Gove's autonomy - centralisation by another name?
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THE MYTH OF SCHOOL AUTONOMY
Centralisation as the determinant of English educational politics
Much analysis of current educational policy in England under the Coalition focusses on the role of marketisation and the rhetoric of school autonomy. Autonomy is a major feature of current political rhetoric, underpinning the Academy and Free Schools programme. However the rhetoric of a devolution strategy runs alongside the reality of central political interference in school affairs, which is taken to a new level by Michael Gove's compulsory academy conversion programme.
This is an unwelcome extension of power of the Secretary of State enshrined in legislation since the 1988 Education Act. This Act set up the national curriculum, gave the Secretary of State the power to intervene in the key decisions affecting state school operation, and laid the basis for developing powerful levers to control state school performance through League tables and the OFSTED inspectorate. It was however a Labour initiative to give the Minister the power to remove School governors, now being used by Gove to take over primary schools.
Thus the forced conversion of allegedly failing primary schools needs to be seen as part of long run developments over a generation. Centralisation has not been an uncontroversial development, and attempts to loosen the straightjacket of the 1988 Act have been headlined over the last decade. However despite claims that decentralisation is operative, the Education Select committee reported in 2009 that “initiative overload” remained the key operating problem, and that “Achieving a suitable balance between local and central control, and the need for a coherence of policy have dogged education policy for decades. They are, however, real and urgent challenges”. (1)
This paper will argue the challenges have intensified as the balance of power has tipped inexorably to the centre, with the Gove agenda testing the system in England to destruction precisely because of accelerated central control which in the 2011 Act takes central power in the hands of the minister to new levels.
The realities of power examined
The sharpest disagreements over recent school policy, the controversies over curriculum and exams embodied in New Labour's Diplomas and the Conservative Ebac demonstrate that politicians at the centre have the ability to make the key decisions even where different agendas operated, the keynote being centralised power. The historical context to these two reforms is the split between academic and vocational/technical education and training derived from the Victorian period. This legacy of the past clearly underpins the history of the Diploma (Labour) and Ebac (Conservative) political initiatives, which display clear differences in party approaches.
However beneath the major differences of policy underlying these polarised initiatives, it is clear there are overarching commonalities of approach, notably over central control, operational decision making at institution level, and the preference for instinct over rational evidence based priority making which the CfBT trust identified in its 2010 report. (2) There was a rational core to Labour's Diploma agenda, less to the Ebac, while the forced conversion of primary schools is pure dogma. There is no evidence that Academy status improves primary school performance.
Education politics operates within a rigidly centralised power structure, so differences in policy lead to damaging shifts in approach which lead to schools spending huge amounts of energy jumping through the hoops of temporarily fashionable politics, the phenomenon known as “policy churn”. This is clearly demonstrated in the approaches to the school curriculum and examinations showed in the Diploma/Ebac reforms. These proceed from diametrically opposed approaches to the fault line between academic and vocational education. This runs back into the C19th, and is clearly socially and economically harmful.
Until very recently there was a cross party consensus that reform of the vocational area was essential. The Thatcher government through its Technical and Vocational Education Initiative (TVEI) and the apprenticeship systems and Youth Training Schemes pioneered by the Thatcher and Major governments showed a clear awareness of the importance of the vocational area. This awareness is however missing in the Cameron government's DNA, now overwhelmingly academic despite a marginal commitment to the new University Technical Colleges. Wasted time and effort is the consequence of the shifts in policy, as the Diploma/Ebac history shows.
New Labour demonstrated the faults of a top down approach through its Diploma reforms. Its attempt to generate diplomas, with a strong work based element, sought to create an alternative to current twin track academic/vocational provision over a five year period from 2008. It believed that by 2013 this would be the option of choice in secondary post 16 education, and for this reason postponed the planned 2008 inquiry into the future of A Level and tinkered with the A Level and GCSE provision, while allowing vocational education to proceed largely untouched.
The attempt to replace the tried and tested and highly popular academic exam system with an untried and barely visible alternative was a complete failure, collapsing in autumn 2011 (3), and providing a text book example of the limits of government diktat even in a highly centralised political system. The initiative challenged deeply rooted attitudes, in the school exam and university entrance worlds, and the comment of Professor Robert Coe of Durham University that “No one really wanted it, did they? Schools, colleges and the consumers of exams... never seemed to buy in. It was being pushed very strongly by Government but if it hadn't been no one would have looked at it twice” summed up its history. The lesson that even in a strongly centralised political system, the world of the current paradigm, cultural factors can negate political initiatives is important particularly as the narrative of academic practice remains dominant. Moreover events led to a sharp reversal of policy as Michael Gove, emulating the Duke of York, marched the education army back down the hill away from Diplomas to Ebac.
The English Baccalaureate (Ebac)
Despite criticisms of it by head teachers and others as a highly questionable diktat (4) the Coalition carried out an effective coup with this reversal of Labour policy. Ebac, like the Diplomas, is a markedly top down initiative introduced without consultation and clearly intended to steer a political agenda, in this case toward an academic curriculum. There are here clear contradictions between statements of ministerial policy to devolve powers to head teachers, but media and public opinion has been largely unconcerned and opposition to centralised power has been minimal. A permanent revolution driven by powerful Secretaries of State is part of the current paradigm, which over rides the rhetoric of autonomy.
Thus recent history supports the overarching argument that government policy develops as a series of Kuhnian paradigms, referred to in my recent paper Considering the Big Picture – how important are policy initiatives? (5) Adapting the insights of Thomas S Kuhn, I suggest that in the educational world paradigms are a framework for decision making accepted by all parties, which determines the direction of travel. However paradigm theory suggests that within the dominant paradigm anomalies and contradictions exist and are the subject to often fierce intellectual (or in the educational world political) disputes.
The Diploma/Ebac episode supports this theoretical approach by showing sharp political differences, within a dominant paradigm, the current paradigm of hands on political control. Marketisation may become important but it is currently a subordinate element. School autonomy is certainly subordinate to centralisation, operating if at all only at the level of routine decision making. The master narrative is central control. All indicators show that Michael Gove is determined to go far further than any Minister in recent history in controlling the future of state schooling. The Academy, Free Schools, and National curriculum developments need to be considered in the framework of centralised control which the Diplomas and Ebac demonstrate.
Control versus autonomy
The Diploma/Ebac episode highlights different party priorities, but does not itself embody any contradiction in the operation of the current paradigm. Both initiatives are functions of a dominant political practice, that of central control and opinion management which defines current practice. The politicians at Westminster drive the school agenda as they have done for over a generation. While political rhetoric calls for local decision making, in practice the dominant element of the current paradigm – the third post war paradigm in English state education (6) – is demonstrably continuous interference by Westminster politicians in the running of schools and colleges. Central targets set the agenda, micromanagement controls classroom practice. Gove simply takes the existing agenda to a new and dangerous level.
The master narrative is driven by powerful ideological factors, notably international economic performance and the role of the OECD in terms of its educational league tables, used to reinforce the power of politicians over schools and colleges. However only in England of the four home nations has the political elite come to impose rigid structures and outcomes, almost consciously opposed to the laissez faire operated in other areas of government policy. Centralised power is common in other nations, but rarely operated as vigorously as in England – and certainly not in the other nations of the UK.
The legislative power of the minister has been considerable since 1988 and expanded with the 2011 Act. However the Ebac initiative was launched before the 2011 Act using powers created by New Labour building on previous Conservative legislation. The ground rules already existed.
The English Baccalaureate & the impact of league tables: Work in Progress.
The English Baccalaureate (Ebac) was announced without warning and without consultation in a speech by Michael Gove on 6th September 2010, further details following in the Education White Paper of November 2010. While it bore some resemblances to earlier Conservative proposals for GCSE reform, the actual prescription of 5 groups of academic subjects as the core state school curriculum was wholly unexpected. It is clear that despite the rhetoric of school autonomy, the Conservative dominated administration is operating a command and control system which is in line with its overall project of a revolutionary restructuring of state provision in England.
The formally independent enquiries into the National Curriculum and Wolf Report have thus been channeled by the presence of Ebac into a preordained format. It has become a truism for informed observers that Ebac is the only show in town. The crucial moment for Ebac was the publication of the 2010 exam performance tables in January 2011 – with the Ebac included, without any prior warning. Apart from the major issue of the narrowness of the Ebac diet, much of the criticism centred on the retrospective application of the subject list to the January 2011 league tables. This was clearly arbitrary. Schools were being judged on a measure that did not exist at the time of the 2010 exams and for which they could not have prepared their students. How given such an approach can schools plan staffing and other curriculum matters? Are they supposed to use a crystal ball? The message is that autonomy is a myth, what counts is the whim of the minister.
The official claim nevertheless is that 5 GCSEs or equivalents remain the qualifications for floor standards and performance tables, not Ebac. Schools Minister Nick Gibbb argued to the Select Committee that the broad GCSE standard remains the only accountability measure (and thus the trigger for the crucial judgements on which schools are failing). Reaction from schools, however, which began immediately to move toward Ebac, puts a different slant on the official line. Indeed, while Gibb stated regarding Ebac that “It's not an accountability measure”, he later conceded to the Select Committee that the media perception would be crucial, in determining parental attitudes.
The Department for Education gave a more ominous message in clarifying the 2011 Performance Tables with the question “why are schools being judged against the Ebac when they have not had time to change their curriculum?” supplying the answer “we recognise that it will take time for schools to change their curriculum and that is why we plan to continue to include the current 5+ A*-C measure, including equivalences, in the Performance Tables for the time being” (8). The answer fails to address the question, but shows that for the DFE the assumption is that Ebac will replace the current measure, including equivalences, and is therefore the 'real' measure of performance despite the official line. There is a growing sense of living in an Orwellian world.
Moreover the use of the term Baccalaureate is a political device, since there is no actual structure or process involved, the award of a certificate – if the government proceeds with this proposal – is only a wrapper for existing awards. No fresh demands are made on teachers or students. The word, however empty, was sufficient for those observers who mistakenly call it a qualification. .
The Select Committee raises issues.
The Education Select committee recognised the central importance of the introduction of Ebac and decided to investigate on February 9th 2011, taking written evidence by 8th March. The report was completed on 19th July 2011. It is the starting point for serious analysis of Ebac, but this short time scale was too brief to assess the impact of developments. The Select Committee investigation suggested that in 2010-11 some schools crammed students into subjects they had not studied over two years in order to meet Ebac requirements (9). Possibly students were switched in 2010-11 from short courses, which Gibb revealed did not count for Ebac, to two year courses which do. Research into the operation of Ebac must examine whether schools were increasing numbers of students in Ebac subjects for purely league table reasons. If this is the case then this constitutes Gaming, which is the central complaint of the Wolf report and is officially opposed by the government.
There are questions to be asked – yet again – about the role of league tables in dictating what schools do, and whether heads operate to meet league table requirements. Whether the Ebac closes down options is fiercely disputed by Gove and his colleagues, who argue that officially the Ebac is voluntary. However in a world where all courses are equal, but some courses are more equal than others, the behaviour of schools will not be a question of laissez faire.
The Select Committee commented critically about the lack of consultation and the narrowness of Ebac. Although Heads complained bitterly about this they appear to be jumping to follow orders. Thus it appears that the driver of school curricular at secondary level is now the attempt of Heads to appease politicians, especially when they can apparently back date reforms which had no prior warning.
Despite the rhetoric of autonomy, and some actual moves toward marketisation and head teacher control of school operations, the implication of a shift to Ebac subjects because a minister has ordered this would be that the dominant process under the current educational paradigm is central control, not autonomy. And given the arbitrary backdated nature of the stipulation, schools can be judged on prescriptions that they have no way of preparing their students for, a truly Orwellian situation.
There have been few critical comments of Gove's diktakt, though the largely supportive Economist reporter noted that “Rather than answering to parents, academies and ordinary state schools alike are scrambling to hit ever moving central targets....” and (10) concluded “This doesn't look like Freedom”. The Academy programme does not require parental approval.
The narrowing of the curriculum
It is clear that while the direction of travel over the last thirty years, the period of the third paradigm, has been towards a centralised power structure, different priorities have operated at different times and the coalition obsession with the academic is new and disturbing. New Labour was not wrong in seeing the abysmal record of vocational and technical education as a problem. However its attempts failed and opened the way to a major counter reaction. The Conservatives are not simply removing a Labour measure. Ebac has given Academic education a powerful boost, in a dangerously narrow form.
Previously the Conservatives had some interest in technical education, as with the Thatcherite Technical and Vocational Education Initiative (TVEI) and Kenneth Baker's City Technical Colleges (now reborn as University Technical Colleges: these do not score on Ebac, if the debate on the first UTC to open is indicative. (11). It is impossible to see the Academic-Vocational divide being bridged while Ebac remains in force: indeed the divide is widening while Cameron Conservative policies mean the academic becomes the only show in town. Vocational subjects are not on the agenda, nor wider ranging disciplines like Citizenship.
Is school autonomy a myth?
Recent developments suggest that the key operational factor in English state education may be a head teacher cohort leaping through hoops to obey an increasingly arbitrary political elite. The debate about whether schools and colleges should be autonomous, the role of local authorities, and indeed basic democratic participation in running state run education, is becoming limited and may be redundant given the powers of the Secretary of State after the 2011 Education Act. Centralisation of power is key to the current paradigm. The Diploma and Ebac episodes indicate that this was massively problematic before the Act, and has become far more problematic since the new powers were conferred.
While the Select Committee and others have made valid criticisms of the Ebac's narrowing of curriculum options, it is the top down nature of the reform which is the central feature of the episode. To whom has the Secretary of State been responsible? Even the limited option of a parliamentary debate has not been on offer over the introduction of the Ebac. What rights have the public over state schooling when the whim of the executive rules?
In the longer term the centralisation of power may well be used to advance marketisation and a free market agenda for schools, and this may be the end game of the current stage of educational politics. But the key immediate issue is that the power of the minister after successive Education Acts allows an entirely arbitrary agenda to be followed. This is the outcome of the current paradigm, whose course has not yet been run, with parliament used as an elected dictatorship.
A key factor in the Academy project has been the claim that these were independent schools in the state sector. However there is a lack of strategic control over the decisions at school and college level. This underpins the operations of the genuinely independent (i.e. fee paying) schools and contributes toward their success, but is absent in the state sector. Who pays the piper calls the tune. The use of the funding mechanism to dictate the school agenda (see B below) further undermines the idea that Academies and Free Schools are independent. Their only freedom is the freedom to obey orders. Autonomy is increasingly a myth.
The wider theoretical perspective.
At a general theoretical level, the history of Diplomas and Ebac shows that a paradigm will set a framework for analysis or action, but within the framework many variations on a central theme may be attempted. The paradigm since Callaghan's Ruskin speech of 1976, the third in the post war era has many long term features but the overwhelmingly dominant feature is centralised power within Westminster and its satellite organisations. In setting agendas, the key point is that this is not a game in which power is dispersed.
The history of Diplomas and Ebac shows how this key factor operates in abundant detail. The lesson of the last half decade of education politics is the key role of the power of the ministers. It is an Orwellian world. While all players may in theory be equal, those at Westminster are more equal than others – and by an increasing margin. The extension of power by forced primary conversion to academy status takes the iron fist out of the velvet glove.
School autonomy is clearly a myth, whatever Gove and other ministers proclaim. The legitimate right of central government to take action, where inspectors identify problems or where public debate indicates the need to change direction, is now reduced to the dominant values of whatever temporary group holds power at Westminster. The Academy programme is being forced through without any due process or popular legitimacy, with the forced conversion of primary schools indicating that power will be centralised at the whim of the minister.
Equally worryingly, the National Curriculum is open to distortion to fit dogma. While Academies and Free Schools are in theory autonomous, the new Clause 28 stipulation on morality (see B below) and the role of the Ebac in dictating curriculum for these legally autonomous institutions is a growing issue. What autonomy can they have if the tyranny of funding mechanisms and league tables forces them to conform to the minister's whims?
The idea of making schools autonomous has great appeal, particularly at the ballot box. But whatever Westminster politicians say, the history of Diplomas and Ebac indicates that the ministers rule and school autonomy is limited to obeying orders. As an increasingly dogmatic and interventionist Coalition minister takes it upon himself to rule more and more directly over schools, autonomy appears little more than a smokescreen for undemocratic agendas.
Trevor Fisher 11 01 2012
(1) From Baker to Balls, the foundations of the Education system, reported BBC web site 6th April 2010.
(2) CfBT, Instinct or Reason: How Education policy is made and how we might make it better. 2010. www.cfbt.com
(3) The TES of 11 11 11 reported 3 of the 4 boards offering Diplomas would discontinue the offer. This report, which includes the comment of Professor Coe, suggested that the Coalition Government decision to end support for the Diploma Aggregation Service, following the abolition of academic diplomas, undercut the support systems. Exam boards did not challenge the decision. Three immediately abandoned the diploma, with the fourth only providing a skeleton provision. See OFQUAL briefing 4th November 2011.
(4) Reported in the Education Select Committee report The English Baccalaureate, Fifth Report of Session 2010-12, Volume 1, HC 851 published 28th July 2011.
(5) The paper Considering the Big Picture, how important are policy initiatives? published in Educational Review Routledge, (Taylor Francis Group) Vol 63 Number 4, pp455-466 link is http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00131911.2011.603826 Thomas S Kuhn discussed paradigm theory in the context of scientific history, notably in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions 3rd Ed, University of Chicago, 1996. The paper applies the theory to post war English education from the 1944 Education Act to the present.
(6) The paper identifies three paradigms thus: The Tripartite paradigm 1944 to the middle 1960s. The Comprehensive Paradigm from the 1960s to the mid 1980s. The Marketisation and control paradigm, 1980s to the present. No paradigm is ever hermetically sealed and the dates are only indicative. The tripartite paradigm faced challenges from the comprehensive movement from the mid 1950s onward. The Black Papers successfully challenged both the Comprehensive paradigm and progressive education in the early 1970s but the greatest triumph of that worldview was the1988 Education Reform Act which dominated but has never completely replaced either of the two previous paradigms. No fourth paradigm has yet emerged.
(7) Gibb told the committee that “I repeat that the accountability measure remains the 5 or more GCES (he did not include the phrase “or equivalents) and if we were to change that there would be much more consultation” (Answer Q98). Following section discusses whether Ebac is or is not de facto the key accountability measure. Previously (Q85) he had made the statement “It's not an accountability measure” but in answering Q100 admitted the press would dictate what the priorities are and “that really will be what the perception is that parents are interested in (sic)”. Thus Ebac, overwhelmingly favoured by the media is what counts. As the chair of the Select Committee commented, ““it feels like an accountability measure. It looks like an accountability measure. It quacks like one as well” (Q87).The use of equivalents to boost Academies appears to underline the statement of Gibb to Commons 17 10 11 that Academies had increased good GCSE passes more than any other form of maintained school. Yet the DFE evidence to the select committee (EV37) showed that using Ebac Academies were the LEAST successful schools, only 7% of their pupils gaining the Ebac. Government was by the autumn of 2011 using two different measures to support its Academy and Ebac agendas which were mutually exclusive. Media did not notice the contradiction.
(8) The April 2010 statement of Intent new section (The English Baccalaureate), issued by the DFE in December 2010.
Subsequent statements by Michael Gove suggested he regarded Ebac as an accountability measure (statement on A Level in particular. The speech of January 4th 2012 made no new justifications for the academy/free school programme restating old statistical support for Academy exam success based on GCSE scores including equivalents, though these are now officially frowned on. The explicitly new note was to connect his programme with the CTC programme of Baker and the Blair initiatives in a seamless web, opposed by “ideologues” presumably including critics in his own party).
(9) Ian Mearns of the select Committee noted evidence that some schools were attempting to cram students to do History in a term. The Schools Minister Nick Gibb agreed this was undesirable. Q95 and answer, Select Committee report.
(10) The Economist, 19 11 2011 said “The coalition government's highest profile, most successful reform to date appears caught between localism and a desire to steer things from Westminster”.
(11) See the JCB Academy (UTC) contribution to the Select Committee report, EV 26. In a subsequent exchange in the Commons on October 17th 2011 Gove claimed the Academy was a major success but did not address the point that it would score 0% on the Ebac
MICHAEL GOVE'S VARIATION ON THE PARADIGM THEME
(A) Music Education.
Given the importance of music for many aspirational parents, it is not surprising that the government ordered more instruments in schools and on December 4th 2011 Michael Gove told Radio 3 that “Anyone who looked at the care and dedication that's gone into the national music plan.... would presume that it would be eccentric of the DFE not to have music in the national curriculum. I can't go further than that. That's as big a hint as I feel I can drop at this point” (Independent, 5th December 2011).
The national music plan is a DFE plan to give every child a chance to play an instrument, i.e. a national top down initiative. However music appeared in the National Curriculum review document published later in December as an adjunct to Art, both being compulsory. (see below C). The formal process is again subject to the whim of the minister.
Funding will however be cut from £77.5m to £58m in 2014-15 but he expected a rise in music standards. The hint appears to cut across the independence of the National Curriculum working party. What reliance can be placed on promises of consultation is an open question.
(B) The Funding Diktat 2011 and the return of Clause 28
The Daily Telegraph reported on 3rd December 2011 that Michael Gove had issued a funding agreement for Academies and Free schools which ordered that they would teach a traditionalist view of the family. The report noted that “Mr Gove has introduced the 'model funding agreement' as a template for how every new free schools and academy is run.... (this will be) “likely to be welcomed by Conservative traditionalists who have been concerned at a perceived failure by David Cameron's government to deliver on pledges to support married life”. The clause is number 28, which must be a conscious decision to echo clause 28 of the 1988 Local Government act, banning schools from promoting homosexuality.
The use of funding to control the school curriculum is in line with the Gove version of the dominant paradigm, with roots in the previous Clause 28. It attempts to impose narrow political agendas on the schools controlled by the Ministry, and to do so to appeal to the fundamentalist Tory right. The idea that politicians should use the curriculum to appease followers is dangerous.
The decision throws a lurid light on the issue of how many 'Free Schools' exist. There are NO Free Schools. All are controlled by the government. Who pays the piper calls the tune.
C) National Curriculum – the Echo Chamber Effect
Just before Christmas 2011 the National Curriculum working party reported, recommending a compulsory academic curriculum to age 16. The Independent (20th December) rightly highlighted that this was largely an Ebac curriculum and that “”The call for the compulsory lessons is also designed to give a boost to the new English Baccalaureate” - and also to strengthen compulsion versus school autonomy, a point not picked up. The report noted “the teaching of the arts – encompassing arts and music – should be compulsory until 16 in a bid to boost music education in schools – a particular hobby horse of the Education Secretary, Michael Gove”. Logically this means that this is government by hobby horse. (Independent 20 12 11)
The report quoted a number of specialists arguing their specialism should be compulsory, but there was no mention of ICT or Design Technology. Crucially, the report as in an echo chamber mirrored the agendas of the Education Secretary, notably a quote which had Gove stating as fact “The international evidence shows that all successful jurisdictions expect pupils to study a broad curriculum to 16 (sic: this is a narrow curriculum) built around a core of academic subjects. The expert panel argue (sic) that England narrows its curriculum for the majority of pupils too early” (i.e., allows freedom of choice and a wider range of options from 14. For Gove, narrow is broad, broad is narrow, as in Orwellian newspeak). ICT and Design Technology were not valued, nor is citizenship. However another rabbit emerged from the hat a month later.
On January 11th Gove announced that ICT was to be abolished from September 2012 and replaced by a new computing curriculum and GCSE, to be compulsory. There was no compulsion for IT in the committee report a month earlier. The addition of IT and Art to the compulsory curriculum must reduce the option range in schools, contradicting statements, eg to the Select Committee, that a compulsory Ebac would not cut down the range of choice, though to add to the muddle the National Curriculum and Ebac have different status. Nor is it clear that a consultation on IT can be completed and new courses put in place in nine months. Computing demonstrates clear contradictions within government policy prescriptions.
Compulsion rules the National Curriculum for local authority schools. However the National Curriculum does not apply to Academies and Free Schools, and they are free to ignore the NC report. Or are they? The mess the Curriculum now faces is an academic curriculum for local authority schools, a free curriculum for Academies and Free schools which is not actually free, and an Ebac of 5 subject groups which will be binding on all. Will Art and IT be added to the Ebac as compulsory subjects? Does anyone have a crystal ball?
It is worth noting that the Conservative Policy group on maths under celebrity Carol Vorderman recommended compulsory maths to age 18. An Ebac for the sixth form is not impossible.
Concluding comments: mid January 2012 – the onward march surveyed
While centralised control has been evident since the 1988 Act, the increasing lack of consultation reached a new destination with these measures – on which there was little consultation, and none on Ebac or the moral agenda - which has enormous consequences. Current Conservative policies threaten that curriculum exams and methods of training teachers and teaching methods will be controlled centrally, while delivery, with local authorities eliminated, will be determined locally, but only within central priorities. This is a highly toxic formula, which has totalitarian implications. The contradiction between central control and the rhetoric of local autonomy will require sustained debate. As the Gove agenda develops, particularly for Academies and Free Schools, the ideology of autonomy outlined again in his January 4th speech will become increasingly hollow. Gove's view of State Education, allows NO real autonomy for schools.