Teach Secondary Issue 14.3

S C H O O L O F T H O U G H T The longer I reflect on the politics of education, the clearer it seems to me that public discussion is too often warped by the voices of the already powerful – those in prime positions for drowning out other perspectives. I became keenly aware of this when serving as chair of Comprehensive Future (comprehensivefuture.org.uk ) – a that group campaigns in favour of phasing out the 11-plus. It’s a test that still exists across significant pockets of England, including Kent, Buckinghamshire, Essex and parts of Lincolnshire, which sharply divides the secondary education landscape of any given area into clear winners and losers. Despite evidence showing how selection damages the life chances of poorer children, the debate around whether grammar schools should continue to exist tends to be dominated by those lucky, or privileged enough to gain access to them. The experiences of the many thousands who have failed the 11-plus – sometimes with lifelong consequences – remains comparatively unexplored. A lopsided discourse More recently, I’ve seen similar dynamics at work in the debate over Labour’s decision to levy VAT on private school fees. Public discussion of the issue has been dominated by the independent sector, which – unsurprisingly – has fiercely resisted the change. That’s in part because the sector has seen its arguments amplified sympathetically, at times on a near daily basis, by many broadsheet newspapers. In contrast, I can’t recall seeing any articles by staff or students at hard- pressed state schools, spelling out what the extra resources derived fromVAT on fees might mean for them. We can also see the same lopsidedness in the discourse surrounding the government’s Children’sWellbeing and Schools Bill, which includes measures to extend the rights and freedoms currently enjoyed by academies to maintained schools. If passed, the Bill will ensure that all schools henceforth operate by the same rules when it comes to admissions policies, the National Curriculum, teachers’ pay and conditions, and employing unqualified teachers. The Bill also proposes outlawing the ability for schools to require that families purchase expensive branded items of school uniform. Will these measures help level the playing field in our increasingly fragmented schools landscape? Or do they amount – as some of the Bill’s more dramatic detractors have claimed – to an ‘ Act of vandalism ’ that seeks to hobble high achieving academies and Free Schools? Drowning out themajority Once again, the opinions of a handful of powerful educational figures have been to the fore, amplifying opposition to these measures in significant ways – including via the influential right- leaning magazine The Spectator , now edited byMichael Gove. The outlet has granted a (repeat) platform to controversial free school headteacher Katherine Birbalsingh, who claims that the Bill ‘ Threatens the huge gains made in education over the last 15 years… if it passes, the impact on our children, especially our most vulnerable, will be seismic .” (see tiny.cc/ts143-MB1 ) The airtime given to figures like Birbalsingh and other powerful heads, such as Harris Foundation CEO, Dan Moynihan, threatens to drown out what’s actually the majority view of the impending legislation. In late January, the Headteachers Roundtable, which represents a number of state secondary heads, published an open letter to Bridget Phillipson (see tiny.cc/ ts143-MB2), in which they welcomed the Bill for being “ Kind, inclusive and fair in its intentions .” Deflecting attention More recently, Sir Alasdair Macdonald – former headteacher of the highly successful East London Academy and chair of the NewVisions for Education Group (newvisionsforeducation.org.uk ) – defended the Bill in a piece for The New Statesman (see tiny.cc/ts143- MB3), saying that it would “ Ensure that every child, whichever type of school they attend, has the best start in life .” Macdonald notably placed the media furore around the impending legislation in its proper context, going on to argue that it “ Deflected attention from the many failings of the past 14 years ,” and that “ Instead of declaring England’s schools a great Tory success story on the basis of carefully selected data, attributed to unevidenced policy, we should support our schools in addressing the issues they face in reality .” These interventions highlight the vital importance of ensuring that debates around education include a broader range of voices, rather than simply returning again and again to the same handful of figures given prominence in such discussions over the past decade and a half by politicians and media alike. It might not be surprising to see the same old voices weighing in against the government’s legislative agenda for education – but they shouldn’t be the only ones we get to hear... Melissa Benn Melissa Benn (@Melissa_Benn) is the author of Life Lessons: The Case for a National Education Service , and is a Visiting Professor at York St John university 16 teachwire.net/secondary