So the Blues, the Reds and the Yellows have had their say, they’ve pontificated about standards and change and laid our their Manifestos of the Mostest. But what do they really say?

Having finally spent the holidays having a look at the three main options – because, really, that’s all there is – a few things strike me:

• They are all really similar, especially Labour and the Tories, one of whom must have definitely copied off the other in the manifesto exam.
• Academies, despite what everyone says, are here to stay in some form or another - whoever you vote for (though make sure it’s not the Lib Dems because ‘Sponsor Managed Schools’, sounds rather scary, and alarmingly vague)
• Labour have promised to protect budgets from spending cuts, but they’ve not said how, and I’d like to know being as they haven’t managed to do this so far.
• The old problem of how you really establish what is ‘Good’ is raising its ugly head again, especially if teachers are to be paid more if they’re Good, under the Tories. I just think this will lead to lots of teachers trying to hit ‘good’ targets (which are arbitrary at best anyway), without actually teaching.
• I am very concerned about Labour’s plans to have parents ‘initiate change’ at schools. How, when, why? When most of them can’t be bothered to feed or discipline their kids, why on earth do they get a say in how I do my job?
• How, and in what way, is the Education Standards Authority any different from Ofsted?

Overall, it just reeks of more of the same – which means they seem to think things are ok with education. Which they are categorically not.

Today’s image is from: i.thisislondon.co.uk

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 22nd, 2010 at 7:43 am and is filed under Government. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.