Unity. Solidarity. Liberation

EfT

Education for Tomorrow

manifesto

Unity. Solidarity. Liberation.

A new path for education unions.

FOREWORD I am honoured to write for this publication Unity. Solidarity. Liberation.

UNIFY, of which I am the Organising Secretary, has one aim. I quote from our constitution, “To achieve a single union for all education professionals and thereafter to explore the possibility of widening that union to embrace all workers in education”.

We recognise that for the workers, and in education teachers and support staff are workers, unity gives strength and disunity is weakness. In the light of this we are delighted that NUT and ATL members have voted positively to create a new union, the National Education Union. It will be the fourth largest union in the TUC. However, we are not done, not by half. Our aim is to have one union for the whole of education. A union that would be one million strong. Not a panacea to solve all our problems, but a mighty force for progress and a force to be reckoned with.

Uniting our forces, crucial as it is to be able to make progress, is not an end in itself. It would be for our organisation (UNIFY), which will dissolve when we achieve our goal, but it is not for education workers, nor for the future of education. The questions that remain are these: what are the tactics and strategies that a new union should employ, and what are those of the Government that we can identify?

Workers in education must step up a gear. For the first time in living history we face the destruction of the state education system and its takeover by a forprofit system.

What shall we do about this, and how? This is the question the publication addresses. I commend it, and all who raise the level of discussion and debate.

We must not, as Dylan Thomas’s poem said, “go gentle into [the] night”. We must “Rage, rage against” the forces that seek the end of state education.

Hank Roberts, Organising Secretary, UNIFY

Systemic shock There is a sense in which, prior to the referendum on EU membership on the 23rd of June 2016, political commentators had all but given up on working people delivering systemic shocks to political systems. That vote, unprecedented in the volume, if not the quality, of debate and the final numbers participating, did just that. It rocked and indeed continues to rock the strategy of the capitalist class, both at home and abroad. This opens up the opportunity at least for an alternative, though it is one we will have to fight to realise.

Until then it was considered that organised workers were in deep and strategic retreat, able only to defend previous gains in limited areas and circumstances.

True, there was action to stop the retreat from becoming a rout. But coal, steel, textiles, shipbuilding and rail engineering communities paid a heavy price for their resistance. The retreat had gone on so long that new generations of trade unionists seemed to know only how to oppose. They struggled to look ahead with confidence or originate a vision based on non-capitalist values and people-led democratic structures. In too few places was there discussion on the centrality of the need for popular sovereignty. Failure to consider this led to unions and the Labour Party becoming estranged from many of their own members and supporters, and the Referendum divided a labour movement that had previously been united in opposition to the EU. One of the areas of strongest resistance to Government policy was in the education sector. Here, a combination of high union density, loyalty to campaigning unionism and a potent mix of union and professional values, had been sustained. So much so that, at various times, retreat had been turned into a kind of stand-off. Largely through union action, several Ministers of State for Education, Labour (Blunkett) and Conservative (Gove and Morgan) had been removed and flagship government policies blocked. But, as this pamphlet shows, neither side had the capacity to land a knockout blow, and the unions in particular, even in moments when they could have, failed to develop an alternative strategy, still less impose it on their opponents.

That is about to change again. The rejection of old-style competitive unionism, in favour of a unity movement has produced the largest ever Education union in Britain. This new union, the NEU, itself still in a process of evolution, has yet to run its full course of uniting all in primary and secondary education into a single union. A union this large has the potential power to do so much more than cause changes to the Ministerial merry-go-round or block and parry Government plans.

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There is then, the potential power of a profession that can start to speak with one voice. Equipped with a unified and evidence-based strategy, rooted in the daily practice of teachers, the NEU should campaign to establish an education system based on teacher professionalism with the interests of pupils and the community and democratic values at its heart.

The resulting high-quality, as opposed to high-stakes, education, would be publicly funded, with a curriculum that develops collective values. It would be based on local communities and democratically governed. The prize is very great indeed. Such an education system could reinvigorate Britain giving it, in the words of the great socialist William Morris, “ A sense of purpose and a sense of values.” Capitalism also has its eye on the prize as giant transnational companies circle overhead, in the hope of turning education into a marketplace of privatised greed and superprofits.

This pamphlet doesn’t intend to be anything but a contribution to the discussion that is bound to take place as the NEU develops its vision and strategy. We argue that education, as with so much in Britain, remains a question of class, class struggle and class power. A vital contribution to the process of establishing a progressive education system relies on electing a Government prepared to break with the neoliberal approach. As one of the many contributors to this pamphlet argues, teacher trade unionism, led by the NEU, could be critical to the election of such a Government in 2020. Precisely because of its potential role, the new union will carry with it the hopes of parents and local communities in every corner of England, Scotland and Wales, and it can expect in return the unremitting hostility of the capitalist class and its Government.

Education remains a class question “Giving education to the labouring classes … would be prejudicial to their morals and happiness; it would teach them to despise their lot in life, instead of making them good servants in agriculture and other laborious employments … it would enable them to read seditious pamphlets”.

Although the fears expressed by Davies Giddy MP in 1807 would be more subtly expressed today, the ruling class is facing the same dilemma. They need an educated working class to maximise their profits, but they don’t want them knowledgeable enough to challenge their right to exploit.

Workers needed to know their place, Government thought, but they also needed them to have some literacy and numeracy skills. An increasingly important and complex British industry needed greater numbers of skilled 4

workers like mechanics, clerks and accountants. By the middle of the 19th century, leaving them in ignorance was no longer an option. A chaotic mix of voluntary provision had emerged: church schools, non-conformist schools, charity schools, dame schools and factory schools and, of course, many children in no school at all.

Fearful of political unrest spreading from mainland Europe and of home grown radicals, the state was forced to intervene to ensure that the gaps in the patchwork of provision by voluntary religious organisations was completed.

The ruling class carved out then and still maintains its own system of schooling, which draws on teachers trained at the public expense but deployed in the private sector, which has remained a cosseted and protected arena accounting for about seven per cent of provision in England and Wales.

It is the privately-educated who dominate politics, the civil service, the judiciary, the armed forces, the City, the media, the arts, academia, the most prestigious professions. Despite attempts by the private sector to transform its image in recent years, countering the accusations of self-perpetuating privilege, only the wealthiest families can afford the fees.

Private schooling smooths the passage into a top university. Private school students are 55 times more likely to win a place at Oxbridge, and 22 times more likely to go to a top-ranked university, than students at state schools who qualify for free school meals.

For the rest, locally-administered, state-funded schools were provided and while the role of local education authorities has been undermined, the patchwork of provision has continued right up to the present. However, this system of statefunded education has always been divided, with these divisions written into the 1944 Education Act, which mandated a tripartite system of grammar, secondary modern and technical schools. In spite of attempts at comprehensive reform (notably in the late-1960s), this system has never been fully integrated and selective education remains to this day.

In recent years the historic aim of the organised labour movement for the common school – to be attended by all, irrespective of class, religious belief or aptitude – has looked increasingly remote. Not only have private and grammar schools remained, there has been an increase in the proportion of faith schools and now academies and free schools. Similarly, where comprehensivisation has taken place, selection between schools has often simply been replace by selection within schools, with setting and streaming becoming the norm in secondary education and even some primary schools. The comprehensive (or 6

common) school remains in name only. In the class war, education, like all other social provision, is a battleground, and what is provided reflects the balance of class forces.

Thatcher’s Tory government marked a new turn in the attack on working-class gains, beginning with the privatisation of public assets, and the 1988 Education Reform Act introduced ‘market reforms’ in education, increasing centralised control. This was achieved through a standardised curriculum with budgets devolved to individual schools, with a funding formula based on the number of ‘customers’ it could attract. Educationalist Brian Simon described it at the time: “a subtle set of linked measures (…) to push the whole system towards a degree at least, of privatisation, establishing a base that could be exploited later”.

Blair’s New Labour administration continued this with the introduction of academies (or state-funded independent schools), and the process has accelerated since, with the Government most recently announcing the reactivation of the discredited grammar school system. There could be no clearer demonstration of lack of ideas at the top of Government. And each bad idea is reinforced by a network of ersatz education ‘Think Tanks’, which struggle to come up with anything original, whilst failing to add to the comprehensive ideal.

League tables have secured segregation within state education. The remedies many schools and academies have to climbing these tables is to exclude pupils either by selection at source by becoming their own admissions authority or, as many do, seek ways to keep potential lower attaining pupils from accessing entry into GCSEs in their own institutions through exclusion or disapplying them.

Currently, we have a curriculum that: • reflects the needs of big business for a flexible, compliant workforce; • promotes competition rather than co-operation; and • sees the creative arts in terms of making money, not to be enjoyed by all as active participants.

It’s a curriculum that’s ‘delivered’ in an increasingly privatised and fragmented education service. If the Government is to advance its aims, the key battleground will be around Qualified Teacher Status (QTS). Qualified teachers are at the core of a set of education values and methods of teaching that are essential to public education, to the benefit of all working-class children. The challenge to the NEU will be to protect and enhance QTS. It is clear that a strategy for delivering comprehensive education has to tackle the vested interests of private education, check the tide of private sector promoting lobbyists and establish a National Plan to bring schools into a single publicly7

accountable system, that results in a good local school for every child and every community.

The Limitations of Reform In previous generations, the word ‘reform’ meant that things were expected to improve. Reforms were welcomed by those who struggled for a better world. In recent decades, however, ‘reform’ has become associated with disruption to traditional and much cherished ways of life that has led to increased intensity of work, layoffs, outsourcing, insecurity and fear for the future.

In a similar move, we no longer hear of Governments or Councils making cuts to their services but instead are put at ease by their claims to be making savings in order to balance their budget like any thrifty family. What is hidden is the impact that these so-called savings will have on every household budget: some will have to make increased payments for services that are no longer provided freely, while others are faced with the prospect of simply going without.

In previous generations, it was assumed that reforms were possible as each generation was able to live a better life than the one before. Consumer goods became more widely available and affordable, and increased leisure time was secured in order to enjoy them. New Labour assured the working class that “Things Can Only Get Better” and that trade union membership and action had become irrelevant.

What was overlooked was that much of the increased ownership of material possessions, especially housing, and an affluent lifestyle was purchased on credit. The finance houses and banking sector in the City of London had built their towers on shifting sands that finally gave way in the crisis of 2008, although the signs had been there since the 1970s when Prime Minister Callaghan had warned that “The Party’s Over”. This was the start of the constant series of cuts to public spending and the loss of commitment to the traditional socialdemocratic policies of the post-war Labour Party.

Callaghan’s capitulation to the IMF and neoliberal economic ideology, and his attempt to incorporate the trade union movement into the Social Contract led directly to the supremacy of Thatcherism and the emergence of Tony Blair and New Labour.

What is now forgotten is that the Callaghan government failed to implement the findings of the Taylor Report on the governance of schools that can be seen in retrospect as the last gasp of local democratic control over education.

More damaging and long lasting was Callaghan’s Ruskin College speech that 8

became the spark for the supposed ‘Great Debate’ about the ‘legitimate concerns’ of a public about education. This discussion led to greater involvement of central government in the curriculum and administration of publically funded education, leading to the eventual introduction of a standardised curriculum and standardised testing some ten years later, and soon after to the current inspection and accountability regime. Again, local control of schools was to be constrained by central government policies.

Most significant of all, however, was the sabotage of the traditional Labour programmes of social provision by the currency speculators who engineered a ‘run on the pound’, leading to IMF intervention in 1976. Henceforth there were to be limitations on the autonomy of the UK Government in terms of its economic policy. ‘Reforms’, became the ‘name that could not be spoken’ and the achievement of previous generations began to be unpicked.

The European Union Solution The failures of the Wilson and Callaghan governments led some in the Labour Party to see the European Economic Community (EEC) as a possible counterweight to the bitter divisions between capital and labour that had led to the ‘Winter of Discontent’ and the collapse of support for Labour in the 1979 elections. The 11 years of Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister witnessed increasing cutbacks in social provision and further attacks on trade unionism.

It was also accompanied by increasing centralisation and a raft of market reforms, introduced under the guise of ‘parental choice’.

In such circumstances, many in the Labour and trade union movements saw the European Union as a saviour in terms of the protection of social welfare provision. This was in spite of the fact that the EU itself was rapidly developing along neoliberal lines.

There were many on the Left who saw the developing EU as a foreign dominance over British national sovereignty. This perspective ignored the role that UK employers and financiers continued to play in its development especially under the political leadership of Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair.

A considerable proportion of the Treaty of Lisbon and other consolidating agreements were in the direct interest of British monopoly capital and the finance houses in the City of London who had, right from the beginning, thrown their financial clout behind a yes vote in the 1975 Referendum.

Many sincere idealists regarded the EU as being the bedrock of human rights confusing the EU with the Council of Europe and its associated 9

European Convention of Human Rights and European Court of Human Rights.

The reality is that the EU has presided over the limitations placed by governments and employers upon the rights contained in the Council of Europe’s, European Convention. The most fundamental power that working people have is the ability to conclude collective agreements with their employers that determine the wages and conditions of work for the entire sector. It is this power that has become so hamstrung by EU Regulations and Directives, and by the judgements of the EU Court of Justice.

Indeed similar moves to the recent ‘liberalisation’ of School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions were evident in all other nationally negotiated agreements between the trade unions and employers throughout the EU, despite this being in breach of the International Labour Organisation Conventions.

EU to break ‘monopoly’ control of states over education The financial meltdown in 2008 caused the EU to reassess its existence, especially during the Sovereign Debt Crisis of 2010. The former President of the European Commission Jose Barroso warned, “The crisis is a wake-up call, the moment where we recognise that ‘business as usual’ would consign us to gradual decline”. He advocated a ‘Europe 2020 Strategy’ of ‘economic, social and territorial cohesion’ under a, ‘stronger economic governance’ being imposed by the EU over its member states.

The implications of this approach are clear in the brutal austerity programmes imposed on Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain by the European Commission, the European Central Bank and IMF. Although not part of the Economic and Monetary Union, under the requirements of the 1997 Growth and Stability Pact, the UK budget is subject to monitoring by the EU, including restrictions on education spending.

A major element of the Europe 2020 Strategy has been the ‘Youth on the Move’ initiative, which promotes “labour mobility” as an answer to chronic youth unemployment due to underinvestment in the productive economy. The significance of this is evident in countries such as Spain where joblessness has spread to the country’s most educated youth, reinforcing fears of a ‘lost generation’.

The other objective of ‘enhancing the performance of education systems’ in line with health, banking, insurance, communications and finance was to be achieved by “an open single market for services that must be created on the basis of the Services Directive”. It aimed not only to increase the trade in 10

services, including education, within the EU but also to attract a substantial increase in Foreign Direct Investment. The overall strategic direction of the EU Services Directive is in line with the Trade in Services Agreement of the World Trade Organisation, which seeks to remove ‘barriers’ and ‘disincentives’ to trade in services such as professional qualifications requirements and state monopolies over sectors of education.

The European Commission in its Single Market Strategy recognised the “untapped benefits to furthering the Single Market in services” and sought to open up education as a commercial market, at the same time stripping away requirements for professional qualification because of the “administrative burden” they pose and the associated “wage premium”.

The result of the Referendum of 23rd June has not put an end to the consequences of Britain’s membership of the European Union. The threats to teacher professionalism and to education funding remain, as evidenced by the European Council’s Recommendation of 12th July 2016, which made clear that the UK is “expected to comply” with spending restrictions. However, it does open up the opportunity to fight back, more effectively and with greater impact.

Where do we go from here?

The verdict of the Referendum gives the people of Britain the opportunity to renegotiate our relationship with the British government. We are no longer to be subject to the dictates of the European Union but must continue to be aware that much of the relationship between the Westminster parliament and Brussels was in the interests of British monopoly capital.

The attempts by the current Conservative government to secure the interests of big business and the City of London in the ‘Brexit’ negotiations must be resisted by a labour movement that comes together in unity, to press our demands upon Parliament. It must be absolutely clear to us that sovereignty resides with the people and not with a Parliament that currently exists with a ‘democratic deficit’ as profound, though different in character, as that of the European Union.

The essential difference is that at least in the ‘British constitution’, the actions of the Executive (the Government) are subject to parliamentary scrutiny and approval. What must be insisted upon in present circumstances is that Parliament becomes subject to popular scrutiny and approval – not in a second referendum but in a General Election where the candidates are obliged to 11

declare their position in regards to this issue of fundamental importance. And it doesn’t get more fundamental than education. The NEU will soon have the opportunity to vote to establish its Political Fund. Members will vote for this if, at the same time, the union engages them in how they want that Fund deployed.

Such consultation is possible and desirable. It would be greatly strengthened in impact, if the Fund was dovetailed with a strategy to focus the political action of teachers and parents on Parliamentary debate turning it in to an arena to defend and rebuild public education.

Building power and participation in a unified education union Teacher trade unionism, across the UK, is in the enviable position of having strong membership density. Despite the repeated attempts of government and employers to weaken teacher trade union membership over the past several decades, it is still the case that over 90% of the profession belongs to a union.

This is compared with a density of just over 50% across the public sector as a whole, and just 17% in the private sector. This should make teachers a formidable force to be reckoned with. However, there is a problem. The problem being there are, in England and Wales, a series of unions or professional associations, which teachers and headteachers can belong to. Classroom teachers are divided across major unions: the NUT/ATL (NEU) and NASUWT, with another in Wales: UCAC. These divisions – whatever their historic roots – can no longer be afforded by all those wanting a fully funded and equitable comprehensive education system. Any move towards professional unity is a major step forward. This is why the amalgamation of the ATL and NUT to form the National Education Union is to be welcomed.

To understand why this is such an important step forward in terms of union strength and capacity, we only need to look at what has happened to the profession over the last few years. Since the election of the Coalition government in 2010, the education system – most acutely in England – has been subject to unprecedented pressure towards both the fragmentation of service delivery and the liberalisation of pay and other terms of employment. Both of these processes pose considerable threats to teachers and their unions.

Whilst this process of fragmentation and liberalisation can be seen to have its embryonic form in the Education Reform Act of 1988, it is only since Michael Gove drove through a number of key policy decisions that we have witnessed systemic change.

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The New Labour government opened the first academies in 2002, and, by the time they left office eight years later, there were 200 academies in operation.

As of January 2017, there are close to being 6000 academies in operation, with nearly 60% of secondary schools having academy status. We have also witnessed the formation and growth of Multi-Academy Trusts (some the size of Local Authorities, measured by teachers and education staff employed) and Free Schools in this time frame. This fragmentation is deemed necessary to create and deepen a ‘market environment’ where schools would increasingly compete against each other, so as – it was asserted – to drive up education standards.

Alongside this, the liberalisation of pay and conditions of service created the conditions where teachers within schools now compete against each other for performance related rewards and punishments. Again, the idea being that it is only through stricter accountability measures that teachers’ performance can be improved, and all of this at a time of a funding cut the likes of which haven’t been seen in a generation.

The liberalisation of pay and conditions combined with the fragmentation of the school system atomises schools and teachers. At the level of industrial relations, we have seen the movement away from nationwide and local-authoritywide agreements with unions, to a situation where individual schools and MATs have increasing power to set their own pay progression policies, capability procedures and so on. This is a process that other sections of the public and private sectors have been subject to, but it is still relatively new within education. It is therefore crucial that the NEU learn the lessons of those unions who have faced similar situations, so as to not only survive but to prosper in this changed environment.

Centrally, the devolution of collective bargaining to the level of the school or MAT means that a key tenet of the NEU will be to build power and structures that reflect this new environment. It is in this light that the move to organise members of the NEU within bargaining units has to be viewed. This is the only realistic strategic response available. Modelling the NEU on an industrial relations landscape that no longer exists would not deliver success. The amalgamation of the ATL and NUT has to mean better and not just bigger. It must also be a central tenet that people who are affected by negotiating outcomes need to be directly involved in deciding those outcomes. This means the creation and reinvigoration of democratic lay structures from the level of the workplace upwards.

Structures to suit the environment we are now confronted with is one thing; the ethos of how we build these structures is another. What the new union looks 14

like on the ground, and what its campaigning and organising ethos is, is therefore a crucial question for the NEU. It is important that in the amalgamation the baby isn’t thrown out with the bath water in terms of what both unions currently successfully do in terms of campaigning and organising. Both unions have placed an emphasis upon the principle of participatory democracy, where members are encouraged to take a lead in organising themselves around issues that they feel strongly about. And ATL roots in the independent sector, and amongst headteachers and TA’s, holds out prospects for future development.

If the new structures of the NEU are to thrive and deliver success then facilitating a much deeper level of participation is crucial. Increasingly, we have to encourage, facilitate and support members collectively framing and negotiating their own issues with school or MAT management. This may not always be easy, but increased co-ordination and capacity in the NEU presents an opportunity to advance.

Being a union based upon the idea and practice of ‘issue-based organising’ has to be central to a union that is seeking to rejuvenate active teacher trade unionism at school, local, national and even international levels. As well as building power in every bargaining unit, the NEU will need to play a role in connecting a networked layer of activists and advocates for winning not only the type of union the NEU wants to be, but the type of education system we want to see. If the new union is to move government and not just employers, it needs a strategic focus upon where it wants to make a difference combined with an understanding of the power available.

New structures and campaigns need to be based upon an understanding of what the union – and workforce – actually looks like. The NEU will be a union with a primarily young and female membership. It is still the case that caring responsibilities (child and elder care) fall mainly on women, and it is therefore important that the NEU’s activities are framed by notions of accessibility and relevance. The NEU needs to decisively break from a model of hero activism, which was suited to a different era: education trade unionism has to be increasingly a collective experience.

Any union that represents a majority of workers is potentially in a very strong position if those members feel engaged and can participate. This is the great hope of the NEU. A union that represents all the workforce is in an even stronger position. That is why the formation of the National Education Union should be seen not as an end point, but as the first important step towards total professional unity. The work to unite the profession does not stop with the formation of the 15

NEU. This is the moment we redouble our efforts to reach out to our sisters and brothers, the people we work alongside every day, to build even greater strength and unity to forward the interests of not just the education workforce, but the pupils and students we teach, and the communities we serve. Unity is strength.

NEU: Building something new by building from below The formation of the National Education Union (NEU) represents a really significant opportunity to develop a powerful and dynamic union in the education sector. One that has a voice that cannot be ignored by government and employers.

Teachers (and students) have paid a high price for a divided teacher union movement and this development is long overdue. Moreover, its significance is not just an issue for teachers and trade unionists in the UK. Multi-unionism is a feature of teacher unions in many parts of the world (although usually less destructive than the very competitive variant we see in the UK) and many will watch with interest from afar at how a new union is built from the amalgamation of two large classroom teacher unions. As the previous sections to this pamphlet have demonstrated, the attacks faced by teachers in the UK are global in form, and the formation of the new union has global significance.

The challenge for those on the progressive left will be to build on the best traditions of both predecessor unions, but in so doing build something that is distinctively new, dynamic and exciting. The aim must be to develop a culture in the profession where the union is at the heart of all that is positive and teachers see the union as central to their professional identity and their aspirations as educators. That requires three particular orientations, all of which are interdependent.

First, the new union must look for the progressive points of contact between the ATL and the NUT and build on these. Much has been made of the apparent mismatch between the militants and the moderates in the teacher union movement. Actually there is much shared analysis of current education policy and this unity of analysis provides huge potential for developing unity in action.

It is becoming increasingly clear that the old ‘industrial vs professional’ divide is bankrupt as a way of thinking about teacher unionism, if indeed it ever was helpful. The sharp end of the attacks on teachers are increasingly what can be considered ‘professional issues’: loss of control over the curriculum, testing that is out of control, and the drive to expand selection which will create a two-tier workforce as well as a divided society. Pay, working conditions and workload 16

are all issues around which collective action can be mobilised – but they are increasingly driven by the deskilling and deprofessionalising of teachers that makes worsening conditions possible. The new union needs to confront these issues, and provide teachers with the political analysis, which allows them to make sense of what is happening to them as well as helping them understand how they can fight back.

Second, the new union must connect this powerful critique of the attack on teacher professionalism with a willingness to build strong powerful roots in communities. Here there is much to build on from more recent experiences in the NUT, which has consciously tried to develop a new form of social movement unionism. Recognising the increasingly fragmented and atomised nature of the contemporary school system, the NUT has intentionally sought to build its capacity at the base (through strengthened workplace organisation) whilst coupling this with a commitment to connect with others in civil society (parents’ groups, community organisations) around broader education issues. This is difficult work, and there is much to be learned about what types of strategies work well, when and under what circumstances. ATL can contribute significantly to this analysis as they too have undergone significant new thinking and change in practice. The NEU will need to develop quickly if it is to retain and build on both unions recent work and apply it to improve the working lives of education workers.

The new union does represent an important opportunity to draw large numbers of teachers into active defence of public, comprehensive education. Certainly, there can be no defence of our education system without the organised collective action of teachers, and the energy created by the formation of the new union provides an opportunity that must not be squandered.

Third, and finally, those seeking to build the new union need to be willing to think about activism and organising differently. Much has been learned in recent years about working in more open, inclusive and ultimately more democratic ways.

Many of these lessons have been learned from the type of fluid and flexible organising we have seen in social movement unionism. A new union provides a unique opportunity to forge a distinctive culture, and to bring about change more quickly than might otherwise be the case. The new union needs to recognise the diversity of a huge membership and that members have different interests, aspirations and identities. In so doing it needs to provide different ways for members to experience the union, to engage with it and become involved. It is by connecting members with the union in this way that union commitment is developed.

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The formation of the National Education Union represents a genuine opportunity for transformation. Not the bureaucratic transformation of two large organisations into a single entity, but the transformation of a profession through the transformation of those working it.

The neoliberal assault on state education in England has been relentless for decades. The deliberate intention has been to produce a compliant workforce unable to imagine an alternative. With expectations suitably low, the system can be relied on to reproduce the existing social order, with all the great cleavages in society unchallenged. The new union represents a major threat to that vision of the future. It is however by no means automatic that change will come about. Those building the new union will have to work hard to capitalise on the opportunities that present themselves. Defaulting to traditional ways of working risks changing little.

The new union must act as a catalyst to transform teachers’ expectations about what is possible and what they can achieve. In turn these teachers will realise that the union is the only means through which they can realise their aspirations.

This is the point when anything becomes possible and real alternative strategies begin to become a practical possibility.

Breaking with neo liberalism in education In spite of the best efforts of teachers and other education professionals, is clear that much is wrong with our education system. A Government and media inspired obsession with assessment and accountability has led to a curriculum, which is no longer fit for purpose, in addition to excessive testing which is educationally and psychologically damaging to our children. The NUT’s recent Exam Factories report makes sobering reading, describing a system in which, “Pupils of every age are increasingly being required to learn things for which they are not ready, [leading] to shallow learning for the test, rather than in-depth understanding which could form a sound basis for future learning.”

The report goes on to say that, “Children and young people are suffering from increasingly high levels of school-related anxiety and stress, disaffection and mental health problems. This is caused by increased pressure from tests/exams; greater awareness at younger ages of their own failure; and the increased rigour and academic demands of the curriculum.”

At the same time, constant government and media denigration of teaching as a profession is resulting in a systemic crisis in recruitment and retention. Excessive workload, combined with a lack of professional control over 18

the teaching process, is driving teachers out of the profession, whilst cuts to pay and pensions contribute to the failure to meet recruitment targets year on year.

In addition to all of this, schools now face the most drastic funding cuts in a generation, with £3bn a year being taken out of the system by 2020.

This crisis in education is driven by what Finnish educationalist Pasi Sahlberg refers to as the Global Education Reform Movement or GERM. Sahlberg describes GERM policies as the combination of: • standardisation in and of education; • a narrow focus on core subjects; • the search for low-risk strategies to reach pre-determined learning goals • corporate management models; and • test-based accountability policies.

These policies have their roots in the rise of neoliberalism as the dominant economic philosophy from the mid-1970s onwards. The neoliberal approach to public services, essentially the idea that everything should be run on a market basis with as little state intervention as possible, has invaded every aspect of our education system, transforming previously absurd ideas into the ‘common sense’ of the system.

If education is to be run as a market, it is entirely logical that schools should operate in competition with each other and that ‘poor performance’ should lead to market failure, i.e. some schools becoming progressively underfunded, losing students and collapsing whilst others thrive and grow. In Margaret Thatcher’s words, “the purpose of these reforms is that the money will flow to the good schools and the good headmasters (sic)”.

Similarly, standardised testing and the naming and shaming of ‘underperformance’ via league tables are necessary to inform consumer choice based upon crude quantitative measures. The negative impact they have on schools and children is either dismissed as distortions of the system (usually blamed on the schools themselves) or, worse, accepted as an essential part of the process of developing a more ‘rigorous’ approach to education.

From this perspective, performance-related pay is necessary to incentivise teachers and punish poor performance, while parents are consumers who will make rational market decisions based on key data. The purpose of education itself is to support pupils’ investment in their human capital so as to best prepare them for an individualised, flexible and changing labour market, thus contributing to the economic success of the country.

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In essence, the crisis in our education system is not the result of individual errors or even individual policies; neoliberalism itself is the problem.

Sense of purpose, sense of direction From this understanding, we can draw three conclusions.

Firstly, if the problem is systemic, we need a systemic solution. We need a decisive break with neoliberalism and its grip on education. This means challenging both the policies of neoliberalism in practice and the underlying ideology that sustains it. We cannot limit ourselves to opposing individual aspects of government policy without promoting a clear understanding of how these are an integral part of the neoliberal approach and what our alternative vision of education would look like.

Secondly, in order to do this, we need to develop long-term, reciprocal, strategic alliances. The rise of neoliberalism was marked by the creation of polarities around key educational questions, pitting parents against teachers, popular opinion against expertise. In this way, neoliberalism welded together disparate, and often contradictory, interests, allowing it to claim to speak on behalf of supposedly homogeneous groups, especially parents. These alliances have begun to fragment as the reality of neoliberal policy has moved further and further from the ideals to which parents aspire for their children.

This presents an opportunity and a necessity to form alliances between education professionals and parents, governors and other groups to oppose neoliberalism. It’s a necessity for two reasons. Firstly, because the promotion of an alternative vision for education requires the winning of wider sections of the population and the creation of a movement committed to such an alternative.

Secondly, because our alternative vision for education, if it is to present a real alternative to neoliberalism, needs to be built around the very principle of democratic participation.

The third conclusion is that we must pick the issues on which we fight carefully. Whilst there will be plenty of provocation from Government and employers to launch a new battle on each new initiative they introduce, this scattergun approach will lead to us fighting a series of short, defensive battles on ground chosen by our opponents. All the historical evidence is that where workers unite, employers – in our case, the Government – attack. Instead, we must proactively engage in strategic campaigns on issues that offer the greatest opportunity to challenge the neoliberal project as a whole.

Two such issues are the questions of testing and of funding. Both are issues, 20

which clearly link the interests of education professionals with those of their students, and therefore parents. They are also integral to the system. Testing, as argued above, is key to the operation of the education market. Similarly, funding cuts, as well as furthering the neoliberal ideals of reducing the state and increasing ‘efficiency’ in the education production process, act as an incentive for schools to break with national pay and conditions for teachers, one of the significant barriers to profit in education.

By building strategic alliances around these key issues, and posing an alternative vision for education as part of this struggle, we have a real chance of breaking the neoliberal grip on our children’s education. That alliance has to exist in every locality where it can best take account of regional and cultural variations, but it also has to find expression at nation level in the Assembly in Wales and the Scottish parliament and an all-Britain level with a new Government armed with a new Education policy in Westminster.

Education – an alternative vision that works 1. Employees must have the right to bargain with their employer. Teachers’ pay and conditions of service should be negotiated, not simply reviewed by the Government. More widely, the trade union movement must insist that the Conventions of the Council of Europe and the International Labour Organisation are incorporated into UK legislation.

2. Our education system must be organised democratically. A local authority board including staff representatives should oversee early years provision, schools and further education colleges. Staff, parents and community representatives should be included on every school governing body.

3. Local Education Authorities should be financed by central government on the basis of social need and local government empowered to raise additional revenues to secure adequate provision of education and social services.

4. The curriculum must be based upon research evidence and experience. It would have to be designed by teachers and other education professionals, with input from other bodies as appropriate. The primary purpose of schools and colleges should be re-defined as to promote and support education as a critical and creative process, which enables learners to understand and contribute to wider society and the world in which they live and to change it for the better.

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5. The unions should keep up and increase the level of their opposition to further privatisation through academisation, MATs and Free schools and each should be taken back into Local Education Authority control.

6. Examinations should be organised and assessed by professional bodies of experienced practitioners with no opportunity available for profit-seeking companies. Testing at 16 should be abolished as part of creating a coherent approach to 14-19 education, which combines an element of specialisation with the need for a broad and balanced curriculum. Primary testing should be replaced with a system of peer-moderated teacher assessment, with a portfolio approach to handover between schools to ensure assessment is meaningful and relevant.

7. A fully resourced careers service should be provided by the Local Authority to give impartial advice to young people as to their best course of study and employment.

8. Apprenticeships should be partly funded by a levy upon employers and their quality subjected to inspection by competent practitioners employed by local and central government, or recognised industry bodies.

9. Schools and colleges should be subject to a supportive and developmental local inspection system, based on school-to-school support, co-ordinated

by LEA advisory teams and overseen by qualified and experienced HMIs. 10. Schools and colleges should be at the heart of their communities and selection by ability or parental wealth made illegal except in circumstances of professionally assessed need. Mixed-’ability’ teaching should be promoted as the most effective approach to developing the potential of every child and challenging discrimination on the grounds of class, race and sex, with teachers supported to develop pedagogically-sound alternatives to setting and streaming.

11. Career progression must be available to support staff, including professional qualifications if desired. Pay progression must be based upon Continuing Professional Development, with courses provided according to trade-unionapproved specifications.

12. The renewal of the Commonwealth Teachers’ Protocol is required as a basis of the prevention of super-exploitation of qualified teachers from countries that are in greater need of their services.

These reforms are genuine improvements to education provision and terms of employment. They give us a sense of direction that challenges the devaluation of professionalism and loss of local democracy inherent in the neoliberal agenda 22

of the Global Education Reform Movement. In Britain, GERM, is both a window and a mirror to Government policy.

Achievement of elements of the above is within the power of the new union and its allies, to win. Each of the points above would contribute to a popular and substantive education policy for a new government. It could gain substantial support from parents. None is achievable without strategic thinking and struggle, involving campaigning and as appropriate, use of the industrial and professional strength of the education workforce.

A National Plan for Education, based on the experience and practice of education professionals, has the power to end the negative divide between education structures and provision for England, Scotland and Wales. Such a Plan has the capacity to bring unity to education workers and their unions in England, Scotland and Wales, which is necessary if we are to push back against the playing off of one group against another that is central to GERM. In this pamphlet we have tried to demonstrate that an alternative is possible.

We hold back from supplying too much detail in recognition that much of it needs debate and expertise that others would be well placed to bring to the discussion. We have shown that class remains the stumbling block to the provision of democratic and high-quality education. And that class struggle, involving campaigning alliances, the assertion of the value of education, industrial action and effective political action throughout England, Scotland and Wales is the means to setting things right. The authors’ hope this pamphlet serves to kick-start many conversations, debates and events and campaigning activity in every community. Our wish is for sufficient unity to emerge around public education so that a new Government, with a radically new education policy can be installed in 2020. The power of the NEU could make that a turning point in the future of education in Britain.

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“The formation of the National Education Union represents a genuine opportunity for transformation. Not the bureaucratic transformation of two large organisations into a single entity, but the transformation of a profession through the transformation of those working it.�

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