- checking login information
Loading...Is UK Education Secretary Gove Destroying Foundations Of English Education?
- by Judy Molland
- May 28, 2012
- 9:50 pm
From The Guardian:
As a survey by the thinktank Reform showed last week, most schools that convert to academy status do so because they get extra cash, which would otherwise be retained by local authorities for central services such as helping pupils with special needs. One school calculated it would get an extra £462 per pupil, a 10% rise. Most academies do not plan to change their curriculum, school day or admissions policy. Despite union fears, most will stick to national agreements on staff pay and conditions as, indeed, do most fee-charging schools.
Why Academies?
So what is the point of academies? There are several possibilities. First, so-called “independent” academies increase the opportunities for commercial involvement in state-funded education. Many schools will use their extra cash to pay private companies to run anything from back-office management to teaching and learning programs.
Then again, without local authorities to hold the ring, schools will compete more fiercely for able and advantaged pupils who can boost exam scores. Academies will be allowed to expand their intakes even if that undermines neighboring schools by depriving them of pupils. And we’ve certainly seen how that works in the U.S.
And it just might be that the Tories would like to see the return of grammar schools, in place of comprehensive schools; this would be easier if schools were academies.
All Power To Central Government
The advance of academies means the demise of local education authorities, with all power going to the government in London, rather than being dispersed, as it used to be, with teachers, parents, local councils and central government all having rights and responsibilities defined by statute.
And that’s not a good thing.
Related Stories
Are Standardized Tests Valuable? 72% Of Teachers Say “No”
Romney’s Education Plan Recycles Failed Ideas
How Finland’s Education System Succeeds, And America’s Is At War
Read more: academies, charter schools, comprehensive schools, grammar schools, michael gove, uk education, uk education secretary, voucher programs
Photo Credit: Cybermyth13
Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may
not reflect those of
Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.
Recent Comments from Causes
Ha ha ha, they are both cute! Poor little dog :-))
He's having such a good time! I hope he doesn't get scolded for bringing home sand on his feet (LOL…
Tear in the eye time.
meet our writers
43 comments
+ add your ownFollow the advanced Singapore and Finnland models of education !!!
ty
Yes. he is.
Next question please.
I want all schools to be public through college, techinical, business schools and job training. I want all children to receive a stellar education no matter the financial status of their parents. I want our Department of Education to start looking at schools that are succeeding outside the U. S. A., beating our kids at math, science, etc., and do a major overall of our public educational system. I want them to demand teachers from the top tier of graduating classes and pay them entry salaries and slaries that compete with business. It is stupid what this country and apparently some others are doing to their public educational systems, the entire country and it's citizens beneftis from a well educated, well trained society.
Education is about learning to think, not memorising tests, the system neo-liberals and conservatives seem to love, A computer can do a better job. Do we want our children to become human computers - or creative thinkers with the ability to anayse and argue a point of view without having the questions and the answers rammed down their throats. No one person, in government or elsewhere, should decide the subjects children are taught, and the way they are taught. The syllabus for schools should be developed by expert, non government committees and supervised by national or regional authorities. Otherwise the education of children can fall into the hands of vested interests, or individuals spouting propaganda for their slanted points of view - such as an intention, by some wooly headed dinosaur, to teach Creationism at the expense of scientific Darwinism, or a political party proposing to teach their version of 20th century politics.
Noted.
In my Art class (nominally in the Grammar School) we had many gifted students from the Secondary Modern.
It worked, Terry! I know. I was there.
@Terry O: The true golden age of English schooling was already past when I got my education at Ashlyns Grammar School in Berkhamsted. Ashlyns was a big school for its day, and was actually two schools in one building, the Grammar School and the Secondary Modern. Yes, the 11-Plus results sent us into one or the other, the Grammar streams were titled U1, U2 and U3, and the Secondary Modern A1-3, B1-3 and C1 and C2. But where you are mistaken, Terry, is that people in the C-streams had very small classes, as I suggested in my previous comment (which is how I know this works!) and the Grammar streams had mostly 40+ in a class. Thus the pupils struggling with the work or with behavioural difficulties actually had the more expensive education! The 'high-fliers' were keen and competitive and constantly challenged by their studies, so did not get bored or disruptive.
The other notion of which I would disabuse you, Terry, is that those who 'failed' the 11-plus were thenceforth 'written off'. Pupils were freely transferred, not only between classes in their own stream, but yes, between streams, including between U and A streams i.e. between the Grammar and Secondary Modern, depending upon their progress, in a promotion-relegation system similar to the English Football League. Certain subjects were taken together by the whole year's pupils in both Schools, e.g. sport. Other subjects were separately streamed according to ability e.g. Art and Music, so in my Art class (nominally in the
Talk to me when the stink of CLASS is lifted ....
PS...Maybe we should all stop paying taxes since they're not using them for the purposes intended.
login to add your comment
use your care2 login
add your comment