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Ofsted's categories of concern and not improving, will become academies.
The Government will make it easier to secure land and premises for new free schools. Though not explicitly stated, free schools will not be required to provide outdoor play space, nor qualified teachers. This is at odds with an agenda that claims to be about raising standards.
NUT arguments against academies and free schools are well documented - quite simply, their expansion will lead to two-tier education. Parents with the money, time and know-how to manipulate the system will do so. Less privileged families will lose out.
The white paper states how the Government will "give local authorities a strong strategic role as champions for parents, families and vulnerable pupils". What it describes gives a limited view of what LAs do - there seems little that is 'strategic' in the Government's stripped-back local authorities.
At the beginning of the 20th century in the USA, the south lagged behind the north in public education. To create a public school system, private interests and the state had to collaborate. In some areas the state had a stronger role, in others, private interests took the lead. As a result, education developed unequally. Is this what the Government is planning?
There are, of course, welcome proposals - the right to anonymity for teachers under investigation, for example, and the commitment to putting up the minimum age for leaving school or training to 18. (In 1911, children in England left school aged 12).
Yet if all children are to be given a good education regardless of background, the Government needs to ensure that classrooms are staffed by qualified teachers, class sizes are reduced and the poverty gap closed. It is only through acting on these issues that progress will be made.
Reform of the national curriculum
The Government believes the national curriculum has been "over prescriptive" and wants it to be "a benchmark, not a straitjacket". It says the national curriculum should not try to "cover every conceivable area of human learning or endeavour", nor should it "become a vehicle for imposing passing political fads on our children".
These are statements many teachers would agree with. But they are contradicted by other assumptions in the white paper, for example: "The teaching of systematic synthetic phonics is the most effective way of teaching young children to read."
The detail remains to be seen, but there appears to be a strong element of prescription in the proposals. There is a lack of reference to inclusion, equality and the global dimension in education. What could be lost in a core-based curriculum is the current focus on cultural understanding and diversity across subject areas.
In 1911 the three Rs dominated the curriculum. Every child had to pass an exam each year to progress to the next level, and the school received money depending on the outcome of the exam. Will things be very different 100 years on?
Cuts, funding and philanthropy
The white paper describes a move towards a national funding formula which would represent increased control by central government. This will erode local democracy and mean schools have to deal with a remote, overstretched national body.
The 'pupil premium' will be worth £430 a year to schools for each child on free school meals - far less than the £2,500 originally proposed by the Liberal Democrats. Michael Gove has admitted the premium is not new money and will not protect schools from real-terms cuts.
The Government intends to introduce a £110m, ten-year Education Endowment Fund. LAs, academy sponsors and heads of outstanding schools will be able to apply to fund innovative projects for school improvement and to raise deprived children's attainment in under-performing schools. The fund will be pump-primed with money previously set aside for the expansion of free school meals to all primary school children. The substitution of philanthropy for state funding is regressive and dangerous, harking back 100 years.
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