Newspaper Reader , with the assistance of Queer Atheist, on the Biblical Quotation!
Nov 17, 2024
After Mr. Colvile’s defence of ‘Free Schools’ in the Times of last week and his advocacy as Director of :
Robert Colvile, Director of the Centre for Policy Studies, said:
“It is now clear that free schools have been a success, improving the lives of their pupils – disproportionately in disadvantaged areas – and spurring innovation and competition within the wider education system.
“However, following the departure of Michael Gove as Education Secretary, the programme has steadily been stripped of its originality and distinctiveness. We urge the new Government to build on success by turbocharging the free schools agenda and improving the lives and prospects of children across the country.”
And his column of last week!
Kemi Badenoch must champion hard work to halt this war on aspiration
Robert Colvile Sunday November 10 2024, 12.01am GMT, The Sunday Times
…
When they were plotting Labour’s election victory, Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves had a clear diagnosis. Labour had lost the last few elections, an aide told The Times, “because we’ve gone into them being seen as against opportunity and aspiration”.
Opportunity and aspiration are powerful words. Historically, they’ve been at the heart of some of the Conservatives’ most successful policies, such as the opportunity to buy your own council house, or the aspiration to ensure the best education for your child, if necessary by setting up a new and better school to deliver it.
So how are those signature aspirational policies — the right-to-buy and free schools — doing under Labour?
Since 2010, more than 650 free schools have opened in England. Another 44 had been approved. But now they’ve been un-approved. In a ministerial statement, the education secretary, Bridget Phillipson, announced that funding would be snatched away pending review. The statement argued that where free schools create damaging competition with existing schools, or surplus capacity, they should not be allowed to open. The priority, in terms of value for money, has to be rebuilding Britain’s crumbling classrooms.
This was strange, for two reasons. First, there is little evidence — despite the best efforts of their critics to find some — that free schools lower standards in nearby schools. If anything, competition pushes others to up their game. Second, Phillipson boasted last week that Reeves had provided extra cash both for rebuilding schools and for the wider education budget. So why the spiteful decision to pause (and very probably cancel) funding for schools that were already on the slipway?
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The Reader might look to this Sat 17 Aug 2024 07.00 EDT edition of The Guardian.
Headline: Gove’s free schools increase segregation and harm nearby schools, says study
Sub-headline: Michael Gove’s policy aimed to create ‘galvanising effect’ on system in England but led to rise in divisions
Michael Gove’s free schools programme increased social segregation, according to an analysis of the flagship scheme that also suggests it reduced student intakes at neighbouring schools.
The creation of free schools has been touted as a major success of the 14 years of Conservative-led government. They were intended to offer high-quality institutions and improve parental choice. Part of their stated aim was to pressure nearby schools to improve and create a “galvanising effect on the whole school system”.
However, new research shared with the Observer suggests that free-school enrolment was associated with increased segregation of primary pupils, particularly in terms of their ethnicity. The study, by academics at University College London, also found that the presence of a free school was not associated with any significant change in student attainment in nearby primary schools.
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While nearby secondary schools did show a modest increase in student attainment in English and maths after a free school opened, there was also evidence to suggest this was linked to attracting more advantaged students. Secondaries admitting a substantially more disadvantaged intake did not tend to improve after a free school opened nearby.
The UCL study of free schools found that despite claims of setting high standards, this was not the case. Primary free schools performed worse than a matched sample of similar schools, while secondary free schools performed no better or worse.
Leaders in nearby schools reported feeling they were in competition, but this appeared to drive them to work harder on their advertising and external appeal, rather than enhancing the quality of their teaching. The highest levels of perceived competition were where free schools appealed to aspirational or middle-class families who had a “quasi-private school ethos”.
“Our findings show the introduction of free schools has often created new competition,” said Rob Higham, associate professor at UCL’s Institute of Education and the lead author of the study. “When subjected to these new market pressures, neighbouring schools rarely prioritised change or innovation in classroom practices.
“Not all free schools create such choice and competition, but where they do, this has the potential to increase social divisions in the school system, including the social segregation of students.”
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Mr. Colvile is a Thatcerite ideologue, with an Institutional Veneer: yet with a 14 year record of Tory mendacity, wedded to a cadre of apoligists like Colevile: what was that Biblical Injunction against False Phrophets of Matthew 7:15 ?
Newspaper Reader.
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