Saturday, May 26, 2007

Where the Power Lies

This is what the Spectator has to say about entrenched attitudes in Local Education Authorites, though with regard to introducing diversity on the school front.

"One may wonder why, if school choice is so simple to introcude, Tony Blair has achieved so little. After seven years he has notched up just 48 City Academies out of England's 3,300 secondary schools. The truth is that he has met his match in the local authorities, which dislike opening new schools if there are vacancies to fill in bad ones. Eduation is their domain, and they fight new entrants to the death (remember their brutal propoganda campaigns against grant-maintained schools under the Tories). When Lambeth LEA hired a QC to try to kill off a City Academy, it spoke volumes about where power truly lies in English education.

and later:

"Labour...regard LEAs as among the last bastions of socialist egalitarianism. This is why his (Blair's) last education bill, establishing trust schools, was perforated with concessions, and even then needed Tory support to be passed."

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