they need to get across.   At the end of the school day teachers are on hand to talk to parents who might need to ‘have a word’.  Then prep starts for the next day.  Not to mention marking and/or writing up pupil bookets.  All this goes on day in, day out,  with very few accolades thrown their way.  School commenced us all on a journey of learning.  Let’s face it, life is a learning experience.  But for some, learning is better for some than for others.

Late on Saturday night I looked at the papers to learn that Mr. Gove has been taking money from local authority schools to fund one of his educational pet projects - Free Schools.   And was informed that the sum taken turns out to be  £440million !!   To further disgruntle us, we discover that after two years 70% of free schools are not full and about a third were opened in areas where they were not  needed.   Cameron has today been forced to defend Michael Gove and Labour has hit out describing 'ideological vandalsim'.  Sounds about right!  

Made me wonder what the success rate is for free schools in comparison to LA schools - and here we are given some insight.    I would have hoped for much better because I want the best for our children in school - this is clearly not good news.  I would have expected better too after all the bluster and hype from the Secretary of State for Education.

After some research my attention was drawn to the Conservative chair of the House of Commons education select committee, Graham Stuart, who said  “we have ministers trying to run schools from a desk in Whitehall".  It seems that more than half of secondary schools are now being run centrally.  Where is the local accountability ?  There is none for the Free Schools programme.   Here is a Hansard Report from January this year when MPs were asking questions of Michael Gove about schools in their constituencies trying to elucidate facts about schools which their constituents’ children attend. As you cursor down the page you will see that Debbie Abrahams requests information about Oldham Six Form College where funding is being cut by 17.5% without any consultation.  There lay a clue !  Doubtless there are others. £440m worth !

We cannot be against change for change’s sake but clearly there are problems.  The education of our children is of paramount importance which is one reason why I decided to write this blog.  One thing I learned as a Governor, and later as Chair of Governors where more involvement is required, is that whilst we may need to keep addressing the way education is delivered, changes should only be made for very good reason - for the sake of children’s learning experience and achievement.  Change can be very good but is often extremely disruptive and recently parents have indicated that they are concerned too.  It’s always good to see success !  However, if an idea proves to be unsuccessful then Ministers should be brave enough to accept that.  Education is not about them - it’s about our children and their futures!

Then there are the other issues of accountability eg where funds have been misappropriated.  

As if all this isn’t enough, we have recently learned that 25 schools in Birmingham are  under investigation following 200 complaints received by the council in relation to allegations of Islamist 'takeovers' with similar concerns in Bradford and I gather, other cities.  So problems exist in schools that are not free schools but there is a level of transparency and in those circumstances there are already plans in place to investigate. Local people look at local issues. They understand their locality, their population and communities - and will take these issues into account when resolving any problems that occur.

The whole episode about free schools appears to have drawn the most serious split that we have seen in the coalition so far so this is not to be taken lightly.  Although let’s not forget that Nick Clegg and colleagues were happy to vote Michael Gove’s education policies through.

Labour has given some indication of where it is going with education. I would love to be able to embrace but I have not received any positive comments.    It has even been described as merely Gove’s policy with frills!  Ouch.

Michael Rosen, Professor of Children's Literature at Goldsmiths, University of London, has put together some thoughts which take us into other issues and lead us to ask 'where are the deeds?' and ‘who gave permission for publicly owned land and assets to be seized?’   Serious questions and one further question -  who is scrutinising ?

If Labour is elected in 2015,  I feel we should make Free Schools accountable in some local way eg within the Local Authority - there is such a wealth of experience there and such action would fit in with Ed Miliband’s devolution programme. The Free School project is an experiment of this coalition government.   All children should benefit from public funding of education.   Only then will we really know what is happening in our schools.   Almost by accident we learn more about free schools each day.  Even MPs do not receive straightforward answers from Ministers so how are the rest of us to fare ?

I am not convinced by Mr. Gove’s model.   And I am not alone in this thinking.  Hopefully this gives me, and others, some hope that Tristram Hunt is going in the right direction.