Educational Romanticism

Some of the real reasons for educational conscription and why it is an expensive failure here.

H/T David Thompson.

Full-time adult coercion: the virus spreads

Googling “raising of school leaving age” leads me to discover that Bermuda has just decided to imitate the UK government’s plan to force young adults to spend an additional two years at school. Clearly inspired by the example of our own Labour Party, Bermuda’s ruling Progressive Labour Party seems to think that improvement of a coercive state system, which is creaking under the weight of existing unmet targets, is best achieved by expanding the aims and powers of that system still further.

Education Minister Randy Horton announced yesterday … the dates of a series of meetings he plans to have with parents, students, principals, teachers and Ministry of Education officials. Mr. Horton said those attending would be told of a number of amendments planned for the Education Act, including raising the mandatory school leaving age from 16 to 18 and giving the education board more power ...

The Minister was asked if the idea was to reduce youth crime by keeping youngsters occupied. He said: "Certainly, we hope that that will help in that way. The important thing is improving the quality of teaching and learning at schools."

Government pledged to bring about improvements after UK professor David Hopkins and his team carried out a review of public schools early last year and concluded that the system was on the "brink of meltdown".

... Mr. Horton also spoke about claims from the Bermuda Union of Teachers that classes were being left uncovered due to staff absences. Union leader Mike Charles shared internal memos with The Royal Gazette — as reported yesterday — showing how one school had three classes uncovered on two consecutive days this month.

Perhaps Bermuda will implement their ROSLA scheme before we do, giving us a chance to back out once we see what the initial effects are.

Perpetuating poor standards

The danger of making school attendance compulsory up to the age of 18 is not simply the infringement of the rights of the individual involved, it is also the associated disadvantages for those at school who do actually want to be there. Teachers have often said to me that it's not until you get to A-level that you can be certain that the majority of the class will have any desire to work at all - by compelling everyone to be there you remove even that small relief.

To see how this might look, read this from an inner-city London teacher:

Frustrated starts to cry. 'I just can't take it anymore Miss. It isn't fair. They shout and scream at the teacher all of the time and I can't hear myself think!'
I frown. 'Who shouts? When? Whose lesson have you come out of?'
As Frustrated sobs quietly, Bolder explains that in all three of their Science lessons: Biology, Chemistry and Physics, there are 3 boys who cause havoc in their lessons. She explains that they are so loud that poor Frustrated cannot learn. Somehow Bolder manages to block them out. They shout at all three of their teachers and they laugh at, and mock the rest of the class.

Frustrated shouts. 'I've asked if I can work in the library but they say that isn't allowed. I'm not going back there Miss. I just can't. We have our GCSE exams only weeks away and they act like we're in primary school! They don't care what they get. But I do. Why do I have to put up with this?'

At the moment, at least Frustrated will get some chance to concentrate for her A-levels.

By Timj

Another shambles in the making?

"Some consortia suggested they were finding it especially difficult to get employers involved while the content of the Diplomas was not known, as partnerships were themselves unclear about employers’ potential contribution; employers understandably want to know precisely what is being asked of them and when. However, only the Level 3 Diploma requires sector-specific work experience; at Levels 1 and 2 work-related learning is focused on employability and need not be work experience related to a particular sector. Partnerships therefore have some flexibility in setting up a sufficient amount and range of work-related learning and work experience"

Para 79 from this

H/T Wat Tyler

At PMQs

The topic of educational conscription in PMQs:

Do you believe in education till 18? the PM responded.
Do you want A-levels in the long term? asked Cameron.
Do you believe in education till 18? said the PM.
Why won't you give me a straight answer?! from DC.

All very dignified. Not. But at least the subject this group blog has now moved to the very top table of politics!

Research and experience

Was it Orwell who said the best books are the ones that tell you what you already know? You could say the same about research and experience; it's always nice when the former confirms the latter. Chris Dillow has some here.

Parlance Musing

Leaving aside for the moment the morality of forcing young people to attend courses or training they neither want nor need, does educational coercion actually exist and if so why?

No one would argue that the law says your children have to go to school until the age of sixteen. In practice the chances of a parent falling foul of the law are extremely low. A law which is not enforced is no law at all.
Never having thought about this issue very much until recently I had always presumed educational coercion was originally aimed at that minority of parents who do not value education and would not force their children to attend.
There are a number of problems with this, of course. The law is aimed at all parents and yet the majority would send their children to school anyway. What's the point of threatening people who are only too happy to do what you want anyway? Secondly, the minority who do not value education are probably members of the "poor" and therefore as far as our political masters are concerned, not responsible for their own actions, hence the ineffective enforcement. I know of only one person in my area who was ever imprisoned for failing to send her kids to school and this was after literally years of warnings, visits from officials and threats. She knew she was unlikely to be held responsible for her children's truancy and frankly did not expect to be. Thirdly, you can force a child to attend, but you can't make it learn. All that will happen is that it will disrupt education for those who do wish to do well. So not only is educational coercion a bad idea, on the whole, but in practice it only applies to those who already do send their kids to school. If coercion doesn't help the children of the poor what is it really for?

Utilitarian arguments appear to be being used to justify the present proposals, "equipping our young people with the right skills" etc. This argument needs turning on its head. There is no evidence that coercion makes any difference at all in fact it is probably counter-productive. The absence of disruptive and disaffected influences in the classroom are bound to have a beneficial effect on the majority of pupils.

Then there is the question of the often appalling quality of state education and the morality of forcing people to attend. Why is it so bad? The Gray Monk may give us a clue:

"One of Labour's favourite "Think Tanks" has just published a report I would find risible, if it were not for the fact that it is intellectually and morally insulting - quite apart from the fact that it is so blatantly twisted against anything English, or for that matter, "British". The thrust of the report is that our history is so shameful we should not teach it to our children, that they should, instead, be taught about everyone else's history and how noble and good they were as they struggled to overcome our evil doings.

As I said, insulting and frankly anti-British."

Read the rest here. I would only add, why should our children be forced to put up with this type of mendacious crap?

Why is coercion persisted with? Simple. Lust for power, empire building and a desire for monopoly supply. It was ever thus. Here is the Superintendent of Public Instruction in New York, commenting in 1871, on the proposal to make school attendance compulsory:

"It is palpable that the prominent defect, that calls for speedy reformation, is not incomplete attendance, but poor teaching…. I speak of the needed improvement in the particular mentioned, in comparison with compulsion, as a means of securing attendance; and I contend, that, before sending out ministers of the law to force children to school, we should place genuine teachers in the school room to attract them ... the improvement in question should be made before resorting to the doubtful experiment of compulsion. It cannot be done suddenly by legislation."

Naturally the Superintendent did not get his way. Much easier for teachers and officials to make attendance mandatory than to make schools attractive and useful enough to make parents want to send their children there and for the children to want to go.

The real reason then, for educational conscription is the desire for monopoly and control. This is why independent schools are regularly threatened with the withdrawal of their charitable status or even outright abolition. The problem is state control and coercion so what we need, obviously, is more state control and coercion. And what will we need when these latest proposals turn out to be another expensive failure? More state control and coercion, of course. What next? Newborn babies being taken from there mothers for their own good perhaps? Oh no, that's already starting to happen isn't it...?


*We don't have a secondary school in my town anymore That is, it's called something else now. Something much more important sounding. Can you guess? Here's a clue: Parlance Musing (8,6) anag. First correct answer gets to punch Alan Johnson on the nose while I hold him down. Luckily our political masters think some traditions are worth preserving. The education's still crap.

Educational Class

The proportion of middle class children going to university has grown under Labour:

The educational gulf between rich and poor has widened over the last 20 years as more middle-class teenagers go to university, according to a report published today...
Reforms introduced since 1997 - such as an increase in choice between state schools - has provided even more "opportunities for middle-class parents to seek social advantage", said the study...
Between 1990 and 2000 the proportion of students from skilled manual or unskilled backgrounds going to university grew from 10 to 18 per cent, said the study, while the proportion from professional backgrounds grew from 37 to 48 per cent. (The Telegraph)

So charging loads of money for students to go to university has increased the proportion of middle class children going to university. Who'd've thunk it?! After all, when it's going to cost so much, many "working class" people would prefer to just earn now. Especially considering the devaluing of the worth of a degree and the continual rise in the cost of getting one.

Middle class parents will be far more willing and able to financially support their offspring, and the extra loan that those whose parents don't earn much can get doesn't really help - since it has to be paid back as well.

So Labour have driven an increase in the middle-class domination of universities. Most certainly not what they had in mind.

ThunderDragon

Cross-posted at my blog.

Joined up government

Sixteen and seventeen year olds are not old enough to decide for themselves whether to continue in education, but they are old enough to vote.

For Christmas leavers

Some of those who support this government's proposals for raising the educational leaving age argue that it is both liberal and utilitarian. Intellectual dishonesty, or simply ignorance of what the word liberty actually means, prevents them from saying what they actually think, which is the limitation of freedom that these proposals would entail is justified on utilitarian grounds.

My own view is that while a commitment to liberty properly understood should be enough to oppose this latest proposed ROSLA*, I think it's worth emphasizing that it is unlikely to provide much utility to pupils who would have otherwise left at the age of 16.

The two are, of course, related. One of my main frustration when reading much of what journalists and bloggers have to say about education is that they fail to do justice to what I think most teachers, at least in my experience, would argue is the single most significant barrier to learning in our secondary schools - which is indiscipline. Most of this has to do with the fact that our 'compulsory education system' doesn't provide the teacher with much in the way of mechanisms or sanctions that might be used for the whole compulsion thing. In reality, it is only attendance that is compulsory - although success even in this area hasn't been exactly universal.

None of this is acknowledged by advocates of raising the school leaving age who, having confused causation with correlation, believe the benefits of a further two years of education will be conferred to all simply by forcing everyone to attend senior school. I don't think anyone from the ROSLA camp - those who have had teenagers described to them - has given a moment's thought to what impact on our schools these proposals might have. This brings me to the Christmas leavers...

Christmas leavers are those pupils whose parents, for reasons best know to themselves, enrolled their children when they were four. This means they have to wait until they've completed part of what is fifth year in Scotland before they are 16. They can be a bit of a pain sometimes, frequently bringing to senior classes the sort of behaviour that disrupts much of the teaching in the lower school. But they have this saving grace: Christmas leavers are those that assume nothing is to be gained from prolonging their education longer than necessary. This is why they leave at Christmas without bothering even to hang around for the next six months or so that would take them up to the exams.

This is where I take strong issue with those advocating raising the school leaving age. In ten years I don't think I can recall one instance where I thought the Christmas leaver's assessment of their own educational prospects was mistaken. Rather with these it is invariably obvious that the law of diminishing returns had set in usually at least a year before they turned 16 and while we bear them no ill-will, we are as glad to see the back of them as they are of us. Implicit in the government's plans to raise the educational leaving age is the belief that they know better than the 16 year old. Now while 16 year olds lack knowledge about many things, there is one area where their understanding is undoubtedly superior to HM Government - unlike ministers, they know what schools are actually like.

*The present Scottish administration, despite it's many shortcomings, have decided not to inflict this nonsense on Scottish schools, thank goodness, so I can't be accused of being too self-interested here.

Call To Lower School Leaving Age!

Rather than the educational conscription proposed by the government that myself and the others [such as Fabian Tassano, Surreptitious Evil, and Devil's Kitchen] who write this group blog are constantly arguing against, it has now been suggested that children should have the opportunity to leave school at 14 - by the head of the UK's biggest education authority, no less.

His point is that, very simply, some children are not academically gifted and are not suited to classroom teaching and learning - and as such would benefit far more from apprenticeships.

Some 14-year-olds will probably be better off in some kind of apprenticeship...
That's how they will get success...
[W]e need to cater for the range of people and the range of jobs we all have in society.

The response of the NUT that the earnings of those who stay on and get qualifications is "much higher" than those who have "simply left school very early and gone on to do some very specific training." Yes, it may well be. But those who leave school at 14 will not be the kind of people who benefit from classroom learning or those who are likely to be suited to do the jobs that require high qualifications. They are the people essential to our society - plumbers, electricians, builders etc. - without whom our modern society is screwed. That the NUT believe that qualifications are essential and required in order to live a useful and productive life betrays their love of the testing regime.

Not everyone can have high qualifications and great high paid jobs. And not everyone is suited to them. It's a simple fact of life.

However, at the very least, children shouldn't be allowed to leave school at 14 unless they have an apprenticeship to go to. I'm not entirely convinced by the idea that children should be able to leave school so early, but it is certainly far better than forcing them to stay there for longer. At least they then have the choice to make, the choice which this government seems determined to take away from 16-18 year olds.

ThunderDragon

This post is cross posted at my blog.

Coercion, regulation, compulsion (contd.)

Dr Gordon Brown: (my emphasis)

My Government is committed to raising educational standards and giving everyone the chance to reach their full potential. … A Bill will be introduced to ensure that young people stay in education or training until age 18.

My Government is committed to providing a healthcare system organised around the needs of the patient. … Legislation will be introduced to create a stronger health and social care regulator.

My Government will bring forward proposals to help people achieve a better balance between work and family life. … A bill will place a duty on every employer to contribute to good quality workplace pensions for their employees.

My Government will take further action to create stronger communities and tackle terrorism. … My Government will seek a consensus on changes to the law on terrorism so that the police and other agencies have the powers they need to protect the public …

Mr David Cameron:

Re the counter-terrorism Bill: “we welcome it”.

Re proposals to coerce adults to receive ‘education’ or ‘training’ (as defined by the government): “the Government are going backwards [by] abolishing the A-level”.

Media puff for the coercive education of adults:

“Important … genuinely radical”
The Independent

In a parallel universe:

Leader of the Opposition:

We are suspicious of the right hon. gentleman’s proposed counter-terrorism Bill. We suspect he has no real respect for well-established principles of liberty, and merely seeks to increase state powers in line with his ideological commitment to boosting collective rights at the expense of the individual. We are not convinced there is a case for doubling to 56 days the period during which a British citizen may be held by the police without charge.

We regard it as a wholly inappropriate response to declining state school standards that individuals should be forced to attend them for even longer. Such a breach of liberty would — if it were to be acceptable at all — require a long drawn-out period of debate, and very strong evidence that it is a sound remedy for a serious problem, and we have had neither. On the contrary, the Professional Association of Teachers have already expressed their strong objections to criminalising the non-attendence of seventeen-year-olds.

Further reading: (see esp. the comments)
Stumbling & Mumbling
Liberal Conspiracy

Marching towards a glorious future

Crossposted from DSTPFW, some sterling satire from George Szirtes.

A Statement from The Ministry of Truth: Education (Schools) Department

We are living in glorious times. Our children are ever better qualified, their future – and ours – ever brighter. 99% of all school leavers have four A levels or more. The numbers of those claiming benefit after leaving school have gone down and down. We confidently look forward to a time when everyone goes to university and no one is claiming benefits. The super-heads we have appointed to rescue the very few schools that were failing have utterly transformed those institutions. Their students come to school enthusiastic and leave enthusiastic. Our policies have empowered such wonderful dedicated heads and their extraordinarily talented and hard working staff, who have received the best training, training of hitherto only dreamt of standard, to maximise their potential, to turn chaff into wheat, to feed the hungry, to top league tables and to put this country at the very head of academic achievement.

There remains, however, an almost insignificant minority of failures: schools where the heads are weak, where they fail to sack their incompetent teachers, and, as we know, there are few people more incompetent than incompetent teachers, teachers under whom little or nothing of value gets done. Indeed it is worse than that. This tiny minority is a drain on our resources: they damage your children, they ruin our figures. We have to extirpate these parasites, weed them out, drag them kicking and screaming from the soil they are bent on holding on to and destroying. If we do not act now this country will go to the dogs. They, and they alone, are responsible for the upbringing of our extraordinarily talented and hard working young people, and we must make an example of them. As the first step in this process one in every five teachers in all schools will be taken out and shot. Once this is done the country can go forward and enjoy the fruits of our brave and radical policies, including, I am delighted to announce, the new school-leaving age of twenty-five.

George Szirtes

English Educational Conscription

In addition to my diatribe yesterday on educational conscription, something has just occured to me - this law will apply only in England. Only English children will have to stay in school until 18. Only English children will be deprived of their liberties and their freedom.

As such, when this law comes before Parliament, not one MP for a Scottish or Welsh constituency had better vote. This does not apply in their constsituencies, so I do not want to see them force two years of extra schooling onto English children but not those in Scotland and Wales.

That they even could do it illustrates the issues with our current devolution system.

Cross-posted from The ThunderDragon

Educational Conscription

I written what is pretty much a diatribe against this new policy of our statist government. I would post it here, but I have rather littered it with swear words so it isn't really appropriate to do so.

Go here to read it.

"State owns your ass for a further two years"

Harry Haddock fron Nation of Shopkeepers writes:

So, Blinky Balls is going to increase, by two years, the amount of time the government can tell you what to do with your life.

Now, these illiterate, qualification free teenagers that are seen as a ‘problem’ to be solved by the state are clearly not going to learn anything in these extra two years that they have been unable or unwilling to learn in the previous 11. They are highly likely to be dysfunctional to such an extent that they will be un-employable, so on the job training is an unlikely outcome. So, what exactly are the state going to do with them for this period? Stuff them into schools and colleges against their will, where they can disrupt those who are their voluntarily? Force them on to unwilling employers? Or throw money at trendy, expensive schemes in the hope that they suddenly realise the error of their ways and reform over night?

I have a friend that works in exactly this area. The answer is, I’m afraid, a combination of 1 & 3 above. Oh goody.

The pieces fall into place

There seems to have been surprisingly little commentary so far from the right-wing blogosphere about the latest development on the from-ALevels-to-diplomas evolution saga, though these two make for interesting reading. (Care to link here, gentlemen?)

I think the case provides a useful illustration of the difference between NewLabour under Blair and NewLabour under Brown. Mr Blair, it will be recalled, at least expressed opposition to the abolition of A-levels, even if we never quite knew with him how much any given expression of sentiment actually amounted to. In the enthusiasm to focus hostility on the person rather than the ideology, it may have been forgotten that in many ways Mr Blair represented a brake on the more extreme collectivist-egalitarian elements of his party. Dr Brown, whatever his true underlying belief system may really be (it's a bit obscure, though we can be fairly sure it is not libertarian), seems less willing or able to resist those collectivist forces.

Here are two letters to the Telegraph which suggest that, like every other educational change this government has forced on schools, the proposals to bring in diplomas have been driven by theory and ideology rather than practicality, and with a minimum of thought, planning or consultation — the latter probably being limited to carefully selected pseudo-consultation in such a way that potential disagreement either would not arise or could be brushed aside.

The first letter is from the President of the Royal Society of Chemistry:

Sir – The Royal Society of Chemistry questions the way that the Government revealed its plans for the projected new school science diplomas. It is unclear what is being proposed by the Government, but any changes affecting A-levels and GCSEs should not be taken without deep and wide-ranging consultations.

There was a failure here to achieve joined-up thinking. Some of those closest to discussions over the past six months, and even other government bodies, have been taken by surprise as a specialised planned vocational qualification has morphed into a brand new educational system. This is no way to treat teachers or young people in secondary education. We regard it as making policy on the hoof.

The future of our young people is not a frivolous matter; it is central to the economic and social fabric of the nation. Decision-making on such matters as the introduction of diplomas should reflect that seriousness fully.

The second is from Colin Peacocke, an eminently sensible chap whom I happen to know personally.

Sir – For almost two decades, I served as the most senior administrative officer in the University of Oxford Delegacy of Local Examinations (providing A-levels, GCSEs and a variety of other examinations, including a number in the vocational field).

Bitter experience showed my colleagues and me that it takes some 25 years for new examinations to be fully accepted by the academic and business communities for use as selection tools for student entry or the recruitment of employees. The reason is a straightforward matter of perception. The person conducting the assessment of an applicant better understands the value of the candidate's qualifications if they are the same as those the assessor holds already.

The Secretary of State's time-scale is far too short. We were promised that education, in general, would be permitted to achieve stability, with changes being kept to a minimum. This announcement seems another "bright idea" trotted out by a tired government.

What I find interesting about this development is that it explains two of the puzzles thrown up by the plan to force all 16 to 18-year-olds into education: (a) what are they going to do there, and (b) how are we going to avoid having the non-egalitarian horror of a two-tier system?

Time allowed: 15 minutes.

Pens down, please.

Answers
(a) They will do diplomas, in subjects ranging from "health and social care" to "hair and beauty" to "sport and leisure" to "travel and tourism".
(b) There will be no A-levels. Everyone will do diplomas, which will become the "jewel in the crown" of Brown & Balls the British education system.

Failing Schools: Stating the obvious

Hot off the press from The Department of the Bleedin Obvious (DotBO) is the news that failing schools could harm the economy. "Could" is not the term I would use - "almost certainly will" is how I would phrase it.

Failing schools mean failing pupils. It then suggests failing adults and failing parents leading to more failing pupils. Some will climb out of this ongoing train-wreck, but many more will not. Many DO not.

The State should not get in the way of opportunity. The State should work to remove barriers to opportunity it has created. The State monopoly on education, LEAs and the shortage of good places and good schools created by this system is standing in the way of opportunity, in the way of anxious parents and potential talent in our young people.

It is counter intuitive to create more capacity than you require, but that is precisely what is needed in schools. We need a surplus of good schools and good school places to enable parents to pick a good school near to home, with enrolled siblings or their child's friends. A surplus of good schools will make parents happier about moving home to seek work or be closer to work to avoid extended commutes. A State monopoly will not go about creating new schools when existing school capacity of whatever standard is sufficient for the pupils enrolled. Bad schools will always have children under such a system because all the other schools are full. The incentive for the school should be "improve or die", i.e. improve or find yourselves turning up to empty classes and ever declining funding. To peform this, a surplus of good schools is the simplest and organic way. Enable more schools to be formed outside the State system, not "permit", not "allow" but not stand in the way of more independent schools and the parents will have more choice and the worst schools will empty by themselves. The best teachers will be paid more and more kids will end up at a good school near to home, nearer to their parents workplaces, which cannot be a bad thing for home life and thus further improve the prospects§ for young people.

Vouchers are one way to achieve this.


§ Don't you DARE say "life chances".

Coercion, coercion, coercion

Recently I reminded readers of the mediocracy blog why the 'educational conscription' issue is relatively important, as civil liberties controversies go (of which there are at present a not inconsiderable number).

The reason I am far more alarmed by this proposal than by (say) ID cards is that I see it as a way of surreptitiously floating a much larger and more radical notion, namely that coercion is, in principle, an acceptable way to address social problems. To some extent, I would not be particularly relieved if this proposal simply died a quiet death. It worries me that there has been so little resistance to the principle of the thing. In my view, if people don't object to this proposal on moral grounds, we could easily start to see the coercion idea applied in other areas.

Here we are, one month later, and the coercion concept seems to be gaining ground. Rather than oppose the idea — as we might hope from our opposition party — the Conservatives seem to have got a taste for it. First, we have a plan to make teenagers attend six-week community service projects, though Mr Cameron seems to have been persuaded (at least for the moment) to use the carrot of a cash reward, rather than the stick of compulsion, as inducement for attendance. Second, we have plans to force failing primary pupils to attend summer school or even resit an entire year.

Of course, we had hints of this aspect of new-style 'Conservatism' when Mr Cameron was appointed. The compulsory community service idea was first floated in January 2006, when we were told that it was a way of improving social cohesion.

Clearly, coercion is on the agenda. It's not limited to the main political parties, either. I get a sense of an authoritarian backlash brewing, as a reaction to all the ills which supposedly 'liberal' polices have generated. For example, there was recently a suggestion in the Telegraph that children should be forced to eat school lunches.

For the moment, coercion may seem to be limited to the under-18s, though we already have pending legislation for compulsory medication. Once coercion becomes seen as an acceptable remedy, however, I expect to see proposals to extend it to over-18s. Compulsory voting is an obvious possible area of application, but I can think of several others. (I am not going to mention them, because I don't want to give lovers of authoritarianism any ideas.)

Incidentally, the post that started this campaign blog — "What is wrong with you people?" — still gets an unusually high number of hits, six months after the event. (I have no idea why.)

Spending without result

Cross-posted from Burning our Money, the ever-watchful Wat Tyler reminds us once again, with the help of hard data, what an incredible sink for money the state education system has become. It demonstrates the folly of supposing that just because more money is poured into "education" (or "health", "childcare", etc.) the extra spending necessarily makes things better. It can just as easily make things worse. The logic "more money = better service" is as crude as "more years = more learnt", and neither correlation is likely to be particularly high in a system in which there is no real consumer power.

Special plugholes for public spending surges

Education, education, education.

And as everyone should have understood, that was going to cost money, money, money.

Since Labour came to power, spending on Britain's state schools has more than doubled. Last year they spent £44.7bn, up from £22.2bn in 1996-97 (see here and prior PESAs). Even adjusting for general inflation, the increase is over 60%, a massive uplift.

Fair enough you say. That's what the voters wanted.

But spending money is easy. What we haven't had is the results.

Let's just recap the latest revelations:

• Pre-primary skills among five-year olds are unchanged despite a £21bn programme to improve them (see this blog)
  
• 3Rs skills among seven-year olds are stalled, with eg 20% failing to reach the minimum expected standard in writing (see here)
  
• 3Rs skills among eleven-year olds are stalled, with 60% failing to reach the minimum expected standard in reading, writing, and maths (see this blog and this)
  
• Core attainment among fourteen-year olds is also stalled, with nearly 40% failing to reach the minimum expected standard in English, maths, and science (see here)
• At GCSE 54% still fail to gain 5 A-C grades including both English and Maths (see excellent Chris Woodhead article here)
  
• A Level results continue to soar, but we now know they are two whole grades easier than twenty years ago (see this blog)

Once again- as if we needed any further proof- the dirigiste techniques of Stalinist central planning and tractor output targets have simply failed to deliver.

And today, we have an update on a key reason behind the failure: the escalating crisis in head teacher recruitment. Suitably qualified candidates are simply not putting themselves forward, because they don't fancy being the stressed-out disempowered middle management sandwich meat stuck between the commissars and the parents. And who can blame them?

We've blogged this many times (eg see here), but until now the main problem has been in secondary schools. It's now spread to primaries, with more than one-third of schools being unable to appoint after advertising the post.

As we've noted before, this problem simply doesn't exist in the independent sector. There, head teachers are much more firmly in charge of their schools. And they answer directly to the paying customers rather than indirectly through those ignorant self-serving spineless commissars.

The bottom line?

We're now spending 60% more in real terms on our schools, but our children's education is no better than it was. Indeed, given that schools now routinely teach to the test, it may very well be worse (see this blog).

Wat Tyler