Cancellation of Building Schools for the Future

I can speak with some experience on this topic, since my school was rebuilt in 2004. And I'm not convinced that the school building has such a major impact on education - it never really had one on me - and Douglas Alexander is certainly making too big a deal of it when he says cancelling the programme represents "a pre-meditated assault on the life chances and opportunities of children in some of the poorest communities in England".

Because however much money they threw at rebuilding schools, Labour's educational policy can be seen as fulfilling the above phrase (maybe not the pre-meditated bit, but the rest definitely). It's methods of education that matter, and in fact things like discipline too. If money is spent on building programmes instead of textbooks, I can't see the benefit. Unless the textbooks are rubbish.

If pupils aren't given the skills to succeed in life and at work, and are instead trained to pass exams (as has happened), they will have less opportunities. If degrees are devalued, as has happened, they will have less opportunities. If time is spent revising and taking exams, there is less time for education, and thus less opportunity. If policy favours trying to push the D grades up to C grades, and not focussing on those below and stretching those above, then opportunity will be limited. The building, 'world-class facilities', blah blah, are irrelevant.

But I also think it's been blown out of proportion for a couple of other reasons. Firstly that Gove apologised was both right but completely in contrast to what Ed Balls would have done - blamed his civil servants; and yes, it was a civil servant's (or quangocrat's) fault, but Gove took responsibility. But the second one is more important - and I think reflects why BSF has been cancelled - is that it was a terribly inefficient way of building schools - John Redwood puts it better than I would - emphasis mine:

In the statement I heard Michael Gove make he was clear in saying he was cancelling the approach of Building Schools for the future because it was an expensive, long winded and inefficient way of building schools. He did not say he was cancelling all new schools building. Indeed, if he is right and he can save substantial sums on the box ticking detailed regulatory approach of the old programme this could leave him with more money to spend on bricks and mortar. This message has got entirely lost in the broadcasts and newspaper stories about cuts, leading most people to think there will now be no new schools.

This is exactly the point - and I am confident that new schools will be built under the free schools and academy legislation anyway - and this will be at the demand of parents, with facilities parents demand. Going back to my new school building built in 2004 - the corridors aren't wide enough, and too much 'traffic' meets in the middle of the middle floor, where a staircase and 3 corridors meet. This means that there have to be teachers controlling the flow, some corridors are one-way, etc. The old school had several blocks, separate doors for different blocks - and it worked much better. And they also inexplicably built it for 1200 pupils when the school had 1500 pupils and was still growing - and there's talk of building new classrooms in the attic to rectify this. This failure I can only assume is partly because of the bureaucracy, because of some rules in place perhaps.

It's also true, as Redwood says, that less money on bureaucracy should lead to more being spent on the actual school - and maybe even more schools being built and more quickly too. It might even free up money to be spent on just improving facilities in current schools, buying new football goals maybe - the sort of investment that will produce better effects than just building a new school.

How I would love it for, in a few years, Labour to realise that their rubbish, overbureaucratic programme saw less schools built than under a Conservative government that apparently wants to destroy life chances. They might come up with a new reason for opposing it then. Maybe that the schools don't have enough bike racks and are then affecting educational opportunity. Or maybe they will have become a serious party by then, I don't know.

Can schools be free and accountable?

Asks the BBC. The answer is yes.

The question is about accountability - and in their bureaucratic, state-holding-schools-accountable mindset they have forgotten the accountability of the market - parents taking their child (and money) elsewhere - so the good schools will get more children and more money, the bad schools won't survive, and yes, may have to shut down.

Inspections will help the judgement, but might some more market-based solutions come about? I'm talking not only inspection bodies themselves setting up, but even chains of schools, brand names, that incredibly important issue for any firm - and even for schools. And this is where the diversity of the market comes about - teaching techniques could vary from school to school (which would certainly have been to benefit to me these last few years - groupwork and Powerpoints every lesson has never worked) and the old word of innovation could make its comeback in finding best how to educate. Just as I know Snickers has nuts, a certain 'brand' of school could, for example, educate traditionally.

To make this accountability work - not exam league tables, but people actually recognising not just the results that come out of schools, but the skills, the type of person coming out of the school, the real knowledge, how ready they are for the real world....

And on that point, let's hope the policy works.

Ready to govern

Michael Gove's speech today showed the real talent of the Conservative Party. It was a forward-looking speech, that showed the Conservatives as ready to govern. It was a real blessing to read.

Education failure is very true in Britain, however much the government tries to inflate grades. The curriculum is dumbed down, I experience it now, I notice how past paper questions get easier the more recent they are. I noticed how much of a joke the new Science GCSE was. Will it help me at all in later life? Probably not. Across the curriculum, there's too much emphasis on the environment, and "global citizenship", whatever that's meant to mean. I notice how none of these subjects, even Economics at A Level, try to get you to develop your own opinions.

I've heard teachers say that even if we fail, they still get paid. Is that right? Clearly not. Either way, to pass, all you have to do is memorise how to answer questions, and whatever rubbish is on the syllabus (sorry, specification) this week.

I think Michael Gove hit the right notes in his speech. He has a real agenda, a real way forward; he sees the problem and is setting out how to change it. He wants to set schools free from bureaucrats - which is the right way to go about radical education reform. Teachers, and the teaching profession, know what's right, they know what works - they've been there before. Bureaucrats haven't, and neither have most government ministers.

I think there's one more thing that Gove needs to do to complete this - and that's allow new "Swedish-style" schools to make profits. That way they have a capital base to expand, to build more schools, to make them demand-responsive - that's the way it works in Sweden. If he doesn't, I don't see the take-up being as great, which will turn public opinion against it wrongly. Thatcher started the revolution in the attitude to wealth, reversing the post-war collectivist consensus; now we need to continue this - there's nothing wrong with allowing the education and health sectors to make profits, since it will allow innovation and indeed demand response - if they try to make profit rather than educate properly, parents will take their children elsewhere, simple.

But generally it's a real shining light. Gove or Balls as Education Secretary? It's not hard to decide.