BRITISH SCHOOLS STILL HAVE A LONG WAY TO GO

A million children are being failed by schools eight years after Tony Blair pledged that education was the Government's priority, a National Audit Office study indicates today. The education of almost one in four children at secondary school is at risk of being substandard, the NAO cautions. Some poor schools are taking four years to improve, blighting pupils' entire secondary education. Other schools are being closed because they are failing to improve despite total investment of more than 1 billion pounds last year, the independent body says.

In another blow to Mr Blair, the Government's flagship health policy is described today as "ill-judged and confused" by a cross-party Commons committee. The Health Select Committee says that the NHS has been exposed to a "cycle of perpetual change" that does not help the delivery of healthcare. The damning report on schools comes as Mr Blair and Ruth Kelly, his embattled Education Secretary, try to face down a big Labour revolt over their plans for self-governing trust schools. The Prime Minister is being warned that his plans could not be pushed through the House of Commons without Conservative support.

The National Audit Office reveals that 23 per cent of secondary schools and at least 4 per cent of primaries are "poorly performing". Although just 577 schools are judged to be failing or have "serious weak- nesses" by Ofsted, the report highlights that the number of schools failing to provide a decent education are far higher. "We estimate that these 1,557 schools educate around 980,000 pupils, or 13 per cent of the school population," it says. Although most schools provided high standards of education, "a sizeable number of schools encounter problems that put children's education at risk, and some do not provide good value," it adds.

Ministers [taxpayers] spent 840 million pounds on improving struggling schools last year and 160 million pounds on replacing failing comprehensives with city academies. The NAO acknowledges that the number of failing schools halved between 1998 and 2005 and the number of low-achieving secondaries had fallen by 75 per cent.

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THE BRITS CAN'T EVEN FIND HEAD TEACHERS FOR THEIR SCHOOLS

Poor teaching, weak governance and a lack of outside support are highlighted today by the National Audit Office as key reasons for failure in more than 1,500 of England's schools. With more than a quarter of primary schools and a fifth of secondary schools lacking a permanent head, teachers' unions say that the entire education system is at risk unless the Government helps to raise their numbers and gives them greater backing. Head teachers are blaming a daunting workload and long hours for problems with recruitment and say that, with a quarter of all teachers retiring in the next decade, the system is at breaking point.

In today's report, the National Audit Office (NAO) authors say that heads are the "key to sustaining performance and improvement in any school", but they also acknowledge that the numbers of "appropriately experienced people" applying for the posts are falling.

Ruth Kelly, the Education Secretary, told The Times last week that plans in the education White Paper for schools to collaborate would ease the shortage. But according to the NAO the problem is more complex. "In some places, head teachers have been asked to act as `executive head teachers' and lead more than one school. This approach works in some cases and can help poorer schools by linking them with good schools, but it can also be risky given the challenges of school leadership and the importance of the personal presence of the leader."

Mick Brookes, the general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers, said that the lack of heads was one of the most important issues facing the Government, and that unless it was solved all other reforms would be virtually impossible. He said that teachers were put off by becoming heads for several reasons: the high risk of taking the blame for a failing school; the extra workload to allow colleagues time for planning, preparation and assessment; and the minimal differential paid to heads as opposed to senior teachers. "For another o12.50 a week, who wants to take up that extra stress and responsiblity?" he said.

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Teaching by the book: All texts are not equal; some are much better than others

Below is an editorial from Australia's national daily, "The Australian"

It's back to the books for Victorian students - literally - with the state's Curriculum and Assessment Authority acknowledging literature is central to the study of English. Anyone out of touch with fashions in education theory might be surprised that anyone actually has to say this. But for years the idea that great books are anything special in studying literature has been dismissed by education ideologues who have encouraged the study of all sorts of "texts" - including websites and movies - at the expense of classic novels, poetry and plays of the English-language canon. As a VCAA discussion paper suggested in 2004, all sorts of print and electronic texts were suited for study, "rather than privileging traditional notions of literature". The idiotic idea that literary works that have entertained and instructed readers for centuries should compete for curriculum space with Salam Pax, a pseudonymous Baghdad blogger, reached its nadir late last year when the VCAA decided to reduce Year 12 English to just one book, plus a movie. And to ensure students were not overworked, they defined "book" to include film scripts.

While this was a first-class reform for education theorists who dislike any suggestion Shakespeare is superior to The Sopranos, it failed politics 101. Teachers rebelled and, before parents had a chance to join them, Education Minister Lynne Kosky said there would be no dumbing-down of Year 12 on her watch. The VCAA duly interpreted Ms Kosky's text and backed down. And now it has stated the centrality of literary texts for all English study in a revised statement of doctrine for all teachers issued last month. There is still a great deal of guff about the role of texts, including posters and advertisements. But at least the document asserts that literature "is fundamental to the English curriculum" and "that literary texts are identified as a primary focus for the study of English". As a statement of the bleeding obvious, this is hard to beat. And it is hardly a ringing endorsement of the universal values that great works of literature can teach us about other ages, and our own. But at least it acknowledges the primacy of literature in the teaching of English in Victorian schools.

This is good news. The Australian has always condemned the lazy, cynical sophistry that says one text is as good as any other in setting subjects for school study. By reducing the numbers of novels, plays and poems that high school students have to study, the curriculum commissars in state education departments around the country do their charges a disservice. They deny them the chance to engage with complex, creative work. And by prescribing digital detritus from our own era, instead of ageless literature, they have only confirmed for students what the young always know - that nothing interesting happened before they arrived in the world. The VCAA statement is one short step on the long road back to an emphasis on the academic excellence that comes from studying demanding texts. But it is a start.

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL schools should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the poor and minimal regulation.

The NEA and similar unions worldwide believe that children should be thoroughly indoctrinated with Green/Left, feminist/homosexual ideology but the "3 R's" are something that kids should just be allowed to "discover"

Comments? Email me here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here

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