Conservative Party poster

The Conservative Party will make education its top campaign message this week. The two main parties have been engaged in ‘political mirroring’ for months; it’s now time for political attack. I met Michael Gove MP, again at the weekend in Brighton at their spring policy forum. This man is in the right place at the right time. Once before he saved David Cameron’s leadership – he’s now determined to save the election with radical plans to properly involve parents in education. The Kunskapsskolan ‘free schools’ model is an attractive proposition for parents who feel they’ve been  ignored by the educational establishment.

Ed Ball’s proposals for Co-operative Trust Schools designed to allow parent and community ‘ownership’, hark back to two centuries of mutualism but suffer from a lack of clarity in communication.

Gove has the journalist’s eye for a headline and is actually promoting change using Labour legislation and  is determined to also tackle bureaucratic waste and muddle. Gove will also sweep away quango’s and dinosaur planning law. Balls seems defensive and distracted, is not receiving top advice and needs to raise his game.

As someone once said the ‘winds of change’ are sweeping through our  schools – and it’s led by teacher’s themselves. This will be one live TV debate to watch. Because it’s personal and is all about the succession. Balls is, at the moment, losing the Battle of Ideas and the battle of presentation.

My verdict on the education battle of ideas so far: Gove 1 … Balls 0

Related posts:

1. Kunskapsskolan – new dynamics in teaching and learning?
2. Great Schools Commission – a shake up for the system
3. David Cameron, report cards and education policy

Its been a pretty interesting 24 hours in the education landscape.

Yesterday’s David Cameron speech to the TED 2010 conference set the broader scene for the Conservative party’s own domestic programme of reforms for greater transparency for government with a number of non departmental public bodies (NDPB’s) in the firing line. The section of the draft manifesto that deals with – what he terms – ‘the democratic deficit’ includes the following quote:

“Any quangos that do not perform a technical function or a function that requires political impartiality, or act independently to establish facts, will be abolished. That includes, among others, Regional Assemblies, the Standards Board and the QCDA. Other quangos will be slimmed down, and we will apply the same standards of transparency we demand of the civil service to all quangos”

Reading behind this manifesto, there is an unofficial report card emerging on the performance of quangos and a stark message about the consequences of not meeting targets and improving outcomes in a tough financial climate. In our sector we understand that there is a lively debate in policy circles about whether Partnerships for Schools will remain in its current form. But there is also a clear message about the limits of traditional structures and the need for organisations of all types (including ourselves) to be much more agile, transparent and ready to be scrutinised.

And from a different perspective, Ty was at last night’s launch of the Progressive Education Network, which saw the birth of a new organisation set up by many luminaries from the education sector (Mick Waters, Mike Gibbons, Estelle Morris) and their own report card was a march through the pros and cons of education policy and practice since 1979. Their report ‘Please no more year zero‘ draws its perspective from the views of headteachers and practitioners and concludes (a bit of a digested read here…) ‘much done much still to do’.

Whatever your views of both report cards (each has its own distinctive starting point) we are starting to see the traditional modes of thinking about education policy and practice start to shift. Whether it is a political party or a new network – both are looking for change and both know instinctively that it cannot be done without the push from the top as well as the pull from the ground up.

Related posts:

1. Using social media to change education policy