Tagged with Michael Gove

Preparing for Labour’s conference: schools policy

Labour’s national policy forum (NPF) report 2013 for this year’s party conference is now available for all to read. Education is dealt with in the section devoted to the annual report of the Education and Child Care Commission on pages 70 to 76 and in a policy paper on childcare on pages 78 to 80. The discussion of schools and 16-19 training and education is found in the annual report and it is that section which is considered below.

The policy substance in this Report of just over 3000 words is slender. It can be summarised as follows:

  1. Labour’s approach to schools is based on “three key themes: Freedom, Devolution and Collaboration”
  2. Labour would give all (state supported) schools the same freedoms such as freedom over the curriculum
  3. Where freedoms are damaging they will be removed Continue reading →

Free schools are Marxist? Then I’m a banana

Michael GoveMichael’s Gove’s latest pronouncement is that free schools are a Marxist ideal, a comment so outlandish and preposterous that it might at first seem that the hot weather has gone to the Education Secretary’s head.

If free schools are a Marxist idea, then I’m a banana. What’s Marxist – or even democratic – about schools that are set up without any consideration of the needs of the wider community and are largely run by ‘educational charities’ like Ark? Surely this is just the ultimate example of trolling – coming out with ridiculous statements that make minimal sense and cause maximum offence.

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Who are “Labour Teachers”, and why has Michael Gove praised them?

The Labour party is full of weird and wonderful groups of all shapes and sizes. If you’re active on social media, you may well have come across one particular example, the group that calls itself “Labour Teachers”.

You might have also been struck by a line from a speech by Michael Gove to teachers and heads last week:

I’m also an admirer of John Blake of Labour Teachers, who has transcended party politics to praise all schools which succeed for their pupils, even if they are academies or free schools…

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Gramsci: the bits Gove left out

I once drew attention to a passage from a book by Malcolm X, in which the legendary African-American activist demanded black community control of black educational institutions, and jokingly suggested that Michael Gove could use the reference when next speaking in support of free schools.

Now the Tory education secretary has gone one step further, and invoked the name of the great Italian revolutionary socialist Antonio Gramsci in support of coalition education policy. Continue reading →

Gove’s ideological war must be challenged wholesale

It wasn’t long after Michael Gove took office as Education Secretary before he was called a “miserable pipsqueak” by Labour MP Tom Watson and got savaged by an angry parent on a radio call-in.

But last week, when the abolition of the AS-level – an exam taken by lower sixth-form pupils – faced the staunch condemnation of both teaching unions and Cambridge University, it became clearer than ever that Gove has shifted the terms of the education debate beyond recognition.

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