Media become Orwellian over Education.
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The passing of the Gove education Act, giving the Secretary of State 50 new powers, went almost unnoticed by the British media. Handing over dictatorial powers to one politician seems wholly acceptable to the Metropolitan media. The BBC in particular has been uncritical about Gove to an Orwellian degree, particularly over his Free Schools policy. As George Orwell found in the Spanish Civil War, questioning the Party line for many journalists is becoming impossible.
Yet the CITA (Caught in the Act) conference called by six progressive organisations on November 19th heard that the new Act is no administrative device. Coupled with education cut backs, a law which gives one politician power to determine how schools operate, is going to become a nightmare. The myth of schools autonomy is eroding as Gove and the Tories interfere as much as New Labour did – but the metropolitan media are looking the other way.
The immediate issues are the lethal cocktail of increased competition and financial cutbacks – 14% in the current year – and the possibility that the Schools Minister misled the Commons over Academy policy. Free schools, designed to increase competition, have long been criticised for undermining existing schools. Coupled with the control over admissions given under Academy law, the exclusion of difficult students and enrolment driven by lucrative pupil premium payments mean that the local school is less and less available for many parents. Free schools pose an even greater threat to take pupils away from viable local schools – removing pupils and the money which goes with them. Bankruptcy will be the result even for successful schools.
At the CITA conference, Sam Ellis of the ASCL demonstrated a simple formula which any teacher can use to work out when their school could enter financial difficulty – through no fault of their own. Without Local Authority support even successful schools could go under if Free Schools and Academies take pupils in a free for all. No school is safe. In the world of Michael Gove and his friends, this is not a problem. For the pupils and their parents, who only have one bite at the educational cherry, it is not so jolly when a school collapses.
Yet few of the criticisms of Tory policy are appearing in the national media. The first use of Gove's new powers is to force 200 “failing” primary schools to become academies. It is a totally arbitrary hit list, based on the dogma that academies are a magic bullet to turn schools around. The reality is that shorn of local authority support the schools will continue to struggle and can collapse. But the Evening Sentinel in Stoke reported of the six schools targeted in the city that “there are no grounds for negotiation”. And if the Academy schools fail, given there is no future for local authorities in Gove's vision, what can a failing school do but collapse?
The national media have accepted in a truly Orwellian fashion the dogma that Academies equal success under all circumstances. No questioning of Academies or Free Schools can now be found in the majority of the media, print or broadcast. In the provinces however the press remains more critical. The Birmingham Post was seriously critical of Gove for announcing a free school in Sandwell without consulting either Sandwell (Labour) or Birmingham (Con – Lib Dem) local authorities.
It was even more critical of the promise – a First in England, according to the school promoters – that guarantees every pupil an automatic 5 GCSE passes with A* to C in Gove's English Baccalaureate. It is indeed a first. No school has ever guaranteed GCSE success, yet Gove must endorse this promise since he approved the school.
Immediately the national media should be focusing on what Nick Gibb told the Commons on October 17th. Talking on academies, he said in replying to Chi Onwurah MP who complained that many heads “feel pressurised to become academies” - which they do – Gibb said “there is no compulsion to convert to Academy status” (Col 604). Yet less than a month later, the long awaited list of 200 schools forced to convert was announced.
The media did not report the burning question arising from this. Did Nick Gibb not know that the proposal to force conversions was on the agenda – when it was being discussed in the education press? And if he did, why are the mainstream media not asking how he could say no school was forced to convert?