How we can win.

jkitleft Mon Jul 14, 2008 at 10:50:01 PM GMT Print-friendly version Facebook

Some say that there is no difference between the parties. I spend most of my time on these blogs pointing out why this is not true



But it is true, there are too many similarities. At least, this is how it is presented. It isn't that the Tories are more right-wing on one issue than Labour, but it is that Labour is often left-wing, and the Tories are still right-wing. Trouble is, Labour doesn't want anyone to know.

The Tories say they are commited to public spending. That is bull of the highest order. When they talk of reducing beaurocracy, they actually mean they will gut services.

They mock Tax Credits. They joke about outreach workers and five a day schemes. A great deal of innuendo about social workers being PC is spread. Helping special needs kids is PC? Right.....

Expect a gutting of SureStart. Expect sacrificing Connexions. And Labour schemes to extend school hours for the neediest kids.

Even on a more disappointing area for the government, housing, they have done a lot. Problem is, that we need mass council homes building to calm down the hyper-inflation in the housing market.  But they have increased funding for council estates by 290% to bring them up to 'decent homes' standard.

The Tories wouldn't bother. And as for our ALMP's, the Tories will slash funding for them too. And our EMA's.

What we now need to do, is some clever politics. We should emphasise some clear red water, with policies that can appeal to the left and right of the party, but which have genuine popular appeal, and which can lift the fake liberal facade from the Tories.

I have two in mind. And they can appeal to members of Progress, and Compass, and the Campaign groupers.
They both involve selection.

They are traditional anathema to all strands of Labour: faith schools, and grammar schools.

If we get rid of them, we can achieve a goal the Labour party has been trying to acheive for decades: to have state schools geuinely reflect the economic make up of society.

The most mixed schools are the best schools. Contrast Grampian, the most socially mixed, with no schools under special provision, with Kent which has the most selective system, where schools are twice as likely to be under special provision.

Faith schools are exacerbating ethnic divides in inner cities. Schools end up dividing on economic lines: why do Muslim schools have 34% on free school meals, and Jewish schools have only 3%?


Not only is it the right thing to do, but these policies are publically popular, and would divide the Tories. Look at how the first major challenge to Cameron's leadership came out of their policy on grammar schools. Their policy is unclear. They can either support a modernising measure, and watch the Tory party engage in open warfare. Or, they can oppose it, and their 'progressive' (what the hell does that even mean? Melanie Phillips calls herself progressive. Would anyone call themselves 'regressive'?) mask slips.

The same thing would happen on faith schools. What's more, we would have even more support on faith schools, and they appear to be more relevant.

It would allow us to come back on to the political stage. We could have a few more up our sleeve. Childcare has drastically increased and improved under this government, with previous place limited to one-in-eight, now rising to one-in-three.

But, we would win if we introduced universal childcare. It would transform the lives of many families, and it would be the finest legacy of New Labour. Incidentally, why are women more right-wing than men in this country, in contrast to European countries and America? So make SureStart universal, and reverse the peverse devolution of funding for SureStart. Then an effective campaign slogan, as an attack on Cameron, could arise for 2010:

"He has a nanny, why should he stop you having one?"

We could also neutralise the 10p tax issue. It would have cost Brown £7bn to take those on 10p tax out of income tax altogether, rather than doubling the rates. So, we must take those on 10p tax out of tax, and increase taxes on the rich. This is the only way to protect our image as the party which helps the poor. 

What the would Cameron do? What about if we also cracked down on tax havens? We could have another slogan: have the ten richest people in Britain on a poster, and the poster should then say this-

"You pay your taxes. Why should the Tories stop them paying their taxes?"

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How we can win. | 22 comments (22 topical)

Re: How we can win. (#1)

by rosie on Mon Jul 14, 2008 at 11:01:15 PM GMT

On getting rid of faith schools you write:

'Not only is it the right thing to do, but these policies are publically popular'

Where is the evidence for this? Faith schools are very popular with parents. When Alan Johnson suggested last year that Faith schools should be made to take 20% of pupils from none or other faiths all hell broke loose. The Catholic church mobilised, especially in the north of England, and the policiy was droppped. Anger parents even more, great another surefire way to head into opposition.

The childcare and tax policies are better, more in the social democrat mode.


Re: How we can win. (#2)

by jkitleft on Mon Jul 14, 2008 at 11:06:11 PM GMT

A consistant two-thirds of people support getting rid of faith schools, according to all opinion polls.


[ Parent ]

Re: How we can win. (#3)

by AngryVoter on Mon Jul 14, 2008 at 11:19:42 PM GMT

These'd be the same poll-makers who drew the conclusion that the public "supported" 42 days?

That's now 2/3rds against the measure... Take singular issue opinion polls with a healthy dosage of assorted seasonings, largely because some poll questions are vague and rarely clarified properly.

The way people reacted to the plans, and the way people react to the odious Mr Balls tends to make me think that the polls target the Guardianista crowd more than the average bloke in the street, who for the most part are at least supportive of the idea of faith schools, rather than the faiths themselves.


[ Parent ]

Re: How we can win. (#4)

by aneurin on Tue Jul 15, 2008 at 01:58:53 AM GMT

On the question of faith schools you are presumably not aware that previous Education Secretaries such as David Blunkett have been doing their best to encourage faith schools within the state sector. Apparently the evidence of the various league tables shows that the best schools are in fact faith schools, and hence the enthusiasm. Performing a policy U-turn in this area isn't necessarily going to impress.

I wasn't too sure about your assertion that the public supported the abolition of faith schools, and so I found the following analysis dating to 2005 at http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/blog/archives/55 which had this to say;

Past polls have produced some contrasting figures for public attitudes to faith schools - back in 2001 MORI asked if people supported or opposed faith schools "run by religious groups such as the Church of England or the Roman Catholic Church?" - 35% supported them, 27% opposed them ,the rest were neutral. An ICM poll for BBC Three in April 2004 found that 44% of people were in favour of faith schools, with 21% against, the rest were neutral. Last December, YouGov found that 56% of people thought that "The Government should encourage the parents of children of all faiths, including Christians, to send their children to the same schools."

These results were then compared "to a YouGov/Observer poll back in 2001 which found 80% against when it asked if people wanted to see the extention of single faith schools, including "religions such as Islam and Judaism"." and the 2005 ICM poll which showed that "a large majority (64%) of people said they opposed faith schools alltogether, rather than support Muslim faith schools (25%), or explictly discriminate against one religion (8%)."

Your claim that a "consistant two-thirds of people support getting rid of faith schools, according to all opinion polls" is therefore incorrect, as the answer (unsurprisingly) depends on the exact question you ask. The real answer appears to be that the public don't like the idea of Muslim schools, and that what such polls are actually measuring is the degree of anti-Muslim feeling in the country. 

But actually none of that really matters. Adopt the abolishment of faith schools as a manifesto commitment and you can kiss goodbye to the vote of every Catholic, Jew, Muslim, whatever in the country. Everyone else will vote as they would have done anyway. It would be electoral suicide.

(PS.  I have left all spelling mistakes in the quoted text uncorrected, just in case any one notices.)


[ Parent ]

Re: How we can win. (#6)

by e10rifles on Tue Jul 15, 2008 at 10:19:04 AM GMT

Adopt the abolishment of faith schools as a manifesto commitment and you can kiss goodbye to the vote of every Catholic, Jew, Muslim, whatever in the country.

Really? Most Christians, Jews and Muslims I know are opposed to faith schools and don't send their kids to one. My mother is very devout but thinks that religion has no place at all in state-funded schools. And most Catholics I know who went to a Catholic school would rather send their kids to Kabul Central Secondary Modern than let them go to a Catholic school.

They might not be representative of the whole country but EVERY Catholic, Jew, Muslim? A slight exaggeration, to say the least.


[ Parent ]

Re: How we can win. (#21)

by adwilliams134 on Thu Jul 17, 2008 at 03:06:20 PM GMT

I'm atheist though born a catholic.  My twin daughters are protestant.  I fought like hell to get them into a catholic high school and got them in.  I did it solely because I went to a catholic school where as my siblings went to protestant ones.  I know for a fact that the discipline is far higher in a catholic school and funnily enough so are the exam results.


[ Parent ]

Re: How we can win. (#22)

by jkitleft on Thu Jul 17, 2008 at 07:27:27 PM GMT

My only problem is, that just because faith schools get higher exam results, it doesn't mean it is inherent. They cream off the middle classes mainly. Also, these ideology schools (a far more accurate term), are dividing on not only economic lines, but racial lines as well. Faith schools don't do well in poor areas, they only do well in areas where they can get the middle classes into the school.

I support the Brighton lottery system, which was originally the selection system in London a while ago (I think). Ironically, schools then do better. Improving results have generally been at the expense of the working class.

Richard Kahlenberg, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation has found that:

"Most conventional education reforms assume there will be separate schools for rich and poor, and try to increase equality between them. From school vouchers to academies to class-size reduction, mainstream political efforts ignore a central finding of education research: schools that are majority poor tend to fail to produce high levels of academic achievement, no matter what."

Margaret Maden, who was a former of the Centre for Successful Schools at Keele says:

"If you have something around twenty to twenty-five percent in a class or in a school who are well motivated and come from homes where it’s instilled in them from very early on that education and learning matter, that makes progress with less well motivated children much easier. But when you get a concentration of children – you could call them disturbed or disadvantaged - there is a critical mass of children who will wreck any school. I will defy any teacher to teach when you have more than thirty percent of kids like that in a school."

So there is a better way. Faith schools are aiding social segregation. The most integrated schools, i.e. the most comprehensive do better. I've already given the Grampian vs. Kent example. It would limit parent choice, to have the Brighton model. But that wouldn't matter, if the working class kids are suddenly catching up with the middle class kids. Schools results would improve, and it would quickly rid the fears that kids were being sent to a shoddy school.


[ Parent ]

Re: How we can win. (#7)

by jkitleft on Tue Jul 15, 2008 at 11:19:59 AM GMT

Yes I was perfectly aware.

Ironically, you'ld be a very good head of a religion. Because like heads of religions, you homogenise your adherents.


[ Parent ]

Re: How we can win. (#9)

by jkitleft on Tue Jul 15, 2008 at 11:36:43 AM GMT

Oh, and btw, Faith schools don't do better because they're faith schools. Many are in control of their own admissions policies, screening out anyone who isn't middle-class. That's like getting children to mark their own exams.

Like Grammar schools, they cream off the middle-class. All the evidence shows that schools which are the most mixed, in terms of economic backgrounds, are the best ones.


[ Parent ]

Re: How we can win. (#11)

by aneurin on Tue Jul 15, 2008 at 02:25:24 PM GMT

Sadly as a card-carrying atheist I would make a very bad head of any religion. Although I understand the pay and benefits can be quite attractive. If you know of any suitable vacancies please let me know.

I was merely pointing out that the fact faith schools achieve better results. Now this may well be because they select the best pupils, as indeed was claimed by a report carried out by the London School of Economics for the Department for Education and Skills in 2006. From personal experience I'm quite well aware of the fact that many parents suddenly 'rediscover' their religious faith in order to get their child into what they perceive as a 'better' school than their local comp. Similarly in Wales you often find parents discovering an enthusiasm for the Welsh language because the local Welsh speaking comprehensive is seen as delivering better results than its monoglot equivalent. I realise that such things may be a problem to some people, but if you grant parents some degree of choice over their child's education, some parents will undoubtedly be more willing to exercise that choice than others.

The central point that you have failed to address is that your claim that a "consistent two-thirds of people support getting rid of faith schools, according to all opinion polls" was just plain wrong, and that in fact different opinion polls had shown quite different results depending on the exact question asked. You have simply made the mistake of leaping on the results of one poll, and interpreted it in order to suit your own particular agenda without making further enquiry. You're not alone in that. The Guardian who commissioned the poll made much the same mistake. I have just simply taken the trouble to make that further enquiry and concluded that the public appears to be broadly neutral over the question of Church of England and Roman Catholic schools, but definitely doesn't like Muslim schools.

As it turns out I don't have any particular axe to grind in favour of faith schools. Personally I would much prefer it if religion was kept out of education altogether, but sadly we have to deal with the world as it is, not how we would like it to be. The fact remains that religion is important to many people, and thousands of parents have made the choice of sending their child to a faith school. Deny them that choice and you are giving them a reason not to vote for the Party. By performing a policy U-turn and reversing what The Guardian once described as "a central plank of the government's education reforms" you would be simply delivering to the Conservatives the electoral gift of being able to present themselves as the defenders of parental choice.

My conclusion is that for the Party to commit itself to the abolishment of faith schools would be a guaranteed vote loser. You may find it upsetting that I disagree with you, but such is life.


[ Parent ]

Re: How we can win. (#18)

by jkitleft on Tue Jul 15, 2008 at 09:45:31 PM GMT

"but sadly we have to deal with the world as it is, not how we would like it to be"

That's not the best attitude for politics.


[ Parent ]

Re: How we can win. (#5)

by Floating voter on Tue Jul 15, 2008 at 09:45:00 AM GMT

Having grown up in Northern Ireland where the whole school system was 50% faith (Catholics) and 50% state (protestants) I can assert, without fear of contradiction, that all this achieved was to entrench division in the community. It kept the troubles going for decades. I remember being told that "they" were the enemy and if you got the chance you had to give them a good kicking.

Faith schools were massive mistake and the only reason I can think of for Blair doing this was that he was blinded by his own religious mania.

Now the churches have these wind-washing factories in place they will resist all attempts to close them. These "Ministry of Alteration" institutions are providing future converts (= income and influence) for the churches so we're stuck with them.

Selection, on the other hand, works. It is usually handled very badly with all this nonsense about sheep and goats instead of explaining to children that what you are trying to do is place them within the educational system so that the learning on offer suits their learning styles. If it is explained to children correctly they understand. By age 11/12 they can reason and if you explain what is going on rather than labelling them "failures" then they are OK with it.


Re: How we can win. (#8)

by jkitleft on Tue Jul 15, 2008 at 11:22:00 AM GMT

I think they should undertake forced integration of the schools in Northern Ireland. On a human level, the seperation of catholics and protestants would become less workable.


[ Parent ]

Re: How we can win. (#10)

by Floating voter on Tue Jul 15, 2008 at 12:41:44 PM GMT

" I think they should undertake forced integration of the schools in Northern Ireland"

Tut! Tut! How Nanny-state of you.......

:-)

What they were actually doing in NI was opening integrated primary schools with a view to having integrated secondary schools as those pupils came through the system. Sending your kids is voluntary but, like someone else said further up this thread, parents (particularly catholics) are queing up to get their kids out of the brainwashing factories that most faith schools are . Many of my friends went to "Christian Brothers" the biggest group of schools for catholic boys. Many of them would rather have gone to boot camp and their parents wanted to send them elsewhere, but with a school system segregated on faith lines, ghettoization kicked in. There was nowhere else to go.

We'll reap the effects of Blair's religuous experiment in years to come as these schools ensure that the ghettos are now self contained. 


[ Parent ]

Re: How we can win. (#12)

by NB on Tue Jul 15, 2008 at 04:51:26 PM GMT

Almost all the state-educated pupils that get 3 or more As at A-Levels are at Faith Schools or Grammar Schools.  So by abolishing them you'd make it pretty well impossible for state eductated kids to compete effectively at elite universities. For that reason alone this suggested policy is a non-starter.


Re: How we can win. (#13)

by jkitleft on Tue Jul 15, 2008 at 05:45:25 PM GMT

And yet, schools that are more integrated to better. Grammar schools and Faith schools are a block to integration. For that reason, it's a starter.


[ Parent ]

Re: How we can win. (#14)

by NB on Tue Jul 15, 2008 at 05:59:54 PM GMT

a. What is the evidence that "schools which are more integrated do better"?

b. Even if it were true that abolishing Faith and Grammar schools would marginally raise the average level of educational attainment (which I severely doubt) doing so at the expense of making it effectively impossible for state-educated kids to compete in elite universities would be an un-acceptable cost. Our ability to pay our way in the world depends on having a substantial share of such people.  We can play politics elsewhere - not in this.


[ Parent ]

Re: How we can win. (#15)

by jkitleft on Tue Jul 15, 2008 at 06:49:01 PM GMT

It doesn't help state school students. The IPPR found that faith schools who administer their own admissions are 10x more unrepresentitive of the social mix in their area.

This report also found that social segregation limits educational standards.

The OECD is no leftist outfit, but it finds "countries with greater socio-economic inclusion (least school segregation) tend to have higher overall performance". (That's why grammar schools counties do worse overall.) And the OECD'S Pisa international study of education concludes the same: the more selective the schooling system, the greater the impact of social background on each child's results.

I already pointed to the example of Grampian vs. Kent in my original post.


It makes it far more possible for state students to compete. Lets look at when Wake County in North Carolina broke up its ghettos. They mandated that no school could have more than 40% of pupils on free school meals. The pass rate of those on free school meals rose from 43% to 61%. But wouldn't the results of the middle-class kids get worse, the skeptics asked. Not at all.


All the evidence in the more socially mixed schools show that middle-class kids don't suffer, but working-class kids are suddenly able to catch up with them.


[ Parent ]

Re: How we can win. (#16)

by aneurin on Tue Jul 15, 2008 at 07:32:54 PM GMT

Ahh, at least we can now see where you're getting your ideas from. The paragraph beginning "The OECD is no leftist outfit.." is a straight cut-and-paste from a piece Polly Toynbee had published in The Guardian on November 6, 2007. (See http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2205924,00.html)

In any case you're drifting off the point. The title of your post is 'How we can win', so the question is not whether faith schools or whatever, are good or bad, effective or ineffective, but rather whether or not promising to abolish them would be a vote winner. Personally I think the reverse is true.


[ Parent ]

Re: How we can win. (#17)

by jkitleft on Tue Jul 15, 2008 at 09:35:00 PM GMT

I don't base my philosophy on everything Toynbee writes. But you caught me. I was looking for a quick justification for my idea, as I had seen the OECD figures elsewhere, but had also seen them in that article. It was laziness on my part.

But the polls I have seen, which you have pointed out, seem to indicate that support for faith schools has decreased over the last few years.


[ Parent ]

Re: How we can win. (#19)

by jkitleft on Tue Jul 15, 2008 at 09:46:30 PM GMT

Well, at least they did post 7/7.


[ Parent ]

Re: How we can win. (#20)

by NB on Tue Jul 15, 2008 at 10:37:14 PM GMT

You shouldn't believe all you read in the Guardian - Toynbee especially is pretty well statistically illiterate and not a reliable summariser.  The PISA exec summary is here - read pp33-45 if you want to know what PISA really says about this.  The only System factor that was associated with performance even after accounting for socio-economic background was "Education systems where schools reported a higher degree of autonomy in budgeting" (which score 25.7 points higher, all other things being equal)


[ Parent ]

How we can win. | 22 comments (22 topical)