bad month for spin machine
WORKERS, APR 2005 ISSUE
In the lead-up to the general election, March was a disastrous month for the Labour government's spin machine. New education secretary Ruth Kelly "bombed" in her speech to head teachers, antagonising her audience with a patronising and risible piece about parental choice and influence in running schools. Using Blair-speak just won't do in front of an audience of professionals. She retreated amid jeers from the floor.
In the teeth of advice from an executive keen to cosy up to government, the headteachers' union, the NAHT, voted on March 16 to pull out of the teachers' workload agreement at an emergency conference demanded by the membership. The heads organised opposition through a grassroots network, building from Essex to Nottingham, Salford, and beyond. The government will not fund qualified teachers to cover release time for staff and is pushing for the use of teaching assistants at a fraction of the cost. Heads were furious at being told at a recent DfES conference to fund the changes by considering staff redundancies or selling their services as consultants to other schools! The NAHT executive choice for new general secretary, David Hawker, currently head of children's services in Brighton and Hove, warned he would not stand in the coming election if heads voted to pull out. Although from September heads will be legally bound to enforce the agreement, they have now declared their intention not to cooperate.With the NUT's longstanding refusal to sign up, these two unions make a formidable alliance against the government's desire to push ahead with remodelling on the cheap.
Labour's much-vaunted city academies performed badly in their key stage 3 results. Academies are independent state schools backed by private sponsors and religious fundamentalists, but largely funded by taxpayers. Nine out of eleven academies were among the bottom 200 schools in England in last year's tests for year 9 students.
The Business Academy in Bexley, Kent, opened by Blair and hailed as the future of secondary education, was in the bottom 200. Capital City in Brent, north London, performed worst with just 28% reaching the level expected of 14-year-olds in English, 35% in Maths and 23% in Science — against national figures of 75% in English and Maths and 68% in Science. Unity City Academy, Middlesbrough, was 26th worst in the country using an alternative "value-added" measure. The government wants 200 academies by 2010.
Teachers do not wish to see their professionalism destroyed and neither do parents, whose children's future is at stake. The government's partnership with teaching unions has been holed badly and is sinking — it needs finishing off with a proper alliance between teachers and parents. Who knows what else we might do with real unity?