The Blob gobbled up Michael Gove – now it’s coming for David Cameron
The Prime Minister treats school reform like a dirty secret, but it is by far his greatest triumph, writes Fraser Nelson
David Cameron can't escape The Blob Photo: Carla Millar
By Fraser Nelson
6:15AM GMT 12 Dec 2014
Where, do you imagine, is the best primary school in the country? Competition is fierce: there aren’t many things that Britain does better than everyone else nowadays, but education is certainly one of them. Any self-respecting foreign billionaire wants their child educated here, which is why we have so many prep schools charging up to £17,000 a year. Their lucky five-year-old pupils enjoy state-of-the-art auditoriums, fencing salles and even dojos for martial arts – not to mention the best tuition on the planet. But last year, none of these schools did as well as the best primary school in the land – Ark Conway, a state school in a deprived part of west London.
Its emergence at the top of the results league table is all the more remarkable because, until just over three years ago, this school did not exist. It was set up under David Cameron’s “free school” scheme, which allows all sorts of providers to help communities by setting up new schools.
Ark, an education charity, took over an old library and applied a new formula: a Singapore-style Maths curriculum, for example. Now its pupils have the best results in the land. It’s a landmark achievement, showing there is no reason why state schools can’t wipe the floor with private schools – and all thanks to Conservative reforms. Precisely the type of success that the Prime Minister ought to be shouting from the rooftops.
But almost no one has mentioned it. Indeed, now that Michael Gove has disappeared, no one talks much about school reform any more. His successor, Nicky Morgan, was put in office with a remit to kindly stop talking about these new structures. There are now 1,260 academy schools that have been turned around by sponsors like Ark, six times the number inherited from Labour. By any standards, this is stunning progress – but it’s a brave Tory who says so in public. School reform has now become unmentionable.
It is now five months since Mrs Morgan was parachuted into the Department for Education – to everyone’s amazement, including her own. Gove had almost three years preparation for the job; for Mrs Morgan, it was closer to three hours. Her remit, according to one ally, is to advocate “school reform with a human face” – Gove’s face, apparently, no longer fits this description. He is now the Chief Whip, a back-room boy, his punishment for fighting too hard and making too many enemies. There are almost half a million vote-wielding teachers, runs the argument, and he annoyed them. So off he goes.
From the offset, Mrs Morgan was put at a disadvantage. Mrs Morgan is a reformer by instinct but has been given contradictory instructions: how can she protect the reform agenda, while making peace with the people who want it crushed? Worse, she has been asked to be a part-time Education Secretary – her other job (a fairly demanding one) is minister for women and equalities. Worse still, she must balance both jobs while making frequent trips to her highly marginal seat in Loughborough. No one, Gove included, could run the department with so many conflicting demands. So slowly, the bureaucracy has started to reassert itself.
More blob here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/11288932/The-Blob-gobbled-up-Michael-Gove-now-its-coming-for-David-Cameron.html