he accused leftwing critics of promoting "a version of the old levelling-down mentality that kept us in opposition for so long".
Yes, Tony, but it got them into the position of creating the Comprehensive system in the first place, didn't it?
Once again, I must confess that I'm puzzled over Labour's cry of "CHOICE, DAMMIT!" As far as I can imagine, parents don't really want to choose their child's school - they just want them to go to a good one. So, yes, being an evil left-wing pinko Communist here, but why not try and concentrate on improving the schools instead of the hand-waving of parental selection?
I'm also a little worried about the idea that the schools will be able to set their own curriculum. I'd like to know just how far schools will be allowed to go in this manner. In the worst case, we could, for example, end up seeing Stupid Idiots deciding to teach children fairy tales in lieu of actual science.
(and, if I am going all out, we should be reducing the number of faith schools, not increasing them. Despite going to a Roman Catholic primary school myself, I think that religious instruction should take place outside the school system.)
This has been an "okay, so you scrapped grant-maintained schools as soon as you got in, and now you're bringing them back? Whatever…" post for the day.
The point, surely, is that choice, ie competition, is the most, if not the only, effective way of improving schools. Government has no idea how to improve schools because they don't teach in them or run them. Quoting Mark Steyn usually makes me feel slightly ill, but nonetheless he's right when he says that a Government that tries to do everything usually does most of it badly; for once this Government is showing a hint of a suggestion of a suspicion of an inclination not to micromanage every single thing into which it feels it can legitimately or otherwise poke its nose: I for one say let's not get in the way of any nascent laissez-faire streak that may or may not be about to stick its head foolishly over the parapet of left-wing dogma.
Of course, it's largely a smokescreen anyway. It only gives the illusion of choice. But so far as I'm concerned any Government that remains in whole or in part ideologically against selection is doing untold damage to future generations' abilities, as well as having the (presumably) ideologically undesireable effect of driving more and more families that can barely afford it into the private sector to escape the chaos. Surely the best way to make schools better is make them answerable for the results they get, and the only way you can do that is to give them control over the pupils they take. Of course, accepting the disinction between equality of opportunity and parity of outcome wouldn't go amiss either.
Although I'm all for the Government easing off on the micromanaging (while I think we should have a National Curriculum, I do think there should be leeway for experimentation), do you really think competition helps schools improve that much? I mean, if we go back to the 'good old days' of the Grammar School/Secondary Modern system, there wasn't much competition between the two different schemes, was there? You just took the 11+ and went to one or the other. The onset of league tables has just meant that many students on the bottom end aren't even entered for GCSEs anymore for fear of bringing the school's results down. That's good for the school, but is it good for the student?
Oh, one other thing - one possible good outcome of the Government's "choice" mantra is that it *might* deflate some of the insane housing prices in the catchment areas of successful schools.
I do if the competition is meaningful. If the only thing they're competing for is a place on the league table that they can wave under rival schools' noses, then sure, I agree with you. If they'e competing for survival, then I've no doubt that the ones that can improve will improve.