Hands up for selection
- 19 Dec 05, 12:48 PM
Hands up who believes in selection? What do you mean no-one does?
Surely, it was John Prescott's worries about a return to selection that persuaded him to give a whole new meaning to the idea of "open government" (he told a Sunday newspaper what he'd previously told the Cabinet - namely that he feared that government proposals would lead to greater divisions between good schools and "bog standard" comps).
There again, Tony Blair tells us he too is not in favour of selection. His Education Secretary Ruth Kelly says she won't allow it by the front door, the back door or the green door (I didn't understand that either).
Tony & Ruth say it's the Tories who really favour selection. But hold on a sec, David Cameron insists he too doesn't want a return to selection either. So what on earth is going on?
The real debate here is a belief in parent power versus a fear of it. Tony Blair plus his new friends on the Tory benches want to "set parents free" to shake-up the schools system. They want parents to shop around so that competition - or what the policy wonks call "contestability" - encourages the best schools to expand and the worst to get their act together or even close.
That means giving schools some power (more or less limited depending on who you listen to) over which children they admit and which they keep out.
John Prescott speaks for many in his party, many in the Lib Dems and many in the world of education who fear that parent power is all too often used only by highly motivated and relatively well-off parents at the expense of the rest. They believe it's the job of government and local councils to stop the anarchy of unrestricted choice distorting the schools system.
So why all the talk about selection then? It is still the biggest emotional issue in education. Prezza missed out on getting a bike from his mum and dad when he failed the 11 plus. Worse still - his brother got one.
Many Labour MPs are angry that the status of private schools and grammar schools has not been challenged even after eight years in power. Tony Blair knows that, so he wants to trap David Cameron into backing it - or at least appearing to - so as to draw a "dividing line" between the Tories and Labour.
Mr Cameron, of course, knows this all too well but also knows that many in his own party hark back to the days of selection so he somewhat awkwardly has to say that he wants schools to have the freedom to select while predicting that few schools will want to use it. Now is that clear?! I'll be testing you later.
P.S. Sorry about the interruption of normal service. My blogging software crashed and then when it was fixed my boiler went.
