What’s Gove got pointed at his head?

Aspirational Willetts: “Aim Lower!”

Don’t know what he’s got pointed at his head, but he appears to be raving.

Big school, little school, cardboard box.

This is a very serious problem for the tories. This was their really big idea, one which Labour would probably have stolen had they got to it first, it’s a wonk’s dream – but soemhow in the run-up to the election they managed to bury it with the ‘big society’, which was really badly-explained, and once they got in it was uneasily sold as academies, which people still associate with Labour. The only genuinely big news about education was Gove’s repeated fuck-up over which school buildings were getting scrapped.

the idea itself is ok – it should in theory appeal to people who are middle class or aspire to it – parents having a more hands-on role in education.

The problem is that a key idea in ‘the big society’ was that everyone should be volunteering all the time. But every single Tory put on the spot about this has to admit that they do not volunteer at all, meaning that the idea is impossible to sell in the media. And nobody has any money at the moment – or time. This would have been a big votewinner in 2006 or 2007, but nobody wants to drop the chance of a saturday job and being able to cover the mortgage in favour of volunteer work at a school which is, by rights, a job that someone should be paid to do.

that’s meant that despite it being rushed through parliament, there are few schools which genuinely want to switch so soon, thus no headlines for at least a year, by which time the coalition is likely not to exist.

Good to see the British public see the Tory school proposals for the absolute cack that they are.

The present LEA system is ok, the only change really required is to finish off the Grammar Schools for good.

Poncing around with “free schools” and “academies” and the absolutely dire idea of “vouchers” misses the point of education by a country mile. Children should go to their nearest school, which should be of equivalence to any other in any area.

That takes massive financial resources, a modern infrastructure and quality teacher training.

It also takes a holistic approach to public services where all communities have roughly similar equality of opportunity – which is what the dumb coalition’s wasteful cuts agenda completely opposes anyway.