October 26, 2005
Tony Blair Supports "The Extreme Wisdom Plan for an Illinois Renaissance"
As America dithers over NCLB & Illinois dithers over fake "tax swaps", Britain rips the cover off of the ball.
In the post below, we see that Britain is serious about reforming its education system. Like my proposal in the "Extreme Wisdom Plan", he clearly sees that there is no more need of "Districts," "Systems," and other educationally worthless concepts.
Each school should be independent. Make all schools 'private' in how they educate. Only the funding need be public.
With Laborites like Blair, who needs Tories?
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Funding for schools to be 'fair and equal'
Every secondary school is expected to become an independent, self-governing academy within five years, Tony Blair said yesterday.Parents would be given power to change the curriculum, replace failing heads and start new schools, he promised. Anticipating today's education White Paper - "a pivotal moment in the life of this Government" - he outlined radical plans to "complete the reform" of state education in England that Labour started when it came to power eight years ago.
Councils will be stripped of their responsibility for schools; businesses, churches, City livery companies and wealthy individuals will be allowed to take over schools; independent schools will be encouraged to accept state cash and join the state sector; and there is to be a new emphasis on grouping pupils by ability and offering advanced classes to the brightest.
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Mr Blair made clear that he was ready to resist opposition from the Labour Left and the teachers' unions to opening up the system to parent power and ending comprehensive education.He has decided to make reform of secondary education one of the defining issues of his remaining years as Prime Minister.
In what will be seen as a rebuff to his critics, including John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister, he said: "Parts of the Left will say we are privatising public services and giving too much to the middle class. Both criticisms are wrong and simply a version of the old levelling down mentality that kept us in opposition for so long."
The National Union of Teachers said Mr Blair's "obsession with choice" would "lead to chaos" and accused him of "pandering to the pushy middle classes" at the expense of poorer children.
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Leaving aside the incredibly ironic situation where a more socialistic country is lapping the USA in a race to improve education, the truly interesting thing about the above reforms is that they strip away the pretense that we need 'Councils' and 'Districts.'
You may defend them from a financial perspective if you are employed by such a system, but to argue that you are "improving education" is intellectually dishonest.
Read More below
Private firms poised to run state schools after reform
Private education companies and Christian groups are lining up to enter the education market created by yesterday's pivotal reforms of the state school system. A company which runs 60 low-cost independent schools, GEMS, said it was discussing the creation of a charitable arm allowing it to enter the "new state schools' market". The Christian group the United Learning Trust, which is already the biggest single sponsor of schools in the academy programme, also confirmed it was in talks with one local authority about eight or nine state schools.The moves follow publication of the education white paper unveiling plans to turn all primary and secondary schools into "self governing independent state schools". Every school will be encouraged to acquire a trust, made up of business charities, faith groups, universities or parent and community organisations. The trusts will be able to appoint the governing body, own their own assets, set their own admissions policies as well as control teachers' pay and conditions.
Posted by Bruno Behrend at October 26, 2005 03:54 PM
Comments
Only funding should be public???
Why would teachers taking home a government paycheck teach the ideals of limited government?
Posted by: Jericho at October 31, 2005 06:39 PM
Most 'Libertarians' and ultra-conservatives fail to respect the markets they claim to promote.
If a parent/family is in 100% control of the education dollar the sourcing (whether sourced 100% privately or 100% publicly) of those dollars matters little.
Regarding education, I'm not concerned with the ideological purity of libertarians or the financial concerns of those inside the bureaucracy bleeding the taxpayers dry.
When I state that there is no intellectually sound argument against school choice, I preface it by saying "if an educated populace is your goal."
If your goal is to get every government dollar our of education, an argument against school choice might be found.
If your goal is to have a politically protected job indoctrinating children in the religion of mediocrity and followership, again, you will find school choice a threat to that goal.
I'm concerned with getting the best educated populace for the least amount of money, inside a framework where families have the widest range of choices.
That being MY goal, I stand by the proposition that there is no intellectually sound against school choice.
Posted by: Bruno at November 1, 2005 09:21 AM