Education for Tomorrow 122

EDUCATION for TOMORROW FOR THE DEFENCE OF STATE EDUCATION

Priorities for the Easter conferences ‘Novel and contentious’ – a battle won in the war against privatisation?

Pre-election words on education from the political parties

‘We can no longer afford the luxury of multiple teacher unions, if we ever could…The choice for teacher unions has become stark – unite to win or remain divided in defeat.’ – Unite to beat GERM, page 6 SPRING 2015

ISSUE 122 1

£1.00

EDUCATION for TOMORROW

SUBSCRIPTION RATES UK and international electronic £4.

To order, send your details to the Editor by email. Payment may be made by PayPal on the website, or you can pay by cheque, posted to the Editor.

Editor Martin Brown 226 Woodland Gardens Isleworth TW7 6LT Tel: 020 3255 3113

UK print £7 per annum (4 issues) For costing for multiple copies contact the Editor (if you are already receiving these you will be informed when your subscription is due for renewal)

anmar.brown@btopenworld.com

Please post me the next four issues of EDUCATION for TOMORROW I enclose cheque/P.O. for £7.00 Name..................................................

Address............................................... ............................................................ ............................................................

Post to: The Editor (EfT) 226 Woodland Gardens, Isleworth, TW7 6LT

Editorial Board Anne Brown, Martin Brown, Tony Farsky, Gawain Little, Diane Randall, Hank Roberts, Simon Watson, 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!

Posted individual copies cost £2

Contents Editorial – 3 Easter conferences priority – 4 Unite to defeat GERM – 6 Election promises for education – 8

ISSN 2066-9145

Website: www.educationfortomorrow.org.uk

‘Novel and contentious’ – 11

Published and printed by the EDUCATION for TOMORROW Collective

Review – 12

Cover photo: In Khuza'a, Mohammed stands on what used to be his house. 54 more homes surrounding him are completely destroyed – Dan Cohen @dancohen3000

Anti Academies Alliance news – 13 International - 14

2

Déjà vu?

Remember the run-up to the 2010 General Election? First there was the cash for honours scandal, when allegations of peerages being granted in exchange for ‘soft’ loans resulted in a Prime Minister being interviewed by police for the first time in British history.

That was followed by a parliamentary expenses scandal that exposed widespread fiddling

by MPs on both sides of the House and led to prison sentences for some of the worst offenders.

Then followed the ‘cash for questions’ scandal when former Labour ministers were secretly filmed agreeing to lobby in return for cash payments. It was time, they said, for Parliament to clean up its act.

Five years on, do you get a feeling of déjà vu? The latest news is of two former foreign ministers Malcolm Rifkind and Jack Straw, disgraced for trying to take cash for favours, filmed by undercover reporters offering to use their contacts and experience to benefit a fake Chinese company in exchange for thousands of pounds.

This follows exposures about multi-national companies and banks’ tax dodging activities with the connivance of British authorities. The full scale of corruption is yet to come out.

In his book, The Establishment and how they get away with it, Owen Jones writes: ‘…future generations will surely look back with a mixture of astonishment and contempt at how British society is currently organised: the richest 1,000 individuals worth £520 billion, while hundreds of thousands have to queue to eat from food banks; a thriving financial elite that helped plunge Britain into a vortex of economic collapse, which was rescued by over £1 trillion of public money but continues to operate much as before…’

Parliament can’t solve the problem – it’s part of the problem. Instead of identifying with their electors, too many MPs serve the interests of the wealthy elite. An increasing proportion of them come from that elite. 35 per cent of the current intake were privately educated (compared to seven per cent for the population as a whole), The proportion coming from humbler backgrounds is in decline. Just four per cent came from a manual worker background

and just five per cent were previously employed in education.

Little wonder that an Ipsos MORI poll found that over 50 per cent of Britons think MPs put their own interests first, 72 per cent do not trust them to tell the truth and 65 per cent think at least half of MPs use their power for private gain.

The views and interests of ordinary folk are ignored. Recent YouGov polls showed a clear majority in favour of a return to public ownership for the utility companies and public transport, for instance. A survey of parent opinion showed huge majorities in favour of local authorities having powers to open new schools, of schools being staffed by qualified teachers paid on a national pay scale. There was a clear rejection of the idea that schools should be run for profit.

Five years ago voter turnout in the General Election dropped to 65.1 per cent, down from 77.6 per cent in 1992. Further voter disillusion may lead to an even lower turnout next time and higher votes for parties that portray themselves as ‘antiestablishment.’ A quick look at the manifestos however, reveals that the reality is somewhat different. Austerity – in one form or another – is planned for the majority of us, to pay for the mistakes and excesses of the elite.

Child poverty The huge growth in child poverty – 85 per cent of teachers have seen an increase in the number of children coming to school hungry in the last two years – is a direct result of government austerity policies. According to new research for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, at least 8.1 million parents and children are living on incomes below the level needed to cover a minimum household budget – up by more than a third from 5.9 million in 2008/09. The research finds that this was driven by a real-terms fall in wages and cuts to benefits and tax credits.

As the NUT’s Stand up for education manifesto states; ‘Whether children are ready and able to learn depends on a wide range of factors, many of which are outside teachers’ control.

Unless child poverty is addressed by the next government, millions will never achieve their full potential’.

3

The strategic priority for Easter conferences

‘Owning Our Profession’ conference, Manchester, February 2015

At last! Supporters of UNIFY 1 and of uniting the education unions can look forward to the possibility of making some serious progress.

Nothing of greater strategic importance will confront this year’s education union conferences than this.

In 2002 the main teaching unions came close to uniting, but it was not to be. There followed 13 years of relentless undermining by government, not only of teachers’ conditions and professional autonomy, but also of the very foundations of state education, its fragmentation and increasing privatisations.

Would it have been better if we managed to achieve one union in 2002? Certainly it would not have been paradise, but yes, it would have been better. The lessons from abroad and at home clearly show this. Ritva Semi of OAJ, the Finnish education union, said in her speech to the NUT hosted joint unions Unity conference last year, “Unity of the teacher organisations has been a success story for teachers and education in Finland”. She also made it clear that the Government in Finland cannot and does not ignore the OAJ. The Union is involved at every level of Government decisions on education.

I know from personal experience that getting all the unions in a school, to take industrial action – against, for example academisation – is an immensely difficult task. First you have to get 1

agreement and then you have to get the industrial action co-ordinated.

This problem would evaporate if there was one union.

In May 2012 the NASUWT and NUT reached an ‘historic agreement’ which was indeed historic, and some co-operative progress was made in some areas on reducing workloads and bureaucracy. But long-term, whilst membership wars exist, alliances will inevitably and sadly breakdown, allowing sectarianism to again rear its ugly head.

Divide and rule; the salvation of the government and ruling class. How pleased they must be that at present the NASUWT, in splendid isolation, seems unwilling to sign up to any joint unions’ statements or any joint opposition to government diktat. The lessons of the united ATL, NASUWT and NUT strike over pension cuts on 30th November 2011, derailing Gove’s determined plan for more ferocious cuts, seem to have been cast aside.

At an ATL and NUT co-hosted conference on 28 February in Manchester entitled ‘Owning Our Profession’ Peter Pendle, ATL Deputy General Secretary, said ‘Unity is perhaps the most basic principle of trade unionism. It is a principle not replicated in UK teacher trade unionism. It is difficult to see how this defiance of the basic principle of trade unionism can serve the best interests of teachers.’

Kevin Courtney, NUT Deputy General

See joining details at end of article 4

Secretary, said, ‘Today is about how ATL and NUT can work effectively together but it is also about finding a way to speak with one voice. The NUT’s policy is for professional unity, but it is one I have always believed in passionately and which would self-evidently give us more strength to deal with the severe problems we face.’

Kim Knappett, ATL National Vice President who chaired the meeting said, ‘Amazing time today at the Owning Our Profession Conference – half the delegates are from ATL and half from NUT and you can’t tell who is who. We all face the same issues and difficulties in our workplaces and we need to find a way to speak together with a stronger single voice.’

The Easter conferences will pass motions calling for action on teachers’ pay (there has been a 15 per cent decline) and any joint action on this would be good, but it must go further. It is not enough. Now is the time to take it further. If NASUWT under its present leadership is not to participate, ATL and NUT should, for the benefit of their joint memberships and education as a whole, explore the possibility of creating a new education union, one fit for the 21st century. This would change everything, not the least being that it would kick into touch the current NASUWT leadership obsession with becoming the biggest education union.

The priority obsession of an education union shouldn’t be simply membership growth. It should be saving state education, of which, having sufficient teachers, fully qualified, properly paid and not overworked is a crucial factor as is having a comprehensive well-funded state education system. If ATL and NUT can take a step further along the path of the present closer working together it will be a huge step forward for the profession and for education. Let’s make it happen.

You will be kept fully informed of all activities.

4. Patrons - you may become a lifetime patron of UNIFY for a once only payment of £50. This will entitle you to be a guest of honour at the party we will hold upon our eventual victory.

Please send your details with the appropriate fee to: UNIFY – One Education Union, 27 Ridley Rd, London, NW10 5UB Cheques to be made out to ‘Unify – One Education Union’

The military in schools Additional funding Expansion Programme

for

the

Cadet

The Defence Secretary, Michael Fallon, has announced that 100 new cadet units in state schools will benefit from £2.3 million of extra funding as a fair funding model is introduced for all Combined Cadet Forces. Following a consultation, the Defence Secretary agreed to fund the infrastructure, running and adult volunteer costs for CCF units across the country.

The cadet programme ‘allows young people to participate in challenging and enjoyable activities, develop valuable life skills, and prepare them to play an active part in the community.’

Measures to help schools instill ‘character’ in pupils The Education Secretary, Nicky Morgan, has announced a package of measures to help schools instill ‘character’ in pupils including extra funding for projects run by former armed service personnel.

Eight projects will be given almost £5 million to work with schools using the values and expertise of the armed services to help young people do better at school and develop their character, including values such as self-confidence, respect and leadership.

Schools that develop and build character, resilience and ‘grit’ in their pupils will also be recognised for the first time through the new character awards. applicants will be judged on their approaches and practices to develop character by a panel of education experts …

Hank Roberts UNIFY Organising Secretary UNIFY Membership Types Available: Affiliated Association is for any Association / Division / Branch or Federation seeking membership, at a cost of £30 for one year. You will be kept fully informed of all activities.

2. Individual Associate Member is for individuals seeking membership, at a cost of £5 for one year. You will be kept fully informed of all activities.

3. Affiliated School/College/University is for schools, colleges or universities seeking membership, at a cost of £10 for one year.

1.

Education Journal

5

Unite to beat GERM It is almost impossible to look anywhere today without seeing evidence of the many problems facing teachers and other education professionals.

There are the cuts to pensions, common to all public sector workers, which require us to work longer and pay more in, only to receive less at the end. There is the introduction of performance related pay and the deregulation of teachers’ salaries which will pit teacher against teacher and school against school in competition for scarce resources. Then there are the deeper underlying issues like the unsustainable growth in workload and the impact of an unfit accountability and inspection regime, which does nothing to help schools or the children they serve but plenty to harm their teachers.

More widely, in terms of education, there is the academy and ‘free’ schools programme, whereby schools are taken from democratic local control in increasing numbers and handed over to Tory donors, dodgy businessmen and religious evangelists – or sometimes all three in the same person. There is the ever-increasing dominance of standardised testing, which now effectively determines what is learned and how it is learned in schools across England and Wales. And, linked to this, the narrowing of the curriculum to a prescribed body of knowledge and functional skills to prepare students to ‘contribute to the economy’ – what the DfE called in a 1996 paper ‘the production of human capital’, which it compared to investment in machinery during the industrial revolution.

Of course none of these is an isolated phenomenon. The thread which runs through them is the increasing marketisation, privatisation and commodification of education – the transformation of education as a social good into education as a market commodity, to be bought and sold, and the subjection of teachers and teaching to the discipline of the market. As the earlier reference to ‘human capital’ shows, this involves a significant restructuring of both the purposes and the nature of education itself.

This thread links together the recent attacks on education in a way that even the government has been open about. In 2012, when delivering the final public-sector pension reforms to parliament, Danny Alexander said: ‘The new pensions will be substantially

more affordable to alternative providers… we are no longer requiring private, voluntary and social enterprise providers to take on the risks of defined benefit that deter many from bidding for contracts in the first place.’

Similarly, with pay deregulation, one of the key objectives is to reduce the proportion of funding spent on pay, increasing potential profitability to encourage private investment. The government has consistently refused to publish guidance recommending that schools should budget for all staff to make pay progression and has promoted, in official guidance, a model where teachers are ranked in order of ‘performance’ and 70 per cent of them are held at the same pay point each year. The School Teachers Review Body (STRB), in its 2012 report, recommended the use of school budget restrictions and OFSTED’s new inspection framework to provide ‘constraint’ on what they refer to as ‘pay inflation’.

Research reports The negative impact this will have on our children’s education will be both widespread and profound. In Chile, the first country to experiment with a for-profit state education sector as part of the Pinochet dictatorship’s privatisation programme, the results have been damning.

According to a recent report for the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), for-profit schools have increased segregation, failed to raise standards and do not perform as well as their notfor-profit counterparts. The report refers to one study which found that ‘the commercial schools operated at lower cost, which they attribute to their ability to pay lower salaries and hire less-qualified teachers. They conclude that this may be why these schools are underperforming’.

Similarly, the Director General of the Swedish National Agency for Education reflects that Swedish ‘free’ schools, 75 per cent of which are run for profit, have led to ‘increasing segregation and decreasing results’. Of course that matters little to those who see education primarily in terms of profit-making.

The reference to ‘less-qualified teachers’ in Chile shows another link, this time to one of the government’s least popular policies – removing

6

children’s right to be taught by a qualified teacher.

Clearly, one aspect of this is to further reduce the wage bill by allowing private companies to employ anyone they want on any salary they want.

business, such as the Gates Foundation; and international financial institutions such as the IMF and World Bank who write the opening up of education markets into structural adjustment programmes forced on developing countries seeking loans.

They are also deeply embedded in the European Union, through legislation such as the European Services Directive. As the Finnish Prime Minister recently said in an interview with the BBC, “European integration is basically based on four freedoms: the free movement of goods, services, money and labour” and an essential part of this is opening up national education systems (and other public services) to a European-wide market.

This will be enshrined in the controversial trade agreements currently being negotiated on our behalf by the EU, including the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership with the US and the Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement with Canada.

These agreements include both an Investor-State Disputes Settlement mechanism which would allow corporations to sue national governments for putting any barriers in the way of free access to markets, and a ratchet clause which would prohibit national governments from reversing privatisation or opening up of markets, regardless of the views of their citizens. ISDS cases would be judged by corporate lawyers and the hearings would be held in secret.

Given this context of increasing fragmentation and privatisation, combined with political attacks on teachers and teaching, we need to understand what the implications are for us as trade unionists and for our unions.

The first and most obvious point is that we can no longer afford the luxury of multiple teacher unions, if we ever could. A profession as divided as ours is has no hope of withstanding the forces ranged against us. The choice for teacher Unions has become stark – unite to win or remain divided in defeat.

Producing ‘human capital’ There is another reason for reducing the importance of qualification, though, and that is to wrest control of curriculum and pedagogy from teachers.

In the new marketised system, standardised testing and a standardised curriculum are the driving forces, not teachers’ professional judgement and understanding. If the aim of education is to produce ‘human capital’ to fuel the economy, in most cases literate and numerate school-leavers for a combination of precarious, casualised work and unemployment/workfare, then the broader motivation of teachers to develop critical thinkers who can actively engage with society becomes an irrelevance or even a hindrance to the system.

Of course, there is profit to be made here too.

In the United States, transnational education corporations already produce commerciallyavailable standardised tests, which whole school districts can buy into. Once you have bought into the test, you need textbooks and curriculum materials, standardised lesson plans, mock assessments, the list goes on. The US education market is now estimated at around £550 billion in total. The same edu-businesses also operate chains of low-cost for-profit schools in developing countries where they profit directly from those trying to escape poverty. One of the largest companies, Pearsons, has just won the contract to administer the PISA international tests.

GERM spreading This underlines the fact that what we face is not just a national phenomenon but is in fact part of what has been referred to by various educationalists and academics as the Global Education Reform Movement or GERM. This movement is actively working to change the very nature of education globally.

GERM policies are being spread by a range of organisations including many national governments whose education policies have focused on competition, ‘choice’ and marketisation, transnational corporations who benefit directly from the opening up of education markets, philanthropic organisations with links to big

Gawain Little Gawain Little is a member of the NUT National Executive and Chair of its Professional Unity Committee. This is the first of a two-part article based loosely on his speech to the AGM of Unify – the campaign for one education union. The second part will look at the implications for what a united union could look like.

7

2015 Election – what do the words mean?

The role of government is to regulate the interactions between people in the interests of the rights of all citizens.

When this principle is applied to the sphere of education this means ensuring that there is no discrimination, in that all roads must be open to all young people, with no restraints from financial causes. Nor must there be a system which acts in a discriminatory way through any selection processes that close doors for future development of a young person. That includes the need for a broad and balanced curriculum for all.

So what do we find when we look at the political parties? At the time of writing there is a dearth of election manifestos. What follows are therefore merely some thoughts which could be indicative about what we could be looking for and what we find, with an emphasis on our schools.

website, sigh deeply, and ponder on the extent to which the Tories are heading that way.

From the 'Issues' section:• Allow the creation of new grammar schools.

• Immigrants must financially support themselves and their dependents for 5 years.

This means private health insurance (except emergency medical care), private education and private housing - they should pay into the pot before they take out of it.

From the 'News' section, under the heading A Better Education System for a Better Britain (Paul Nuttall, September 2014):• We need a return to a more traditional primary education, with ‘the three ‘R’s.

• Scrap sex and relationship education for children under the age of 11.

• A grammar school in every town.

• Every child is different and one-size fits all does not work. Some are good at academia and some with their hands. UKIP will introduce an Apprenticeship Qualification Option to take the place of 4 GCSE’s and be carried on to A-Level.

To say nothing of blaming oversize classes on 'Open door immigration'!

The Conservatives' claims On their website, under the heading 'The best schools and skills for young people' they say they are:• Protecting the schools budget - because nothing is more important than our children's education • Raising standards and restoring discipline - so our children can compete with the world's best and enjoy a better future • Attracting the top graduates to teaching • Investing £18 billion in new schools - so buildings and facilities match our ambition for the next generation Suffice it to say that their first point has already been shown to be a simple lie, and the last point unsurprisingly fails to detail which type of schools or where the money will actually go. We all know that they have poured resources into any type of school that can maintain class privilege by undermining the state sector, and are now only just trailing behind UKIP re selection and grammar schools.

The Labour Party What do you notice about the following statement from the Introduction to the Labour Party's 2014 Consultation Paper on Education and Childcare Agenda 2015?

The Government has narrowly focused on what schools are called, rather than how they teach. Putting that right is the central task for the next Labour Government. That is why we will transform vocational routes for the 50 per cent who do not go to university, with gold standard qualifications, and a step change in the number and quality of apprenticeships. It is why we will prioritise what matters most in our schools; driving up standards with a relentless focus on the quality of teaching. It is only through achieving this vision that we will build on

The predictability of UKIP Pick your way through this lot from UKIP's

8

the success of the last Labour Government and allow all young people to play their part in a One Nation society and economy.

1. The Labour Party is appealing to the (understandable but mistaken) wish of many people to ‘keep the politics out of education’ – it does this by presenting the issue of different types of schools as a 'political' rather than an 'educational' matter. But politics means protecting rights!

2. The use of the phrase 'One Nation' is the kind of emotional appeal which can lead people into thinking that this is actually possible while there are different kinds of schools – an appeal which completely ignores the effectively class nature of the creation of academies, private schools, grammar schools, free schools, etc. These class divisions are inherent, and merely exaggerated by the special privileges applied to those schools.

3. The implication for this is that having different types of schools does not in itself affect the quality of education on offer to all. That somehow it is possible to have high standards and excellent teaching without consideration of the actual broader structure of the school system.

4. There is an implied (though not outwardly stated) support for the idea that some children are destined for university, whilst others are destined for 'vocational routes' ( remember Eysenck and Cyril Byrt and the false science of psychometry?)

The document claims it will change things through local accountability:Labour will empower local communities to have a greater say about education in their area, rather than continue the top-down control approach to schools demonstrated by the current Government.

And continues:We will also put an end to the fragmented, divisive school system created by this Government. We will ensure that every school can excel and every child is given a great education.

And how will it do this? What is its strategy?

‘Labour will extend to all schools the freedoms academies can use to innovate and raise standards, such as freedom over the curriculum, trusting teachers in all schools to get on with the job.’

Which hardly even qualifies as putting sticking plaster over the wounds. The academies and all the rest remain in place, free of accountability, free of any control over admission policies.

‘Existing Free Schools and those in the pipeline will be allowed to continue, but will be held to the same high standard as other schools.’

And what exactly does that mean? Certainly nothing that will change the 'fragmented, divisive school system' Labour is supposed to dislike so much.

OK, so where do we turn?

Where do we find a programme which indicates a move towards an education system which is not controlled by business interests, but truly serves the people?

The Green Party No, I am not saying it is necessarily the right thing to rush out on Election Day and vote for the Greens.

But we must at least acknowledge that that party's 2014 policy document on Education ('Part of the Green Party's policies for a Sustainable Society') makes, in many respects, pretty inspiring reading.

It is detailed and to the point, being totally unafraid to point out the root causes of what Labour calls our 'fragmented, divisive school system' and its damaging effects, particularly on the most vulnerable members of our society – the poor and ethnic minorities.

The fundamental backdrop is expressed in the party's principles of as much devolution 'to the most local level that is possible', with the caveat that monitoring by Local Authorities is needed 'regarding issues such as the quality of education, the range of options offered and consistency of internal assessment'.

They would 'end the current testing regimes and rigid age related benchmarking', and they 'oppose any attempt to privatise state-funded schools or to enable them to become profit-making'.

They would integrate Free Schools and Academies into the Local Authorities, which they would strengthen. But it is only 'all teachers in state funded schools' who would be employed by LEAs and would have QTS, so the details of this 'integration' are unclear.

SATS and League Tables ('as they are now') would be abolished.

Schools would have 'fair and balanced' intakes.

On curricular matters, there is recognition that 'in many countries academic learning is not introduced before the age of 7.' But the proposed move to extending early years education, with its 9

emphasis on play, to the age of 6 is considerably weakened by expressly stating that this 'does not preclude those who wish to enter their children into school earlier from doing so.'

This last sentence, and other sections, lead us into the need to look at the 'who decides?' question in more detail.

done 'in Government' (sic – or sick), reinforces the commonly held view now that they are a waste of space, and a dangerous one at that. They want fair admissions for all schools (no details), and local heads to form Head Teacher Boards to help schools.

'Nuff said.

'Small government', 'localism' 'parental choice' – the traps

Childcare – a footnote

and

Of course childcare is an important matter that is being much trumpeted. But it cannot in itself solve the problems of our divided and divisive education system, and it is a diversion to suggest that the full answer lies there.

It is not just the Greens who are into local communities and individual choice. But what does this mean in practice?

It depends on the circumstances and on motivations. The image of a healthy society reflecting the dynamics of a symphony orchestra is one that has been used in a number of places: each player does their own part, but what matters is the whole. This assumes an environment in which people are sufficiently educated in, and committed to, such an approach. Otherwise the choice becomes one between anarchy (survival of the fittest) and despotism. The first oboist is part of the whole. 'Localism' can easily turn out to be the small scale version of excessive nationalism serving the interests of whoever happens to be dominant in the location. And that is just a variation on the very 'market forces' that 'localists' profess to oppose.

Which way do we vote?

As ever, we will be torn between the polarities of a party (or parties) that share our aims on the one hand, and tactics/strategy on the other. Such is the reality of the situation under our present so-called 'democracy'.

If, on the other hand, we lived in a society structured around the interests of those who work, rather than those who grab, even this false dichotomy could be a thing of the past.

Andy Dyer

Is there no-where else to go? – The Liberal Party (not the LibDems!)

Well, actually there is. In my wanderings on the internet I came across The Liberal Party – the party formed in 1989 in opposition to the formation of the LibDems. Probably insignificant in its political potential, it alone seems to offer pretty much all we would want for Education in this country. There is no wishy-washy liberalism there – visit the website and see for yourself: http://www.liberal.org.uk/ policies/education.htm. How sad that what I would be so pleased to read in the Labour Party's material can only be found here.

And the other parties?

Plaid Cymru does oppose foundation schools, academies and free schools, but most of what they say about education on their website is singing from a similar song-sheet to Labour.

SNP trumpets its 'achievements', and states its aim to maintain lack of tuition fees at Scottish universities. But otherwise says little.

'Sorry' – I seem to have missed out the LibDems. But one glance at their website, which sites what wonderful things they say they have

10

Novel and contentious and prospective candidates asking them to raise it in their constituencies. UNISON also posed specific questions on procurement, risk and liability to the Department for Education – questions that remain outstanding many months later.

The Government initially responded that this was a matter solely for AET. However, following months of campaigning they accepted that the AET plan was potentially ‘novel and contentious’.

Consequently it needed the approval of the Secretary of State to go ahead and she asked the Education Funding Agency to review AET’s plan in detail. As a result in November AET announced that it would not go ahead with the Joint Venture.

Instead they agreed to discuss an in-house alternative with UNISON and the other unions. We acknowledged that the board deserved some credit for listening to our concerns. We have now begun to work with AET and our staff side colleagues to achieve an in-house solution.

We don’t expect this to be our last campaign to stop academies privatising services, cutting jobs or undermining preciously fought for staff pay and conditions. However the success of the campaign, based on all parts of the union working with their local school communities and MPs, shows when we work together we can impact on the drift to privatisation in education.

In January 2014 Academies Enterprise Trust (AET), the largest academy chain, told UNISON and sister unions that they planned to set up a joint venture with a private company. The new venture would run most schools’ services and the staff who worked in them, except classroom based staff. This move would have privatised an unprecedented range of services across its 77 schools and allowed the private company to make a profit directly from public funds. The contract was worth between £200 and £400 million with a contract length of 7 years. Subsequently Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC) – which has little experience in this area of service delivery – became the company likely to do the work.

This radical plan would have opened the door to similar privatisations in other academies and so UNISON led a campaign with other unions to stop it. We pointed out that the proposals would have seen school heads lose control over staff and budgets, alongside cuts to services, jobs, pay and conditions as the private company squeezed out its profit. PWC would also have made money from increased charges to the general public who use schools’ facilities such as swimming pools and gyms. We also raised concerns over potential conflicts of interests for school business managers who would be employed by the new company, but would be dealing with demands from Heads employed by AET. UNISON called on AET to stop the proposal as it was a distraction for their board and senior management team from their mission of providing a good education for pupils. AET had been failing in a fair number of its schools, some of which have since transferred to other academy trusts.

Our campaign focussed on regular engagement with school leaders, governing bodies, parents and local MPs; as well as our members and activists in AET schools, to ensure they received alternative messages to those provided by AET. This was backed by a press strategy that saw regular coverage in the national and trade press.

UNISON members Alex Cunningham MP and David Blunkett MP, proved vital allies in Parliament. Questions were raised in the Education Select Committee and on the floor of House – forcing responses from government ministers. We also targeted candidates in the Clacton by-election (AET had a school in Clacton) and contacted MPs

Jon Richards UNISON national secretary for education and children's services

Private Eye

11

A Trade Unionists guide to the impact of European Union membership on workers Published by No2EU Trade Union Information Group, www.no2eu.com This new pamphlet from NO2EU sets out to expose and attack the neo-liberal basis of the European Union. It kicks off with an excellent introduction by John Hendy QC into the fundamentals of the EU, followed by 8 chapters looking at specific issues.

It highlights a series of key issues for workers, and points out how the EU has failed to protect those faced by zero hour contracts, TUPE transfers, (Transfer of Undertakings [Protection of Employment] Regulations) health and safety, and more. After each of these, there is a resounding call for Britain to leave the EU. The trade union movement has moved its position from the dark days of the 1980s, when the European Community was seen as a saviour from Thatcherism, to an increasingly critical view. In part, this is because of a series of anti-worker judgements by the European Court, and secretive corporate influence resulting in, for example, trade agreements like the impending Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership.

But when we are faced with the growth of UKIP, it then feels like this pamphlet has missed a trick. Simply advocating leaving the EU as a panacea for solving our social ills, or even as a stepping stone, is overly simplistic.

The UK is not in the typical position of an EU state. Generally speaking, it has not been dragged in a neo-liberal direction by the EU – instead our leaders have been a driving force moving this capitalists club even further to the right. Many of the workers rights introduced by the EU were well below minimum provisions for typical EU states – but still look quite good from a British perspective.

For example, the chapter on agency workers highlights the inadequacies in the agency workers directive. However, it is by no means certain that the British government would even have introduced these paltry safeguards.

The chapter on the free movement of labour demonstrates the high level of migration to the UK, and its detrimental effects. It concludes by saying that leaving the EU is the only rational response to limit migration and stop wage-cutting. But who would doubt that any of our right-wing Prime Ministers would have sought ways to encourage cheap workers from elsewhere to come to Britain if the pool of unemployed started to shrink?

Part of the problem for the pamphlet is that it has little analysis of what the EU actually is in class terms. Whilst it cites many examples of EU treaties agreeing to various changes – though often with a frustrating lack of detail – these have usually been specifically agreed by the UK – not imposed on it. Rather than imposing changes on those who rule our countries, they are is welcome tools in their armoury to introduce neo-liberal changes which would otherwise have been impeded by much greater domestic opposition.

The EU is a neo-liberal club of capitalist states, and has been collectively used by the ruling classes of these states. In implying that leaving the EU would – on its own - solve key problems faced by working people, the pamphlet ignores the principle battle, which is against our own ruling class.

It also fails to address the issue that the rightwing of our ruling class is pushing to leave the EU precisely so that it can attack workers more intensively. Leaving the EU under progressive working class pressure may look very different from leaving it under ultra-right neoliberal pressure. In our current context, this issue has to be addressed by left forces against the EU. This trade unionists’ guide contains useful information, but we need to sharpen our arguments further.

Pete Jones

12

has since been taken over by the Dixons chain and has been re-branded as Dixons Kings Academy.

Money, Money, Money The parliamentary Public Accounts Committee could scarcely contain its bewilderment when taking evidence from Sir Greg Martin, Executive Headteacher of South London’s Durand Academy. Chair of the Committee Margaret Hodge MP said she found the academy’s financial arrangements ‘pretty gobsmacking’ and queried how a headteacher of an academy recently downgraded by Ofsted had time to run a school, a leisure group (built on land transferred from the school) and a dating agency! The MPs were surprised to learn that in 2012-13 Sir Greg earned £161,000 as the sole director of GMG leisure group on top of his £200,000 salary.

The National Audit Office has taken the most unusual step of issuing an ‘adverse opinion’ on the DfE’s accounts. It explained that the Whitehall department had not properly accounted for spending by thousands of individual academies.

The head of the NAO said the DfE’s failure to provide statements that gave a ‘true and fair view’ of the financial activity of its organisations meant it was not meeting the requirements of parliament.

Meanwhile Schools Week reports that individual academies have been bailed out with government advances, including £1m handed to millionaire Academies Minister Lord Nash’s own Pimlico Academy in Westminster.

On the other hand, Portslade Aldridge has received a financial notice to improve because it has not paid back £100,000 owed to the DfE. This is the same Brighton academy where Principal James Fox left last term following the mis-registration of GCSE entries. And in Bradford, the founding principal of Kings Science Academy has been re-bailed while police enquiries into financial irregularities continue. Bradford East MP David Ward told the Telegraph and Argus ‘This investigation has been unbelievably long. I hope the length of time of this investigation means they are doing a completely thorough job’ adding that ‘I have always been told by the Department for Education they can't discuss it because of the police investigation’. The academy

Free school no school

A South London 16-19 free school won’t be opening in September because the sponsor has pulled out just days after promoting itself with promises of lessons in robotics and trips to the large hadron collider in Cern. Tony Sewell, chair of governors at STEM Academy Croydon Gateway said ‘…setting up a free school is a major undertaking and at this present time we feel that we are unable to commit the level of resources required to successfully launch a new academy whilst also fully supporting STEM Academy Tech City, our existing 16-19 academy in Islington.’

The ‘level of resources required’ would presumably have involved proper terms and conditions for their staff. Last year STEM in Islington had to back down when teachers there held a victorious campaign for union recognition and against zero-hour contracts.

Apparently the plans to open the South Norwood STEM free school in Croydon had provoked concern from the Harris Federation. The chain operates nine academies in the borough.

Croydon is also home to its headquarters where chief executive Sir Dan Moynihan earned in excess of £375k last year.

Brokers' bonanza

The Department for Education has admitted to spending an almost unbelievable£14m on academy brokers since 2010 but says it has reduced their pay rate ‘significantly’. Between them, these brokers have spent thousands of days travelling the country, forcing schools to become academies sponsored by the DfE’s favoured chains. We still are no clearer as to why one chain is chosen over another as this is exempted from the Freedom of Information Act as ‘commercially sensitive’. Where governors refuse to comply with the brokers, as in Twydall School in

13

Kent, they are threatened with the sack. And in Lewisham, parents, students and staff have voiced their opposition to academy status for four local schools. Staff struck at Prendergast Hilly Fields, Ladywell Fields and Prendergast Vale, along with Sedgehill School where an IEB has been imposed.

An unfortunate coincidence of circumstances Solicitor Julian Gizzi, whose practice is contracted to provide legal services to Ofsted, has completed the second review into allegations that the Inspiration Trust had prior notice of Ofsted inspections of three Norfolk academies. Mr Gizzi found that, on the balance of probabilities, the academies were not given any more than the required notice. However Mr Gizzi reports that there was ‘an unfortunate coincidence of circumstances’ in which ‘the Ormiston Victory Academy server, containing all the emails from the relevant period, was replaced when the academy moved into their new premises in November 2013. I understand that the server is currently disconnected and so the emails are inaccessible. Furthermore, I was informed that the minutes of the Senior Leadership Team (SLT) meetings for May 2013 are missing from both the paper and electronic files held by the academy. Finally, I was told that all the emails contained on Dame Rachel's Inspiration Trust email account, dating from March 2013 onwards, were irrevocably deleted by accident in September 2014.’ The Observer had alleged that Dame Rachel de Souza, Chief Executive of the Inspiration Trust, told her secretary: ‘14 and 15th May – please do not add any further appointments – I am expecting a late notice very important event on or around those days.’ Ormiston Victory Academy was inspected on 14th and 15th May 2014. Apparently Dame Rachel’s secretary was not available to take part in the investigation.

When academies go wrong St Adhelm’s Academy in Poole was closed for three days last week when parents were told there were insufficient staff to guarantee their children’s health and safety. This is the latest in a string of disasters to hit the Dorset secondary. Its sponsors have said they want to leave the school, after receiving an inadequate Ofsted judgement and a financial notice to improve, when managers fell for a million pound email fraud.

The Bournemouth Echo recounts a catalogue of problems which the current joint sponsors, the Diocese of Salisbury and the University of Bournemouth, have failed to tackle.

Sir David Carter, the Regional Schools Commissioner – the DfE’s viceroy in the South West – is now in talks with the Ambitions Trust to take over the academy. We note that the Ambitions chain may well be ambitious but it has no experience of running a mainstream secondary school.

‘You have failed …’

‘You have failed Braintree’ was the stark message from parents at Tabor Academy to Lilac Sky Academy Trust as it said it could no longer sponsor the Essex secondary, just two years after promising to make it ‘outstanding’. Ofsted judged it to require special measures. At first, chief executive Trevor Averre-Beeson, author of We don't need no education: 101 ways to transform a school , suggested a name change but last week Lilac Sky said it would be pulling out, leaving the DfE to find a new sponsor as regulations prevent failed academies returning to their local authorities. In its announcement Lilac Sky wished the academy ‘the very best of luck in the coming years.’

Not the forcing type Secretary of State Nicky Morgan tells us she is ‘not a forcing type of person’ but there seems to be no letup in the pressure on schools to become academies.

Could this be because the newly appointed regional schools commissioners will be judged on how many schools convert?

When asked by the Eastern Daily Press whether he will try to convert as many schools as possible because he will be judged on this, Dr Tim Coulson, Regional Schools Commissioner for the Eastern region, said he told schools ‘just to become an academy for being an academy’s sake isn’t for me the be-all-and-end-all’. We shall judge him by his actions.

Staff Battle for Jobs

Teaching and support staff face an uncertain future at Helenswood and William Parker Academies in Hastings, East Sussex with 64 jobs under threat because of funding worries. The academies are part of the Ark Group, whose chair Tory donor Lord Fink, has been in the news recently regarding his banking arrangements.

14

International news affordable housing, education and employment opportunities for homeless parents.

It also recommended the provision of specialised services for the many mothers who had been rendered homeless due to domestic violence.

Morning Star, 18/11/2014

USA 527,000 destitute California

children

in

THE US National Centre on Family Homelessness warned recently that the number of homeless children has surged in recent years to an all-time high — one child in 30.

A comprehensive state-by-state report blamed a high poverty rate, the lack of affordable housing and the impact of pervasive domestic violence.

Entitled America’s Youngest Outcasts, the centre’s report calculated that nearly 2.5 million US children were homeless at some point in 2013.

The number is based on the Department of Education’s latest count of 1.3 million homeless children in state schools, supplemented by estimates of homeless pre-school children not counted by the department.

Problems are particularly severe in California, which holds an eighth of the US population, but accounts for more than a fifth of the nation’s homeless children, with a tally of nearly 527,000.

National Centre director and report coauthor Carmela DeCandia noted that the federal government had made progress in reducing homelessness among veterans and chronically homeless adults.

But she warned that “the same level of attention and resources has not been targeted to help families and children.

“As a society, we’re going to pay a high price, in human and economic terms.”

Child homelessness increased by 8 per cent across the US from 2012 to 2013, signalling potentially devastating effects on children’s educational, emotional and social development, as well as on their parents’ health, employment prospects and parenting abilities.

The centre’s analysis included a composite index ranking the states on the extent of child homelessness, efforts to combat it and the overall level of child well-being.

States with the best scores were Minnesota, Nebraska and Massachusetts. At the bottom were Alabama, Mississippi and California.

The researchers said that remedies for child homelessness should include an expansion of

CUBA Highest education investment in the world According to a survey conducted by the World Bank, Cuba leads the world in education investments. The report, which looked at public investments in education as a percentage of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) between 2009-2013, found that the Caribbean island allocates the highest share of its GDP to education, with 13 per cent.

Cuba was followed by the Democratic Republic of Timor- Leste (East Timor) with 11.3 per cent, Denmark with 8.7 per cent and Ghana with 8.1 per cent. Bolivia and Venezuela were also placed in the top 10 spenders, each with 6.9 per cent of their GDP allocated to education.

The survey accounted for ‘public expenditure on education which includes government spending on educational institutions (both public and private), education administration, and transfers/subsidies for private entities (students/households and other private entities)’ CubaSi, Winter 2014-15

Chile Through struggle comes hope For over 40 years the education sytem in Chile has been one of the most segregated in the world, as a result of being the test bed for neo-liberalism – a situation made possible by the bloody coup in 1973 by the dictator Pinochet. Although he eventually left office and was succeeded by an ostensible democracy, those 'reforms' have remained in place.

Indeed under the last left-leaning governments they were further developed, as the then teaching union leaders co-operated with government to allow measures like standardised testing and the beginnings of performance related pay to be rolled

15

out in public schools. Meanwhile teachers in the bloated private school sector were unregulated.

For the World Bank, Chile's education system has been a success story. Measured by PISA, it has done comparatively well, and in their latest report on Latin America, the author uses Chile as a role model of effective change. Never mind that the market-driven policies mean that it is segregated according to income – on average the students do well in tests. Chilean Professor Mario Waissbluth, from his considerable experience of teaching the students who emerge from this system, sums it up thus ;'They spent 12 years in school, training to answer multiple choice sheets, speedily forgotten to open brain space for next year´s new payload of material.'

When multimillionaire and right wing President Sebastian Pinera came to power in 2009, he attempted to complete the neo-liberal 'reform' process by sweeping away all the labour rights of teachers and making them subject to a draconian system of performance related pay and tenure, characterised by the World Bank as 'the most comprehensive and coherent policy reform in Latin America to date.' However the reform was stopped in its tracks by a movement for free education led by students, which included massive and creative street protests as well as occupations of universities and high schools. They were often joined by teachers who maintained a determined opposition to the reform.

As a result of this struggle, a left leaning government, led by Michelle Bachelet, won the next election, promising to reverse the damaging policies of the last 40 years and replace them with a free education system from kindergarten to university. As the present leader of the teachers’ union says: 'It is important to make it clear that this reform would not have passed into law if it had not been for the struggle led by the social and political movement.' And what is key is that the struggle did not stop with the election of the Bachelet government. Students and teachers were out in the streets in their thousands last year demanding that the government move further and faster with the promised reforms.

It is not clear how far the reforms will go or

whether they will dismantle the damaging standardised testing and performance related pay policies. One thing is certain, proponents of market-driven education are circling – the World Bank is continuing to propagate its policies and those who stand most to gain from private education in the country are beginning to organise.

Chile has long held an iconic place for those who struggle for social justice. The dreadful, bloody coup, the bravery of those who resisted and now the inspirational and creative struggle of the school and university students as they continue the fight for free public education have affected and inspired people all over the world. Once again that country is teaching us a lesson – that only through concerted struggle is it possible to roll back the neo-liberal juggernaut and advocate for democratic education.

See more at: http:// www.teachersolidarity.com/blog/chile-throughstruggle-comes-hope#sthash.LJGTnY9m.dpuf

Thursday, June 4th 6.30pm, Hamilton House, WC1H 9BD An evening for Venezuela & celebrating 10 years of solidarity, with very special guests from Venezuela and a host of other well known speakers.

16

17