Collective Worship in Schools

Commenting on government proposals that will most likely abolish the statutory obligation upon schools to hold a daily act of collective worship, Cranmer asks, "is it any coincidence that those schools which take the Christian daily act of collective worship seriously, and do it very well, are invariably those with the highest educational standards, yielding best academic results, turning out some of the most reasonable and most excellent contributors to society?"

As we noted last month, the question is why this should be so. The Church of England's chief education officer suggested it "helps embed strong discipline, a caring attitude, and a sense of purpose." Looking for political guidance, we find that when he was Education Secretary, Alan Johnson noted collective worship in schools "can provide an opportunity not only to worship God but also to consider spiritual and moral issues and to explore their own beliefs. Collective worship can also help to develop community spirit, promote a common ethos and shared values and reinforce positive attitudes."

Assuming that still to be the case, don't we need this for our children now even more than ever?

One-Stop State Service Providers

So, under the Government's latest harebrained idea, headteachers are not just to oversee "extended schools" that provide breakfast-til-bedtime supervision of children, their schools are to become centres for family welfare services, providing parents with information about housing, benefits, parenting skills, and health. As for the "parents council" proposal to allow parents to have more say in schools, perhaps Children, Schools and Families Secretary Ed Balls hasn't heard of parent governors and parents teachers associations.

If schools are forced to assume the role of social services and become seen as mere extensions of the state, not only will the education of our children suffer even more than it has already done under Labour, but the trust that currently exists between schools and their communities will quickly be forfeited. To borrow Ed's phrase, maybe schools need to display a new sign at their gates: "No Balls games here".

Primary School League Tables

Two thirds of the 250 primaries in England achieving "perfect" test results were Church of England, Roman Catholic or Jewish schools. Despite making up just a third of schools nationally, faith schools increased their hold on the top places from 44 per cent two years ago to 66 per cent in 2007. Last night, they hailed the results as a testament to good teaching and discipline.

Thus reports today's Telegraph. It goes on to note that critics claim the schools do so well by selecting talented, middle-class pupils, often at the expense of poor children living nearby. However, as David Jesson, Economics professor at York University, comments in the paper, studies have proven that this is not the case: "In a recent study of London secondary schools, it was shown that mainstream faith schools had socio-economic and ability profiles almost identical with that of the society they served - and still helped their pupils gain substantially better results at GCSE than their secular counterparts." The question, as Jesson points out, is: Why?

Jan Ainsworth, the Church of England's chief education officer suggests the schools' "Christian character helps embed strong discipline, a caring attitude, and a sense of purpose." Not so many years ago, that might have seemed like stating the obvious, but with the PC brigade being what it is, I suppose such things cannot be taken for granted any longer.

Raising the Bar, Closing the Gap

GUEST CONTRIBUTION by Jason Fletcher

Earlier this month, David Cameron launched the Conservative Co-operative Movement to help people establish co-operatives that could set up or run local public services such as schools, providing a "flexibility and dynamism that a central state agency lacks." With the publication this week of the party's Green Paper on education, The Difference invited the headteacher of a newly created independent school to comment on the proposals to provide capital funding and loosen planning rules to allow charities and concerned parents to set up schools more easily.

I am privileged to be the Headteacher of Cambridge's newest independent school — Heritage School — which opened its doors to 16 lower-primary aged students on 5 September. Our intention is to grow year on year through the secondary level.

Although I've yet to read them in detail, the Tory proposals to back parent initiated schools are heartening. Why? After several months of evenings spent in research into our educational vision and the business case, we were very thankful in the end to secure sufficient start-up funding from a number of generous donors. But we are not out of the woods yet - as far as financial viability goes. The challenge of finding families able to pay a second time for their child's education, despite our intentionally modest fees, is considerable. Just last night a parent who is dissatisfied with the state school her child is in said she was 'envious' of what we are offering - but unable, at present, to afford it.

If government funding could follow successful recruitment in an open market I am confident that we could readily fill our available places. Our educational values and methods resonate with parents concerned by large class sizes, a one-size-fits-all system, a vacuum of Christian-based values, a test-driven school culture, the failure of so many children to be not only adequately 'up-skilled' but also, simply, to have the vitality of mind to be actively engaged with our very interesting world - to name a few concerns. Unsurprisingly, I would love to see parents given real choices. It strikes me as very wise for a government to unleash the most powerful social force for good we possess: the fierce, selfless nurturing instinct of the parent. It seems reasonable to conclude that the general well-being of children in Britain would be significantly advanced by a mature, diverse educational market.

A final thought or two: we held our first parents' evening two weeks ago. Sitting across the table from real parents who could choose to take their child elsewhere is a powerful motivator to excellence in educational provision - a far healthier motivator than excessive centralised target setting. A related point is this: independence in education ought to mean just that. Clearly some regulation is essential (a 'broad and balanced curriculum', health and safety, etc.), but there is an inevitable danger that there will be too many strings attached.

Our dream is to see other Child Light schools (Heritage is run by Child Light Limited, a registered charity) founded in the coming years. Dare I hope that we might be poised to ride a great wave of educational reform?

P Is For Pupils, Politicians & Power

My daughter, who turned five today and who is desperate to catch up with her big brother, would, I'm sure, agree that all children should learn to read by the age of six. She was disappointed not to be able to do so already in time for when she joined her reception class little more than two months ago. However, do we really need another alternative externally-administered test for six to seven-year-olds and a one-size-fits-all prescription of synthetic phonics, as David Cameron is reported as suggesting? If this were a Labour proposal, I would at least understand the rationale, with their misplaced belief that "the state always knows best." Yet this is coming from the party that is supposed to stand for freedom and local empowerment.

Shadow schools secretary Michael Gove was right when he told Andrew Marr, "Unless they learn to read properly they won't be able to read to learn subsequently, and this is the key foundation stone on which the rest of learning is built." Which is precisely why teachers need to be freed to teach. The last thing we need is yet another state-administered National Literacy Strategy, a new Every Child a Reader programme, or the Conservatives aping Labour's failed approach.

In the summer, Mr Cameron criticised the Government for treating every child "not as unique, but as identical," and making schools "local outposts of the central state." He also explained how the Conservatives would improve the provision of education for excluded children by trusting schools and their local partners with more resources, more responsibility, longer contracts, and more freedom. Surely the same would benefit all children? What happened to the party's belief in the principle of subsidiarity, its call for an end to bureaucratic overload, and its promises of a massive liberalisation of the supply-side of education? Let us hope that when Cameron publishes his education policy on Tuesday, we find today's reports have given a distorted impression of the opposition's ideas...

Disruptive Children Same As Peers

"Two new studies suggest that many young children who are identified as troubled or given diagnoses of mental disorders settle down in time and do as well in school as their peers."

Now we have yet more evidence to undermine the state's unnecessary practice of over-medicating our more troublesome (and troubled) children:

In one study, an international team of researchers analyzed measures of social and intellectual development from 20,000 children and found that disruptive or antisocial behaviors in kindergarten were not at all correlated with academic success at the end of elementary school. Kindergartners who interrupted the teacher, defied instructions, even picked fights, were performing just as well in reading and math as well-behaved children of the same abilities by fifth grade, the study found.

In the other study, government researchers using imaging techniques found that the brains of children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder developed normally but more slowly, in some areas, than in children without the disorder.

For further details, see the International Herald Tribune

Brown's LCD Vision

On the day that Gordon Brown announced yet another seven quangos in his "déjà vu" Queen's speech, a local news story seems to encapsulate much of what this Government has come to represent:

Pupils from a successful girls' secondary school in Kent today staged a protest over a proposal to create a new academy by merging it with Temple School, a nearby boys' school that, according to tables published in January, achieved England's worst GCSE results.

The head teacher at Strood's Chapter School is reported as acknowledging that an academy for Strood "could be really exciting" but insists, "I'm against the plan where Chapter School has to close, we lose the family image and ethos we have, and then we reopen in 2009 and who knows what staff would still be here."

Such is the failing of Brown's "vision": seeking to reduce Britain to its lowest common denominator, when we should be building on the nation's highest common factor.

Nontaial Liecraty Sartgety Fliarue

A report for an independent inquiry into England's primary schools says standards of reading have risen little in fifty years. The claims, made by the Curriculum, Evaluation and Management Centre at the University of Durham (whose work we have encountered previously), will come as little surprise to anyone who works in a primary school and whose daily experience seems a world away from the Government's persistent claims of improvement in literacy standards as a result of the five hundred million pounds it has poured into its National Literacy Strategy.

The funny thing is, those young minds are actually incredibly versatile ... Aoccdrnig to a rscheeearchr at Cmadribge Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

However, apparently only 55% of people can understand that and even they would still have needed to have been taught the rudiments of reading. I suggest the CEM report provides further support to calls for the state to be taken out of pedagogy. Whether you've got a classroom anecdote to share, want to share how you discovered the joy of a good book, or just want to complain about this latest evidence of Government waste, do leave a comment!

Let Parents Decide

Here's something you don't hear me say very often: Gordon Brown is right. Today he told us:

"We can no longer tolerate failure, no longer will it be acceptable for any child to fall behind, no longer acceptable for any school to fail its pupils, no longer acceptable for young people to drop out of education without good qualifications without us acting. No more toleration of second best in Britain. No more toleration of second best for Britain."

However, he is mistaken in thinking that the state should take over or close down schools that fail our children. Instead, it is time to let the market decide.

Rather than controlling schools from the centre, the state should pay schools on a per-pupil basis via a voucher or tax credit scheme, allowing parents and guardians to choose the school they would like to send their children to, promoting higher standards, innovation and competition. Failing schools will be taken over by successful education providers or be forced to close down by parental choice.

Of course, it will come at a cost: no more expensive central bureaucracy.

Taking The Educational Temperature

The big news of the day is the report from The Primary Review, which notes that primary school children and their parents are suffering from "deep anxiety" about modern life, with primary schools engulfed by a wave of anti-social behaviour, materialism and the cult of celebrity.

In view of our plea last made only yesterday for an end to government interference in our public services and the devolution of power to local professionals, perhaps most striking is the following observation: "The report also records that gloom could turn to hope when witnesses felt able to act rather than merely comply, whether as children working on projects for sustainable development, teachers taking control of the curriculum, or schools using their entrepreneurial talent to enhance staffing and facilities. This finding is a timely corrective to the belief that for every educational challenge there should be a high-profile government initiative or national strategy."

At the end of the report, it lists 44 questions for the next stage of the review. Here's a "top three" for you to consider and let us know what you think:

• If, as witnesses tell us, there has been a loss in recent years of social cohesion, community and concern for others, and a growth in selfishness and materialism, how might primary schools both help children to cope with the adverse consequences of these changes and play their part in redressing the balance?
• Is it the case that the profile of identified special educational needs is changing, with a rise in the incidence of behavioural difficulties? Why is this? Are current SEN and inclusion policies able to meet these changes? Is SEN provision equitable, both geographically and in relation to the range of needs which are identified?
• Is the day-to-day work of primary schools excessively controlled and constrained by central government, as witnesses claim? Will the ‘flexibility’ and ‘freedom’ offered by the Primary Strategy be sufficient to discount such claims or should the balance of national, local and school be radically reconfigured? Does the notion of a national strategy or agency defining the precise nature of school-level freedoms embody a certain contradiction?

Islamic School For Kent

Tonight's local news that Muslim leaders are calling for a state-funded Islamic school to be set up in Kent saw me turning to Martin Parsons article in this month's edition of The Difference, examining how Western educational values unwittingly contributed to the rise of Islamism.

The BBC quotes a spokesman for Kent Muslim Welfare Association, Anwar Khan, who runs Islamic classes outside school hours for about 100 children at Jamia Mosque in Gillingham, as complaining, "We run our schools for 10 hours a week - two hours a day, for children across the ages and from different schools. It is an extra burden for them, coming back from school, doing some work at home and having their evening meal and then coming to the mosque."

Parsons concludes his article by considering this very issue of demands from Islamic organisations for state funding of Muslim schools. Let us know what you think:

When Labour came to power in 1997 the government began to approve the creation of Muslim schools in a similar manner to voluntary aided Anglican and Catholic schools. However, the question which needs to be answered is whether these schools are inspired by a philosophy that is compatible with western democracy and seeks to promote tolerance and freedom, or Islamism, which combines western education's critical thinking with Islamic political values?

Labour clearly needs the votes of Islamic groups but doesn’t appear to want all of their agenda. It has been willing to grant some requests – such as government subsidies for courses in Islamic theology and Arabic and considering approval for a Muslim City Academy in Bradford – but has now made a significant u-turn on faith schools. First came an announcement that all faith schools would have to allocate 25% of their places to pupils from another faith or no faith, a proposal that was finally dropped after a concerted campaign by the Catholic Church. Then the government legally required all schools to promote “community cohesion”, with Jim Knight, the Schools Minister, suggesting faith schools should twin with those of other faiths.

Many have suggested that this attempt to create “community cohesion” by targeting all faith schools instead of just Muslim ones is driven by Labour’s desire to hold onto its share of the Muslim vote, which slumped in the 2005 general election. However, there is also a marked secularising tendency in liberal-left politics, coupled with an ideological assumption that the state, not churches or parents, should educate children. The recent vote of the left-leaning teaching union, the NASUWT, to oppose new faith schools well illustrates these ideological assumptions.

Yet whoever heard of voluntary-aided Church of England or Catholic schools in mainland Britain creating problems of community cohesion? They don’t for two reasons. First, because as part of the majority community – 72% according to the last census – voluntary-aided Christian schools by definition cannot create an educational ghetto. Secondly, unlike the Islamic scriptures, the Bible does not set out a distinct political system, still less require one to be imposed on non-believers. Tragically, this is a nettle that the Labour government and other members of the liberal left seem unable or unwilling to grasp.

For more on this issue, also see The Rise Of Islam.

Diversity of Faith in Schools

The Government has today pledged its support for faith schools, unveiling a joint declaration with Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, and Sikh leaders called Faith in the System. Despite objections from the Association of Teachers and Lecturers, who believe religious groups should keep out of education, at least Children, Schools and Families Secretary Ed Balls says he recognises that "faith schools are popular with many parents and make a valuable contribution to the way in which this country educates its children."

As I noted some months ago, Church schools are clearly providing something that parents are seeking and it is right that parents should be allowed a continued choice of schools. However, with reports that today's statement offers the prospect of "many more Muslim schools within the state sector," I wonder whether we'll be hearing a repeat of concerns expressed earlier this year when the Muslim Council of Britain's published Towards Greater Understanding – Meeting the Needs of Muslim Pupils in State Schools, its "guidance document" calling for schools to make concessions to Islamic cultural norms. For instance, considering the wider debate over the cultural integration of immigrants and warnings that most of our educational institutions have been infiltrated by Islamist groups, would the prospect of more Muslim schools really help "build bridges to greater mutual trust and understanding" and "contribute to a just and cohesive society"?

A Sense of Belonging

Discussing today's Public Services Improvement Policy Group report on Radio 4 this morning, Baroness Perry suggested that the tendency for school size to increase over the last ten years has been a disaster "very much at the root of some of the bad behaviour that we have seen":

"It's a sense of belonging more than anything else which children lack in very large schools. They feel that nobody knows them and if you are not known you can get away with anything. The sense of being part of a smaller community where people do know who you are, where you have a real sense that you belong in the community and it matters what you do, makes a huge difference."

She went on to praise experiments in America where big schools have been broken down into small units — what they call "several small schools under one roof" — resulting in reduced truancy rates and improvement in both performance and discipline. She was also critical of the increase in the number of repeating exclusions — almost a quarter of a million a year — which she described as "just a recognition of failure":

"I want to see much more positive attempts within the school to keep these children engaged, interested and excited in what's going on. I think we are failing them by giving them a curriculum which is only really suitable for about half the children in our schools — the other half are being failed by what we're offering them."

Among the 156 proposals in the report, some of the other ones that stand out for me are:

Health

• We propose that the Treasury should present an annual report to Parliament which sets out the public health implications and impacts of all public expenditure programmes both within and outside the Department of Health.
• We propose that the next Conservative government should remove licences from shops prosecuted for selling alcohol and tobacco to minors.
• We propose that the next Conservative government should establish better access to mental health and drug rehabilitation services for those in the criminal justice system.
• We propose that the next Conservative government should bring forward legislation to provide for the establishment of an NHS Board which is independent and accountable to local communities and through Ministers to Parliament.
• We propose that the next Conservative government should establish a new statutory framework for NICE which clarifies the scope of its work and advice.
• We propose the next Conservative government should work with professional and patient groups to develop a new primary dental service contract that ensures equitable access to dental services.

Education

• We recommend that teachers receive full anonymity until any case against them has been fully dealt with.
• We recommend that a review of guidelines and publications are sent to schools should take place, with the aim of reducing the burden that these place upon teachers, allowing them the professional freedom to teach.
• We propose that the level of prescription set out in the Early Years Foundation Stage Profile and the Primary National Framework be slimmed down to enable early years teachers to focus their judgments on what is best for each individual child.
• We recommend that there should be far fewer national targets, as the determination of the broad outcomes would give a firm steer to the service nationally. A slimmed down structure of national tests at 7, 11, 14, GCSE and 18-19 examinations and diplomas would provide the government and public with all the information needed to monitor whether the system was delivering successfully.
• Any pupil falling behind at the age of 11 should, we believe, be given a chance to have remedial education to bring them up to the right standard in the basics, either during the summer before secondary school, or even – particularly perhaps for the summer-born – repeating the final primary school year.
• We recommend that schools should set by ability unless they can demonstrate that they can achieve higher standards using mixed ability teaching.

Social Housing

• We recommend that social and economic mobility should be cornerstone of housing policy generally, and of community housing policy in particular. The aim of community housing must be to encourage greater home ownership, with a flexibility that will cater both for those in greatest need and for those struggling to find a home.
• We recommend that tenants who move between Housing Associations retain their Preserved Right to Buy.
• We propose a review of VAT and Stamp Duty regimes that discourage private sector involvement in refurbishing the social housing sector.

The Weakest Link

Leadership often means saying what others don't want to hear and being able to point out an alternative way forward. Anyone doubting David Cameron's leadership needs to read his speech on school discipline today.

With figures showing that almost 40,000 children were suspended from school at least three times last year, over 1,700 children were thrown out of school for assaults on teachers, and with Pupil Referral Units (PRUs) condemned by Ofsted as the weakest link in the education system, the Conservative Party leader calls for less reliance on PRUs and more emphasis on the independent voluntary sector to educate school troublemakers. But before detailing a plan of action for the future, he examines the ways in which the Government has failed us:

In education, the whole country is still suffering from a series of orthodoxies which are a sort of hangover from the 1960s.

First, the idea that we should treat every child not as unique, but as identical - that equality and equal rights mean throwing every child into the same class in the same school.

It is this that has bred the doctrine of inclusion for all - the idea that schools should cater for everyone, no matter what their needs, aptitudes or behaviour. The result is special schools closed, and some children with special needs inappropriately included in mainstream education. Bright kids are held back and less able kids are left behind.

Second, the orthodoxy that education is a process not of learning from a teacher, but of solitary discovery - that the child should guide himself to knowledge. The result is the lack of rigour and falling standards we are becoming so familiar with.

And finally, the orthodoxy that schools should not be independent institutions, accountable to parents and the local community, but local outposts of the central state. The result is a target culture which makes it far harder for heads to create their own ethos for their school - and that includes rules on discipline.

Of course, anyone can criticise the Government for its mistakes. But Mr Cameron goes on to explain how the Conservatives will improve the provision of education for excluded children:

• First, we will stop the closure of special schools. Over 60 per cent of children in PRUs have special educational needs. That's too many, we need to ensure there is the proper provision for these kids.
• Second, we will ensure there is earlier intervention for kids with emotional and behavioural difficulties. I would like to see kids with emotional and behavioural difficulties picked up much earlier, at the start of primary school, rather than later in secondary school when they cost far more to look after and are far less likely to change their ways. Schools specialising in emotional and behavioural difficulties do an important and difficult job - too many have closed or are facing cutbacks.
• Third, and vitally, we need a whole new relationship between state schools and those voluntary bodies and social enterprises which have real expertise in turning around kids who get excluded. It's time for the state sector to say that when it comes to these children, we're doing a bad job and you're doing a great job, we want to trust you with more of the resources, more responsibility, longer contracts and more freedom.

Once again, it all comes down to the Government's inability to trust the people. And, once again, the principles of empowerment and subsidiarity should be applied to all of us, not just young people...

Our Orwellian State

The news is reporting that the number of prescriptions for antidepressants and other mind-altering drugs given to children under 16 has more than quadrupled in the last decade. As shocking as this statistic is, checking Hansard for the actual answer given to the Liberal Democrat shadow children's secretary, David Laws, reveals that it masks an even more shocking one.

The question asked was: "To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families what his latest estimate is of the number of school age pupils who have been prescribed drugs for (a) depression, (b) behaviour control and (c) mental health problems in each year from 1996-97 to 2006-07; and if he will make a statement." The headline summary is that there were more than 631,000 such prescriptions recorded in the last financial year compared to 146,000 in 1996-97 — an increase of more than 4.3 times the figure ten years ago. However, a breakdown of these prescriptions reveals that the increase in use of behaviour control drugs has been almost ten-fold among under-16s and almost twenty-fold among 16-18 year olds in full-time education:

Increase in use of mind-control drugs in the last ten years
	Under 16s	16-18s in full time education
Antidepressant drugs	1.4	1.1
Behaviour control drugs †	9.4	19.6
Drugs used in psychoses and related disorders	3.4	1.2
All mind-control drugs	4.3	1.4

† Central Nervous System stimulants and drugs used for
attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)

We've got Big Brother, NewSpeak, attempts to lock away the innocent and now mass use of mind control drugs ... and poor George Orwell thought he was writing a warning about, not a manifesto for a future government.

Ofsted Drives Head To Suicide

"A headmaster is believed to have committed suicide on the eve of an inspection of his school by Ofsted."

I'm sorry, but on a day when the Government has announced yet another top-down initiative that is supposed to help our already over-burdened and strait-jacketed teachers, this news from the Telegraph should really be somewhere near the top of the news agenda.

This wasn't even a failing school expecting a bad inspection report — "His school opened in 2000 and was last inspected four years ago when it received a glowing report from Ofsted on the way it was run."

Neither is it the first time that an Ofsted inspection has ended in a suicide — "In 2000, a depressed primary school teacher with more than 30 years' experience drowned herself after being criticised in an Ofsted report."

I can but echo this week's Social Justice Policy Group's report, Breakthrough Britain, in its call for an end to bureaucratic overload, improved pay and job conditions for head teachers, and improved training to help heads deal with poor pupil behaviour. This is not how a life of public service is supposed to end and our sympathies go out to the family of Jed Holmes and to all who knew him.

In its section on Leadership in Schools, Breakthrough Britain noted:

There are currently more than 500,000 pupils in over 1,200 schools without a permanent head across the country and the following key statistics show the problems being encountered by all schools:

• Head teachers are retiring early - the number is likely to rise from 2,250 in 2004 to nearly 3,500 in 2009.
• There are insufficient newcomers to fill vacancies - 43% of deputy heads and 70% of middle leaders don’t want to be head teachers.
• The number of advertisements for all heads during 2006 was above the average and hit a new record in primary schools with around a third having to re-advertise the position.

To improve educational outcomes, we need excellent leaders and our view is that there are enough potential and actual leaders in the system to deliver an excellent education to disadvantaged pupils.
However, we believe that we need to ensure that aspiring leaders:

• Are convinced that the job they are being asked to do is possible and highly valued.
• Have the freedom and flexibility to meet their pupils’ needs.
• Are properly trained and resourced.
• Are well rewarded for quality performance.

Positively Discriminating

On Saturday I questioned some of the anti-discrimination legislation now affecting schools. Today we learn that almost half of pupils leaving school with no or low qualifications are white, working-class, British boys and that, contrary to common perceptions, ethnic minority pupils are at less risk of low achievement. White British pupils not only form the majority of low educational achievers; they also do worse than children with similar income levels from other ethnic groups and are more likely than any other ethnic group to remain low achievers as they move up from primary to secondary school.

I can but echo my weekend conclusions: instead of responding to the complaints and grievances, be they real or perceived, of minority groups, anti-discrimination measures should focus on positive duties to introduce equality for all. Now what does that remind me of? ... Oh yes, a certain recent speech by David Willetts: "A Conservative agenda for education will not be about just helping a minority of pupils escape a bad education. We want better schools for all, based on fair admission and fair funding."

PFI: Public Fleecing Initiative?

"These long term debts are distorting clinical priorities now, they are distorting our ability to treat patients."

This is the verdict of a leading member of the British Medical Association on debts accumulated by hospitals under the Private Finance Initiative (PFI). Even supporters of PFI say it could lead to the "wrong services in the wrong places" for local patients and note that there are already one or two PFI hospitals where wards and wings are standing empty because nobody wants to buy their services.

Last year the Government was forced to reveal that eventual repayments for 83 PFI hospital building projects worth £8billion would total £53billion—it would have been far cheaper to use normal borrowing. Yet, it's not just the NHS that is suffering the consequences of these rushed schemes. I know of a leading autistic centre attached to an excellent primary school that shares a site with a secondary school and a special needs school. The secondary school completely rebuilt on a vacant part of the site, which should have made room for the special needs school to relocate to the secondary's old location (a reshuffle that would also have alleviated a dire parking problem). This, in turn, would have allowed the special needs buildings to make way for new build for the autistic centre — something that is desperately overdue, as the wind literally blows through the holes in the walls and even eight years ago the structure was condemned as unfit for purpose. However, the secondary school rebuild was constrained by a PFI arrangement, so now the council needs to finance the scheme or be burdened with an impossible debt. The simplest way for them to do so is to build new houses on part of the site, at the expense of re-development for one of the schools—most probably the autistic centre. So, in this case it is not patients but pupils whose service is being hindered and not doctors but teachers who are left frustrated and demoralised.

Remember what Labour's one-time leadership hopeful John McDonnell told hustings last month about a PFI school in his constituency? "We opposed the PFI but it was imposed upon us. It's run by Jarvis. We can't afford the school rooms after half past five. The local police who want to run a football competition can't use it at the weekend for the local kids because they can't afford it. We can't even have the rehearsals for our drama classes in the evening for our school kids because the Jarvis prices are so high. That's the implications of PFI in many of our areas."

The silver lining is that PFI isn't bad for everyone involved, as construction companies are making a return of 58% on some of their NHS PFI schemes — better profits than on their main business.

Upwardly Mobile

Whatever happened to social mobility?

So ask the shadow ministers for charities, Greg Clark, and for disabled people, Jeremy Hunt, in The Spectator, echoing David Willetts' recent CBI speech. They conclude:

"To have governed for a decade and seen the poorest grow in number and fall further and further behind the mainstream is little short of a disaster for a government whose moral purpose was to advance social justice. After ten years, Tony Blair has admitted ‘we need a radical revision of our methods for tackling social exclusion’. He is right. The enduring solutions to Britain’s social problems lie not in big government, but in healthy communities, strong families and in harnessing the dynamism and enthusiasm of individuals to improve their personal situation."

The question, of course, is what specific policy ideas might help reverse the decline in social mobility. Proposals that have been made in recent months, some referred to by the authors in their article, include:

• Increase home ownership
• Encourage personal pensions and savings
• Introduce a free school transport system
• Reduce means-testing for families with several children at school
• Delay secondary school application until after grammar school selection
• Integrate state religious schools into non-denominational education
• Improve the quality of vocational training

As you can see, most of these focus on education. If you wish to comment on any of these suggestions, do so in the comments here; otherwise, if you have any others, you might prefer to submit them for inclusion in David Cameron's Blizzard of Ideas.

More School Voucher Support

Yet another publication has taken up Graeme Leach's call in The Difference for the introduction of school vouchers. This time it is The Spectator, in which Fraser Nelson argues:

[Sweden's voucher system] fits perfectly within Mr Cameron’s philosophical framework. The state pays the fees, but organises nothing. Civil society is invited to step in, run schools and take over in areas where the state fails appallingly. Nor is this an obscure Scandinavian theory. School choice is being used in the Netherlands, Chile, Canada and charter schools in the United States. Reams of data have now been assembled, proving that the choice works for the taxpayer, and promotes equality and social mobility. ...

In Mr Blair’s system, new schools can only open once they have a found a sponsor willing to part with £2 million in areas that fit ‘deprivation criteria’. Academies usually replace failed schools, thus adding nothing to the number of schools. Negotiations often take two years. And if the organisers want to open a second school, they must start this whole process from the beginning — and run the dispiriting gauntlet of the LEAs yet again

Mr Willetts is proposing to correct each of these defects.

The Spec's Political Editor concludes, "The freeing up of the education marketplace is a Conservative mission that, if implemented properly, could represent a bigger step forward than expanding grammar schools. But the first task for Mr Cameron is to make this case to his party."

To an extent that is clearly true. However, from my conversations with Conservatives over the past fortnight, I still wonder to what extent the Conservative "core vote" (especially the hidden, traditional blue vote that is either offline or not inclined to blog) is truly upset with the Party over the city academies / grammar school debate.