Free Schools in London & Mayor Education enquiry

This is a speech that I made as an UNISON delegate to the London Labour Party Biannual conference last month.

"Conference, the mover has already spoken about this ideologically driven threat by Gove and Boris to education in London and its democratic deficit.

But it is not only that the principles behind so called "Free Schools" are wrong. We must also oppose this latest privatisation of key public services, because it is yet another example of turning accountable and transparent bodies, responsible for huge amounts of public money, into what often becomes self selecting oligarchies and "mates clubs".

Whose senior management teams first task is to award themselves a massive pay increase while at the same time they contract out the jobs of UNISON members; the cleaners, the cooks and the school caretakers onto poverty wages, with no protection if they become sick and no pensions, so they retire and die in poverty.

Free schools epitomise much that is wrong with our society under this Tory Government. Instead of a planned, accountable and joined up approach to running essential public services, we have a selfish and divisive route, driven in many cases but not all, by simple greed and the wish to enrich themselves at the expense of those ordinary working people, the UNISON members who clean their offices, cook their school meals and unblock their office toilets; the people who they consider to be their serfs.

Conference, let us also make sure that while opposing Free Schools we also make sure that our own house is in order. Can all of you here, who like me are school governors, make sure that at your next Governor meeting, that all the workers in your school, are on decent nationally agreed terms and conditions or their equivalent. Not only a living wage, but living sickness benefits and living pensions for all who work in your school.

Conference, please support this motion. (I then had to rush off to another commitment. The motion was passed)

Picture of 100 Sefton school staff left high and dry by a Free school.

Free Schools are not recruiting minority and ‘disadvantaged students’*

Guest post from Newham Labour blogger and twitter Seyi Akiwowo on so called "Free Schools". I will also post a speech I recently made on Free Schools.

"In short? Yes. But the factors explaining why free schools are not recruiting students from these groups is not so simple to explain.
Free schools were primarily created to address the attainment gap in the UK.  They have the same legal structures as Academies, which means they are free from local authorities when it comes to the operation of the school. Although funded through public money, free schools provide parents, teachers and others interested a chance to create new schools as a way to improve the choice of schooling.

Findings from the Race on the Agenda (ROTA) paper late last year outlined that free schools do not recruit students from the most deprived backgrounds and BAME (Black, Asian and minority ethnic) students. With the knowledge that many students from deprived background and BAME students are on the wrong side of the attainment gap, how does this specifically designed policy not enroll their ‘target’ students?  ROTA highlights several reasons for this (for the complete list check out FYI):

• Significant portions of free schools opened in deprived urban areas are not enrolling pupils from ‘disadvantaged’ backgrounds at the same rate as other local schools.

• There is a lack of transparency around the free schools programme. The public information provided by free schools themselves in relation to equality and inclusion is also often limited. This obscures the degree to which free schools are benefitting socio-economically disadvantaged communities. Additionally, this lack of information reduces accountability.

• There is a lack of engagement with BAME communities in the free schools programme. BAME communities – in particular those that have been acutely disadvantaged in education, such as African Caribbean, Pakistani, Gypsy, Roma and Irish Traveller communities – are underrepresented as leaders within successful free school projects. Communities are largely unaware of the free schools programme and the Department for Education does not appear to have given much attention to the engagement of such underrepresented communities.

Francis Gilbert takes an interesting view on the reason for this, believing that the policy is very flawed and favours wealthier parents.  A policy that helps wealthier parents is in serious danger of exacerbating the persistent educational inequalities faced by socio-economically ‘disadvantaged’ students. In my opinion, for free schools to fail to recruit students that would most benefit from this policy negates the achievements made by free schools in their GCSE results. Of course wealthier students will achieve better results; that is not credit to the new wave of schooling! In turn, this does not persuade me to believe that greater school autonomy in admission policies is the best way forward in education.

Education in many ways is becoming more and more like a business transaction, where only the wealthy can participate effectively and thus reap all the benefits.  However, all taxpayers pay into this idea of compulsory education until 18 so all members of society should reap the benefits!

For More Information:
Race On The Agenda: http://www.rota.org.uk/webfm_send/180
London School Network: Francis Gilbert’s article: http://www.localschoolsnetwork.org.uk/2012/11/new-research-shows-that-free-schools-are-not-recruiting-minority-and-disadvantaged-students/?subscribe=success#subscribe-blog
*Disadvantage is in quotation marks because I do not completely agree with the use of this word and think it is time we come up with an alternative word.