Education for Tomorrow 119

EDUCATION for TOMORROW IN DEFENCE OF STATE EDUCATION

‘The voice that teachers need: independent, democratic, united’ Howard Stevenson page 8 Teacher conferences page 4 Reviews page 11

A matter of justice: The National Union of Teachers has been campaigning for justice for the Palestinian people since 1982 when the Executive expressed ‘Its horror and outrage at the massacre of children and their parents in the Palestinian refugee camps at Sabra and Chatila in Beirut’. A delegation from the Union visited Palestine last Autumn. Extracts from their report on page16.

SUMMER 2014

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EDUCATION for TOMORROW is produced by people involved with education of like mind most of the time and certainly on all vital matters of education and politics.

It does not claim to represent the views of any one political party of the working class. Nonetheless its aim is at all times to speak in the interests of all working people.

Fully involved in the struggle for peace and socialism it aims to publicise workers’ achievements and to counter misinformation about past and existing struggles to build socialism.

It is to promote the aims of the organised labour movement in Britain; with common schooling for ALL our children (i.e. a good local state school for every child – truly comprehensive and democratically accountable) together with everything necessary to make this possible, in terms of provision of buildings and equipment, and staff properly trained and properly paid. We therefore support the campaign for one union for all education workers as a step towards achieving this goal.

Our columns are open to all who share these aims – even though they may at times disagree with particular articles and want to say so, and why!

Contents Editorial - 3 The Easter conferences - 4 The Voice that teachers need - 8 Reviews - 11 Anti- Academy Alliance news - 15

ISSN 2066-9145

Website: www.educationfortomorrow.org.uk

International - 16

Published and printed by the EDUCATION for TOMORROW Collective

Cover photo: OCHA oPT - Children of a herding community with belongings after Israeli authorities demolished their structures in the Jordan Valley in January 2014

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A big disappointment - Labour’s new thinking on education ‘The most important policy statement on education from Labour in thirty years’, was the claim made for the Labour Party’s policy review on education.

Launched exactly a year before the general election, the Review of Education Structures, Functions and the Raising of Standards for All: putting students and parents first was led by David Blunkett and endorsed by Labour Shadow Education Secretary, Tristram Hunt.

Well, it’s welcome news that Labour still believes that schools should be employing qualified teachers, and that they don’t presume that any new school must be an academy or a free school. Among the review’s 40 recommendations are others that we should be relieved about. Overall though, it’s a big disappointment.

As on so many other issues – health, public transport to name but two – Labour is well behind public opinion. Christine Blower, General Secretary of the National Union of Teachers said of the report: ‘Only three per cent of parents in our recent YouGov poll agreed with the direction of the current Government’s education policy. As it stands this report is not a decisive enough break with Coalition policy.’

A decisive break is, of course, a problem for Labour. In office, they initiated the academies programme of which the free schools are but a variant. They also weakened the power of local authorities to plan and administer education at a local level. Blunkett, as Education Secretary, was responsible for developing the ‘naming and shaming’ culture that now prevails.

Education Journal noted: ‘This document reads as if Blunkett’s brief was to come up with policies that won’t cause embarrassment by going back on what the last Labour Government did, that will address present problems, especially about supporting schools, but where giving back power to local authorities is not allowed to be the answer.’

Rather than returning education to local authority control they propose ‘independent Directors of School Standards’ who would work with local Directors of Children’s Services and Ofsted.

Local authorities would be further undermined. Imperfect they may be, but they are elected by local communities and are accountable

to them. They have decades of experience of coordinating education provision.

Policy reviews in other areas are expected from Labour this summer. Up to the present they remain committed to the neo-liberal agenda.

Austerity ‘light’ as opposed to the Condems austerity ‘classic’. The recent elections should be a wake-up call. When two-thirds of the electorate overwhelmingly their traditional supporters abstain, and a substantial proportion of the remainder vote for the far-right, isn’t it time for a radical reappraisal?

Tory manifesto threats Labour policies may be disappointing but Tory policies are downright threatening. During the recent strike of London Underground workers, London Mayor Boris Johnson said he had been given personal assurances by David Cameron that he would ‘deliver a deal on day one of a new [Tory] administration’ to ban strikes in ‘essential services’ such as the London Underground, unless a certain high proportion of a union’s membership vote ’yes’ in a strike ballot. The Prime Minister has since confirmed to the BBC’s Andrew Marr that such proposals will be in the Tories’ election manifesto.

As TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady commented: ‘The Prime Minister now wants to make industrial action even more difficult. This shows his readiness to take the side of employers and big business against ordinary working people as his party’s backwoodsmen call the shots.’

‘Austerity working’ myth The recent announcement that inflation had fallen for the sixth consecutive month to a low of 1.6 per cent has been presented as proof that ‘austerity is working’. Yet the government’s favoured measure of inflation specifically excludes housing costs which have soared to 40 per cent of the average family’s income.

Similarly, official claims that unemployment is now down to 2.24 million have been analysed by the TUC. Insecure, part-time and zero-hour contracts account for part of the fall. The TUC estimate that nearly half of all jobs created since 2010 are those moving into self-employment with 40 per cent of those being only part-time. For the vast majority of us, austerity isn’t working!

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Committee to prepare a document setting out the educational benefits and drawbacks of membership of the EU to help inform members, and to bring a report to ATL’s 2015 Conference making recommendations regarding: (i) any motion put to the TUC calling for a referendum on whether the UK is in or out of the EU (ii) any motion put to the TUC calling for withdrawal from the EU as to whether the union should support, oppose or abstain’.

All these motions were passed and it was a thoroughly interesting and indeed progressive conference. There was an excellent professional unity fringe meeting organised by UNIFY and the Brent Branch and supported by EfT. It was ably addressed by Beth Davies, NUT President and John Dixon, NUT Assistant General Secretary followed by a very wide ranging and lively debate.

Another noteworthy fringe meeting was the attendance and speech by Neville Lawrence who spoke about the public inquiry that has been recently set up following the publication of an independent inquiry that found Scotland Yard had spied on Stephen Lawrence's family.

In a hard-hitting speech General Secretary Mary Bousted said, ‘How can any government hope to recruit the highest quality graduates into a profession which is so desperately overworked?

The results of the teacher workload diary are shocking and they are undeniable. When unpaid overtime is taken into account, teachers now work the most overtime of any profession’.

She further said, ‘in this country, we have a poisonous culture of politics which has damaged the quality of policy-making ... all of public policy is affected.’

And on Ofsted, she said, ‘Ministers, whilst proselytising about freeing teachers to teach, take away from teachers those things which should be in their professional and under their professional jurisdiction, and which are essential in freeing teachers to teach. Even this level of control is not enough to assuage the ministerial nightmares. And this is the fundamental reason why we have ended up with the catastrophe that is Ofsted, the inspection agency designed to inspire fear and loathing in teachers and school leaders. Frankly, the game is up for Ofsted. It is a busted flush. Ofsted can no longer claim that its inspection reports are worth the paper they are written on. Ofsted is so damaged, so tarnished that it has to be radically and completely transformed. Fiddling at the edges will not do. Teachers and school leaders deserve a

ATL conference, Manchester, 2014 The annual Easter teacher union conference season kicked off as usual with the Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) having first shot.

There was a noticeably higher attendance than last year.

The first motion at the conference was, perhaps unsurprisingly, about that scourge of the profession, Ofsted. It noted that it is ‘not just disliked’ but ‘disdained’ and had ‘lost credibility’.

It called for the establishment, working with other unions, of an inspection charter, guaranteeing a majority of inspectors are currently serving teachers and ensuring reliability by a national sampling system.

The debate elucidated the usual horror stories. The motion was passed unanimously.

Notably Ofsted has received such a hammering that it has been compelled to hold a review of its working. Equally Gove and Ofsted have been at loggerheads recently because Ofsted has 'failed' some of Gove's pet academies and free schools.

Fundamentally Gove doesn't want them inspected at all. One wonders why!

Other motions included the demand for all classes to be taught by a qualified teacher. Notably this demand, at least, has been put into Labour's manifesto.

Another motion was an unusual one, but extremely apposite for the times. Pay for those at the top in academies has been shown to be escalating rapidly while pay for the rest has been declining. The motion stated that ATL ‘confirms’ its ‘unwavering commitment to the ethical principles and social benefits of a more equal society’. It further said ‘ATL condemns the excessive pay, in some instances in excess of £200,000 per annum received by self-styled national school leaders and executive head teachers’ and called for ATL ‘to commit to encouraging all schools to demonstrate these values through pay policy and pledge to have a maximum salary ratio 7:1’.

Another motion commented on government policies being implemented without evidence to show any educational benefits. It called for the government ‘not to introduce new education policies that have no reliable, valid and statistically significant evidence base.’

The EU was addressed, albeit tangentially, in this motion: ‘That Conference asks the Executive

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new deal’.

The teacher unions share so much in common. Let's hope that real progress can be made in the near future to combine the formidable intellect and talent of the education professionals as so well demonstrated in this showcase Conference.

(Global Education Reform Movement) indicates this is an ideological assault, not a personal one.

At the opening event Angelo Gavrielatos, a speaker from the Australian teachers’ union (see page 6) outlined identical policies that are blighting education in the Antipodes. Yet throughout Gove remained the Aunt Sally.

Singling out one character simplifies a campaign, but it obscures a more profound ideological truth: Gove could be dismissed yet it would make no real difference. Gove’s party might be voted from office, yet the neo-liberal pursuit of supposedly free market policies would be sustained.

This is the continuation of an ideology emerging with the 1979 election of the Thatcher government. It has subsequently been pursued unabated by governments administered by Conservatives and Labour, with, presently, a little help from the Liberal Democrats.

Labour under Tony Blair, with his vacuous mantra of ‘Education, education, education’ established the academies programme. That was a further development of educational changes introduced by the Tories in the 1980s. And those changes were initiated pre-Thatcher by the Great Debate on Education initiated by the Callaghan Labour administration around 1978.

The present situation has historical and global reach and is an element of the allencompassing finance capitalism now dominating the world. It is voracious for profit, looking to consume any and all public assets. This is what GERM is; Gove is only the carrier.

Unless workers in general, and teachers in particular, come to understand this phenomenon they will be left chanting futile slogans on the occasional day of action. That is, if teachers’ action can be sustained.

The strength of any union is its membership and if it is going to be effective the members need to be actively involved. Conference debated further strike action with demands for escalation, the executive urging caution. Conference motions are important, but the determination of effective action requires the resolves and commitment of members.

There was discussion at conference over union organisation. Most members do not attend local association meetings, due in many cases to the long hours worked by teachers. Therefore a basic unit of trade union organisation, the workplace group or branch, perhaps needs to be developed.

Such branches could have regular formal inschool meetings with a delegate, the school rep.

Hank Roberts (ATL Immediate Past President)

Private Eye

NUT Conference, Brighton 2014 The National Union of Teachers (NUT) held its annual conference over the Easter weekend in Brighton. The overriding theme was the ongoing disputation with the government, both in terms of educational policy and teachers’ pay, pensions and working conditions.

A single figure became the focus for conference discontent, Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Education. Virtually no speech from the rostrum or the floor was complete without what became a ritual denunciation.

After one vote there was even a sustained chant of ‘Gove must go’ echoing around the Brighton Centre, with badges bearing the same message fixed to many a jacket or tee shirt. While the Secretary of State may well be an odious little man is he actually the problem?

There is a sustained attack on public services in general and education in particular. However, this is not the product of one man or even a particular political party. The acronym GERM 5

bringing the results of their deliberations to the association meetings. The associations would be able to offer support to those branch meetings, informing discussion on matters of concern; pay, pensions and working conditions, the fundamentals of trade unionism.

Conference debated and carried a wide range of motions that deserve rather better dissemination than articles in The Teacher or on flyers pinned up in staffrooms. Both these are essentially passive, whereas a branch meeting can tease out the practical implications for the members concerned.

GERM is becoming increasingly virulent and the only antidote for teachers is their union. In Finland, that oft-cited bastion exemplar, there is only one teachers’ union, the OAJ, organising around 95 per cent of teachers. They have not had to call a strike for three decades because their collective strength is recognised by employers.

The need for teacher unity was raised at the NUT conference, following on from the professional unity conference hosted by the NUT in early March.

This had been well attended, even by members of the NASUWT who had officially not participated.

Unity is strength, a long established trade union principle, would best be achieved by the eventual emergence of a single teachers’ union. In the shorter term, joint action should be pursued wherever possible, or we could utilise present arrangements for unions to take action at different times to maximise effect and minimise losses to pay packets.

Also, forging links with other public sector unions, as they face up to finance capital’s plundering of public assets, their wage packets and pensions, is going to be significant.

The NUT Annual Conference highlighted a large number of concerns, many about the delivery of education. Essentially though, as a trade union, its primary concern must be the pay, pensions and working conditions of its members. Success there would mean the relative strength of the union was such as to make it far more influential on wider matters of education.

And don’t fret about Gove. He’s but a short term incumbent, the real problem is what he represents, the on-going ideological assault whereby capitalism seeks a free hand in the public till.

Gove out! And then what?

Address to NUT Conference 2014

by Angelo Gavrielatos Federal President Australian Education Union As a student, from the earliest recollections I have of the development of my political consciousness, I recognised the injustice of exploitation of the many by some in positions of relative privilege. With the guidance of some of my teachers I became determined to act against such injustice and contribute in some small way to ensure that everyone regardless of their background would be able to live a life full of dignity, contributing to society in accordance with their ability and being rewarded in accordance with their need. I became determined to contribute to the achievement of social justice and peace for all. It is what led me to becoming a teacher unionist and eventually a leader of my union.

Becoming a teacher and teacher unionist became my pride and my passion. That is largely due to the fact that I consider quality education for all and a fair system of industrial relations two key pillars in the achievement of a decent society.

I became driven by the fundamental belief in the transformative power of education and what it means to each individual child and the global village in which we live. A public school, free, secular and universally accessible in every community which would set the standard for high quality education – after all, equity in the provision of education could only be achieved if public schools set that standard.

Of course that meant that public schools would need to be appropriately resourced to deliver, with qualified teachers in every classroom, a rigorous, rich and rewarding curriculum - to provide every child with the opportunity to achieve his/her full potential.

Unfortunately, this ideal is under greater threat today than it has ever been. The greatest threat to high quality education for all, is the continuing push for the commodification, marketisation and ultimately the privatization of education. The market now seems to dominate all aspects of life with boundaries between public and private breaking down. Around the globe there is an accelerating use of market mechanisms to drive social policy.

Schooling which once appeared to be one area that may have been immune from this, is now under considerable threat. The Global 'Education Reform' Movement (GERM) is now largely controlled by the corporate world with deep connections to

Dave Alton

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conservative politicians. We are now seeing across the world the growth in 'edu-businesses' that have enormous power and influence. We should all be deeply concerned at this agenda and the threat of privatisation.

We are already seeing the effects of this agenda with the break-up of traditional school systems such as the growth in Charter Schools in the US, the Free Schools in Sweden, Academies in the UK and more recently Charter Schools in New Zealand. Worse still, we are seeing the emergence and spread of 'for-profit' schools. Advocates of privatization argue that applying the free-market principles of choice and competition to the running of schools will drive standards up across the system.

The argument goes something like this: removing schools from state control and transferring public funds to private organisations to run them will see their results improve and compel state schools to work harder to keep up with them.

However this is demonstrably not true. Even the OECD warns against applying market mechanisms to the provision of schooling, arguing that it leads to a growing segregation of students which has a negative impact on educational outcomes.

We are at a pivotal time for the future of education. We must not let quality public education slip away as a top priority for governments. It is our job to keep pressing the core message that without properly resourced high quality education for all, society itself will be fundamentally damaged. We must create a new narrative articulating again why public education has such an important role in each of our societies and why it cannot be outsourced to the private sector. We must make it clear to our political leaders that the commercialization and privatization of education are not the answer.

It is truly alarming to hear people at the World Bank claiming that low fee, for profit education will help poor countries achieve their Education For All targets. Are they really suggesting that charging fees will increase access and opportunity for all? Are they really suggesting that the poor must choose between feeding their children, giving them medication or sending them to school?

However, we can't do it alone. The global political landscape requires us to engage in a new deeper strategic analysis of what needs to be done if we are to resist and more importantly reverse current trends. We are dealing with global players the size of which and reach of which we could not have predicted some years ago. And we, the teacher union

movement, is in its sights. This is because we remain the last barrier, the last obstacle between global capital and its desired unfettered access to the limitless, sustainable resource of children and their education.

In recognition of this reality we need to commit to a new style of unionism. Social movement unionism. First and foremost, we need to get our own house in order. We must build teacher union unity, membership density and therefore strength. We also need to reach out and build community alliances in a way we have never done before. We need to build alliances with parents and the broader community.

There is no more natural alliance than the one that can and should exist between parents and teachers.

After all, it is teachers, after parents, who have the greatest interest in the wellbeing of children.

But of course we need to reach further and deeper than that. We need to build closer alliances with the broader union movement given that all workers are feeling the negative impact of global capital and its desire to redefine and reduce employment standards and conditions, and of course we need to build alliances with other social movements that share our broad objectives.

We need a new style of "doing business". More of the same will not deliver us success. We need to make some hard decisions.

We can continue to organise campaigns to protest or we can build a movement to protest and win!

(This article has also appeared in the Morning Star)

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The voice that teachers need: independent, democratic, united Howard Stevenson, higher education teacher and researcher, speech to the Professional Unity Conference in March The term historic is one that is often over-used.

Only time will tell if today might genuinely be referred to as historic – but this does feel like a very important event. I am grateful to be asked to speak here.

I am here speaking as an academic – I have been researching teacher unionism for over 20 years. However, I have been directly involved in teacher union activism for longer than that. So today I am both academic and activist – and I am speaking with both head and heart. That isn’t always easy – but it has always been an important aspect of my work.

I want to provide a historical overview to today’s discussions. History is important. Michael Gove understands that. We need to understand that history is important – it is our history.

I want to start in 1870 – when state education was first established in this country. The system was fragmented and chaotic, with schools competing against schools. Teachers were paid according to results. Sadly it is a rather accurate description of where we are today. Teachers experienced this system as highly divisive – a race to the bottom. And for this reason they soon realised what they needed to do – they formed together into a union and they organised.

Initially their demands were simple – they were against the pernicious system of payment by results, and instead they wanted a national system of pay and conditions. However, they wanted more than this. They didn’t just want to replace payment by results with national pay – but they wanted to be involved in the processes that made these decisions. Hence they campaigned for national collective bargaining – the process whereby employers and unions negotiate together, and with the aim of reaching a formal agreement between the two sides.

And teachers were successful – first they defeated payment by results, and in due course, in 1919, they secured national collective bargaining.

Today, it is worth remembering that it took teachers 49 years to achieve national collective bargaining. This should remind us that nothing is

forever, and that everything is possible. It may take longer than we might hope for, but we should never give up.

Teachers’ involvement in national collective bargaining gave them a voice, and in the years after 1919 that voice became progressively more influential in education policy. This was most apparent in the period after the second world war when the welfare state was established. Education reform was at the heart of the welfare state, and in the post-war period there was tremendous innovation in development in every sector of education – primary, secondary and higher.

Those who argue that teachers are resistant to change, or that teacher unions are resistant to change, should not be allowed to make their points unchallenged. The education historian Brian Simon described this period as the age of ‘breakout’ with an unprecedented level of pedagogical and systemic innovation. All of this took place at a time when union involvement in policy making was substantial. This was teacherled change and improvement.

Of course the problem was not, and is not, that teachers don’t ‘do change’ – the real problem was, and remains, the type of change being advocated. Most obviously the changes towards a genuinely comprehensive system of schooling, often driven by teachers, were not always welcomed in certain political quarters. This is why the political forces that were antagonistic to these reforms began to push back against the welfare state generally, and against school sector developments in particular.

That push back was specifically aimed at teachers – because those opposed to the welfare state were particularly hostile to the influence of professional opinion in it. However, these attacks on teachers were made easier by the divisions that had, over time, emerged between organised teachers. Since the first teacher union was established in 1870 various groups had broken away and formed new unions. This ‘multiunionism’ created a weakness that those opposed to teachers’ influence could exploit.

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I had my first experience of this when I was not tenable any longer. This is for two reasons: training to be a teacher in 1987. I can remember First, the landscape has changed – in some leaving my lectures at the University of Manchester important respects it is unrecognisable from when I to attend a strike rally at the Manchester Free Trade entered teaching in 1987. Let me illustrate this with Hall (FTH). The rally had been called jointly by the an example that was brought to my attention NUT and NASUWT because, following the yesterday. It isn’t typical – yet. But it does reflect a industrial action of the previous years, the direction of travel. The example is a job advert in a government had unilaterally, but temporarily, new Free School that a colleague showed me. It suspended collective bargaining arrangements. On reads like this: that day both unions stood ‘Staff Representation: The staff together – from memory I can will be represented by a staff recall speeches by Fred Jarvis and involvement group with Nigel de Gruchy, general secretary nominated representatives from of NUT and deputy general across the staff roles. Trade s e c re t a r y of NASUWT unions are not recognised.’ respectively. As a trainee teacher This is a reflection of the new this was an inspiring event. Over landscape. It was always the 2,000 teachers packed into the FTH intention of those opposed to – united in defence of a right it had organised teachers to create an taken their predecessors 49 years atomised and fragmented system to win. in which teachers were forced to However, this unity compete against each other. This between the NUT and NASUWT was their goal – to divide, and was not to last and the unions thereby weaken and even, as the divided on the issue. The example shows, seek to eliminate. government was immediately My view is that teachers cannot able to exploit this division, and it afford to compound this was not long before a temporary Delighted Fred Jarvis in the audience fragmentation, by being divided 27 years since I first saw him speak suspension of negotiating rights themselves. in Manchester Free Trade Hall became a permanent abolition.

Second, teaching is changing – What had taken 49 years for teaching is always changing but teachers to achieve took a lot less time to destroy. my view is that we are perhaps on the cusp of And since that time, the push back has seeing really dramatic changes to what teaching continued. Payment by results has returned, might look like, driven by technology. Technology national pay has been abolished and Qualified is well established in schools – rightly. But perhaps Teacher Status, for long a campaign objective of we are just beginning to see how technology might organised teachers, is in peril. On wider be used to radically transform what the educational professional issues the pattern is the same – our process looks like. Furthermore, we must recognise education system is dominated by relentless that technology is not value-neutral. It is often testing, whilst a never-ending process of owned, controlled and developed by huge global curriculum ‘reforms’ have been imposed on corporations that seek to make profit from teachers, often against the weight of professional education. In the United States there are already opinion. More recently, the drive to privatise the virtual schools where children ‘go to school’ by state school system has become increasingly sitting in front of their computer. It is not clear apparent. how many qualified teachers for example ‘work’ in I am not saying these things would not have these schools. What is clear is that the business happened if teachers had been organised in a single models of these corporations are not based on large union – but I don’t think it is a difficult argument to numbers of highly qualified teachers with decent sustain that they would have looked very different. salaries and pensions. We simply don’t know how Teachers, and their students, have paid a high price teaching may be transformed in the years ahead for the divisions between teacher unions. but the more that these changes are business driven But if we accept, for one moment, that these the less likely it is that these changes will reflect the divisions were ever tenable in the past (and I best interests of students and their teachers. would dispute that) I want to argue that they are Given this new landscape, and the potential

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changes to teaching and the teacher workforce, teachers have to ask themselves how they can make sure they not only influence, but shape, the future.

My view is simple . . . teachers need to learn the same lessons that teachers learned in 1870 – teachers need to unite, and organise. The teaching profession needs to re-learn the lessons of 1870 and show the same level of commitment, conviction and courage in order to ensure the voice of the profession is at the centre of education policy making.

Specifically, I believe teacher unions need to face up to change in three key areas.

Only teacher unions can claim to represent all teachers, be genuinely independent and robustly democratic.

Teachers need that collective, independent, democratic voice. Unions provide it – but to provide it effectively they need to unite. That will not be easy – but we should not allow something being difficult to stop us from doing what is right.

I want to end on an important point – teachers may need to relearn the lessons that teachers learned when state education was first formed, and when they united and organised – but teachers in 2014 are not starting at the same point as teachers in 1870. Not anywhere near. Teachers in 2014 already have strong, robust, well organised unions – and teachers are already highly unionised.

We know this from the DfE’s own research. In 2012 the DfE commissioned research into the strength of the teacher unions – this was as it laid the ground work for a confrontation with teachers over the attack on national pay and conditions (and before the teacher unions even knew these changes were coming). That research revealed, to quote the report ‘All but 3% of the teachers [that] responded belonged to a teaching union.’ The DfE’s own research therefore indicates that there is a 97% trade union density rate in the teaching profession.

By almost any standards, that figure is extraordinary.

Teachers have the power in their own hands – it already exists. The problem of course is that it is weakened by being divided. The challenge therefore, and why we are all here today, is to discuss how we overcome those divisions and bring the different unions together. As I have indicated – it will not be easy. But we should not underestimate what a popular and galvanising message it can be. The argument for a single union, and for a teacher voice that is impossible to ignore, is very attractive to a profession that often feels marginalised and devalued. Campaigning for such a union also offers huge possibilities to reconnect teachers to unionism and to reach out to many younger teachers who have little experience of being in a profession that is valued and respected. There is much to play for, which is why today is so important.

1) Organise at the workplace The devolution of decision-making to school level, and the much diminished role of local authority structures means that many of the key issues that impact on teachers’ professional lives are determined at the workplace. Teachers need to organise at the point where these key decisions are made. The workplace is also the point where teachers have contact with their union – through contact with fellow members, and critically through their school representative. There is a need to build a lively and active workplace-based unionism in which the union is a central element of teachers’ working lives. Teachers need a voice at their workplace. [For information – I do not see this as an alternative to local branch organisation, but complementary to it].

2) Be a national voice on professional issues This is a role teacher unions have always provided, but divisions have made that voice less audible in recent years. It is absolutely essential that teacher unions are able to speak on matters of education policy and on professional issues. Teacher unions must not retreat into a narrow ‘pay and conditions’ agenda, but rather there is a need to recognise that education is political – and teacher unions need to engage politically. There can be no defeating the policies that undermine teachers’ professional judgement, and worsen their working conditions, if the ideas that drive those policies are not being challenged. Teachers therefore need a national voice to speak up for the education service – speaking as teachers, and for students.

I am now of the view that 1 and 2 cannot be achieved without 3 . . .

Howard Stevenson http://howardstevenson.org

3) teacher unions must find ways to unite There are no other organisations, that exist now or are possibly imminent (such as a College of Teaching), that can articulate the teachers’ voice.

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Reviews Living on the Edge; Rethinking poverty, class and schooling

by John Smyth and Terry Wrigley, Peter Lang Publishing, £24 soft cover This is an unusual book because the authors have never met. John Smyth lives in Australia and Terry Wrigley in the UK. Globalisation of the best type. Workers of the world unite! Terry Wrigley is known most recently for his excellent research conducted with his colleague, A Kalambouka, which analysed in detail academies’ results and – what do you know, lo and behold – results showed that there was no truth in Gove et als claim that academies produce superior results.

This is one of a relatively rare breed of books. In its contents under Part 1, chapter 1 reads 'Making sense of class'. The centrality of class to educational structure and educational outcomes is often marginalised or even not covered at all. The authors’ stance is in fact made clear even before the first chapter.

In the acknowledgement they say ‘we are very much aware of the political context of our writing. Poverty shows no sign of abating in this age of austerity, as governments try to make the many pay for the greed and folly of the few. We continue to be encouraged by the energy and courage and resistance of millions around the world who continue to fight for a better future.’

In the foreword to the book written by Bob Lingard of the University of Queensland he explains, ‘The book draws on evidence and analysis of how and why schools produce and reproduce class-based inequalities. They reject "blaming the victim" accounts of class-based underachievement in schools; specifically they expose the poverty of accounts based on supposed pathologies whether located in individual deficiencies (e.g. low intelligence), family defects (e.g. a lack of aspirations for their children) or community dysfunction (e.g. the underclass myth…). A sustained focus on teachers and quality teaching has become the policy mantra… In this

policy setting, control of the teaching process and a competitive version of "accountability". This accountability gaze on teachers and schools distracts from the need to challenge politicians and policy makers.’

In their own introduction they point out that their book ‘revisits some key arguments… Originally articulated in terms of working class children…

Now recycled in terms of child poverty. This shift is significant, reflecting in part the current reluctance to acknowledge class divisions and an unjust economic system. Much easier, perhaps, for policy makers to imagine we are living in a benign meritocracy where talent finds its way upwards, with the unfortunate exception of the poor.

International evidence consistently points to a strong and enduring statistical relationship between social position (income, occupation, parental occupation) and school achievement … There is good reason to use the term reproduction to describe this process: the school system tends to reproduce social inequalities rather than overcome them.’

However, they continue, ‘This does not mean … that nothing can change’. The authors of this book have seen many fine examples of educational change that really makes a difference to children's lives and opportunities.

Under the heading Class and Schooling they say, ‘The official policy discourse, whilst acknowledging poverty (or at least disadvantage), is virtually silent about class. We make a conscious decision to break that silence. It is our view: 1) that poverty derives from class, in the sense that differences of power and position are related to economic ownership and employment; and 2) that class, and indeed capitalism overall, has an impact on learning far beyond people suffering from

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poverty and stretches well beyond youth into lifelong learning.’

They highlight this with the example that ‘In England just seven per cent of children attend independent fee paying schools, but these schools account for half of the students at Oxford and Cambridge universities. Private school fees typically exceed many other families total income.

They buy not only small classes and grand buildings, but also the ethos of ambition and a rich menu of sporting and cultural activities. It has even been emerged that half of British medal winners at the 2008 Beijing Olympics were former pupils of these elite fee paying schools (BBC News website August 3, 2012).’

They also point to the classic from Robert Lowe, the politician responsible for introducing compulsory schooling in Britain. ‘We do not profess to give these children an education that will raise them above their station and business in life…

We are bound to make up our minds as to how much instruction that class requires and is capable of receiving. ‘ (cited in Tropp, 1957 page 89) Wrigley himself comes out with this brilliant analysis. ‘Capitalism, for its part, needs workers who are clever enough to be profitable, but not wise enough to know what's really going on.’

In their final chapter, ‘Conclusion – schools for social justice – theories of good practice’, they say, ‘The lessons from Finland could not be more stark… They stand as demonstrable evidence that a commitment to equitable school provision and more democratic systems of quality control pays off handsomely in high levels of achievement and without any social disfigurement experienced in countries where schooling is blighted by the neoliberal project.’ And ‘the effectiveness of governing by command and instruction is limited to trivial change; real transformation requires deep understanding arrived at through open debate. The necessary critical challenge to unjust norms and harmful cultures is stifled by authoritarian management and education systems.’

Under Final Words they say, ‘We recognise the central need to transform economic relations based on exploitation and a monopoly of power. At the same time, we need to find respectful ways of challenging faulty expectations, norms, and pedagogies that help to reproduce poverty and marginalisation.

We need to find new ways of reasserting a sense of possibility and hope and rising to the challenge posed by poverty in affluent countries.

Since social justice cannot be achieved by schools alone, this will involve new a combination of actions within schools and the wider society. We have to exert collective power to bring about serious changes in schools and struggle alongside marginalised young people for their right to life beyond the edge.’

All in all – a very good effort and a tonic to find some authors putting social class at the heart of the understanding of what is going on in education today, and what's more important, what to do about it.

Hank Roberts

Education not for Sale A review of a report of research and analysis for the TUC, entitled Education not for Sale, March 2014, produced by Martin Johnson, a policy assistant at the ATL, and by Warwick Mansell, a freelance education journalist.

The TUC commissioned this research report to investigate the current and potential impact on education and society of the privatisation of state education services in England.

The GATS (The General Agreement on Trade in Services) agreement produced from the deliberations of the WTO in 1996 formalised a process demonstrably begun in England, and elsewhere in the capitalist world, some years before. GATS formalised these developments by enabling signatory countries to open up their state service provision to private and international capital markets. Education is now the world's second largest traded service, after healthcare.

Sickening isn't it? The 1988 Education Reform Act laid the foundation for the privatisation of provision in England by requiring that schools were locally managed, with their own budgets based largely on the number of pupils on roll, i.e. without democratic control via local councils and authorities. The 1988 Act, of course, was enacted

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prior to the GATS agreement but its ideological roots are the same. GATS can be traced right back to the Bretton Woods Conference of 1944 when 'western' capitalism, especially US capital, was terrified that after WWII conversion to socialism could spread beyond the Soviet Union, and so began to put in place agreements and organisations to shore up and extend capitalism's reach and dominance. Out of this came the agents for facilitating capitalism -– the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, GATT, then the World Trade Organisation from which GATS flowed (none with any basis in democracy, of course). It was inevitable, if capitalism dominated the world, by the nature of capitalism, that this is where it would lead – to the privatisation and commodification of our education system (as well as, of course, to the privatisation and commodification of our health and social service systems).

This report demonstrates, very clearly, that students, parents, teachers and schools and education itself are not the priority of our rulers; their priority lies in what is to be gained in control and profit from the delivery of education. It examines the progress of the privatisation process in England, the USA and Sweden; in the latter two because, although not having identical education systems to ours, their privatisation processes are similar and of longer duration. Charter and Free schools in the US and Sweden, respectively, roughly equate to our academies and free schools here – the vehicles of privatisation – and have all been driven into existence by the same ideology.

However, none of these privatisation processes is long-lived yet, but they have all been rapid processes, featuring layer upon layer of changes within them, and all using the same, or similar, theory, tactics and propaganda to promote them.

For example, they've all used 'inspection' agencies to find fault with existing provision, whether genuinely educationally detrimental or able to be corrected or not, in order to impose new provision; for example, schools have received good Ofsted reports, then a relatively short time later have been judged as failing, only to be replaced by an academy or free school. We all know about league tables and how they've been used as useful adjuncts to political programmes, and to frighten

parents into wanting to believe they had choice.

This does not negate the need for an inspection system, but what is required is one that operates in the interests of pupils, teachers, parents, schools, and for the propagation of good practice and worthwhile education, and which should be in democratic control and accountable to local communities. It should not be allowed to exist to legitimise, and otherwise serve, the agenda of privatising governments.

The report makes it clear that available, reliable research into the outcomes of the privatisation of state education is patchy, but what can be relied upon shows that the introduction of this privatisation process has not effected much, if any, improvement in outcomes in attainment and achievement levels.

Johnson and Mansell concluded 'Research evidence does not show that marketisation in England has led to improved pupil performance. It is time that politicians who claim otherwise were challenged'.

The report suggests elsewhere that privatisation has narrowed the breadth of education available, in a variety of ways, to many students. The authors pointed out that their examination of available research and statistical evidence had led them to conclude that it is the QUALITY of what is on offer in state funded education that calls for careful research now.

The report highlights only one group of students who have gained a slight advantage from the privatisation of their educational provision (i.e. showing higher attainment results), and that group consists of a few ethnic minority students who have attended charter schools, set up by non-profit making groups in urban areas in the US with the aim of betterment for these student. However, the downside has been the increasing of social segregation – already high in the US, based on wealth. Incidentally, this report revealed the horrifying statistic that of the 49,177,617 US student population, 48 per cent are living in poverty, by US standards!

Admissions policies in the 'standalone' (-not in chains run by 'edubusiness') charter schools are often highly selective, heavily reliant on the social and educational levels of parents. These contribute to social segregation, as do the much more generous exclusion policies allowed for charter

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schools in the US, similar policies to exclusion policies allowed in England for academies and free schools. Another area of the privatisation business causing social segregation, which is also coming to England from the US, is 'virtual education' wherein most learning and teaching is done on-line. Of course, this type of education provision maximises the potential for profit for providers, but, also, according to the research uncovered by Johnson and Mansell, has a very poor track record in the US in terms of educational outcomes, and in some cases has been exposed as inadequately staffed, often with unqualified personnel; some have been shown to be fraudulent operations too.

Johnson's and Mansell's report is densely research-based. It exposes many areas of the transglobal education business that has been unleashed on the world in the last twenty plus years. It describes how profit is made from providing educational services and materials. 5% is considered a good margin of profit, because of the specific nature of schooling, in England as well as the US and Sweden. The tendency has been for large chains of state schools to be acquired by private sector providers in order to increase actual profits, and that these providers can dictate that all services for their acquisitions are provided by them, although this tendency is levelling out in the US as different states are starting to impose more regulations as a result of poor outcomes.

The report is concerned with higher education too, in which the privatising drive has been similar. It names leading providers in the 'edubusiness'. Pearson, a British educationproviding company is one of the big trans-global players. The culture is one of secrecy in England.

The DfE is complicit. There is a revolving door between some senior employees working on academising our state school system at the DfE and their direct involvement on boards of private education providers. Contracts are negotiated secretly with the Secretary of State for Education for both academy take-overs and free school setups. Democratic accountability and transparency have disappeared! Ironically, free schools were 'sold' to the English people at the 2010 general election as 'empowering local people to set up their own schools', but most of these free schools have been allowed to be swallowed up by academy chains which do not represent, or have loyalty to, localities at all. The Secretary of State has created 2000 powers for himself. His undemocratic, personal, decision-making ability is unparalleled and has almost completely centralised the control

of state education in England. So much for local power being restored! Cronyism is rife in this secretive environment. Also, private equity companies are increasingly involving themselves in the trans-global education business, buying up academy chains, including some in England, and are also involving themselves in marketing teaching, learning and curriculum packages as well as schools' management services. Selling these packages is the most lucrative area of the business for them, especially if they 'own' a chain of academies to supply with these essentials at huge public expense! Johnson and Mansell point out that providers of pre-packaged education teaching and learning programmes undermine the natural creativity, from the bottom up, at the heart of the curriculum that would otherwise be able to flourish.

This report contains detail about all of these areas of concern and much more, and is based on research evidence which the authors have sifted through to draw their conclusions. They've used what they saw as the most reliable evidence. (Some of the research available employed methodology that the authors considered was inadequate, so they highlighted when this was the case and when they considered that the conclusions to be drawn from these researches were not reliable). Several times they signalled their concern in one area of provision that they concluded needed examination, and that area of concern was about the consequences and difficulties thrown up for students, teachers, parents and communities when schools are closed down within this current, increasingly arbitrary, culture of closures, especially when the closures are contrary to the wishes of the relevant users and local community.

Read Johnson and Mansell's report and the TUC pamphlet it informed. They are both available on the TUC website, under the title Education not for Sale. Try and get them on display in every staff room and, ideally, into every parent's hand!

Elizabeth Jones

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Coalition cracks over free schools We’re a year away from the general election and cracks in the Coalition are showing in the Department for Education.

Lib Dems have accused Michael Gove of raiding £400m to prop up his failing free schools project. In Islington, the bill for the site for just one primary school is set to top £10m while councillors battle to preserve at least some of the land for muchneeded housing. In neighbouring Tottenham, two free schools have received just 10 first choice applications between them for 120 reception places.

Meanwhile Ofsted is not judging these new schools entirely kindly, with special measures now required at the Hawthorne’s in Liverpool. In Bedford, a free school principal (whose own school ‘requires improvement’) has suggested that free schools should not be judged until their first students have their GCSE results. The free school policy is failing its own tests of parental popularity and quality.

Academy proponents are tying themselves in knots over free schools; they know that a free school is just a newly opened academy but somehow they want to be seen to support the academies programme while criticising Gove’s free schools.

David Gaston, headteacher of PAT’s Dean Academy in Lydney has written to families saying ‘The message to parents is not to panic.’ We say the message to parents is to demand democratic representation in negotiations in the future of their children’s education.

Forced Academies Back in January, Mr Justice Collins granted an injunction to allow time for a full consultation over the academisation of Warren School in Chadwell Heath, saying that Michael Gove considered academies to be the cat’s whiskers. The resulting consultation didn’t go Gove’s way: 85 per cent of the school community was opposed to academy status and in favour of the existing partnership with another local school. But guess what? The DfE now says it will impose academy status from September 2014 anyway. Local MP Jon Cruddas said Gove has treated the school with ‘absolute derision and contempt’ adding that ‘academy status means a lack of accountability, no need to follow the national curriculum and groups with vested interests sponsoring the school and setting the educational agenda.’ The school along with Barking and Dagenham Council is now considering further legal action.

Analysis by the Local Schools Network of 2013’s Key Stage 2 SATS has shown that, despite DfE claims, sponsored academies are not improving faster than equivalent maintained schools. In fact, maintained schools were making significantly more progress. The analysis compares groups of schools with similar previous attainment and similar levels of disadvantage. Refusing to acknowledge the analysis, the DfE continues to publicise the skewed statistics, comparing sponsored academies with all primaries rather than similar schools. Please share this analysis widely – it’s a great resource for parents and staff fighting academisation.

When the solution is a failure Trade unions and parents have been responding to Prospects Academies Trust’s announcement that it will fold and hand back its six academies to the DfE. Christine Blower, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, said ‘It is time that handing over schools to unaccountable private companies ended.

Public money is being squandered and education is suffering as a result.’ For the ATL, Dr Mary Bousted said the system for dealing with academy closures needs to include ‘provision for moving the school back into local authority control if parents and staff believe this is the best solution’. Meanwhile the GMB union is planning to organise a public meeting to discuss the future of one of the affected schools, Bexhill High, in East Sussex. And in Gloucestershire, Alison Travis, whose son attends Gloucester Academy, told the Gloucester Citizen ‘I am disgusted to be honest. The concern is of yet more disruption.’

We know from recent events with the E-ACT chain that the DfE’s only solution will be to hand these schools to another sponsor. Parents, staff and students will have no say in the process while discussions will take place behind closed doors in Whitehall.

Gove’s Real Agenda The government’s zeal for private sector ‘solutions’ is extending to a consultation on the privatisation of child protection services. The privateers use the same tactics as they've deployed in the NHS and schools – they develop a narrative of perceived failures, belittle the professionals who run the service and then offer a saviour in the form of Serco, ATOS or G4S or perhaps it will be Mott Macdonald, Harris or ARK. antiacademies.org.uk 15

International news curriculum which did not celebrate their Palestinian heritage. Teachers and students we met in Galilee in northern Israel, which has a large Palestinian population, echoed these concerns. At Al Galil High School in Nazareth, the head teacher told us that the teaching of Palestinian history and culture was excluded from the curriculum of schools attended

by Palestinians. History and geography were presented from an Israeli perspective.

Palestine NUT delegation visit - extracts from the report: A Matter of Justice The National Union of Teachers has maintained its commitment to the Palestinian people, the teachers and young people, for 30 years. In June 2013 the Executive agreed to send a national delegation of 12 members to the occupied territories. The full report of that delegation’s work during October half-term 2013, meeting with colleagues in the General Union of Palestinian Teachers (GUPT); visiting schools; talking to young people and their parents; and also engaging with non-governmental organisations (NGOs) concerned with the rights of the Palestinian people. can be found at www.teachers.org.uk We went to show our solidarity with the teachers and to conduct a study into the plight of children. The NUT is particularly concerned about the ill-treatment of Palestinian children, some as young as 12, illegally detained by the Israeli armed forces, brought before military courts and placed in Israeli custody.

Censoring the poets – rewriting history English teacher Rida Salameh explained that young people did not learn about their own culture – poets like Mahmoud Darwish, novelists like Ghassan Kanafani or writers like Edward Said. The ‘Nakba’ (Catastrophe), as Palestinians call the events of 1948, which resulted in the expulsion of more than 750,000 Palestinians, was presented from an Israeli perspective.

One student, Reem, spoke about the problems Palestinian young people faced gaining entrance to university in Israel.

Although Arabic is recognised as an official language in Israel, Hebrew has already replaced it in some curricular areas and hurdles are placed in the way of students.

Inequality in Israel

Jerusalem –meeting teachers

One of the teachers said, ‘We Palestinians inside Israel are 20 per cent of the population, yet this isn’t reflected in budgets and jobs or university places.

We don’t have equal rights. We are 20 per cent yet we only have two per cent of the land.’ They, like the teachers we met in East Jerusalem, were of the view that, for Palestinians inside Israel, ‘democracy is not applied equally and fairly’.

On our first day we met members of the Jerusalem branch of the General Union of Palestinian Teachers (GUPT) and were welcomed by their Secretary, Issa Salman. The branch organises teachers in East Jerusalem, the designated capital of a future Palestinian state, but currently occupied by and under the control of Israel.

More classrooms – more teachers

Israel’s education system – a cause for concern

Issa explained there is a major shortage of classrooms and teachers in the city. More than 900 children are out of school. To reduce the average class sizes of 40 they need 1,000 more classrooms and more teachers. The Israeli authorities, who control all development in the city, stop Palestinians building new schools. Many are in inappropriate rented buildings, sometimes without doors and windows.

Similar concerns about the Israeli curriculum were expressed to us by Professor Nurit Peled Elhanan and Dr Samira Alayan, both education lecturers at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. They said that many textbooks in the Israeli school system either omitted mention of Palestinians or treated them in stereotypical ways, fostering racism towards them whilst promoting a narrative more fitted to preparing students for military service.

Nurit and Samira said that they had found no evidence of anti-Jewish sentiments in Palestinian textbooks. Both were of the view that the Israeli education system is racist.

Palestinian children in Israel and the curriculum Palestinian teachers inside East Jerusalem in Israeli Government municipal schools and their colleagues inside Israel in Palestinian towns, like Nazareth, were greatly concerned about an imposed 16

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