Why is a Tory Government nationalising all the schools in England? The simple answer is that the Tories have swallowed New Labour and turned into Blairites, which is true.
But there’s a deeper mystery. Why does anyone think that shiny new buildings, new names and lots of money will solve the problem of our horrible state-school system, a costly, organised insult to the children of the poor?
It is interesting that while they claim to have been liberated from Left-wing pressure by getting rid of the Liberal Democrats, Mr Cameron’s Cabinet have no plans to restore the selective grammar schools that once opened the road of success to the poor.
That would be a real conservative policy, and they won’t be having any of those. Comprehensive schools were imposed on the country by Labour in the 1960s as a giant piece of social engineering, designed to make the country more equal, even if it meant education standards declined.
The Tories, as usual, spinelessly gave in to this, because most of them sent their children to private schools and didn’t know or care about the state system.
Whatever you think of the comprehensive idea (I think it is stupid and wrong), it failed from the outset. What happened was that a minority of comprehensive schools, usually in expensive catchment areas, maintained reasonable standards, though not as good as those of the abolished grammars.
The rest sank, often well below the standards of the secondary moderns they replaced, not least because they were so huge and hard to control. There was no equality, and education got worse.
National educational policy ever since then has been a sort of grand cover-up, one that makes Fifa look clean and honest. Rather than admit they were wrong, Tory and Labour governments have tried to mask the disaster with diluted examinations, plus a parade of expensive stunts and gimmicks.
The latest and most persistent is the ‘academy’. Our privately schooled Education Secretary declared last week that she is taking powers to turn hundreds more schools into ‘academies’, on the grounds that they are failing. Does she think a change of name will stop them failing?
I defy you to tell me what the term actually means for the education of those who go to them. It embraces trendy ‘free schools’ and establishments that were bog-standard comps a week ago.
Experts on the subject will tell you that they were notorious for gaming the exam system to make their results look better than they are. For years they were not even subject to the Freedom of Information Act. They are now, but hard evidence of their success is still difficult to find.
Oodles of cash and barnstorming charismatic heads can and do (for a while) raise standards in rescued schools.
Former Tory Education Secretary Michael Gove is not convinced that academies are beneficial
But the cash can’t go on for ever, and there are many more schools than there are charismatic heads, so solid long-term improvement is hard to detect.
Experts do not agree that academies are necessarily beneficial. Former Tory Education Secretary Michael Gove is certainly not convinced.
Rather than send his own daughter to Burlington Danes Academy, which he had loudly praised and which is a short walk from his home, he dispatched her instead to a highly traditional and selective all-girls Church secondary miles away, as near to a grammar school as you can get in London. Actions speak louder than words.
But if you want words, try the House of Commons Select Committee on Education, which said in January: ‘The Government should stop exaggerating the success of academies and be cautious about firm conclusions except where the evidence merits it. Academisation is not always successful, nor is it the only proven alternative for a struggling school.’
And then there’s the issue of central control. Aren’t we supposed to think that nationalisation is bad, that small is beautiful, and openness and accountability are virtues?
Then let me introduce you to the Education Funding Agency, with a budget of £54 billion a year, the mysterious body that is ultimately in charge of all the ‘academies’ in Britain, and will soon be in charge of a lot more.
Like so many of these arm’s-length ‘agencies’ (public and private) that run much of modern Britain, it doesn’t even seem to have its own postal address or phone number, but is buried in bits and pieces of the Education Department.
What it really means is that a strong centralised state is rapidly taking control of education in this country.
If the private schools think they can escape its tentacles, they are very much mistaken. All my instincts rebel against so much power in so few hands.
But what is even worse is that this power-grab is being dressed up as an improvement in education, when it is not, and that the proven way to make schools better and fairer – academic selection – is being ignored. Mail on Sunday.
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