Damien Phillips has an interesting Centre Write piece on how the Schools Bill reflects Labour ideology of control and centralisation over more effective international approaches achieved via greater autonomy and accountability.
The Schools Bill ignores international best practice
Labour’s Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill has returned to the House of Lords for final scrutiny before Royal Assent and will soon be inflicted on the country. Eroding both independence of schools and their accountability, this deeply regressive package turns its back on international best practice in favour of parochial interests and dogma...
The whole piece is well worth reading as yet another indication that the current UK government does not understand the limitations of its antique ideology. Or it doesn't care, which seems just as likely.
Indeed, if you look at the countries that have seen the most dramatic turnaround thanks to school autonomy reforms — Estonia, Poland, Portugal and England — it is clear that accountability and consequences for failure are essential for driving up standards. All these now high-performing systems are united by an ability to replace failing school leadership, withdraw contracts or close schools that are letting down their pupils.
Labour would do well to heed the lessons here. Their Schools Bill turns its back on this global education revolution by not only reducing the institutional autonomy and innovation that freedom for schools brings but also weakens the ability to replace failing school leadership quickly. Their Bill will leave England in the worst of all worlds, with schools that are simultaneously more centrally controlled and rule-bound but also less accountable to parents and the pupils that attend them.
Labour often flaunts its internationalist ethos. But, when it comes to education, they have chosen the narrow interests of teaching unions and their ideological opposition to the rigours of competition over changes that have been proven to work wherever in the world they have been tried. England’s pupils will be the poorer for it.
Labour would do well to heed the lessons here. Their Schools Bill turns its back on this global education revolution by not only reducing the institutional autonomy and innovation that freedom for schools brings but also weakens the ability to replace failing school leadership quickly. Their Bill will leave England in the worst of all worlds, with schools that are simultaneously more centrally controlled and rule-bound but also less accountable to parents and the pupils that attend them.
Labour often flaunts its internationalist ethos. But, when it comes to education, they have chosen the narrow interests of teaching unions and their ideological opposition to the rigours of competition over changes that have been proven to work wherever in the world they have been tried. England’s pupils will be the poorer for it.
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