From what’s been going on in Birmingham I’ve had my suspicions that not all is above board as the wholesale destruction of out prized education system continues apace. It’s a funny old world. Les Lawrence, former Cabinet Member for Children’s Services in the Con-Dem coalition prefers co-operative schools, while the leader of the current Labour administration wants more academies. I suspect the Labour group is divided with a laissez faire approach as a result. I’ve written to Bore warning of the out-of-control mess we’re going to edn up with, but the inscrutable leader won’t say what his personal agenda is. It will be based on expediency for sure. Given the budget imposed on Birmingham I suppose it makes some sort of sense getting a load of schools out of your hair. Has Michael Gove approached Sir Albert one wonders? While that seems most unlikely he’s been busy distributing largesse through his agents. So Rob Briscoe has a budget for his operation “bugger our schools”.
How education is going to be planned and provided in future is anyone’s guess. I’m no fan of academies or free schools but a criticism of free schools so far is that they are allowed into areas that don’t need them, affecting existing schools adversely, while not being targeted on areas of need.
Is Gove unassailable? The exam debacle suggests he is not, and the way is wide open to building the resistance that is apparent to the privatisation of the health service. Otherwise when we wake up the whole of our hard won state education system will have been lost.
Why is Gove not only tolerated but lionised? It’s the ideology that matters rather than his consistence inept bungling. Like Bore in Birmingham you can’t take him at face value, the real agenda is there below the surface.