Saturday, October 31, 2009

Balls is Irritating Virtually Everyone

We repeatedly read of groups other than home educators who suffer terrible frustrations with policies emanating from Mr Balls and the DCSF. Usually it is parents who are not allowed to parent any more. From this story we hear that Claude Knights, the founder of children's charity Kidscape, said that the council were:

"using a sledgehammer to crack nuts. They are encouraging a climate where parents and children are rendered suspicious without any proof of wrong doing or guilt. Caring parents should not be viewed as a threat and if you are a bona fide parent or carer you are in a better position to look after your children than council staff."

You could say exactly the same about the government's proposals for home educating families.

On this occasion however, it is the Tory party who sound exactly like the home education community. They too (along with home educators) have had their FOI requests blocked for spurious reasons.

Michael Gove said with regard to a government-commissioned report on education budgets (concealed on spurious grounds but leaked to the Beeb) that the researcher had said that the DCSF "has little clue about financial efficiency and that millions of pounds are being wasted on poor spending decisions."

Yep, that's right. Amongst other sources of embarrassment, such as spending £35,000 on a photocopier worth just £1,000, millions of pounds would, if the Badman recommendations go ahead, also be wasted interfering with otherwise perfectly well-functioning home educators. Ed Balls SHOULD be embarrassed.

No comments: