Ed Balls’ priority must be our children

By Gary Hughes

Two major teaching trade unions recently met in conference to democratically confirm their policy towards the SAT examinations, delivered every summer to 11 year old children as they finish primary education.

As a Labour person, I am probably in the same position as many LabourList readers: democratic conferences of working people – who know their trade best – should be supported by all of us as they try to improve their employment. What do we do now, when the NUT has voted to strike unless Ed Balls gets rid of SATs and the NUSUWT has voted to strike if Ed Balls gets rid of SATs?

The debate is, simplified: academic judgement should be respected to let teachers decide when students are ready to progress versus the need for a universal measurement system that makes teachers accountable for how they support students to progress. That’s the argument which focuses on children’s education; there is also a less charitable argument about workload for teachers, because scrapping independently marked exams means that teachers have to do the marking themselves.

But, as a Labour person, I also care about kids getting an outstanding early education because it is the deciding factor about whether they perform better in later life, both in employment and in higher education. A good early education is at heart of our work to make society fairer. We need to have a way that we can find out where the outstanding teachers are, so we can learn from them, and where the teachers are who need help in getting better so they are as good as our kids need them to be.

The reason this is a LabourList blog and not a Guardian article is because I thought a debate on who we are might distract us from beating ourselves up. I’ll put it in one question: how do we balance our unionist principles with our socialist principles when, occasionally, they rub against each other? Is it OK to say that a teaching union knows best when it comes to pay, workload, conditions, holiday, training – but that, actually, the children, parents and the politicians we elect should decide what the education system does, and teachers should deliver it?

Ed Balls should listen to professionals, listen to experts, listen to voters and then decide what to do. When unions produce such conflicting positions, he can’t support both positions – and I’m not sure he should even try. I don’t think it makes him less Labour to not consider the unions: his first thought should be the children.