Why New Labour was right on education reform

By Benjamin Butterworth / @benjaminbutter

I recently spent some time teaching in a number of inner-city schools across London. Such an opportunity came about for me as part of London Citizens’ (the community organising charity, subsidiary to Citizens UK) project to educate our young people on the importance of good personal economics. Imploring financial education and prudent spending (a phrase only permitted to be pronounced in a Scottish accent) was the primary aim of this exploration. But as a follower of education policy, and having studied it on an academic level, it also offered the chance of a real insight into how our our schools operate.

My personal experience of education was a very good, if not modest one. Through the state primary sector, to a ‘good with outstanding features’ secondary comprehensive, and now on to a respectable, Russell Group university. It’s what any parent would want for their children; to be afforded the best of opportunities in a diverse and inclusive education system, that strives for the highest standards, and embeds a sense of social cohesion.

But it’s one of the toughest questions in politics. How do we get every child to fulfil their potential? How do we make education a leveller, not a divider? What makes best practice to inspire young minds? They are vast questions which no one policy can entirely resolve. Nor is there one yardstick by which we can measure the full impact of education policy.

What is clear though, is that policy in this area has been historically off the mark. Over the past hundred or so years, we’ve seen the growth of private education. A chronic divide between the haves and have-nots that’s seen the very best teaching and opportunities afforded to a narrow group born at the top, whilst the rest have been left adrift. And be under no illusion, it’s a rift that has grown: many now private schools were often founded open-to-all. Take Wellington College in Wiltshire, for example, one school founded by a philanthropist to provide top level education for orphaned military children. But today, it educates the children of the wealthiest and embeds the disparity of opportunity between the rich and the rest.

A commonly quoted statistic is that 7% of our young are privately educated. In fact, the number is far more stark with some 18% of young people over the age of 16 studying at private institutions. There are currently some 8,000 students studying at Oxbridge who have come from private education, whilst only 130 were eligible for free school meals. We on the centre-left would all agree such a situation is unacceptable and unhealthy for all in society. It’s the kind of set-up which breeds unrest and resent, something we’ve learnt the hard way of late.

And yet, for so long, the debate on the issue has been stagnant and fatalistic.

The sponsored Academies programme endeavoured to overcome this. By breaking through the historic isolationism towards the private sector, it sought to establish a new unilateral approach whereby private enterprise, philanthropy and private educational foundations can run independent, all-ability free schools that provide world class education to our poorest communities. Rather than ostracising private education leaders from state education, academies take a new inclusive approach to harness their skills and expertise, to bring up the standards in state education.

When Labour came to power – after years of under-investment in schools under Conservative rule – half of schools didn’t have at least 1/3 pupils achieving the basic standard of 5 A*-C GCSEs. That’s a horrifying statistic, and thankfully one that’s no longer applicable with the majority of schools achieving at least 35% of pupils at the minimum standard. But it’s clear we’re still a long way off an acceptable situation – Singapore, for example, has uniformly high standards with 80% of students passing 5 ‘O’ Levels.

Asking that private schools be twinned with at least one failing comprehensive – putting their reputation of excellence as much on the line as with their fee-paying school(s) – gives the private sector direct responsibility to state education. Whilst it’s all well and good private schools offering bursaries to educate students from poorer backgrounds, that still maintains the elitism and does nothing to create more excellent schools. Bringing the best of the private sector into mainstream education (creating state-private federations) means world-class schooling for the many, not the few.

Private schools are able to offer the sort of choice and flexibility that allows their students to grow into independent and confident minds. Releasing schools from Local Education Authority control can be a real point of concern for some on the left. Questions of quality, standardisation and impartiality are raised. These, I feel, are ill-founded. If we trust teachers to be responsible for our children every day, then can we not trust them to recognise the best paths for their pupils and to shape their schools? Taking a top-down approach – assuming that because government is an important leveller, it must also have all the answers – can be the real Achilles heal to social democrat and socialist thinking.

Liberating schools to have a real stake in their own mission is a crucial cornerstone to creating a responsible, driven education sector. When half of schools aren’t achieving as they should be – they are, in spite of diligent teaching efforts, failing young people – you have to ask whether LEA conscription is really working, or in fact restricting schools’ ability to act as they see fit. Allowing a school to determine what the best goals are for its students is a radically progressive step to lifting standards. It’s a culture of responsibility that drives up results.

But let me be clear: independence isn’t about de-standardisation. It’s crucial that all sponsored academies or “free schools” are subject to the same scrutiny by Ofsted. The freedom to tailor educational requirements does not mean a cop-out from standardised examinations and fundamental curriculum requirements. But to be wedded to the idea of total state control in schools is little more than ideologue, and it’s that conservatism of thought that holds generations back.

We must not confuse means with ends in this debate. The desired ends remain the same: a well-educated, well-rounded workforce from a socially cohesive and mixed education system. But decades of conservative dogma in education policy have meant failing to succeed in this mission. Academies are a radically progressive thought plan, that end the isolationism towards an elite group of private schools that has excluded so many young people and instilled a two-tier system.

To note, the primary difference between Ed Balls’ academies programme and Michael Gove’s is scale. Labour’s plans were to replace every under-performing school with an academy, whilst Michael Gove has opened the opportunity up to all schools, including primary schools. This is on the back of strong statistics showing the results of New Labour’s academies: Petchey Academy, in the markedly deprived borough of Hackney, is expected to have 80% of it’s students getting 5 A*-C GCSEs this year. The Singapore standard, and an inspiration.

Where Gove goes wrong is that he doesn’t back up the plans with requisite investment – the pulling of Building Schools for the Future and EMA put real barriers in the way of progress in their own right. But the ambition to expand New Labour’s radical academy programme is a valiant and decent one. Andy Burnham has been notably indecisive on Labour’s stance to ‘free schools’. I would urge him to keep our party firmly in the centre-ground, championing the progressive, radical cause in education policy.