Teaching

Assorted acolytes from the teaching unions are padding around the Lib Dem conference, fomenting discontent around activists who are opposed to the coalition’s adoption of academies and free schools. Officials from NASUWT and the NUT have pricked the airwaves with tales of concern and frustration. Education minister Sarah Teather addressed the conference earlier this morning and she was unrepentant. She eviscerated Labour’s record on education and, by extension, the system that has been dominated by the teaching unions. She also pledged to double the pupil premium next year to £1.25 billion, which will allow schools to increase their expenditure on tuition, parental support, after school clubs and so forth.

David Cameron and IDS have been promoting the Work Programme this afternoon and they reiterated that jobseekers must learn English to claim benefits if their language difficulties are hampering their job applications. It’s another indication of the government’s radical approach to welfare reform. Aside from that, the main event in Westminster today was Ed Miliband’s speech to the TUC. Miliband was widely heckled by the Brothers, especially when he told them: “Let me just tell you about my experience of academies as I’ve got two academies in my own constituency. They have made a big difference to educational standards in my constituency and that is my local experience of that.

When Michael Howard offered David Cameron the pick of the jobs in the shadow Cabinet after the 2005 election, Cameron chose education. Howard was disappointed that Cameron hadn't opted to shadow Gordon Brown but Cameron argued that education was the most important portfolio. A sense of that commitment was on display today in his speech on education, delivered at one of the new free schools that have opened this term. His defence of the coalition’s plans to make it easier to sack bad teachers summed up its refreshing radicalism. He simply said, "If it's a choice between making sure our children get the highest quality teaching or some teachers changing career... I know what I choose.

If it is GCSE results day, there must be a row about government education policy. True to form, the NASUWT — a union whose role often appears to be to make the NUT look moderate by comparison — has come out with a comically hyperbolic statement accusing the coalition of a ‘betrayal of young people’ because of its decision to reform the educational maintenance allowance. What the NASUWT statement ignores is that the real betrayal of young people has been pushing them into doing courses and qualifications that condemn them to a life of low-skilled labour at best. Last year, only 16 per cent of pupils achieved a C or above in English, Maths, a foreign language, a science and one of history of geography.

Ed Miliband is learning. He has written a blog on Thursday’s strikes and it is plain that he has learnt from the errors he made during the March against the Cuts by associating himself with militancy. First, he places himself firmly on the side of parents who will be inconvenienced by Thursday’s strikes: “The Labour Party I lead will always be the party of the parent trying to get their children to school, the mother and father who know the value of a day’s education.” Miliband gives the unions and their members pretty short-shrift to be honest. He writes: “I understand why teachers are so angry with the government.

The Spectator has been a long-term fan of Michael Gove – indeed, we named him the single best reason to vote Tory at the last election. His ‘free school’ reforms are laudable and the emphasis on improving standards is imperative. Under the previous government, Britain slid down the international rankings of educational attainment. A tide of politically correct initiatives robbed teachers of their classrooms and discipline suffered. The post code lottery under which state education operates sentences the poorest and most vulnerable in society to rot in under-funded sink schools. Reform is both a moral crusade and a necessity if Britain is to continuing punching above its weight in the future.

There has been a telling development in the resistance against ‘free schools’ this morning. The Evening Standard reports that Brian Lloyd, the headmaster of a school in Bromley, claims he is being ‘bullied’ by Michael Gove into adopting academy status. In a matter of weeks then, Gove has morphed from ‘miserable pipsqueak’ into Judd Nelson in The Breakfast Club – an odd transformation even in caricature. But depicting Gove’s schools revolution as the agent of draconian central government is a cunning ploy by local education establishments.   However, test Lloyd’s case and the real picture emerges.