In reply to Jon Stewart:
> Because he's not handing power back to teachers. As far as teachers in classrooms are concerned, he's doing exactly what all Education Secretaries do: making changes to policy that they are required to implement. The funding and governance changes - and these, granted, are actual policy changes, not just dicking around with people's jobs - have massive problems as you're already aware. It's classic 'sink or swim' policy: if you've got the backing you can break free of the system that tries to ensure that everyone gets a decent deal.
So basically your view is that academies and free schools have no more independence than "bog standard" comprehensives?
Is it logical to argue that, for example,by cutting the guidance to teachers on discipline from 600 pages (!!!) to 50 page he is increasing micromanagement?
Is it logical to say that helping schools in difficult areas to allow teachers to teach within a framework of discipline and learning is anti education for the disadvantaged?
> Where are the resources going? The expensive, "low return" students with special needs that still need the LA support but it's all been syphoned-off by the schools that are already outstanding.
The DoE is throwing money at the disadvantaged but if the educational model is wrong money alone won't solve the problem.
> This aspect of Gove's policy is not incredibly stupid: it's incredibly right-wing. It says: if you're in a position to succeed, lucky you, we're on your side. If your kids lives are already pretty f^cked because of the situation they were born into, then sorry, they're a waste of our money and they can swivel. We'll begrudgingly pay their benefits and use them as a scapegoat for society's wider ills once they've suffered in the dysfunctional, lower-tier system that's all that's left once those who have the competence to play the system have creamed off all the resources.
Except that he's not saying that. He is saying just the opposite: that State schools should raise their aspire to the same quality as private schools and that by successful academies working with under performing schools best practise can be adopted and that schools should be able and willing to do their own research and best teaching practise and adopt it.
You're not really addressing the policies you're just reflecting your own prejudices by attacking his policies for being "right wing" and indulging in unfounded rhetoric.
> Which policies? Which studies?
Numerous, but Proff Mark Smith at Lancaster,Proff Tim Gowers, Proff Martin Hyland, Proff Mark Warner, Proff Plum, Proff Chris Pelling, , Daisy Christodoulou, Tom Burkard, Colonel Mustard, Paul Kirschner, Richard E Clark and John Sweller and many others.
> I still don't know what evidence you're using to justify the bald statement of 'failure'. What metric are you using? And I haven't been defending anything other than minimising cocking around with silly little policies and instead trusting the profession to simply do its job, coupled with research based improvements to educational techniques. You impose on this the Gove-invented notion of 'The Blob', which simply doesn't mean anything or relate to reality.
Point of order; Gove didn't invent the term "the blob" and doesn't generally use it. Chris Woodhead did.
If there is no "leftie" approach to adduction then how can there be a "righty" one. Are you seriously suggesting that the "progressive" education movement as embraced by the Plowden report was all a myth? That the comprehensive anti streaming, anti phonetics, child centred learning movement didn't exist?
Here's a list of demands from circulated in a secondary school in the 1970s "the control and eventual elimination of marks and failures; the abolition of selection in school; accountability of teachers to students; removal of all reactionary and authoritarian teachers; setting of the curriculum from below". I'm cheating. It's a rather extreme version of the educational philosophy taken from an Italian school but the philosophy it reflects was highly influential in the UK.
Regarding metrics and evidence of failure, obviously PISA results, the centre for social justice report on educational inequality , the cataclysmic failure at GCSE level, Eurostat league tables, Moser report on basic skills, and employers' reports on the skill levels of new employees. I don't doubt here are more.
> If there's a problem with a specific educational method, then one can present evidence to support a change. >
Yes,and he does, see the list above. Of course one can go the safe bureaucratic route and accept gradual decline, or one can recognise the status quo has failed and take an alternative route. Sometimes that involves taking risks and the stakes are high but not to take the risk is more immoral.
> I know exactly what I'm going to see: f^ck all. It won't make any difference because school is not the biggest influence on kids' outcomes.
Essentially what you are propagating is a philosophy of despair, that society's failings mean that educators cannot educate. The trouble is that the simple evidence that schools in the same sorts of areas with similar intakes, or the same schools within similar intakes over different periods, will produce different outcomes according to the quality of the teaching. presumably you've spoken to teachers. I have and they are very clear that how schools are run and how teachers teach makes a difference.
Here is the conclusion of the 2010 BERA report on the subject:
"To sum up ...
•Schools can make a difference, and even small differences can be life-changing and are worth •fighting for.
The potential of schools to make that difference has not been fully realised, perhaps because national policies do not always reflect the available knowledge about how schools actually •improve the quality of education they provide. Schools cannot ‘close the gap’ on their own – parallel developments to support disadvantaged children and families in the community are •required.
Twenty years of competition between schools has done little to improve the lot of disadvantaged pupils. Collaboration between schools has shown some promising results, but needs to be encouraged through clearer
•incentives.
An overhaul of school governance and management structures is needed. Traditional
structures will not generate the radical changes across children’s services needed to support sustained improvements in school outcomes."
Essentially what you describe as Gove's views are almost the opposite of what he says. You say he wants to micromanage teachers. He says and by his macro policies demonstrates, that he wants allow heads to develop and sure their own best practise. You say he cares only about the top cohorts. He says and demonstrates that one of the major problems for teachers is the number of pupils who enter school "unteachable" , that these problems need to be addressed (eg. by special resources of these kids and adopting the best practice of the Harris schools etc)and that beyond the baccalaureate vocational education must be improved for those for whom it is appropriate and says the greatest failing of education is the educational apartheid between the best and the worst.
The obvious conclusion is not so much that you disagree with his concerns but that you hate or distrust him so much you think he is lying and therefore claim to know that his real motives are the opposite. 9 out 10 for the rant, puts Simon4 to shame, but it simply reflects your prejudices rather than an evidence based analysis.
Post edited at 20:28