Education - Yanks move in
WORKERS, JUNE 2007 ISSUE
US education company Edison Schools is to be paid £1 million to take over the management of a north London comprehensive, Salisbury School in Enfield. Like other big private US operators, Edison has been waiting to get its hands on British state schools. Until now it has only provided consultancies here.
The management team will be headed by the controversial former head and two deputies from Islington Green school, presumably on fat salaries. Salisbury is not a "failing" school, but governors there decided to spend an additional million of public money on private managers for their school, rather than on improving resources or employing more teachers.
The move is strongly supported by Andrew Adonis, old chum of Blair who was made a lord in order to enable him to become an education minister without the tiresome need to be elected. He has had meetings with Edison executives on a number of occasions, and has declared he will visit the school soon.
Adonis has no educational background whatsoever, yet he has become the most powerful voice on education in government, seeing off successive education secretaries while pushing for privatisation of schools, changes to narrow the curriculum, and the academies programme.