Posted by Editors
Academies, ASCL, Education Business, Events, Free Schools, In The News, League Tables, Managerialism, Ofsted, Standards, Teach First, Teacher Bashing, Testing, Tories, Working Conditions
Tuesday, March 27th, 2012
Michael Gove, UK Ed Sec, spoke at the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) conference on the the 24 March 2012 so we thought we’d run through the justifications he could come up with for alienating both teachers and headteachers with his needless reforms. There was a defence of free schools and academies. There [...]
Posted by Editors
Academies, Education Business, Free Schools, In The News, TUC
Wednesday, June 1st, 2011
One year on from the Academies Act – Fighting Academy conversions & Free Schools Saturday 11th June, 10.30am – 4pm Congress House, Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3LS A major one day conference for governors, parents and staff who want help to organise to stop primary, secondary and special schools converting to academy status. Speakers [...]
Posted by Editors
Free Schools, In The News, Teach First, UFT
Saturday, May 28th, 2011
A May 18th lawsuit organised by teaching union UFT and the NAACP against school charterisation in NYC has been likened to the battle against racial segregation in schools witnessed at Little Rock, Arkansas in the 1950s and seen also as symptomatic of a worrying new phase in middle class flight. In language all too familiar [...]
Posted by Editors
Academies, CfBT, Free Schools, In The News, Special Schools, Teach First, Tories
Wednesday, April 27th, 2011
We have already written at some length about the new philanthropic organisations that appear to be doing the UK Tories’ dirty work and also the rather creative interpretation of UK charity commission guidelines that permit organisations like Teach First to operate as charities. CfBT Education Trust is another on-message charity. They claim to “provide education [...]
Posted by Editors
Free Schools, In The News
Saturday, March 5th, 2011
If ever you needed evidence why ‘free’ schools are a very bad idea indeed, then look no further than the illiberal comments of one Toby Young in a recent Spectator magazine and yesterday’s Torygraph. And this is the type of person Gove wants to take control of schools?! The guy isn’t fit to be a [...]
Posted by Editors
Charter Schools, Education Business, Free Schools, In The News, League Tables, Tories
Friday, March 4th, 2011
For all those celebrating the news of Toby Young’s ‘free’ school funding green light, recent events in one Los Angeles’s charter school group should perhaps make us more than a little concerned about the future integrity of opt-out schools. The LA Times report that “The Los Angeles Board of Education voted Tuesday to begin the [...]
Posted by Editors
Free Schools, In The News, McKinsey & Co., Michael Barber, NUT, Research, Teach First, Tories, Working Conditions
Saturday, February 26th, 2011
This was going to be a post about the Tory White Paper. We took a look at it but what really caught our eye was how many times Sir Michael Barber got a mention. In fact, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Barber was Education Secretary given the amount of space devoted to his work [...]
Posted by Editors
Education Business, Free Schools, In The News
Saturday, February 26th, 2011
In ‘Some free schools fail to meet the standards’ a Swedish newspaper reports what many suspicious of the ‘free’ school innovation have been saying for a long time now. Minister for Education Jan Björklund says today that some free schools give priority to profit for the owners before quality. Björklund is one of the most [...]
Posted by Editors
Free Schools, In The News
Tuesday, February 8th, 2011
Great line from the Manchester ‘anti-extremism Tsar’ Ian Fenn when asked how he felt about ‘free’ schools. He remarked to the BBC: “It’s a bit like me saying I’m going to start up a hospital because I fancy wearing a stethoscope – it’s ludicrous.” He went on to say: “They don’t have to employ real [...]
