Education for Tomorrow 126

EDUCATION for TOMORROW DEFEND STATE EDUCATION!

No to the EU,no to Trident!

Teacher shortage crisis Labour’s emerging education policies Professional unity

‘Massive teacher shortage, real pay decline, temporary contracts, cuts in funding, redundancies, overwork, Ofsted, forced academisation and privatisation etc – surely enough is enough?’ .

SPRING 2016

ISSUE 126 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, 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 Teacher shortage crisis – 4 Mesothelioma deaths continue – 5 Prevent – 6

ISSN 2066-9145

Website: www.educationfortomorrow.org.uk

Labour’s new education policies – 7

Published and printed by the EDUCATION for TOMORROW Collective

Professional unity – 8

Cover photo: Stop Trident Demo 27 February 2016

The Truth About Our Schools – 10 Academy battle news – 11 International news – 13

2

Editorial

No to the EU, no to Trident!

It's bad news for Education, Health and all public services that the Labour Party wants Britain to remain in the European Union (EU). Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn recently said: '… we believe it is the best framework for European trade and cooperation and is in the best interest of the British people … but then went on to say ‘In the referendum campaign Labour will make it clear that we stand up for public ownership and accountability.'

These contradictory statements are echoed

by Green MP Caroline Lucas who told Parliament that the European Union could work to 'spread peace and make our economies more sustainable, and to promote democracy and human rights, at home and throughout the world,' while going on to argue that it 'must urgently change direction, away from an obsessive focus on competition and free trade'.

Of course the Labour leader has to choose which battles to fight within his party but his past voting record indicates that he must realise that such faith in the transformability of the EU is misplaced. The grim reality is that these are the very goals for which the EU was set up. It is currently negotiating secret trade deals which would institutionalise irreversible mass privatisations of public services that working people rely on, like education and health, lower safety standards in the interests of profit, and abolish tariffs for the world's largest corporations.

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) would create secret courts that would allow transnational corporations to sue nation states for huge sums of money for any breaches of this charter for finance capital.

That's why the bulk of the Tory Party, the Confederation of British Industry and the Institute of Directors all support continued membership.

That's why workers in Britain and every other member country should oppose it.

migrant workers for the first four years after arriving in Britain, when the evidence shows that they are actually net contributors to the benefits system. Hence his derogatory language, on Holocaust Memorial Day to describe refugees – most of whom are fleeing war and persecution – as a 'bunch of migrants'. Hence too his threat to deport Muslim women if they fail to meet arbitrary targets for learning English – while cutting funding for English language classes.

This reactionary government is increasingly behaving as if it's running a one-party state. It's Trade Union Bill is designed not only to further weaken trade union organisation but also to undermine the opposition by cutting its funding.

Its new proposed procurement rules that ban local authorities and NHS trusts from boycotting Israeli goods and services is imposing Conservative Party policy on elected councils across the board.

Dividing workers by scape-goating some, is a very old ruling class ploy. We mustn't fall for it.

Trident replacement Labour's Defence Review is a welcome sign that, in other policy areas, change could be on the way. With unprecedented cuts to public services taking place and far more to follow, the Parliamentary consensus on Trident replacement is breaking down. The challenge is coming from some surprising sources. Crispin Blunt, former army officer and now Conservative Chair of the House of Commons Defence Select Committee, has revealed new figures which suggest that Trident replacement, rather than costing £100 billion (the figure estimated by CND) would actually cost £167 billion. 'The price required, both from the UK taxpayer and our conventional forces, is now too high to be rational or sensible', he believes. ‘You don’t achieve peace by planning for war and not respecting human rights’ Jeremy Corbyn told the Stop Trident rally at the end of February.

The lunacy of spending hundreds of billions on weapons of mass destruction that would wipe out humanity if they were ever used, is at last being challenged. Labour's Defence Diversification policy needs development, with the workforce being involved, to create a British industry that builds for life rather than death.

A 'bunch of migrants’ Xenophobes, bigots and racists may also oppose membership of the EU, of course, and hasn't the Government shown how happy they are to play along with such prejudices? Hence Cameron's negotiation proposal to withdraw benefits from EU

3

Crisis looming Too few teachers and too many children specialists, and larger class sizes to cope with the chronic shortages in the profession.

‘Ensuring that there are enough excellent teachers in our schools is fundamental to ensuring that all children get a great education. The Government’s failure on this extremely basic issue is risking the education of our young people.’

Tories desperately try to cover-up the extent of teacher shortages The Government is resorting to desperate measures to try to mask the extent of their failure on teacher recruitment. They have: • Stripped out undergraduate trainees from their target number for trainees, so that the target appears lower overall.

• Included Teach First trainees for the first time in the number of postgraduate trainees recruited, to give the appearance that they have hit a higher percentage of their target than the year before – this is not the case.

• Refused in Parliamentary written answers to publish the combined target for both undergraduate and postgraduate trainees for 2015/16, which would allow the data to be comparable to previous years, claiming that the information is ‘not available’. Yet, the target for the following year has already been published.

• At the last minute, brought forward the publication of the data to the week before it was originally scheduled.

New analysis shows that for every year under the Tories the number of trainee teachers recruited has fallen. The total number of trainees recruited for 2015/16 is now 7,000 fewer than for 2009/10.Despite this, the Tories are intentionally misleading the public, claiming that the number increased in the last year.

Lucy Powell MP, Labour’s Shadow Education Secretary, said: ‘This is desperate stuff from a Government that is storing up huge problems for our schools with their failure on teacher recruitment and retention. Whilst half of all schools had unfilled positions at the start of this year, it is obvious to both parents and school leaders that the situation is extremely serious, and yet Ministers are now trying to pull the wool over peoples’ eyes. All the while, standards are being threatened as schools are forced to turn to unqualified staff, temporary supply teachers, non-

http://socialisteducationalassociation.org/

LGA secondary places shortage warning The Local Government Association (LGA) has called for the return of powers to open new schools to deal with rising pupil numbers.

Without this, and the ability to force academies to expand, they will be unable to meet their legal duty to ensure a school place for every child.

Commenting on the LGA’s concern, Mary Bousted, General Secretary of the Association of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers said that the increase in pupil numbers was not a surprise, that the Government had let children down badly by not planning properly and that the free school experiment had failed in its most important purpose, to ensure that every child had a local school place.

MB Where have all the squaddies gone?

Not into the classroom, apparently Education for Tomorrow has reported in recent years on government attempts to involve the military and ex-military in our schools (EfT 112 Military free school planned for Oldham, EfT 115 Troops to Teachers fiasco, EfT 118 A costly flop). Thanks to Private Eye for this one.

About-turn!

It has been more than five years since press reports enthused that 'hundreds of battle-hardened exsoldiers' were about to be drafted into classrooms 4

under Michael Gove's Troops to Teachers (TtT) initiative, but so far just 32 people have qualified to teach under the scheme.

TtT is a fast-track, two- year course which leads to both a degree and qualified teacher status.

It is open to those who have already completed a minimum amount of the armed forces training schemes, such as Command, Leadership and Management. Trainees spend most of their time working in schools for four days a week.

The former Education Secretary announced the scheme in 2010, to fawning enthusiasm from pro-military disciplinarians. But, as reported in Eye 1336, by 2013 the initiative still hadn't launched.

There were 180 places available for the first cohort of trainee teachers, who started in January 2014. Figures obtained by the TES show that just 41 of those places were taken - and of those, only 32 finished the course. The next two intakes, covering all those currently on the course, were of 54 and 51 trainees, but the course has suffered some dropouts, leaving a total of 95 still in training.

Those numbers mean that fewer ex-forces personnel are going into teaching under Troops to Teachers than used to do so without the scheme.

Teaching Agency figures from 2011 and 2012 showed that 123 people leaving the armed forces were accepted on to teacher training courses.

continued to preside over the year-on-year erosion of teachers’ pay and worsening of their conditions of service.

MB

Another teacher dies of asbestos poisoning Court blames exposure for death of retiree Elizabeth Belt TEACHERS and pupils are still at risk of deadly asbestos poisoning, unions warned recently after a court blamed classroom exposure for the death of a retiree. Lincolnshire coroner Paul Kelly recorded that Elizabeth Belt, who taught in schools in the county from 1968 to 1995, died as a result of an industrial disease.

Ms Belt suffered from mesothelioma, a form of lung cancer which can materialise decades after exposure to asbestos dust, for three years before her death last September. She worked for decades in classrooms where display boards were made of the deadly insulator, a practice which is now banned.

Private Eye 1411

Roustabouts to the Rescue They’re good at plugging gaps, so with the downturn in oil and gas production there’s a growing number of out-of-work oil and gas workers. They’re used to working in harsh conditions so why not retrain them as teachers?

Well, that is exactly what is being proposed.

With an increasingly serious teacher shortage developing it has been announced that the Transition Training Fund will be extended to support former oil and gas workers to retrain as teachers.

Chris Keates, General Secretary of the NASUWT, said that such people could bring a wealth of skills and talents to the profession and therefore initiatives that supported the recruitment of career-changers and maintained the high standards of entry to the profession would be a positive step. But she added that the Scottish Government’s laudable drive to recruit teachers was at risk of being seriously undermined if it

5

But unions say a whopping three quarters of schools — mainly buildings constructed between 1945 and 1975 — still have the substance on site.

Former Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) president Hank Roberts said its continued presence on sites was a ‘national scandal’ that had led to Britain becoming ‘the mesothelioma capital of the world.’

National Union of Teachers’ (NUT) General Secretary Christine Blower said: ‘The death of yet another teacher reinforces the reason why the issue of asbestos in our schools needs to be effectively dealt with.

‘The problem has been brought to the attention of successive governments for decades yet still there is no long-term strategy for the complete removal of asbestos from schools.

‘It is a gross dereliction of duty to children and school staff that this silent killer remains in schools.’

Research carried out by the NUT last year found that four in five schools failed to offer information on how the ‘silent killer’ could be managed.

NASUWT General Secretary Chris Keates blasted: ‘Data from the Health and Safety Executive and the union’s own casework demonstrates that in too many schools statutory and good practice provisions relating to the management of asbestos are being flouted.

‘This government fails to take seriously health and safety concerns, has cut funding to the Health and Safety Executive, has failed to secure the compliance of employers with health and safety provisions and has consequently increased the risks to employees.’

Ms Belt provided written testimony before her death detailing the presence of asbestos in the classrooms in which she worked. Last year the NUT estimated that 300 former pupils and 15 teachers were dying of mesothelioma.

Just what is Prevent?

This question was asked by a subscriber after reading the article ‘The serious dangers of the Prevent strategy’ in the last issue According to the Institute of Race Relations (IRR) 'Prevent is a programme developed during the first decade of the century as part of the UK's response to terrorism, designed to prevent children and young people from being drawn in to terrorism. In the wake of revelations that a number of British schoolchildren and families had left Britain to join Islamist terrorists in Syria, the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act 2015 for the first time imposed on specified authorities, including local authorities, schools, nurseries and social services departments a duty to have due regard in the exercise of their functions to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism. These bodies must refer those they believe to be vulnerable to the police, who decide whether to refer them to a panel’ …'

The IRR considers the criteria to be extremely broad and vague. A 'vulnerability assessment framework' for use by the panels set out three criteria – engagement with a group, cause or ideology; intent to cause harm; and capability to cause harm – by reference to 22 different indicators.

The panels are called 'Channel panels' If it wasn't so threatening it would be a joke.

The IRR considers the Prevent programme to be 'divisive and discriminatory', in breach of of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and 'not the way to win hearts and minds in the fight against terrorism.’

Recent examples of the results of Prevent have included the ten-year-old questioned by police after mistakenly writing that he lived in a 'terrorist house' rather than a 'terraced house', a 15year-old who was referred to police after he came to school with leaflets promoting a boycott of Israeli goods and another teenager identified as potentially requiring de-radicalisation after attending a peaceful protest against the Israeli deputy ambassador.

Conrad Landin Morning Star, 23/1/2013

MB 6

Seeing through the fog Labour’s emerging education policies With the accelerating speed with which state education is descending into chaos and fragmentation, Labour has the opportunity to challenge the government with some bold policies that would bring back local democracy, end selection, and reverse the trend towards inequality. How are they doing?

Lucy Powell, Shadow Education Secretary, has already given the Tories a good kicking over teacher shortages, 16-to-18 and early years spending cuts and the Kent Grammar school annexe. As anybody who saw her recent performance on BBC1’s Question Time will know, she is forceful, articulate and politically astute.

She wasn’t a Corbyn supporter in the leadership election, backing Andy Burnham instead. In an interview recently with Peter Wilby of the Guardian, she was asked if she was a Blairite, She replied: ‘I don’t have a label for myself. I joined Progress many, many years ago and I saw it as a mainstream thing.’ She didn’t seem optimistic about Corbyn’s success as leader, batting away inquiries with ‘we’ll see’ or ‘it’s early days’. Asked why she joined his shadow cabinet, she said she thought about it ‘quite a bit’ but decided the job was too good to turn down.

private schools’ charitable status. Some schools do great work, opening their facilities to neighbouring state schools and offering bursaries. Others do very little of that.’ So what course will Powell follow as shadow education secretary? Shortly after Corbyn appointed her she caused a stir when she reportedly told the Times Educational Supplement that she wanted to put academies and free schools under local council control.

A fortnight later, the press detected ‘significant backtracking’ (Daily Telegraph) when she told BBC Radio 4 that councils would merely have ‘oversight’. In fact, Powell points out, the TES used the word ‘control’ in the headline but her quotes mentioned only ‘accountability’.

Asked about the difference she replied: ‘If you talk about control, it implies going back 20 or 30 years when local authorities had a monopoly over providing services to schools. Accountability means the local authority can require schools to expand their intake or accept their fair share of SEN [special educational needs] children. Where the authority has concerns about performance – and some early warning signals come locally, not regionally or centrally – it should be able to trigger intervention. The system has become over-centralised and fragmented. We want to redress the balance.’

Testing Will she abolish or at least drastically reduce school tests? ‘No, the framework of testing has hugely improved standards over the past 20 years. My 11-yearold got a great deal out of working towards his Sats last year.’

Academies and free schools She is clear that a Labour government would not approve new free schools but, when asked if that meant turning away parents who want to open a school, she wobbles a little. ‘We’ll have to look at … yes, well, yes … There have been some good people coming to the sector and running good schools, so we’ll need to ensure that continues.’ What she will put a stop to, she says, is the ‘perverse situation’ whereby anybody but the local council can open a new school.

Would she strip academies and free schools of their powers over admissions and make them join the local authority system? ‘Admissions is a very fraught, important and difficult area. I don’t [yet] have the answer.’

No distinctive education policies yet, then. So come on all you new Labour Party members, get stuck in!

Selection Are grammar schools for the chop? No. She is adamantly opposed to the government’s decision to allow a grammar school in Tonbridge, Kent, to open an annexe nine miles away (‘it’s a new school in all but name’) but ‘I want to devolve and make sure these decisions are made in the local area’. If local people want to keep grammar schools and want them to expand on their own sites, she says, they should have their way. And if they haven’t got a grammar school but want one? ‘They can’t have it,’ she says firmly. Is that logically consistent? ‘It may not be logical and consistent but it’s where things are at.’

Private schools

MB

Would she do anything about fee-charging schools?

‘There is a case for looking at the value for money of

7

Professional unity Time to have a union and an education system fit for the 21st century would insist that teachers had to have full professional qualification, that support staff would also have their own negotiated pay scales and conditions, and all would have a union with the power and the density of membership to defend them and advance education in any and all.

We say good luck and all the best to the ATL and NUT in their talks. We say to all who work in educating our children and our youth, wake up.

Look at what’s happening! Massive teacher shortage, real pay decline, temporary contracts, cuts in funding, redundancies, overwork, Ofsted, forced academisation and privatisation etc. Surely enough is enough.

Let’s get ourselves organised as the prerequisite to the successful defence of what we and our forebears built, to move forward and have a union and an education system fit for the 21st century. The time to move forward is now.

End the retreat; time for advance 20 years ago a small group of teachers from their different unions gathered and decided to form a cross union group to campaign for professional unity. It was 1996 and the idea of uniting the teacher unions seemed such an obviously good one – through the benefits it would bring – that it would not take too long to achieve. We decided to call it Professional Unity 2000 giving ourselves a time scale target, certainly somewhat naive in retrospect, of four years to achieve our goal.

We missed our target date but got very close in 2002. Eamonn O’Kane, then General Secretary of NASUWT, pressed hard, with support of the NASUWT Officers, but alas too hard and too fast.

The vote to move forward was tragically lost. ATL similarly stepped back from the move, despite support from the ATL General Secretary Peter Smith.

It was subsequently realised that Eamonn’s hurry was that he had terminal cancer and wanted to see his life’s dream occur before his untimely and tragic death.

Had we achieved unity then, things now in education would be different. Certainly it would not be Nirvana, but it would be much better. The trade union adage that unity brings or gives strength is undisputedly true. It would have been a union of well over half a million and would have ended the government’s divide and rule tactics which they have exploited so well.

Now at last we again have another opportunity to take a giant step forward in the task of uniting the profession. Further, during our 20 year struggle, we have realised that government and employers also take an advantage of division between support staff and teaching staff. We decided to rename our organisation UNIFY – one education union.

We now call for the creation of one education union. A single union of around one million education workers. A union that would represent staff from nurseries through to universities. That

Hank Roberts Organising Secretary UNIFY

Does unity matter?

The well-known trade union maxim asserts that ‘Unity is Strength’. In union conferences across the movement, people declare that working people need to unite to defend themselves against this government’s attacks. Indeed, there is not one trade union activist who would oppose the idea that we need greater unity.

But what does this actually mean for education unions? I worry that, too often, the unity we seek proves to be transitory, fleeting, of the moment. It is almost like we have been divided for so long that all of us have, on some level, developed a kind of cultural acceptance of that division.

For example, we are used to the idea that unity at school level means three different reps consulting their members then agreeing a joint approach before they meet management. Or, if we are very lucky, a join union meeting in which three different reps with work together to try and bring

8

their members to a shared approach. But, when independent and state sector, and are increasingly things get tough and action is called for, we are run as businesses. The devolution of key decision back to three different decision-making processes, on pay and conditions to school level shows the potentially with three different outcomes. increasing need to organise the entire workforce I recently heard a teacher at a union meeting and develop effective bargaining machinery at arguing for greater unity through the formation of workplace level. The assault on professionalism the equivalent of ‘join shop stewards committees’ through hyper-accountability and the denigration at workplace level. While this is of course welcome, of qualified teacher status increases the importance and far better than not working together, it of asserting our professionalism and professional shouldn’t be necessary. We shouldn’t need joint control over our work. committees. When it comes to teachers, ATL, As ATL has shown, having a strong and NASUWT and NUT don’t vibrant support staff section, with represent different grades of real voice within the union, is ‘…in any new aentirely workers or different subdivisions compatible with union, every member within teaching. They represent campaigning for every class to be the same group of workers and should feel they have taught by a qualified teacher. More are in direct competition to recruit that, it allows the union to a voice and the than them. In most staffrooms, they combine this with campaigning for don’t even represent different a p p r o p r i a t e other education professionals to political positions, simply the mechanisms within have clearly defined roles, distinct union people chose to join. the union to exercise from that of the teacher but no less At national level, we have vital to the education process, that voice.

It is our become used to the idea that rather than being used to provide unity means jointly-badged diversity and the ‘teaching on the cheap’. materials and joint campaigns. ability to bring those The key is that, in any new union, Once again, we are asking every member should feel they d i v e r s e v o i c e s teachers who have no discernible have a voice and the appropriate differences at workplace level to together which gives mechanisms within the union to set aside these difference and us our strength.’ exercise that voice. It is our work together on a specific diversity and the ability to bring campaign. It’s good as far as it those diverse voices together goes but isn’t it missing the main which gives us our strength. point?

Teachers, whether independent or state sector, The problem is that these divisions are not support staff member, FE members and leadership just absurd, they are damaging. There is a reason members at all levels must feel that this is their that our organisations are called unions. By union and that it represents their views. bringing working people together, in all their If we can achieve this, we will fundamentally diversity, and speaking, and acting, in union on the change the landscape. Industrially, we will not just issues which matter to them most, we give them a have the strength to fight the battles we know we voice. Every division within our movement must, but to win them too. As educationalists, we weakens that voice. will be able to speak clearly for the whole Of course there are differences between our profession and politically, we will be able to unions. Each has their own history and culture and demand that that those in power don’t just listen to has developed their own structures over time. us but act on what we say, whether it is about More concretely, they represent different balances education or other crucial issues such as housing of state schools teacher and independent sector and child poverty. teachers, some organise in FE as well as schools, We are presented with an unprecedented and all but the NUT admit support staff as well as opportunity. It is time we redefined unity and teachers. However, these differences seem far less redefined our unions. significant when you look at the current pace of change in education and everything there is to fight for.

Chair, NUT Professional Unity Academies, as state-funded independent Committe schools, are blurring the lines between the

Gawain Little

9

The Truth about our Schools The Chair of the Education Select Committee, Neil Carmichael, doesn’t seem too impressed with the approach of the Department for Education to education reform. Commenting on the publication of the Committee’s report into Regional Schools Commissioners (RSCs), he told the BBC: RSCs are a product of the Department's ‘acting first, thinking later approach when it comes to big changes in the schools landscape…’

It should be hoped that in such a vital area as education policies would be thought through before being foisted on the public.

Logistics, funding, unintended consequence would, you would think, be foremost in the minds of politicians.

But not so. During the Coalition years the pace of educational change in England was fast, furious and foolish. But those who dared to oppose these changes, however articulate, were dismissed by the then Education Secretary, Michael Gove, as ‘enemies of promise’.

Gove presented himself as being in the vanguard of a battle to introduce ‘rigour’ to a failed education system.

Education in England, he said, would rise like a phoenix and match the ‘best in the world’. The fact that the rest of the world appeared to be moving in the opposite direction seemed to elude him. And those countries he had once admired, Sweden and the USA, fell down the one global measure that Gove revered, the three-yearly PISA tests.

Gove’s belief that his policies would match the world’s best was one of the many myths which Gove promoted, and one we didn’t have space to include in our book, ‘The Truth About Our Schools: exposing the myths, exploring the evidence’.

To be fair to Gove, he wasn’t the only one perpetuating myths about English education.

And sad to say, some of these myths were pushed by Labour politicians.

Lord Adonis, for example, thinks private schools have the magic DNA which would improve state schools. They don’t and we show why in in our book.

Deception about academies actually began during the Labour years. But this was taken to new heights when the Coalition came to power. The Academies Act was shoved through Parliament with the speed usually reserved for national emergencies.

Academies would transform education – they would raise standards across the board. That was the myth – and it’s another we demolish.

Academies would also free schools from the malign influence of local authorities whose ‘control’ prevented schools from flourishing. That wasn’t true either. And we debunk that mantra.

Gove subscribed to the argument that choice, competition and markets raise education performance. They don’t – we disprove that claim.

Any education method disliked by Gove and his ministers was described as ‘progressive’. But it isn’t true that progressive education lowers standards, as we explain.

The dichotomy between ‘traditional’ and ‘progressive’ is a false one.

Teacher education, Gove said, was unnecessary. Teaching was a ‘craft’ best learnt on the job. We discredit that myth too.

The Truth About Our Schools is not just evidence-free opinion. We provide the proof that the myths perpetuated by politicians, their supporters and much of the English media are false.

Janet Downs The Truth About Our Schools is published by Routledge and available in paperback at £13.30

10

The anti-academies fight munity school rather than become an academy!

This is totally contrary to the government’s mantra that all ‘failing’ schools must become academies in order to improve.

There is another side to the government’s push however, in that some local authorities seem to be throwing in the towel over resisting academies. Two schools in Islington, The Mount Carmel girl’s school and another are faced with the prospect of being converted to academies. Teachers at one of them, Mount Carmel, have already voted to resist the move and are considering taking action. A school in Greenwich, Joan Roan, is also facing academisation. It seems some local authorities are beginning to adopt a ‘jump before you are pushed’ attitude. They are advocating the Multi Academy Trust as a viable option claiming that ‘schools working together’ in the face of declining budgets is desirable. I thought that is what schools already do in our local authority family of schools and in our clusters!

We have to recognise that the fight will be tough, but it is possible to win. Just this week Small Heath School in Birmingham was saved. Teachers there had taken several days of strike action that resulted in the sponsor pulling out and the local authority announcing that it would not be looking for a new one! In the battle Simon O’Hara, the school rep was victimised and his position has not yet been clarified so further strikes may take place!

Schools faced with becoming academies must contact parents right away and initiate a campaign. There are plenty of resources on The AAA website to help.

London schools are about to be hit with an unprecedented wave of cuts to their budgets up to 20% in some places and academies could see extra cuts. This is a time when all in education should stand together. Talking about more academies is simple divisive. Labour boroughs such as Lambeth and Islington should be leading the fight.

A dog’s breakfast The House of Commons Select Committee on Education has reported on Regional Schools Commisioners (RSCs), introduced to take over much of the role of local authorities.

The Committee lists a catalogue of concerns.

The whole way in which RSCs operate has been described as ‘a dog’s breakfast’. It has been described as a ‘support structure cobbled together on the hoof, a necessary middle tier that had to be invented to replace the last middle tier, the local authorities.’

As Government forces through academisation, the plan is that the academy chains will expand. If all schools became academies each RSC would have to oversee about 3,000 schools.

Many of these schools are part of multi-academy chains that have schools in different parts of the country, accountable to different commissioners.

The commissioners’ regions are different to those of another part of the accountability regime – Ofsted.

Mary Bousted, General Secretary of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, said the Committee’s findings showed the system was ‘deeply flawed and inadequate’, adding that schools were subject to multiple, overlapping and confusing accountability systems. Kevin Courtney from the National Union of Teachers, argued that the situation had arisen from the ill thought out nature of Government policy, which had created a fragmented and confusing school landscape where roles and responsibilities were unclear.

Local authorities in new academy thrust?

It is widely believed that the government plan to bring forward a white paper that will force all schools to become academies.

This is a two edged sword for the government. On the one hand they will look like they are able to get their way on education but on the other hand it is clear that they have failed to convince the vast majority of schools that academies are a good idea. That is not surprising as figures from Ofsted show that a school is six times more likely to get out of an inadequate grading if it remains a com-

Jess Edwards Lambeth NUT Joint Branch Secretary www.antiacademies.org.uk

11

Small Heath victory – academy sponsors pull out After several days of strike action teachers in Small Heath school in Birmingham have been told that their school will not become an academy.

The King Edward Foundation has confirmed in writing to Sir Mike Tomlinson on 26th January’… that the Foundation is not in a position to take on sponsorship of Small Heath School’. He goes on to state, ‘I am therefore in a position to confirm unequivocally that there is at present no known potential sponsor for Small Heath School…’ and finally ‘…there is no concrete proposal for the school to become an Academy and we are not aware of any potential sponsors under consideration by the Department for Education.’

It is also the case that key figures on the IEB with links to The King Edwards Foundation have resigned their positions.

But staff have had to return to the picket line and take further strike action in defence of school union rep. Simon O’Hara. Local councillor Salma Yaqoob has also come to his defences saying: I am delighted to hear that plans to force Small Heath School to become an academy may be shelved following a vibrant campaign by staff and parents.

The school had been rated Outstanding by Ofsted until the recent politicised atmosphere post ‘Trojan Horse’. Staff at Small Heath School, including many confident Muslim women teachers and parents, have been anything but traditionally submissive in winning their fight against the creeping privatisation of education. They know that Small Heath is best served by schools cooperating as part of the Local Authority family of schools. Indeed Ofsted’s own research confirms that Academies do not improve results as previously claimed. Now the Local Authority needs to step in to get the suspension of dedicated teacher and NUT Rep Simon O’Hara lifted. It is obvious to parents and the community that he has been victimised simply for standing up for the pupils and parents of Small Heath School. We will continue to campaign until he is back in the classroom doing the job he loves – teaching our children.’ www.antiacademies.org.uk

Simon O’Hara, suspended NUT Rep

Academies six times more likely to keep failing THE dogma of Tory education policy has been exposed by official figures proving that failing schools are less likely to improve if they become an academy. Data from schools inspectorate Ofsted show that schools are six times more likely to remain ‘inadequate’ if they leave local authority control to become academies.

Some 12 per cent of academies rated ‘inadequate’ failed to improve, compared to two per cent of schools run by local authorities. The findings blow a hole in the logic of the government’s Education and Adoption Bill, which will compel failing schools to become academies.

Prime Minister David Cameron is so committed to the concept that he vowed in his Tory conference speech to make ‘every school an academy, and yes — local authorities running schools a thing of the past.’

National Union of Teachers deputy leader Kevin Courtney said: ‘The government’s whole schools strategy is based on the dogmatic belief that conversion to academy status by definition improves standards. These findings show this to be nonsense. It is in fact the proven structural support of maintained schools which is more likely to achieve results. But the government’s educational vandalism is systematically undermining the role of local authorities in education, to the detriment of our children.’

Of the ‘inadequate’ schools that remain in local authority control, 62 per cent go on to become ‘good’ or ‘outstanding,’ compared to 47 per cent for academies. The single area in which sponsored academies do better is in the number of schools

12

that go on to become ‘outstanding’ — 6 per cent, compared to two per cent of maintained schools.

They are mostly part of large academy chains, but remain an exception to the rule that academies underperform compared to local authority-run schools.

Labour’s Lord Hunt, who acquired the figures through a parliamentary question, said: ‘There is a general assumption, in the government and the media, that becoming a sponsored academy is the only way to improve a school. However this data from Ofsted suggests the opposite. A school is far more likely to improve its Ofsted status if it remains in the maintained sector.’

E-ACT scraps governing bodies The E-ACT academy chain has decided to scrap governing bodies in favour of ‘academy ambassadorial advisory bodies’. NUT General Secretary, Christine Blower warned that the move to reduce the rights of local communities, parents and teachers to a say in the running of their schools would set a dangerous precedent. She argued that there was already no role for the elected local authority to oversee processes and procedures in academies. She insisted that there could be no good reason to remove a layer of people who were responsible for, and interested in the running of a school.

International news high stakes at play are already clear is housing, and the struggles around housing may give us all indications of further battles to come.

Starting with a major housebuilding scheme to compensate people who lost their houses due to natural disasters, Venezuela has made huge leaps in social housing. Over a million homes have been given to people on low incomes thanks to a system that allows them to permanently lease publicly built houses.

But due to the immense levels of deprivation in Venezuela before Hugo Chavez came to power in 1998, there are still millions of people living without decent housing – so it is crucial that this program continues.

This progress is now being threatened by the right-wing opposition alliance. Their proposal of a Thatcher style right-to-buy scheme for those leasing from the government would lead to increased property speculation, rising house prices and less public housing.

Social movements, progressive trade unions and others are mobilising against this proposed change and clearly understand that this isn’t the only regressive measure the opposition are planning.

Venezuela’s labour law is one of the most advanced in the world. Workers are guaranteed free access to legal services, the right to strike (including in solidarity), control over pensions and double severance pay when unfairly dismissed.

Outsourcing is banned and domestic work

Venezuela Social Progress Under Threat Venezuela has seen tremendous social change in recent years, but a rightwing victory in recent National Assembly elections, which most analyses saw as a result of the economic challenges the country faces, has seen the elected President Nicolas Maduro warn of growing threats to social programmes, public services and other achievements.

Education for Tomorrow readers may be familiar with some of the achievements made in education since Hugo Chavez was elected in 1998, based around the idea that free education for all was a fundamental right. Achievements included the eradication of illiteracy with 1.6 million adults learning to read and write, and a massive increase in school enrolment due to the opening of free nurseries across the country, the introduction of free school meals and scrapping of school fees. In Higher Education, over 40 new H.E institutions have been built, and new grants for studying introduced for over 200,000 Venezuelans.

Whilst the threats to education that the Right-wing’s neo-liberal policy agenda undoubtedly represents are not yet at the top of Venezuela’s political agenda, one area where the

13

recognised by social security payments to homemakers.

U n s u r p r i s i n g l y, FEDECAMARAS, Venezuela’s version of the CBI and one of the main financial backers of the opposition are not happy about this. And there are reports they have instructed the opposition MUD to use their majority in parliament to overturn the Labour law and take away the accompanying extraordinary advances in pay, conditions, gender equality and discrimination protection.

The social missions that have brought about such amazing results in improving living conditions – eradicating illiteracy, slashing malnutrition and dramatically reduced poverty plus inequality - are also under threat and privatization is also high on the agenda.

A draft opposition policy plan published around their election included advancing the privatization of key public services, transferring public and community media to private control, and additionally getting rid of the price controls that have kept basic goods affordable for Venezuelans on low and middle incomes.

Looked at as a package, these measures would have a devastating effect on the living standards of Venezuelans, and have been met by mass mobilizations in defence of public services and workers’ rights.

Venezuela faces many serious challenges, especially in the economic field. But the Right-wing politicians behind these new plans are not only the same as those who attempted to oust the democratically elected President Nicolas Maduro in the coordinated series of violent disturbances of 2014 known as ‘La Salida’ (‘the ousting’). They include those who carried out a coup attempt in 2002.

They also represent the same undemocratic elite which ruled before the election of Hugo Chavez in 1998, implementing IMF diktats and neo-liberal policies at tremendous economic and human cost.

With a resurgent right making gains at the polls across Latin America – from Venezuela to Brazil to Bolivia – this is a crucial moment.

International solidarity is needed now more than ever.

What Can We Personally Do to Get Lasting Peace Between Palestine and Israel?

I am by nature an optimist. When I visited Palestine recently with a cross-party group of MPs, I went with the hope that the two-state solution was still a possibility, but now I'm not so sure.

On our second day, we reached the town of Hebron in the south of Palestine just as the sun was setting. It is a beautiful place, built from the soft, buttery rock that surrounds it. The sense of history is palpable, it feels like the biblical town you saw in Sunday afternoon films when you were little - there are even donkeys!

As we drove, we passed checkpoints, but we were never stopped. As we reached the centre it dawned on me that something was amiss. It was like a ghost town and where were all the people?

Right in the middle of Hebron there is an illegal Israeli settlement of approximately 35 families. To protect the families, the Israeli Defence Force have effectively made the surrounding area a no-go zone for the native Palestinians. (I later found out that our minibus had Israeli plates, that's why we weren't stopped at the checkpoints.)

The area the settlers had chosen was right in the middle of the old town, next to the main market street. Formerly, this was the bustling heart, now all of the shops are boarded up and the market long gone. But there are still Palestinians living above the shops. Overnight, their front doors were welded shut so they could not gain access to the street. I know this to be true as our guide was the Sergeant who supervised the work. To get out, the residents have to climb up on to their roof, clamber onto a neighbours' roof and exit onto another street. Imagine doing this is you are elderly, are carrying food or have a baby in a buggy! All this to protect the settlers who illegally decided to occupy their town.

As we walked we were watched by heavily armed soldiers. There was a constant stream of soldiers, out of uniform, jogging up and down the street and, at one point, a pick-up truck packed with youths sped and hurled insults at us. It felt like a very tense environment and made me feel extremely vulnerable - I certainly wouldn't want to be there on my own.

Ben Studd Venezuela Solidarity Campaign * To find out more or to join the Venezuela Solidaity Campaign, please visit www.venezuelasolidarity.co.uk 14

We quickly reached the next checkpoint on foot and decided to go through. It was down a narrow, dark, back street. As we emerged out into the other side it was surreal - a bustling city street with cafés, shops and people - lots of people and such a stark contrast. We had now crossed back into the real Palestine. This is what life is like, two parallel worlds, uncomfortably living side-by-side.

Reluctantly, we crossed back and got into our minibus. As we drove we saw a young boy, probably about 11-years-old, being marched to the barracks surrounded by five soldiers.

What we witnessed was apparently a common occurrence and in my opinion, is a systematic attempt to cow the next generation of Palestinians.

As of July 2015, 5,369 Palestinians were in detention, 153 of those are children, and one is a girl. The main reason children are detained is because they have thrown stones at Israeli vehicles.

The penalty for this is up to 20 years. Usually, the sentences are one to two months. Because of the occupation, the children are tried in a military court which has a 99.7 per cent conviction rate. To be fair, this ridiculously high rate is largely because the child would be subject to a longer detention if they appealed. However, by pleading guilty they get a criminal record which will likely prevent them getting travel permits in the future. Settler children would always be tried in a civilian court, with a 6.4% conviction rate. This is clear discrimination, and clear example of the two-tier system being operated.

Most children are not actually charged. They are usually detained, roughed up, humiliated and then sent home. Children under 16 years can be detained for two to four days without charge. The soldiers have no obligation to inform them of their rights. They'll see their lawyer for the first time once they are in court, not during detention/ interrogation, and remember, most children don't get charged.

So what was the point of that child we saw being marched into the barracks? Let's see it from the Israeli perspective. There are approximately 400,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank (excluding East Jerusalem). The Israeli Defence Force is tasked to protect them and only seven settlers have been killed in the last five years. This should be recognised as a superb military achievement when you consider that the settlers represent illegal occupation of Palestinian land and the settlements are often in remote areas. Strategically, how can Israel keep her people safe? Put very bluntly, there

are three options: kill the native population, deport them or intimidate the population into submission.

From what I have witnessed, I believe the Israeli military strategy is to get inside the Palestinians heads and break their spirit.

Not all of the children detained are taken off the street, usually soldiers will take them from their homes. If the military were sent in to do this during the day, understandably, there would be a riot, however, doing it at night, creates a huge amount of intimidation, but with no repercussions.

The first the family knows is when they wake up and soldiers and dogs are in their bedroom. The family is then herded into a room, the suspect child will be taken with hands tied, head bagged, thrown on floor of a military vehicle and driven to a military base. Imagine the terror, the confusion, the fear. 63 per cent of children are arrested at night and 58 per cent of children are strip-searched.

There are an average of 1,400 night raids like this per year and all happen less than 2km from Israeli settlements. The majority of detained children are shipped to Israeli prisons. Not only is this a war crime, it makes it almost impossible for their families to visit them because of how difficult it is to get a permit.

In 2012, a British delegation of lawyers led

by Baroness Scotland made six recommendations in relation to child detainees: • Don't arrest children at night • Let people know their rights, written in Arabic • Every child must see a lawyer before interrogation • Parents should be present during interrogation • There should be an audio-visual documentation of interrogation • If any of these recommendations are breached, throw out the case (The last recommendation would mean the others would be more likely to be followed).

I do not think it is realistic to expect the practice of child detainees to stop. However, unless the intimidation and breaches of human rights are prevented, it makes it hard to see how meaningful peace talks can continue between the two states.

What can we personally do to get lasting peace between Palestine and Israel?

I don't believe it is possible to get peace unless Israel stops building settlements in Palestine. They are illegal under international law, they are the justification for 62 per cent of Palestine being under Israeli military rule and they create a

15

two-tier cultural system which I believe is morally wrong.

However, we must recognise that currently, five Israeli ministers are settlers. Settlements won't stop without international pressure. To achieve anything, we need to draw attention to the situation and to that end I would like to see export products produced by settlers being labelled as such. We know where our meat comes from, why can't we know where our dates come from? This information would enable us to make informed choices if we want to buy goods generated from an illegal occupation or not.

As a nation we could fight for Palestine to have the same favourable trading terms with the EU that Israel benefits from. We should also be making a clear stance that we believe the settlements are wrong. Currently there are 17 countries boycotting settlement products, surely we should be the 18th?

With thanks to MAP and Caabu for making this trip possible. Thanks also to Military Court Watch for research for this article.

Boston Public Schools students.'

In Los Angeles the walkers-in were particularly protesting about schools being changed to charters and children held posters saying what they loved about their public schools, for instance the teachers and the music. Others held banners saying: 'Billionaires, pay your taxes so we can get smaller classes' and 'Billionaires, have a heart, your plans will tear our schools apart!' referring to the billionaires funding charter school conversions.

Altogether 900 schools in the country were targeted in yesterday's action. /www.teachersolidarity.com/

Welcome to the Left Book Club!

Sarah Champion

Ken Livingstone’s Being Red

Labour M P for Rotherham http://www.huffingtonpost.com/world/

The latest Left Book Club title was published in February. Ken Livingstone’s Being Red: A Politics for the Future sees the Labour veteran reflect on his career and outline his vision for the party today, post-Corbyn, and how it should face the multiple challenges ahead.

USA Parents, students and teachers took part in actions all over the US in February to protest funding cuts and privatisation. Thousands of people took part in 'walk-ins', going into schools to show their support for public education.

The action was organised by the Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools, a coalition of teaching unions and education activists groups, to show: "a united front in the fight for public education and the schools all our children deserve." Demands included an end to replacing public schools with privatised charters, an end to high stakes testing, the restoration of arts programmes in schools and no more cuts in education budgets.

In Chicago, parents walked into 160 schools demanding adequate funding. The Chicago school board has just announced a $100 million cut in the education budget. In Boston, hundreds of parents and students gathered outside city hall to demand more money for education. A city councillor supporting the rally pointed out the inequity of funding: '$104 million went to 8,100 charter school students, and $107 million is being split by 57,000

www.leftbookclub.com

16