Trusts

1
Trusts Academiesthe fragmentation,
marketisation and privatisation of education
2
The NUT View

• The ACADEMIES and TRUSTS agenda has NOTHING to do
  
• with EDUCATION STANDARDS
• and EVERYTHING to do with the drive to
  PRIVATISATION

3
Government by bullying blackmail

• Many Local Authorities have
• had an Academy forced on
• them threatened with having
• Building Schools for the Future
• (BSF) funding withheld
• Not so much an Academy Award
• as an Academy Imposition
• A Gordon rather than an Oscar

4
The post-war consensusVictory of fascism...
the demand for change post-war reconstruction

• The economy needed an
• advanced, newly skilled working class
• Workers demanded educational opportunity and
  fundamental social change
• All sides employers, government and workers -
  were aware of the political significance of a
  literate, skilled, educated working class

5
A new Britain... 1944 and all that

• The 1944 Education Act
• GCT Giles, President of the NUT...
• A reconstructed, unified, democratic system of
  education
• Can equality be achieved within the three school
  types?
• The need to develop a school of a new type to
  reconcile the claims of vocationalism,
  citizenship and general culture
• (There are) those that argue that the experiment
  cannot flourish within a State system. How little
  they know of the rich and varied history of State
  schools
• Education, a necessary condition of developing
  and broadening democracy
• The reactionary die-hard forces, which too often
  in the past have succeeded in strangling
  educational social progress, have not undergone
  a sudden and miraculous change of heart.
• We will need all the strength, experience
  leadership of our great Union and of a united
  profession and the active sympathy
  co-operation of a public opinion more enlightened
  and more determined than ever before to
• sweep aside the obstruction of vested interest
  and privilege.

6
11 the fight for comprehensives

• 1960s 70s
• agitation, research, campaigning
• struggle for comprehensive education
• Govt. Circular 10/65 instructed LEAs to begin
• 1969 71 The Black Papers counterattack
• 1970 Tory Govt (Education Sec Thatcher)
• 1975 Labour Govt (Ed Sec Shirley Williams)
• Threats of legal action against non-compliance
• 1976 PM Callaghan launches
• The Great Education Debate
• 1979 Tories elected with PM Thatcher

7
Thatcher arrives...

• The Tories gave us
• Defence of Grammar Schools
• Assisted Places scheme subsidising private
  education
• Local Financial Management then LMS
• Funding famine
• Compulsory Competitive Tendering

• Opting Out
• City Technology Colleges
• EAZs
• SATs League Tables
• Punitive Ofsted Inspection
• Parental Choice
• Outsourcing of LEAS
• Private Finance Initiative

8
..and then came Tony

• CCT footage from the crime scene
• Education, education,education
• Essential challenges of modernisation
• to create an economy fully attuned to a new
  global market
• to fashion a modern welfare state where the role
  of government changes so it is not necessary to
  provide all social provision...
• the process is irresistible and irreversible
• Speech to TUC 1997

9
..which brought usthe Governments 5 year
strategy

• Diversity Choice attack on bog standard
  comprehensives
• Extension of PFI - Building Schools For The
  Future (BSF)
• Specialist Schools
• Extension of Foundation Status for schools
• Further reduction in the role of LEAs and
  increase in outsourcing
• City Academies - now Academies and even Skills
  Academies
• Workforce Remodelling
• through Social Partnership divide rule
• Enforced school staff pay restructuring attacks
  on pensions
• Academic vocational pathways at 14
• Schools run by private companies, individuals,
  voluntary groups, parents, faith groups
• Higher Education fees increasing student debt

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II.1.5) Short description of the contract or
purchase(s) The contracting authorities are
seeking an innovative private sector partner or
partners to participate and invest in a new
Public Private Partnership vehicle (a "Local
Education Partnership" or "LEP") to be
established jointly with some or all of the
contracting authorities.The LEP will provide (or
arrange for the provision of) "Partnering
Services", which will include (but not be limited
to) the development of a strategic investment
programme fora) educational facilitiesb)
other facilities including but not exclusively
community, health and social care(together the
"Relevant Facilities") in the contracting
authorities area.These Partnering Services will
also comprise the following servicesa) strategy
advisory servicesb) programme management
servicesc) project development servicesd)
procurement consultancy services ande)
procurement and delivery or management of all
services required to deliver the strategic
investment programme for the Relevant Facilities
(including through the provision, integration and
management of supply chain arrangements). It is
anticipated that such services may includeI)
architectural servicesII) engineering
servicesIII) construction servicesIV)
technical servicesV) building servicesVI)
hard facilities managementVII) soft facilities
managementVIII) information communication and
technology ("ICT") servicesIX) educational
support servicesX) education programme
development servicesXI) education strategy
servicesfor a period of up to 15 years

• .

17
Academies

• 2m donation from a sponsor
• (over 5 years often not paid)
• buys control of the Academy buildings,
  grounds, community use, staff
• Now Buy three get one free (4 Academies for
  promise of6 million)
• Government puts in the other 30million and
  running costs
• 3 opened in 2002, 9 in 2003, 5 in 2004, 10 in
  2005, 19 in 2006
• 2005 target of 200 by 2010 was doubled to 400 in
  November 2006
• What is the expansion of the programme based on?
• Educational research?
• Piloting and evaluation?
• Or dogmatic ideological commitment to private
  sector control?
• Pictures Des Smith, and Lord Levy (Lord
  Cashpoint) with Tony Blair. Both were members of
  the Specialist Schools Academies Trust both
  arrested and questioned over Cash for Honours
  issues.
• "I demand that Blair is arrested and treated the
  same way that I have been treated
• Des Smith

18
Academies evidence

• Educational research
• OECD PISA endorses state comprehensive
  education
• so does Professor Peter Mortimore Which Way
  Forward?
• Piloting Evaluation
• 3 annual studies by Price Waterhouse Cooper
  (commissioned by Govt)
• 2004 Could lead to a two-tier system based on
  social class, and thwart collaboration between
  schools The report was not published.
• 2005 highlighted staff workload, SEN admissions,
  bullying, impractical design, lack of
  representative Governors as problems
• 2006 showed very great differences in
  performance suggesting that Academy status was
  not a determining factor in educational
  performance
• Parliamentary Education Skills Select Committee
• Proper pilots should be undertaken before
  increasing number of Academies
• Raised concerns over impact of academies on
  neighbouring schools
• over reducing numbers of pupils from deprived
  backgrounds
• over reducing percentages of SEN pupils
• and more concerns over the number of pupils
  excluded from Academies
• There is NO EVIDENCE that ACADEMY STATUS
• improves EDUCATIONAL STANDARDS

19
Who are the Academiciansto name just a few

• Lord Harris of Carpet Warehouse
• Sir Peter Vardy, fundamentalist Christian used
  car sales millionaire
• The Church of England
• Carphone Warehouse
• Roger de Haan, Chief Exec, Saga Holidays
• Amey PLC a construction company
• John Madejski OBE founder of AutoTrader
• Andrew Rosenfeld current Chairman Minerva
  property developers, tax exile, and 1m lender to
  Labour Party
• Sir David Garrard previous Chairman Minerva
  property developers etc etc
• ARK hedge fund speculators
• Sir Martyn Arbib, Perpetual Fund Management
  Company
• Sir Frank Lowe, Advertising and PR agency
  entrepreneur
• David Samworth a sausage and pie manufacturer
• amongst other philanthropists

20
Behind the scenes

• In 2004, Government NO to vetting
• sponsors despite ENRON being on the list
• The TES two Academies have been discovered
  paying out large sums of school money to
  companies connected to the sponsor
• West London Academy 180,964 to businesses and a
  charity connected to Sir Alec Reed the sponsor
• Kings Academy, Middlesbrough 290,214 to
  organisations and individuals connected with Sir
  Peter Vardy the sponsor including 14K to the
  Billy Graham Evangelistic Crusade
• Des Smith of the Specialist Schools Academies
  Trust promised honours to sponsors and when
  arrested and questioned, demanded that Tony Blair
  be arrested too
• Nine Academy sponsors have received honours so
  far

21
Academies outcomes?

• Unaccountable schools no external democratic
  control
• Lack of parent and staff governors no internal
  democratic control
• Cost on average 32m twice the cost of a
  comprehensive
• Undermining teachers national pay conditions,
  increasing workload
• Undermining the curriculum
• In Oct 2005, 12 Vocational Academies were
  announced to provide the plasterers, plumbers
  and bricklayers of tomorrow
• Use of Academies to further the sponsors
  business personal interests
• Undermining communities of schools working
  together
• Pupil selection, SEN and growing exclusion
  issues
• In Bristol Academy the percentage of SEN
  children fell from 46 to 28 and in Walsall
  Academy from 41 to 8
• Use of Academies for ideological education
• In Vardy Academies, the Bibles creationism is
  taught
• Taking our education system towards privatisation

22
and then, directly from the New Labour-Tory
coalitionThe Education Act

• All schools to become increasingly independent
• Schools to be encouraged to become Trust
  Schools similar to Academies, but without the
  sponsorship money - with control over the
  curriculum teachers pay conditions
• All new schools likely to be Trust Schools
• Businesses, faith groups voluntary sector to
  set up schools and help form clusters or
  federations of existing ones.
• Popular schools to be allowed to expand to
  take in more pupils.
• Private schools to be allowed to "opt in" to the
  state sector. Religious schools, in particular,
  are expected to take advantage of this.
• Failing schools to be given a year to improve
  or face closure
• to be to be replaced with a new Trust School

23
A seamless transition

• As Gordon Brown approached his
• coronation as Labour Party leader
• I will continue to support and finance the
• Academies and Trust Schools initiatives
• I was talking to someone only last night,
• trying to persuade them that it was in their
• interests and the countrys interests to
• become a sponsor of a City Academy
• 15th May 2007. Radio 4 World At One
• No mention of the interests of children or
  teachers, then!

24
Gordon sets out his vision for education
October 2007

• What does he have to say
• about Academies?
• Annual improvement targets for all
• schools that fall below the threshold
• good schools brought in to help
• poorer schools under improvement
• networks run 'by schools, for schools',
• as the Specialist Schools Academies Trust motto
  puts it
• complete closure or takeover by a successful
  neighbouring school in a trust or federation, or
  transfer to academy status, including the
• option of take over by an independent school.

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Well done Gordon! (says Blair I always knew you
had it in you)

• There will be 150 more
• Academies in the next
• three years, on route to
• our target of 400
• More local authorities
• doing what Manchester,
• Birmingham, Oldham and others are doing - putting
  Academies at the heart of their local school
  improvement plans.
• And more independent schools setting up
  academies to take over failing schools.
• So WHY is all this happening and why NOW?

26
Its Balls and thats official!

• June 2008 Ed Balls names 638 failing schools
  (including 28 Academies) with less than 30 of
  children achieving 5 A-C grade GCSEs threatens
  to replace them with Academies
• Local Authorities still with Grammar School
  selective systems have the highest number of
  these schools
• The 638 are in areas of greatest social
  economic deprivation
• The old pre-comprehensive selective system
  produced only 20 of children with 5 GCE O
  levels
• Comprehensive schools nationally produce 60 at
  that standard
• The 638 would all have been Secondary Modern
  schools in which only a handful of children might
  have taken O levels
• Now if only 29 achieve 5 A-C GCSEs they are to
  be considered as failures
• The threat to these schools is NOTHING to do with
  
• educational standards and EVERYTHING to do with
• the drive to fragmentation and privatisation of
  education
• SO WHY IS ALL THIS HAPPENING NOW?

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Globalisation educationexternal pressures

• Andy Green, reader in Education at
• University of London Institute of Education.
• As the national state becomes a marginal force
  in the new world order, so education becomes an
  individualised consumer good delivered in a
  global market and accessed through satellite and
  cable links. National education ceases to exist
• Education, Globalisation The Nation State
• To put it another way
• Why educate your own people when you can import
  some cheaper, or export the jobs?

28
Education for global profit

• Global spending on education exceeds two thousand
  billion dollars
• World wide there are 50 million teachers employed
• Over one billion students are taught in hundreds
  of thousands of educational establishments
• Education International - the international
  education union organisation says,
• Some see this immense bloc as a dream market
  for future investment

29
Liberalisation world-wide

• World Trade Organisation,
• General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS)
  GATS is the first ever set of multilateral,
  legally enforcable, rules governing international
  trade in services
• The European Commission publication World Trade
  In Services Services negotiations should
  extend liberalisation world-wide, creating new
  trade and investment opportunities in all service
  sectors
• The European Union Constitution and the European
  Services Directive reinforce these messages

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Speaking personally...

• Prof. James Tooley, privatisation theorist and
  practitioner, Newcastle University,
• We mustnt be tempted by the reassuring spin
  that the public sector can hope to match the
  incentives of the private sector. The way forward
  for education is to bring in (these) incentives
  Education is far too important to be excluded
  from the virtues of the profit motive

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and from the USA...

• Michael Milken, a leading US finance capitalist,
  speaking to Arthur Levine, President of Teachers
  College, Columbia University
• You guys are in trouble
• and were gonna eat your lunch

32
The end of state education?

• As Education International puts it
• In the wake of other major public services
  which have been subject to extensive
  privatisation deregulation, public education is
  being increasingly targeted by predatory and
  powerful entrepreneurial interests. The latter
  are aiming at nothing less than its dismantling
  by subjecting it to international competition.

33
They know the truth...

• We also fail our most disadvantaged children and
  young people internationally, our rate of child
  poverty is still high, as our the rates of
  worklessness in one-parent families, the rate of
  teenage pregnancy and the level of poor diet
  amongst children. The links between poor health,
  disadvantage and low education outcomes are
  stark.
• The 5 year strategy for Children Learners

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Spinning child poverty

• Our historic aim will be for ours to
• be the first generation to end child
• poverty for ever. The child born in
• the run down estate should have the same chance
  to be healthy and well-educated as the child born
  in the leafy suburbs
• Tony Blair, 1999

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The reality of child poverty

• April 2007 child poverty
• increased by 100,000
• April 2008 increased by a further 100,000
• The number of UK Children living in poverty on
  Government figures is now 3.9million
• In a country as wealthy as ours it is a scandal
  that the number of children growing up in poverty
  has increased. Poverty blights their life chances
  poverty which for many is simply overwhelming
  Martin Narey, End Child Poverty

36
The haves have-nots

• UK Government Office of
• National Statistics
• Richest 1 of the population
• owns 34 of total wealth
• Richest 5 own 58
• Richest 10 own 71
• And the poorest 50 of the population
• own 1 of wealth between them
• Its the same the whole world over, aint it all
  a bloomin shame?
• Its the rich what gets the pleasure, and the
  poor what gets the blame

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and whats the effect?

• The research shows that it is
• possible to combine socio-economic
  classification of the household with the childs
  overall developmental score at age 22 months to
  accurately predict education qualifications at
  age 26 years
• By age 22 months childrens developmental score
  is already stratified by class, and this
  increases significantly by the age of 10 years
• Gillian Evans Educational Failure
• Working Class White Children in Britain (2006)

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Likely outcomes?The direction of travel

• Academic, privately run, high flying top up fee
  paying schools staffed by qualified teachers,
  with locally negotiated pay and conditions - and
  financially supported by the private sector or
  owned by them.
• Vocational schools, providing core curriculum -
  and post 14 training in FE colleges and on
  employers premises. Many classes run by non QTS
  staff.

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Social Partnership and Divide Rule

• The Government attempts to incorporate potential
  opposition
• The Workload/Remodelling Agreement WAMG
• The School Workforce Restructuring Agreement and
  RIG
• The pre-election Warwick Agreement
• and to bully - or kick off the bus (Milliband)
  -
• those who refuse to collaborate.

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Off the back foottaking the initiative...

• NUTs Bringing Down The Barriers
• A Good Local School For Every Child Every
  Community
• A new Great Education Debate
• Re-organising our Unions to meet the task
• Professional Unity one education union
• Broad campaigning coalitions of individuals
  organisations in every community
• TUC policy for An integrated programme of
  educational, vocational training and
• youth employment