O.K. Nick Clegg, this is getting beyond a joke

First, check this out.
How many Libdem voters do you think will support the idea of National Curriculum History being reimagined by a Neo-Victorian Imperialist? Come to that, how many sane, properly educated people will be impressed? Probably Cameron will because he will have been indoctrinated with this twaddle at prep school and Eton, but there must be many Tories even who are shaking their heads in disbelief. Talk about a backwards step.

And as for the Academies promotion......... Words almost fail me. Adonis has got a lot to answer for. As have Blair, Brown and Balls. On the back of the big lie about schools failing will be built an education universe which can only widen the unforgiveable social gulf for which this country is renowned.

Schools Sell-Out

The Association of School and College Lecturers, to which most secondary heads belong, had its members polled before the election and found that the LibDem plans for schools were preferred. Most heads could see the absurdity, particularly in the light of the deficit, of deliberately setting out to create surplus places (the plan for 'free schools') and unsurprisingly there was little confidence in Michael Gove after his ridiculous wish to see a return to 'traditional' education:
“I’m an unashamed traditionalist when it comes to the curriculum,” Mr Gove said. “Most parents would rather their children had a traditional education, with children sitting in rows, learning the kings and queens of England, the great works of literature, proper mental arithmetic, algebra by the age of 11, modern foreign languages. That’s the best training of the mind and that’s how children will be able to compete.” (Not straight out of 'Private Eye' but from The Times, 6/03/10).

It turns out that short-trousered Michael Gove, who looks and sounds like he should still be wearing them, was a member of a successful primary school quiz team. So what? However clever he and presumably his proud parents may think he is, he makes a common bar-room mistake in equating the accumulation of often useless knowledge with intelligence. I have to be restrained every time a 'Millionaire' contestant says of a 'phone a friend' nominee, 'She'll know, she's very clever'. But more importantly, there's no evidence whatsoever that parents want their children to sit in rows and 'learn' useless facts. Now, of course, there's nothing intrinsically wrong with the proposed content - apart from the kings and queens of course: the sooner we ditch them the better off we'll be - but the implied pedagogy sucks.

Then there's the tension between such bizarre and prescriptive statements by a Secretary of State and the declared intention to set schools free.

Things would not be quite so depressing if education wasn't one of the policy areas where the LibDems appear to have totally sold out to the Tories. Or if the schools minister was a LibDem who could bring some sense to bear. Sarah Teather, one of the most impressive politicians in any party, is actually a minister in the department but she has responsibility for children - a graveyard slot, if you will.

Instead of someone sensible, we have Nick Gibb who is reported to have told officials in the Department for Education on the day after his appointment: "I would rather have a physics graduate from Oxbridge without a PGCE teaching in a school than a physics graduate from one of the rubbish universities with a PGCE."

First off, Physics graduates are a lot less easy for schools to come by than he appears to believe. Secondly, as any fule kno - and as we have explained previously on OSAA - academic excellence (let's assume for the sake of argument that 'graduate from Oxford' equals
'academically excellent', whatever that means) is absolutely not a marker for excellent teacher: it's often quite the reverse, probably because people who find learning easy find it hard to understand why lesser mortals find it difficult.

I understand Gibb is an accountant and I'm quite prepared to believe that he's good with figures.

So overall, it's looking pretty grim. A hung parliament was supposed to keep the loonies in check, not put them in power.

P.S. Gove incidentally still talks about 'headmasters'. Not that clever or intelligent then. Must have thought all those women he saw at the Heads' conference were their wives or mistresses.

Get real Ed

Balls has an opportunity, at this very late stage, to finally face the fact that SATS are dead meat. Invented by regressive educationists, they have never been anything other than a con and Labour should have abolished them in 1997. They don't reliably assess kids or schools. They have distorted the curriculum and dumbed down pedagogy. Even their name, borrowed from the US because these clowns always assume that America equals state of the art when in reality it usually manages to combine the extremes of the spectrum, is ridiculous - the US SATS are something entirely different, though possibly just as silly.

Wales and Northern Ireland are managing to cope very well without SATS and they have never been used in Scotland (incidentally, I'd be voting SNP if I could as I agree with every policy I hear Salmond put forward). Key Stage 3 results have already collapsed under the weight of their own manifest futility and injustice. IT'S TIME TO CALL IT A DAY. So get real balls, Ed. They're not going to happen any way and you might even win yourself some votes.