Ed's challenge: to re-engage with the South

Ed Miliband put in a surprisingly confident performance on the Andrew Marr show yesterday. And Ed Balls has said some of the right things in his Shadow Chancellor's speech to the Liverpool conference today. But, it is hard to feel yet that Dave and Sam should be pre-booking the removals van for 2015. By tomorrow afternoon, Ed Miliband should at least ensure that they think they may have to do so. And starting from where Labour is now, it's a pretty tall order.

The mediocre local election results have been followed by modest poll leads since May. At least they are poll leads for Labour, but the image of its key figures is dismal, and people judge a future government on its key personnel as much as on its policies. There are precious few of those too: of course, there is some wisdom in holding fire on policy detail so early in the parliament. The planned cut in the fees cap to £6000 did, at least, generate some headlines, though it may become a millstone around the leadership's neck come the manifesto - inflation may well have lifted it to nearer £7000 by 2015, for a start. The bigger problem is that we have had too little indication yet of Labour's direction of travel under Miliband beyond a wish to ease life for the ill-defined 'squeezed middle'.

Often in politics you have to apologise for something that you didn't do, or believe you didn't do, but which the electorate believes you did, if you are to win their trust to move to the next stage. Ed Miliband has been happy to do this on policies with which he disagreed. But the most important issue relates to Labour and the economy. The party makes a good case that the essentials were in good shape until the economic crisis, but voters still believe that it didn't do enough in the good times to prepare for a rainy day. That is the charge to which Labour must respond effectively. Ed Balls is right that the Government needs to boost growth, though his targeted proposed cut in VAT for home improvements seems more considered than his proposed reversing the latest coalition VAT rise. But his more important message was that Labour would have tough fiscal rules governed by the coalition's Office for Budget Responsibility, and would not reverse coalition cuts. That is a good step in the right direction, but it is unlikely to be enough to cut through the unforgiving attitude of ex-Labour voters who distrust the party on the economy.

Ed Miliband needs to go the extra step on the economy tomorrow. But he also needs to give a sense of what Labour's priorities will be in 2015. The problem with too much of what is being said and done at the moment is that it is backward-looking and retrospective: either trying to refight the issues of Labour in government, or even to respond to internal lobbyists who regretted the unfortunate interlude when the party held power. And best not to mention the anti-immigrant protectionism of Blue Labour. Miliband's front bench has plenty of able people on it of whom we have seen far too little, and the recent Progress Purple Book at least offered some good ideas. But Miliband has also failed to set a clear stamp on the direction of policy and his endless policy reviews need a better steer than they have been given to date if they are not to prove a big embarrassment.

In one sense, tomorrow's speech is a big opportunity. It is a chance to tell ordinary voters that there is a lot more to Ed Miliband than his odd relationship with his brother. Few voters have yet got beyond that in their understanding of him. But it is also a big danger, that it becomes a missed opportunity to define Labour in terms that will regain support among the 'squeezed middle classes' of Southern England and the Midlands: the people of the London and Birmingham suburbs, the coastal towns from Kent to Cornwall, the new towns like Reading, Swindon and Slough across to the West and in Bristol and its environs. If Ed doesn't speak to them tomorrow, his party is simply speaking to itself.

Schools must be able to recruit poorer pupils

I've written this piece for the Public Finance blog:

The education secretary, Michael Gove, is reported to be considering a change to the Schools Admissions Code that would allow successful schools actively to recruit pupils entitled to free school meals from outside their catchment area. The change has been greeted with predictable shrieks of ‘social engineering’ from the right-wing media and claims by the Margaret Morrissey, who runs an organisation called ‘Parents Outloud’ that it would ‘shunt’ parents to ‘the bottom of the list.’

But Gove is absolutely right to look for ways to ensure that new academies and free schools – which are more likely than Labour’ academies to be in better off areas – are not simply ghettoised by the middle classes. Poorer parents are too often already ‘shunted’ to the bottom of the list by virtue of where they live. The fact is that the use of catchment areas as the main admissions criterion by urban schools ensures that many of the best schools exclude poorer pupils not because they go out of their way to do so, but because they simply cannot afford to live near enough to the school to get in.

With the 2006 Education and Inspections Act, the new School Admissions Code made it easier for schools to combat this by introducing either ability bands or random allocation (lotteries). A growing number of academies use this criteria – often within a wider catchment area than the neighbourhood around the school – to ensure a balanced intake. In fact, middle class families can benefit from this too, as the Brighton experiment showed (in that case, catchments were drawn largely for their benefit), since it at least gives them a chance of getting their child into a school otherwise closed to them. Those who can lose are those who have moved into an artificial catchment area to get into a particular school, though it makes sense for schools to provide a proportion of places for those living very near a school as well as a proportion that is open to wider competition.

Gove’s proposal would give schools another way of widening their intake, by allowing them actively to recruit poorer pupils, presumably by setting aside a number of places for those entitled to free school meals (FSM). There is a critique of FSM as the measure, in that it misses a lot of youngsters from families of modest means, but the principle is a good one. And if the new pupil premium - provided it is additional and significant – is to work, good schools must have more than an incentive to recruit poorer pupils, they need the means to do so as well.

That said, there are two other aspects of the 2006 reforms that need a shot in the arm, if this scheme is to work. The first is the entitlement to free transport to any one of three local schools (rather than that nominated by the local authority, as before). This needs to be better publicised, and must not be a victim of the Chancellor’s cuts. The second is the choice adviser. As I wrote last year, the idea of people actively helping poorer families to make choices has had a patchy record. But it could be revitalised as a Big Society idea, with successful people from poorer communities providing the advice at crucial times during the year, and active rather than passive efforts to promote good choices.

Of course, Ed Balls is right to point out that Labour’s academies, by being placed within poorer communities, are making a huge difference to many poorer families. But that doesn’t mean his successor is wrong to find ways to redress the imbalanced intakes of some of our more successful schools at the same time.

Home schooling mustn't be a cover for abuse

The law allows parents to educate their children at home. It is right that it does so, as parents are their child's primary educator. But that should not mean that there are no checks to ensure that this is not a cover for permanent truancy or the sort of horrific abuse reported in Birmingham yesterday. There is far too much centralisation and regulation in the current Children, Schools and Families Bill that Ed Balls has brought into parliament. But one area of the Bill - which is being opposed by the Tories in the face of a rowdy opposition from home schoolers - is long overdue. The Bill requires local authorities to keep a register of all children of school age who are being educated at home. Without such a register, how can we expect social workers to follow up the sort of concerns initially expressed by Khyra's headteacher? (Equally, it should be said the failure of social workers to deal with heads' initial concerns highlights the problems with the bureaucracy around safeguarding - schools should have their own social worker on staff able to investigate abuse rather than having to rely on the so-called multi-agency response system)

Yet Michael Gove has declared the plans for a register "deeply sinister" and has promised to block them, as have the Liberal Democrats. Of course, parents should have the right to educate their children at home so long as that is what they are doing, and many home educators do a great job. But equally we have an obligation to the children to be sure this is not used by a minority as a cover for the sort of abuse shown to Khyra Ishaq. After all, twice as many children on the child protection register are 'home educated' as those educated at school. Children's interests must come first. And the three political parties should quickly agree a light touch registration arrangement that ensures that they do. To do so is only 'totalitarian' if one believes that the interests of the child are always outweighed by the beliefs of the parent - even if they should contribute to their child's death.

We need more curriculum clarity

Ed Balls has inevitably had to give ground on his sex and relationships education plans in the Children, Schools and Families Bill, despite his protestations to the contrary today. But there is a far bigger problem with the ludicrous attempt to impose a lengthy personal, social and health education curriculum on every school and academy up to age 16, at a time when languages, design technology, history and other subjects are at the discretion of schools at Key Stage 4. The decision to abandon Key Stage 3 tests has meant the abandonment of Shakespeare at Key Stage 3. Today's predictable climbdown in the face of church lobbying obscures the confusion at the heart of the Government's approach to the curriculum. Instead of a piecemeal approach to different subjects, we need a much clearer sense of the essential knowledge and skills that young people should acquire between the ages of 11 and 16, with schools and academies able to develop their own programmes to provide them and other subjects they choose to offer in ways that work with their students.

Playground politics

I have the cover feature in this week's Public Finance on the battle between the parties on education:

The economy might be the big election issue but another equally bitter battle is being fought over education, as two Oxford contemporaries traduce each other’s policies. Schools Secretary Ed Balls scorns his Conservative shadow, Michael Gove, for planning a ‘free for all’ and ‘spending cuts’, while Gove denounces his opponent’s ‘bureaucratic’ policies and ‘dumbed-down’ curriculum.

In truth, both policies throw up serious questions. There are differences in approach. Balls warms to local authorities more than Gove. He has chipped away at the freedoms of academies – the state-funded independent schools that were the centrepiece of former prime minister Tony Blair’s school reforms – while rapidly expanding their number. His legislation would entrench Labour policies in ­‘guarantees’ to parents. Gove has pledged to ‘break down barriers’ – often set by local authorities – to allow new schools and free academies. His ‘draft manifesto’ on education confirmed plans to support 220,000 new school places in the poorest communities.

In fact, many of Gove’s ideas build on Labour’s policy architecture. Allowing ‘outstanding’ schools to become academies provided that they support weaker schools replicates a model already adopted by Outwood Grange College in Wakefield and Greensward School in Hockley, Essex. A requirement that failing schools become academies within a year unless they improve echoes Labour’s National Challenge, aimed at lifting the minimum achievement in secondary schools. Even Gove’s plan ‘to break down barriers to entry so that any good education provider can set up a new academy school’ reflects a growing role for not-for-profit sponsors in academies and trust schools. So much so that Gove’s internal critics argue that unless he allows profit-making providers, as in Sweden, he will find it hard to effect the radical change he seeks.

According to Anna Fazackerley, head of the education unit at centre-Right think-tank Policy Exchange: ‘A significant number of potential multi-academy sponsors say they have been put off by the inability to make a profit.’ However, Gove is keen to avoid charges of ‘privatisation’ in an election campaign.

Equally, teacher training reforms dubbed ‘brazenly elitist’ by Conservative leader David Cameron are less radical than their sales pitch. The headlines focused on a plan to bar the dwindling number of third-class degree holders from teaching but the main pledges echo Labour ideas. Paying off the student loans of top mathematics and science graduates is worth around £2,000 a year to a new teacher, but would replace £5,000 golden hellos. The Tories would also expand ­Labour’s Teach First programme for top graduates and rebrand existing programmes to attract experienced ­graduates as Teach Now.

Bigger differences lie in the parties’ approaches to funding and accountability. Labour has significantly increased spending on schools: real-terms funding per pupil has risen by 85% since 1997, while capital spending has grown six-fold. And, although this spending spree is coming to an end, Chancellor Alistair Darling was persuaded by Balls to announce that school spending would increase by 0.7% a year in real terms in 2011/12 and 2012/13. Balls doesn’t rule out cuts in quangos or in other education programmes, though he has yet to emulate Lord Mandelson’s university and college cuts. The National College for the Leadership of Schools and Children’s Services has urged efficiencies in schools through federations and structural change, and the Department for Children, Schools and Families has ­published its own money-saving guide. This has angered heads’ leaders. Mick Brookes, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, says: ‘Heads, quite rightly, feel insulted by this attempt to decapitate schools.’ A freeze on teachers’ pay and lower employer ­pension contributions also seem likely.

Yet while Labour has given some commitments to school spending, the Tories have not. Without such guarantees, they are likely to require even bigger cuts than Labour, which will make it harder to afford their two main commitments – the extra school places in poor areas and paying schools a premium for disadvantaged pupils.

The Tories say they need to make these pledges because Labour has failed on social mobility. A Higher Education Funding Council for England report did show that a fifth of the poorest youngsters now go to university, compared with an eighth in 2004. But the proportion of better off undergraduates has grown slightly faster, so the gap has not narrowed.

In terms of secondary schools, Balls says his National Challenge programme is making a difference. Its target is that by 2012, 30% of pupils in all schools should gain five good GCSEs, including English and mathematics. In 1997, 1,600 schools (half the total) did not achieve this. By 2009, the number had fallen to 247, and schools in the poorest areas are improving twice as fast as those in better-off areas. However, Gove argues that Labour’s approach is not feeding through into university success. Despite the reported improvements, he calculates that the number of boys at Eton public school with three As at A-level in 2009 – the minimum required for elite university courses – is still greater than the total number of boys in the state school system on free school meals who gain three A-levels.

His concerns are shared by Alan Milburn, the former Labour Cabinet minister. In a December report, he said: ‘If the growth in social exclusivity is not checked, it will be more and more middle-class children, not just working-class ones, who will miss out.’ He wants radical measures to improve social mobility, such as the pupil premium and vouchers for parents in areas with lots of failing schools. Prime Minister Gordon Brown rejected Milburn’s more controversial ideas, but backed other proposals, such as paid internships to improve access to professional jobs.To be fair, more poor pupils – ­measured as those receiving free school meals – are going to good state schools, according to a 2008 study by the Sutton Trust. The number attending the top 200 comprehensives has risen by 44% in the past ten years, although the overall number of children receiving free school meals has fallen by 18%. However, while the numbers are up, the proportion of poor pupils in those schools is still only 7.6%, against the national average of 13.6%.

Gove argues that a pupil premium would encourage good schools to ‘work particularly hard to attract’ poorer pupils. The Liberal Democrats agree: their leader Nick Clegg confirmed last week that he would spend £2.5bn on the premium, funded from ‘savings’ in the education budget and limiting tax credits. But there are big questions over how the Tories would fund the premium and their other ambitions. They have said they would divert funding from Labour’s Building Schools for the Future programme to pay the capital costs of their 220,000 new school places.

But this would be a costly intervention. Primary rolls are starting to rise again, but secondary rolls are set to fall by 55,000 until 2015 before rising again. Gove has confirmed that he plans to take school place planning out of local authority hands, and approve new schools directly in Whitehall. This will effectively encourage surplus places, so the extra ­revenue costs could exceed a billion pounds a year. The pupil premium could prove even more expensive, as many believe even the Clegg figure underestimates what it would cost. At present, schools in deprived areas or with large numbers of deprived pupils get the extra funds based on national and local formulas, whereas other schools with a smaller proportion of disadvantaged pupils get nothing extra to pay for them.

This means there are only two ways to fund the policy: find extra money at a time when cuts seem likely or redistribute existing budgets away from disadvantaged inner-city schools to more prosperous suburban and shire schools and local authorities. The Conservatives have not said how big their premium would be, but if it is to be introduced at any meaningful level – many say this should be an extra £2,000 or 50% of per pupil funding – the redistribution could be substantial. Such changes can produce a huge outcry from the ­losers and little thanks from the winners, as Charles Clarke found as education secretary in 2003 when he made more modest reforms to make school funding fairer. So significant financial compensation would be required to reduce such losses. Doing this at a time of financial restraint would be no easy task.

Alongside funding, an ideological battle is taking place over how to make schools accountable for pupil performance. The National Union of Teachers and the National Association of Head Teachers are balloting their members to boycott this year’s English and mathematics tests for 11-year-olds. Both Balls and Gove have tried to appease the unions with respective proposals to increase teacher assessments and test children at the start of secondary school instead. But whoever wins the election, schools will have to be more accountable to those they serve.

Labour’s Children, Schools and Families Bill proposes minimum ‘guarantees’ for parents and pupils in everything from ‘good behaviour, strong discipline, order and safety’ for pupils to opportunities for parents to be involved in their child’s learning. Many of the proposals included in the 88-page consultation document ­issued after the Bill’s second reading reflect existing entitlements. Those that are new include a promise of one-to-one ­tuition, tougher home-school agreements and a report card on the schools for parents to supplement existing league tables.

However, many schools believe that the legislation is too bureaucratic and lacks the money to fund the guarantees or the means to enforce them. Dr John Dunford, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, told MPs: ‘[There is] potential in an increasingly litigious society for parents to take up an awful lot of head teachers’ time in disputing what are rather uncertain and woolly guarantees.’ The Tories would rely instead on published data, including results from new reading tests for six year-olds, and tougher Ofsted inspections. But an absence of legal levers could prove problematic when it comes to what schools teach. The headmaster of ­Harrow public school, Barnaby Lenon, echoed Gove recently with claims that too many state schools were cramming their pupils with ‘worthless qualifications’ to boost their league table rankings. And the Tories have argued that the increase in the proportion of pupils gaining five good GCSEs, including English and mathematics, from 35% in 1997 to 50% in 2009 is devalued because pupils are ­taking easier exams.

The Conservatives would exclude vocational qualifications from league tables and could give extra credit to harder subjects. Yet despite arguing that schools should teach all pupils languages and history to age 16, they would not require them to do so. Instead, they hope a combination of league table, Ofsted and ­parental pressure would do the trick. Some schools would choose a more academic curriculum, but a growing number prefer to focus on employability and research skills.

And the fate of ­languages provides a cautionary tale. When Estelle Morris, as education secretary, decided in 2002 to give schools the freedom to drop modern language lessons for 14 to 16-year-olds, she urged them to apply the change selectively as a way of enabling a minority of pupils to do more vocational subjects. In fact, the proportion of pupils sitting a language GCSE has fallen from a peak of 78% in 2001 to 44% in 2009. Recent pressure from ministers and published data have not increased the numbers. ‘The lesson,’ says Morris, ‘is that the consequence of giving schools greater freedom – on this or on anything else – is that they will sometimes make decisions with which the rest of us might not be thrilled.’

Both parties face problems with their attempts to create dividing lines. Balls’ bid to win parents’ support risks unleashing new bureaucracy on schools at a time of tough spending choices. Gove might find that exhortation is not enough to promote freedom and tougher standards simultaneously. And as both parties’ plans come under increasing scrutiny, they will face growing pressure to explain exactly how they will fund and achieve their ambitions.

Labour's real educational achievement

The begrudgers in the commentariat have decided that Labour has failed the educational test. For them, there is no figure or fact that could dampen their prejudice. Yet, for more open-minded observers there is one spectacular success - the use of floor targets or minimum acceptable standards to drive up the performance of the weakest schools.

The approach was started by David Blunkett in 2000, and was revived by Ed Balls with his National Challenge. The success of the strategy depends upon real reform - with academies and trust schools - and strong leadership in secondary schools. And because the test of success - five good GCSEs including English and Maths achieved by at least 30% of pupils in a school - is a pretty tough one, even Michael Gove at his most churlish should find it hard to gainsay the achievement (though I doubt it will stop him trying).

Today's figures show that where there were 1600 secondary schools - one in two - that failed to reach this benchmark in 1997, there are only 247 today, including a drop from 439 in 2008. Remarkably, London now outperforms other regions. That is a spectacular success that is unmatched in reform programmes in other countries. The danger is that the Tories in their zealous idelological opposition to targets - even where they so clearly work - will take this pressure off schools and they will only realise its damaging impact only after it is too late. For today, though, it is time to recognise this signal achievement by headteachers and schools that has resulted from a Labour policy.

Election skirmishes

I've written this post for the Public Finance blog today.

There is no doubt that the apparently under-resourced Labour election team scored an early victory in the election battle yesterday. The party’s efforts to destabilise David Cameron’s launch of his personalised billboards and slimmed down health policy were effective. In election battles, it doesn’t really matter that not all the £34bn identified by Labour researchers was committed Tory spending: it forced them into a state of confusion over marriage tax breaks (a totemic issue for backbenchers and the Daily Mail) and plans to provide more single rooms in hospital wards.

The Tory machine should have been better prepared than it was for such attacks. But unless Labour itself clears up its own strategy, it may win the odd skirmish, but it will neither win the war nor force a hung parliament. Rachel Sylvester’s account in today’s Times of how Ed Balls and Lord Mandelson have very different approaches to the election campaign has a ring of truth about it. Where Mandelson has shown himself keener to keep the Blairite torch of reform alive in his department – exemplified in recent reports on universities and training – while despite initiatives like yesterday’s on one-to-one tuition, Balls has preferred to exaggerate his differences on schools with his Tory opponent Michael Gove rather than trumpet key Labour reforms such as academies that Gove has been carefully hijacking.

It isn’t just a matter of narrowing the dividing lines, it is also about the ground on which Labour fights the Tories. The Pre-Budget Report was an opportunity to restore Gordon Brown’s mantle of fiscal responsibility by highlighting the extent of planned cuts as well as proposals to protect schools and NHS budgets. Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, would clearly have been more comfortable doing so. Instead, it was left to the Institute of Fiscal Studies to highlight what the Budget already contained. Instead of credit for honesty, the government was lambasted for its apparent shiftiness.

Labour needs to level with the electorate about its successes, failures and future plans. It cannot win an election spouting dubious dividing lines. Nor can it do so by ignoring the reformist agenda that helped win it three previous elections and which is crucial for middle class support in the marginals. There is certainly something pleasing about seeing David Cameron on the back foot for a day or two. But unless the government can articulate a stronger narrative of its own record, and a more credible sense of what it would do if it won a fourth term that appeals beyond the so-called core vote, Cameron will get his ‘year of change.’

Just 18% of NUT members back their union's planned test boycott

The Guardian reports the humiliating lack of interest among NUT members in the SATs boycott that has had Ed Balls and Michael Gove scrabbling to appease the teaching unions. Apparently, only 25% of NUT members bothered to vote, and 75% of them wanted a boycott. In other words, just 18.5% of NUT members felt strongly enough about the issue (that teaching union leaders say is top of teachers' agendas) to support the boycott which would damage children's education and futures. If the NUT doesn't now abandon its efforts to obscure schools that fail their pupils, ministers - and their Tory shadows - must stand up to their silliness and robustly defend the only externally marked tests that pupils are required to sit in primary school as a vital measure of accountability. We should hear no more about replacing tests with teacher-marked assessments whether at the end of primary or the start of secondary school.

False dividing lines

I have this column in today's Independent, arguing that the 'choices' being presented on schools by Ed Balls and Michael Gove represent false dividing lines, but there are areas of real difference where both politicians should be challenged.

The Queen's Speech was all about dividing lines. The Schools Secretary, Ed Balls, suggested huge differences with his Tory shadow, Michael Gove, over their policies on school diversity. Mr Gove happily joined in, contrasting his plans with those of his opponent.

Both are happy to characterise their opposite number as the devil incarnate – Balls the arch-centraliser, undermining academy independence, or Gove the arch-privatiser, who would ignore the plight of the weakest schools. Of course, there is a grain of truth in the charges. Mr Balls has tweaked academy independence, forcing co-operation with local authorities. But he has not changed their fundamental character, and has expanded their number to 200, with 100 more due to open next year.

Mr Gove does want Swedish-style independent state-funded schools, promoted by parents and school chains. But they would be not-for-profit and he would turn the 100 worst schools into academies, a policy similar to the Balls idea of forcing change on schools where at least 30 per cent of pupils don't get five good GCSEs.

Indeed, Mr Gove would probably be able to achieve his main aims through existing
legislation introduced by Labour, which already promotes competition for new schools and is intended to empower parents unhappy with existing school choices. That explains why the main legislation he cited for a Tory government's first Queen's Speech was an extension of teachers' powers to confiscate, and an abolition of the exclusion appeals panels that send just 60 out of 8,000 excluded pupils back to their schools each year.

By exaggerating each other's differences on discipline and diversity they are misleading the public and are in danger of underestimating the weaknesses of their own policies. By doing so, they could be threatening their own success.

One big spur for recent improvement has been floor targets, including the expectation that at least 30 per cent of pupils in a school achieve five good GCSEs including English and maths. With similar challenges to primary schools, a swathe of poorly performing schools has improved. Where 1,600 secondary schools fell below the GCSE threshold in 1997, only 270 do so today. And while the pressure was most effective with poor performers, comprehensives at 70 per cent or above have doubled in the same period.

While other targets may have been crude – and with the Treasury's help, certainly too numerous – floor targets have been Labour's greatest success. Yet instead of extending this challenge, Mr Gove would abandon it, making it harder to judge the success of his policies on replacing failing schools or extending competition. This is a real dividing line between Labour and the Conservatives. And it deserves to be highlighted more than the supposed dangers of their Swedish schools policy.

Indeed, by acceding to the Tories' false dividing lines on diversity, Labour is in danger of ceding its big education successes to them. Academies are a Labour innovation. A big reason for their success – their results improve twice as fast as other schools – is their independence from local authorities.

This doesn't mean academies don't want to work with their local councils, rather that
any partnerships with them would be stronger because both parties are engaged voluntarily. Indeed some of the strongest community work I've seen has been in academies. Tony Blair recognised this when he extended foundation and introduced
trust schools, which though funded through councils, own their own buildings and employ their own staff.

But while both academies and trust schools have expanded since Mr Balls became Schools Secretary, he has also tried to force rather than empower co-operation. Instead of extending such bureaucracy, Labour should be outflanking the Conservatives in their support for independent academies. And instead of exaggerating differences, the Conservatives should start to explain how we might judge the success of their schools policy – with goals based on exam results, not just the number of new schools. Doing so would serve schools, parents and pupils much better than the false choices being served up by both parties at the moment.

Balls should put children's futures before the teaching unions

Until yesterday, Ed Balls had commendably resisted attempts by the teaching unions to scrap accountability, by refusing to abolish testing and league tables. Yesterday, he announced pefectly reasonably that teacher assessment results would be published in league tables alongside test scores. What was unreasonable was his suggestion that Key Stage 2 tests could go, in a shameful attempt to curry favour with the teaching unions.

Primary schools face one set of external tests. They are vital for parental confidence, Ofsted inspections and public accountability. Doubtless many of the assessments will match the test scores, which is as it should be. But if the system becomes entirely self-policing, the dynamics would change considerably. There would be no real pressure to achieve in the basics, and this will particularly hurt boys' achievement in English. It will also hurt standards in primary education, where accountability has been important in the improvements over recent years.

I have been critical of Michael Gove's proposals to shift the tests to the start of secondary school, partly because it too was an attempt to appease the unions, but also because it would delegitimise the results as secondary teachers have an interest in marking down pupils at the start of secondary (Gove has since suggested that he would probably go for external marking). Both Balls and Gove should make clear their unequivocal support for externally set and marked national tests, and stop putting the interests of the teaching unions ahead of children's futures and school standards.

This post was quoted in the TES.

Secrets, lies and grown-up politics

George Osborne has a rather shabby piece in today's Mail on Sunday accusing Gordon Brown of lying over planned spending cuts. Yet the economically illiterate Osborne has been caught by the independent Institute of Fiscal Studies - so often cited by David Cameron - either telling massive porkies of his own or being asleep on the job, as he tried to claim that figures in the public domain about projected tax receipts as a result of growth were a secret plan to put 3p on taxation.

Meanwhile, having expressed a relish for savage cuts, Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg was impressively evasive on this morning's Andrew Marr show about what it would all mean. He couldn't even bring himself to pledge to keep tuition fees, one of the most progressive changes introduced by the Labour government, because as Charles Kennedy effectively admitted on the same show, it had been useful in hoodwinking student voters in some university seats.

But perhaps the most remarkable intervention of the day is from the schools secretary Ed Balls, who has been thinking imaginatively about using federations and sharing senior staff, as well as keeping teachers' pay in check, to drive down costs. While the Sunday Times suggests this is about secondary schools, it is particularly valuable in small rural primaries, which cannot sustain or often cannot find a head for each school. Whether this is easy to introduce given the relative independence of state schools remains to be seen, and its desirability will be questioned in some cases, but at least it has the merit of honesty in a debate that has been characterised by people shouting 'liar' at the opponents whilst claiming honesty for their own imprecision.

Yet, when this idea is put to Honest Nick Clegg, who surely knows exactly what Balls means, all he can do is throw about silly accusations about damaging children's lives. What people want from Clegg and Osborne is a sense of where they believe savings could be made. And they then want those things debated on their merits. The yah-booh-sucks politics of previous elections - of which I know Balls was an advocate until some months ago and from which Vince Cable is often impressively immune - has little place in these straitened times. It is time that all those engaged in the political debate realised it and treated us all like grown-ups.

Talking up academies

Today's announcement that sponsorship requirements will be relaxed for new academy promoters reflects a significant shift in the direction of the programme over the last few years. More academies are being sponsored by universities, FE colleges and other schools than before, and it has been unrealistic to ask them for the £2 million that a philanthropist or corporation might have been willing to contribute. Moreover, the £2m has more recently become an endowment rather than a capital contribution, as academies are built through the Building Schools for the Future programme.

Contrary to popular mythology, neither of these developments represented a 'new direction' after Tony Blair stepped down. Both were approved before then, and were seen by Andrew Adonis as a way of expanding the programme more rapidly. The key issue for sponsors should be the extent to which they engage in school life more than the depth of their pockets. So, provided a strong commitment of personnel and support comes with sponsorship, these changes should be an opportunity rather than a hindrance to academies.

With academies showing a remarkable five point leap in GCSE results - including English and Maths - this year, three times the average improvement of all schools last year, it is clear that the programme has come of age. Of course, there are one or two academies that have not initially worked. It would be extraordinary if there were not. But the key point which the teaching unions need to recognise is that, taken as a whole, this is now proving to be the single most successful intervention in inner city schools of any government in recent times. The churlishness of ATL general secretary Mary Bousted on Today this morning was unbecoming, though, to be fair, she is on the moderate wing of union opinion on academies.

The real significance of today's announcement was the welcome willingness of Ed Balls, the schools secretary, to start talking up this success. And when he did so, his Tory opposite number Michael Gove was left uncharacteristically floundering for something sensible to say.

UPDATE: I've also written about academies at the Public Finance blog. This posting has also been picked up by Progress Online.

The teachers' MOT is a good idea

The final White Paper package showed imagination, with the five-yearly teachers' MOT providing a surprise addition on the day. It makes sense to ensure teachers' skills are up-to-date, though it will be important that the focus is on what matters to good teaching, and not on simply reinforcing passing fads. But given the reluctance of too many governing bodies or heads to remove incompetent teachers, it is potentially a good move. And it is good that the government apparently plans to continue to publish performance table data alongside the Report Card: all the data should be on a single government website if it is genuinely to be accessible. More details are obviously needed on what is to replace the Primary Strategy in terms of quality and pressure to improve, and it remains to be seen how good School Improvement Partners are in their extended role, but with the reinforcement of the importance of trusts and academies, this is a reforming package. It places a considerable onus on the Tories now to give real detail about how they would do things differently.

Power to the parents and pupils?

I'm enjoying the French sunshine this week, so readers will have been spared listening to me on Today or WATO (and for the benefit of BBC researchers, I'm still on holiday). But I thought I would share a few reflections on today's schools white paper.

And the next instalment of Gordon Brown's 'power to the people' package of reforms, looks like it will have some good things going for it. The idea of chains of schools forming with common curricula and shared resources is a good thing, that has been developing in Academies. (It is definitely less effective as with most such programmes if good schools are forced into them). The report cards may provide useful additional information, particularly where they include parental satisfaction surveys, provided they are not seen as more important than either Ofsted reports or published test scores. Plans to take the parents of unruly pupils to court are an extension of existing powers on truancy, which rightly set the primary responsibility for poor discipline where it belongs. But with responsibilities come rights: so the entitlements on one-to-one tuition are good; hopefully there will be more in the paper on extending parent powers when it comes to demanding a new school.

But there is a worry about the general direction of travel on accountability (which David Aaronovitch ably reflects in today's Times) - which is as important in raising standards as parental pressure or choice - which was heightened with the abandonment of the literacy and numeracy strategies last week. Don't get me wrong: the strategies were largely abandoned by Charles Clarke when he merged them into the all-singing, all-dancing Primary Strategy, and that's what was really scrapped. The point of the literacy and numeracy lessons was that there would be dedicated, distinctive lessons in the 3Rs each day in primary schools, because until then, they were often merged into other subjects. There is nothing wrong with reinforcing the teaching of English and Maths across the curriculum; quite the contrary. But the scrapping of the strategies must be reinforced by a clear expectation from Ofsted and the national curriculum that schools teach pupils to read phonetically, learn maths tables and gain the intuitive knowledge that will save them when their computer or calculator throws up some odd spellings or calculations. If that happens, kitemarked alternatives to Capita may even be a better bet.

Similarly, the main reason why specialist schools have been a success in lifting secondary school achievement is because schools have to set targets (not ministers) and are judged against them every few years in a national bidding process with national goals. Up to £150k a year rides on the results. There is a balance to be struck here, and some national pressure and acountability initiatives, including floor targets (which Ed Balls has extended sensibly) have made a real difference. With the government and the Tories battling to appease the teaching unions over testing - from scrapping Key Stage 3 to Tory plans to abandon national primary tests -there have been worrying signs that the balance is tilting too far from the interests of parents and pupils.

Today's package is good in that it shows some sense of purpose on public sector reform that had clearly been lost in recent months, and in that it has a strong focus on information and rights for parents. But it is also important that it starts to reverse the trend against accountability, which includes national standards. And that means avoiding sending the sort of signals given to teachers in last Friday's Guardian headline, which I understand went rather further than intended by the government. Those in government believe their reforms will provide parents with real power in a system of strong accountability: I hope for the sake of the next generation of pupils they are right.

Making Every Child Matters more practical

I have a column in today's Independent, arguing for a more practical focus to Every Child Matters, the government's drive to link education and children's services. Here's an extract:

Six years on, there is a sense that things are not working out. In his recent review of the Baby Peter case in Haringey, Lord Laming said the problem was that his ideas hadn't been introduced fully or fast enough. But head teachers fear that some of Laming's solutions are part of the problem. There may be worthy new "safeguarding" committees and "partnership working", they say, but you can't get hold of a social worker when you need one. The Government has professionals bogged down in "integrated strategy" and "inter-agency governance" but too little attention has been paid to the practical measures that could really make a difference. And heads' support for closer links between schools and welfare services has been turned into frustration as efforts to merge two very different professional approaches – that of the teacher and the social worker – are put into practice.

The benefits of chain gangs

Ed Balls gave an encouraging interview to the Times this week ahead of next week's long overdue schools white paper. He used it to promote the idea of chains of like-minded schools working with a common approach to pedagogy and gaining economies of scale from working together in areas like teacher training, as well as seeing them as a way for strong schools to takeover weak ones. This is something where Academies have been particularly good. Indeed, it is likely that the Tories too will need to turn to the academy chains like Ark, Harris and United Learning Trust to act as promoters for their Swedish-style free schools.

However, it is important that next week's White Paper doesn't indulge in mixed signals. The Government has - despite its acceleration of academies and the unsung growth of trust schools - been to shy in promoting its diversity credentials. There are suggestions that good schools will be forced rather than encouraged into chains, which would be a huge mistake. And government ambiguity on accountability is likely to be reinforced unless it is clear about the limitations as well as the potential of its new report card. Labour has a good record on schools over the last 12 years. The White Paper is a chance to remind people of that - and to be clear about the role of diversity and standards in promoting further school improvement in the years ahead.

The short and pointless life of DIUS

Amongst the results of yesterday's reshuffle was the abolition of the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills (DIUS). The functions of the department, created a mere 23 months ago, have been merged into Peter Mandelson's burgeoning empire, and may be the better for it. But the rapid demise of a department created merely to allow Ed Balls to absorb a host of other departments' children's issues into his Department for Children, Schools and Families illustrates the sheer pointlessness of departmental restructuring.

The truth is that the Department for Education and Skills - which covered schools, nurseries, colleges, universities and training - was a perfectly coherent department, and one of the most successful in Whitehall, before the decision was made to split its functions into two departments and add a lot of non-educational functions to the new DCSF. Splitting the two made little sense - even if it brought science and innovation alongside further and higher education, as this blog made clear at the time, not least because further education faced dealing with two masters, but also because it made a nonsense of a vision for lifelong learning that had hitherto been a mainstay of government policy.

To be fair to John Denham, he has been a good secretary of state, and his promotion to communities secretary is deserved, even if his department has with the help of the Learning and Skills Council, presided over some very messy college funding crises. But by splitting the departments, Gordon Brown actually weakened the voice of universities and colleges in government. At least that weakness should be remedied with Lord Mandelson in charge. But wouldn't it have been a lot easier to have recreated, dare one say it, a Department for Education?

A sustainable reshuffle?

The big challenge of the reshuffle is its sustainability. It is certainly better for keeping Alastair Darling at the Treasury and promoting Alan Johnson to the Home Office. I am sceptical of the Sir Alan Sugar promotion, and fear it may be as lasting as that of Digby Jones, though it brings star quality to the line-up.

But it is weakened by keeping Ed Balls at schools - where the Department has drifted under his leadership with its attempts to cover the gamut of children's policy at the expense of schools - and by the hugely important loss of some excellent ministers including James Purnell, John Hutton and Beverley Hughes (the children's minister).

The fact that several of those identified as Blairites retain positions of power helps, with Andy Burnham promoted to health. But I do wonder whether Barry Sheerman was not right in offering Gordon Brown a way settling the leadership question once and for all. Without a vote of confidence from his MPs, the doubts may simply remain.

A reshuffle is not enough of itself. The Government now needs to show vision, strategy and a sense of purpose over the next ten months. This is important not just on the economy and democratic reform, but across the public services. If Ed Balls is staying at schools, he needs to stop allowing the Tories to wrap themselves in the mantle of Labour academies. Andy Burnham has some genuine dividing lines with the Tories on health, and it is vital that Yvette Cooper doesn't allow the excellent work of James Purnell at work and pensions to drift. There must also be renewed vigour from Alan Johnson at the Home Office on crime and policing. There must also be some candour on public expenditure.

Most ministers have decided to stick with Gordon Brown, and it is highly unlikely that there will be any change at the top between now and the general election. Every minister has a clear duty to show why it matters that Labour is in power - and what the tough decisions are that need to be made. That is their challenge for the months ahead. The future of the Labour Party is in their hands.

A version of this appears on the Progress website.

A good discipline for schools

Ed Balls may have been on the ropes this morning about his ex-colleague Damien McBride's antics in no 10. But he has a good report from Sir Alan Steer to highlight today at the NASUWT conference on school discipline and behaviour. Having consistent approaches to discipline, with clear sanctions and rewards, has brought real improvements to many schools, and can do so for the quarter or so deemed to be not good enough at the moment. So can the use of 'withdrawal rooms.'

Applying this approach - and using existing powers - is likely to be far more effective than any new legislation - as Sir Alan says, they have the powers already; at no 10, I pressed for a right to discipline which became part of the 2006 legislation - and it has the benefit of being good common sense. (The Tory idea that all heads need is a 'right to exclude without appeal' is fanciful, given that only 100 out of 8680 permanently excluded troublemakers are actually readmitted after exclusion [table 11] and this is one area where the government is right to hold the opposition to account).

I have one niggling doubt about the schools secretary's prescriptions, however: he wants local authorities to send expert teams into schools that don't come up to scratch. It would be far more effective to facilitate groups of heads working together to achieve solutions: heads learning from fellow heads are more likely to heed their advice.

Parents back tests - ministers need to do so more clearly too

One of the arguments made by the two teaching unions threatening to boycott national tests next year is that they have the backing of parents.

Well, they may have on the sort of self-selecting surveys that teaching unions seem to specialise in. David Aaronovitch did a good job exposing the latest ATL survey proclaiming the death of school discipline to the sort of basic scrutiny that seems to have eluded most newspapers.

And when the DCSF conducted a proper opinion poll - using Ipsos MORI and based on a scientific sample - it found a rather different picture when it comes to what parents think of tests.

• 75% of parents think information on the performance of primary schools should be available to the general public;
• 70% of parents place value on the tests in providing information about how their child’s school is performing;
• 78% of parents with children who have done the tests think they are an accurate reflection of how their child is doing;
• 69% of parents think test results are useful for teachers when their child progresses to secondary school

Even when given the chance to say whether the tests should stay as they were or be replaced, 44% of parents said tests should stay as they are, with 36% of parents wanting them replaced, with most of the latter group wanting testing to stay. As the DCSF press notice pointed out, this means that 55% of parents expressing a preference think tests should stay at they are.

Despite last year's fiasco, tests still retain majority parental support. So Ed Balls should be wary of sending mixed messages to the teaching unions at their annual whingefests. The main headline on the DCSF press release showing A MAJORITY OF PARENTS BACK TESTS was not that; instead it was KEY STAGE 2 TESTS NOT SET IN STONE, ED BALLS TELLS TEACHERS' UNION CONFERENCE with the survey results given second billing.

The truth is that the Government is looking at a more complex alternative to the current tests, which would see most pupils taking more than one test in each subject in their last two years of primary school, and wants to publish the results on a new report card. Which is fine if they can find a straightforward way to present the results, whilst getting the marking right, crediting high achievers and avoiding the low expectations which CVA value added tables have fostered.

Balls was right yesterday to make clear that some form of national testing would remain and to condemn the threatened boycott. But we need to hear much stronger and clearer support for national testing and published results from ministers, more often. The parents they polled have shown them the way.