Nicky Morgan isn’t ‘continuity Gove’ – she’s even worse

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/06/nicky-morgan-michael-gove-education-secretary

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It wasn’t supposed to be like this. When David Cameron decided to sack Michael Gove and replace him with Nicky Morgan, it was meant to restore a semblance of calm to the debate on education. Gove’s failure was not, the Tory logic reasoned, a rising attainment gap between poor students and their better-off peers; soaring numbers of unqualified teachers; radical agendas infiltrating state schooling in Birmingham; a string of failing free schools; or breaking a manifesto pledge by allowing large infant class sizes to rise by a staggering 200%. It was that he didn’t employ an emollient-enough tone. Therefore, a change of face, it was assumed, would grant the Tories the political licence to continue implementing their discredited policies beneath the radar. Indeed, Morgan openly declared her intention to be little other than an auto-pilot, “continuity Gove” education secretary in an interview last weekend.

This week, however, as a new school year begins in earnest, her mask of congeniality slipped, revealing behind it both the scale of the Tory threat to our education system’s public values and the true intentions of an education secretary that, if anything, is even more hell-bent on their destruction than her predecessor.

First, came a reported suggestion that she wants all schools to implement centrally prescribed criteria for putting students into sets in order to be considered “outstanding” by Ofsted – even after four years of this government attempting to run thousands of schools from Whitehall, this is a new low in diktat-driven schooling.

Second came a mind-boggling level of complacency about the number of infants crammed into cattle classes. For four years this government has diverted money away from areas of need so that it could spend money on its pet free schools project – analysis of National Audit data shows that two-thirds of all the places created by the free schools programme are outside areas classified as having “high” or “severe” primary need. The result is overflowing classrooms up and down the country, with 93,655 infants taught in classes with more than 30 children, and more than 50% of parents in last week’s survey by parenting website Netmums demanding smaller class sizes for their children.

The education secretary’s response? A proud pledge to ignore parents and continue her party’s choice of ideology over need when it comes to new school places and class size.

However, her coup de grace comes with this week’s announcement that she is “carefully considering” allowing companies to run schools for profit. Make no mistake, this policy is purely ideological – in Sweden, it has seen the biggest slump in standards anywhere in the world. The public service ethos that drives outstanding teachers to raise our children’s attainment would be destroyed at a stroke, leaving our country and our children immeasurably poorer.

Rather than conceal the choice next May, Morgan’s actions this week have instead brought it into sharper relief. The future she offers is much like the recent past – only worse. A future of overflowing classrooms, more unqualified teachers, fewer vocational opportunities, a rising attainment gap and profit-making schools.

In contrast, the Labour party will offer a public education system based on unleashing the moral mission of world-class teachers, delivering vocational excellence for the forgotten 50% and prioritising funding where it is most needed to tackle rising class sizes.