Tuesday 1 October 2013

Developing Strategies

And an article for Education for Tomorrow and the STA journal Education for Liberation earlier this year on similar themes:
Education faces the most sustained political attack since the formation of a state education system in the 1870s.  That much is plain.  The academy and 'free' schools privatisation programme, attacks on education workers' pensions, regressive curriculum and qualification changes, and the dismantling of national pay are all part of a broad 'reform' programme which seeks to dismantle the state education system and replace it with a fully-privatised education market, driven by profit.

NUT at the Crossroads

My guest piece for the CDFU bulletin (internal NUT publication):
The NUT is at a crossroads.
Never before have we faced a government so determined to dismantle the state education system.  Even the Thatcher government, with all its commitment to the free-market economics of Milton Fiedman, was limited in how far it could go down the road of education privatisation.  Ultimately, their experiment failed as unions, heads and LA officers worked together to ensure that Local Management of Schools, per-pupil funding and the introduction of a quasi-market through parent choice was not enough to undermine the local authority family of schools.