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As you’d expect, the crunch point varies from person to person. For some it’s the thought of loony councils being given control of schools once again, or Heads being put under pressure to keep violent or disruptive kids in school once more. For others it’s the mindless opposition to even simple, light-touch checks on how kids are getting on at primary school. Most recently – where I had a mass-confession of four teachers – it was the announcement that private schools would be banned and the school inspectorate Ofsted would be scrapped and replaced with who-knows-what.
Maybe it’s just me – there aren’t many people in education who wear their Conservative leanings lightly and brightly, so we tend to stand out a bit. But listening to teachers all over the place – staff rooms, playgrounds, conferences, social media – there definitely seems to be more-and-more of this.
Robert Conquest’s First Law of Politics says that ‘everyone is conservative about what he knows best’, and this is also true about teachers. Whilst Labour might be getting cheers from members and union activists in the conference hall for big-and-bonkers policies, in schools across the land the reaction is proving far less positive.
Ignore shouty unions or the Heads ranting about funding (whilst taking massive increases in salary and pension contribution) – there is serious disquiet about the radical and erratic proposals coming out of Labour, and I don’t blame people on the frontline for having doubts about them.
It’s not as though Labour haven’t had time to formulate a coherent set of plans either. The shadow Education team has been pretty stable, includes a former teacher, and has a good pool of advisers and others in the sector to work with.
However, listening to their pronouncements the lack of understanding and detail is worrying. In a talk I heard yesterday one shadow minster announced policy changes that have already happened under the Conservatives. They also, to warm applause, said that they’d ban league tables for schools – which would be impossible to do, unless they’re also scrapping the Freedom of Information Act, which means anyone can ask for schools results and schools have to provide them. I just don’t think they’ve thought stuff through.
On top of this though, what many fear is that these otherwise relatively moderate people aren’t really the ones who’ll have the final say, but the hard-left activists at the centre. The news that former NUT boss & Socialist Alliance candidate Christine Blower had been made a peer and was working in Jeremy Corbyn’s office went down like a bucket of sick. Notoriously intolerant of disagreement or new ideas, the thought that she and other unreformed union leaders will be driving school policy has struck fear into the hearts of many who remember how crazy education policy got under Labour in the 2000s.
Can the Conservatives take advantage of this and get lefty teachers to vote for them next time? I don’t know, but they’d be mad not to try. I know from travelling the country with my job that the Gove/Gibb reforms have far more quiet support amongst parents and teachers than it might seem. A few hundred votes switching in marginal seats might make all the difference, and Labour jumping the shark on education might just help with this.
Mark Lehain is the director of Parents and Teachers for Excellence and the former principal of Bedford Free School.
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