Reshaping the Education White Paper
14.12.05

Introduction

In the introduction to the Education White Paper the Prime Minister, quite rightly, emphasises the real improvements in education since 1997 - teachers pay 20% higher in real terms; an extra 32,000 teachers and 130,000 support staff; improved literacy and numeracy; Ofsted reports the proportion of good and excellent teaching in primary schools rising from 45% to 74%; big improvements in GCSE results and more children gaining university places. All of which have been achieved within existing structures. However, recently we appear to be in danger of talking down our achievements and implying that further progress cannot be achieved or sustained.

This is in marked contrast to our earlier education mantra "standards not structures". Labour MPs and councillors are entitled to ask what has changed, where is the evidence and where did these proposals come from?

At the last election in the document "Schools forward not back" Labour attacked the Tory education plans saying:-

"The current catchment areas used by schools would be abolished and schools would be forced to introduce their own admissions system. This policy would see the end of community based schools and lead to a massive increase in bureaucracy for head teachers, with each school having to design their own admissions process".

Whilst the Labour manifesto in 2005 highlighted the need to continue to raise standards and bring in new provisions "where standards are too low or innovation is needed" there was no mention of removing the role of Local Education Authorities in the establishment of new community schools. It does express a wish for "independent specialist schools" but nowhere in our manifesto does it mention the creation of Trust Schools.

The fundamental concerns of many colleagues centre around the potential for pupils from poorer areas being disadvantaged as popular schools expand, and wealthier and better informed parents are able to set up their own schools operating their own admissions policies. There is also concern that local education policy should remain democratically accountable.

Indeed, Sir Jeremy Beecham, leader of the Local Government Associations Labour Group said of the White Paper:-

"The proposals around admissions, the planning of new schools and the expansion of popular schools gives insufficient leverage to councils to maximise fairness or the efficient use of resources".

Like many Labour MPs Jeremy Beecham is worried that pupils from poorer areas could be "left behind" in this process.

There has also been considerable concern expressed about the inevitable expansion of faith schools and the polarising effect this could have on community relations.

That said, there is much in the White Paper that can be welcomed, particularly the emphasis on personalised learning, tackling coasting and failing schools and creating secure principles of discipline in a learning environment. We also welcome the proposals to improve nutritional standards of food sold in schools, to provide a school nurse for each primary and secondary school cluster and the plans to give students a greater voice through student councils. The problem for many of us is that there is an uncomfortable fit between what is a supportable and a very obvious Labour White Paper, and those sections which import proposals from the Charter Schools experiment in the USA, which has been shown to fail the poorer and more vulnerable families. The challenge for a Labour Government remains how to break the link between being poor and underachieving at school. To do this we have to maintain our ambition that we can make all schools good and improving. There is no evidence, indeed the opposite may be the case, that the structural changes outlined in the White Paper will achieve this.

In writing this critique we hope to find a consensus which Labour MPs, councillors and party members can unite around. We are all immensely proud of our achievements in education since 1997 and we are happy to support reform and innovation consistent with Labour values and based on sound evidence. Unfortunately there are sections of this White Paper that do not meet these essential requirements, which is why we hope the government will take seriously the constructive criticisms that we have made and the recommendations that we are suggesting.

1. Principles for progress

We share the high aspirations of the Education White Paper. As the Prime Minister states:

'We now have an education system that is largely good, after eight years of investment and reform, which has overcome many of the chronic inherited problems of the past. Now with the best teaching force and the best school leadership ever, we are poised to become world class if we have the courage and vision to reform and invest further and put the parent and pupil at the centre of the system'.

We too want a world class education system that will

'Deliver for all children, but particularly for those whose family background is most challenging' (PM).

As the Secretary of State says in her introduction:

'Education is one of the keys to social mobility, and so we must make sure that a good education is available to every child in the community'.

We recognise that it will take further radical reform to make step changes in progress towards these goals. We will need to put parents and pupils at the centre of the system. The challenge to improve must be continuous and there must be a refusal to tolerate coasting, mediocre or failing delivery of education. We know that the victims of such failure are disproportionately the very young people that, despite the successes of our reforms, are still too often left behind by the system.

However we believe that the some of the White Paper's proposals will not deliver these aims and are likely to undermine and undo many of the advances Labour has already made. Our central concern is the proposed development of a body of self-regulating schools without an effective system of accountability or measures to ensure that the interests of all pupils are protected and advanced. Without the measures proposed in this paper there is a serious risk of delivering enhanced choice only for some, and reduced or restricted choice for others. Disadvantaged pupils may be losers rather than gainers from the new policy.

As the White Paper states in its opening line, 'the Education system in England is now recognised as a success'. We want to maintain and build on the principles that have delivered that improvement. In addition to the massive investment in education under Labour, advances in education standards and achievement have been driven by six key principles:

Leadership: the vital contribution of effective leadership by head teachers, local authorities and governors has been recognised as the single most vital factor in effective schools.

Quality teaching: improvements in the quality of teaching has been an essential in improved education standards.

Choice: the expansion of choice within the education system, including choice of school and specialism, within a fair, robust and non-selective system, has expanded the options available to pupils and parents to the benefit of all.

Diversity: the system has catered for a diverse range of aspirations, abilities and specialities without disadvantaging specific groups, or forcing 'exit' on those whose choices in education require special support or specialism in teaching.

Accountability: mechanisms to hold performance to account, and to take action where failure is endemic have been an important part of the improvement process.

Interdependence: Schools run themselves and are responsible for their own performance but they realise they must work with and learn from other schools and make alliances with other agencies that support young people.

We welcome much of the Education White Paper. Many parts of it put forward proposals for the next stage of reform which are in line with these principles, and with the intellectual and financial investment that Labour has already made. These include enhancing the role of parents in the choices that schools make; establishing secure principles of discipline and a learning environment, and entrenching first rate and well supported leadership throughout the school system. We welcome the White Paper's emphasis on personalised learning. We would like to see much more work on how this can be delivered including the provision of Continuing Professional Development for teachers and changes to IT to prepare newly qualified teachers for the task they face. We want to see education move forward by enhancing, and not endangering these principles.

The White Paper, however, argues that school standards will be transformed by:

- the expansion of popular schools and the contraction and closure of less popular schools in response to parental choice;

- encouraging schools to use less prescriptive admissions policies to shape their intake of pupils to a much greater extent;

- changing the governance of schools by introducing external management of schools from the private and voluntary sector;

- parental activism in managing existing schools and creating new ones.

Recognising that some pupils may lose out, it is proposed to provide additional support through advice and free transport to some pupils for disadvantaged families.

2. Our concerns

Our concerns centre on the potential consequences of these four policies. There is very little hard evidence that any of them will deliver improved educational standards. There is certainly no evidence that the measures can be relied upon to deliver the step change in standards sought by the Government. But taken together they will weaken some of the key factors, including local leadership interdependence, accountability and support that have been central to the improved performance of recent years

We have no doubt some schools and some pupils would benefit from the Government's proposals. But can they be relied upon to deliver the biggest improvements for those pupils and schools that need it most? These are the pupils from the most disadvantaged backgrounds, and the schools - not always serving poorer areas - that are coasting and providing a mediocre education. This is the key test for the next stage of education reform.

Expansion and contraction of schools

- The White Paper envisages popular schools being free to expand with little or no regulation or any limits on size. Yet the demand for school places is expected to fall over the next few years. In this context, uncontrolled expansion by some schools could make others unviable, though only closing after several years of providing an increasingly inadequate education.

- The White Paper wants to make it easier for groups of parents to establish new schools. The establishment of new schools, perhaps catering for one particular faith group, could distort the pattern of provision across the area and adversely impact on community cohesion. Taken together with the unplanned expansion and contraction of existing schools, many pupils will be vulnerable to uncertainty and instability in the education system.

- The White Paper appears to assume the schools that are popular and expand will be good schools, and those that do not expand will be poor schools. In areas where there are surplus places it is possible that all schools could be recognised as good schools, even where some are more popular than others. A change in one school can cause a whole series of adverse effects in those surrounding it, including good schools. A market driven system will result in a process of destabilisation where there will be arbitrary effects. Such systems can result in undesirable and unpredictable consequences which are unconnected to any measure of performance and any objective or rational assessment. The system advocated by the White Paper will inevitably have losers as well as gainers.

- The White paper proposes that parents should be able unilaterally to form schools, obtain funding and require the Local Education Authority to provide land. We doubt these proposals can be made to work, but if they do proceed will have a deeply harmful effect on the cohesion of local education policy in the areas from which they arise.

- To make a reality of choice in this way and allow for the opening and closing of schools facilities will require over capacity and is potentially wasteful of tax funded resources. Extra resources for the education system would be better spent on improving quality for existing students.

Developing the local authority role

- The best local authorities are already making a substantial contribution to the improvement agenda. We welcome the enhanced powers to intervene to tackle mediocre and coasting schools set out in the White Paper. Local authorities are best placed to keep a close watch on the performance of all schools in their area, to pick up early warning signs of impending problems of potential decline, and to make best use of local resources, including other head teachers, to provide support and assistance to schools in difficulty. The competitive environment outlined in the White Paper will make it far harder for authorities to fulfil this role. Individual schools and head teachers may be far less willing to share resources in a collaborative spirit to raise the performance standard across the whole area, if by doing so they advance potential competitors.

- The Government has massively increased capital investment in schools from £500 million to over £7bn pa, with the flagship Building Schools for the Future set to transform secondary school provision over the next decade. However the White Paper's proposals around school expansion, new schools and for asset transfer make delivering on this investment harder. An unfettered right to expand or create new schools will work against strategic management of this investment and value for money. And whereas presently local authorities invest their own resources, over and above the amount required by Government, in schools capital programmes, transfer of asset ownership to trusts is likely to discourage this in future if authorities are concerned they will be left with a financial liability for something over which they have no control.

- While the White Paper recognises the co-ordinating and commissioning role that local authorities have under the Every Child Matter programme, it fails to address the conflicts between this role and the governance proposals in the White Paper. Para 2.7 of the White Paper stresses that in decisions on the curriculum, organisation and use of resources, schools should be " working with parents, children and local communities to drive reform, not central or local government". This focus on "independence" is not only in conflict with the co-ordinating role of local authorities in respect of children's services, it also poses real difficulties in ensuring an integrated approach to making best use of school resources for the wider community, to delivering the extended school agenda and to securing efficiencies and economies of scale under the Gershon Programme.

The new approach to admissions

- The Admissions Code is only advisory and time limited. Over time more schools will be free to operate outside it. Others will take advantage of the flexibility it offers to skew their intake. Fewer schools are likely to have a balanced intake of pupils. Increasing numbers of pupils are likely to be denied admission to the school of their choice

- As every school becomes its own admissions authority it will become extremely difficult, if not impossible, for local authorities to (a) coordinate the admissions process, (b) ensure all admissions authorities comply with the Code of Practice, (c) ensure that all children are allocated a place in a local school and (d) predict and prepare for future requirements for school places. It is most unlikely that any school under this arrangement will voluntarily amend its admission policy to include more difficult children.

- The new roles given to local authorities of children's champion and commissioner of new provision would be even more difficult to fulfil.

- The stress and anxieties experienced by parents in the admissions process would be far greater as it would become more complex to assess the likelihood of securing a place at their preferred schools. In rural areas, it could have the consequence of parents being denied admission to what is their only realistic choice.

Parents and the governance of schools

- It is certainly true that some schools have been improved through changes in their governance. But it is equally true that other schools have improved without such changes, and that a number of schools that have changed their governance have either deteriorated or have continued to fail. No evidence has been presented in the White Paper or elsewhere that coasting schools and those failing disadvantaged pupils will routinely and reliably be transformed by trust or foundation status.

- The White Paper also proposes to create a whole new bureaucratic structure, the Office of the Schools Commissioner, whose role will essentially duplicate that of local authorities, double-guessing their assessments on school provision, school expansion, parental satisfaction and school standards. It is hard to reconcile this with the White Paper's commitment to local authorities having "a new duty to promote choice, diversity and fair access to school places …". let alone with the Gershon agenda for efficiency savings.

- The commitment of parents to their children's education and the opportunities that can be created for their participation in their children's school is important. Chapter five of the White Paper sets out how parents can be supported in this aim and we welcome this part of the White Paper.

- Chapter two seems to make entirely different assumptions. Parent power is assumed always to be present and just waiting to be unleashed in a way which will be wholly beneficial. Indeed, this part of the White Paper depends on parents in every area being equally willing to take on greater responsibilities in the management of their local school.

- Not all pupils have parents who are engaged equally or wish to be. Not all pupils have parents. Such differences in interest will privilege some schools and some pupils - indeed this is a feature of our current system. It is ironic that in a country which has the highest percentage of the working age population in work and the longest working hours in Europe those parents are then expected to get home and run the local school too.

- The White Paper encourages all existing schools, including primary schools, to become Foundation Schools and will force all new schools to adopt that status. In effect the White Paper dogmatically bans the development of any new community schools by local authorities irrespective of parents' wishes or the needs of local communities.

- It is already possible to obtain Foundation School status, which provides for similar capabilities to a Trust. There has been little demand for such status without substantial and inequitable inducements. No evidence is produced as to why trusts as an option would be more attractive.

- The founding of independent trust schools represents an irreversible transfer of public assets into the hands of organisations that will be subject to little public accountability no matter what polices they pursue at any time in the future. No clear evidence has been presented on the advantages of schools acquiring Trust status, and certainly nothing that would justify such an open-ended commitment to the development of Trust schools. The policies set out on the White Paper represent an experiment from which there can be no return.

- No evidence has yet been provided that sufficient capacity exists in the private or voluntary sector to support Trust status in all existing secondary and primary schools, nor that any robust mechanisms exist for ensuring the Trust status is used in the most appropriate schools.

- There are no practical tools suggested to monitor Trust (as opposed to school) performance or to manage trust failure or cessation.

Despite the paucity of evidence offered in the White Paper, similar policies have been tested elsewhere and, notably in Minnesota, California and other US states from the early 1990s onwards. Although DfES officials and others have studied these experiments there is no mention of them in the White Paper.

In Minnesota, of eighty-eight 'charter schools' set up along lines similar to the white Paper's 'Trust school' proposals, seventeen have closed in a decade; and most of those have been schools serving predominantly disadvantaged children. Surviving charter schools have been established by, and serving, parents of asset and choice-rich children. Indeed, one academic authority on the charter school programme in the USA has commented: ' we have enough evidence to conclude that the …ideals that fuelled this reform movement are at best misguided and at worst harmful to the most disadvantaged students'. (Amy Stuart Wells, Washington Post)

3. Improving the White Paper - Recommendations in Bold

We recognise the need for further reform if we are to reach those pupils who have not yet benefited fully from Labour's policies to date. We need to amend the policies in the White Paper so that it they deliver Labour's education goals rather than undermining them.

The consultation process

The Prime Minister and Ministers have undertaken many meetings with Labour backbenchers. In seeking to reassure Labour MPs, four points have been stressed:

- that the fears over choice and expansion are overstated as Ministers do not expect the power to be widely used or to have a significant impact in the vast majority of cases;

- that all schools will be subject to existing admissions policies;

- that the policies promoting foundation and trust status are enabling rather than prescriptive, and that;

- the White Paper is intended to strengthen the role of local authorities in relation to standards and in the strategic of school provision.

We have found these meetings helpful but these assurances do not fit comfortably with some specific proposals in the White Paper. Our proposals would ensure that the reassurances we have been given are reflected in the forthcoming Education Bill. Taken together they would maintain and extend choice in the system, extend and defend diversity, and ensure robust accountability in the operation of public education.

Expansion and contraction of schools

- It is important that there are safeguards against the unplanned consequences of the expansion and contraction of schools. The local authority is best placed to take oversight of the local supply and demand for school places and of parental aspirations. We propose that local authorities be empowered to assess and if necessary refuse or restrain the expansion of schools where this would not be in the overall interests of pupils in their area. Local authorities should not be able to refuse school expansion plans without good reason. Schools and parents should be able to appeal against the unreasonable exercise of the authority's strategic powers. One option would be to require the authority to demonstrate how the wider public interest would be damaged by individual school expansion or establishment plans. Their decision would be subject to appeal to the adjudicator, who should be required by law to refuse the proposal if the authority proves damage to the wider public interest, but otherwise would be empowered to overrule the authority's decision.

- Parents can already establish schools under particular circumstances. We see no need for a general expansion of this right, but should groups of parents wish to do this, there should be clear procedure under which this is possible within the framework of the Local Authority, and subject to safeguards on admissions and the integrity of the system elsewhere in the area.

Developing the role of local authorities

- We welcome the enhanced intervention powers being proposed for local authorities. It is important that these powers can be used in a consistent and even-handed manner. The authority's powers must therefore be clear and applicable to all types of publicly funded school.

- The White Paper recognises the co-ordinating and commissioning role that local authorities have under the Every Child Matters programme. The Education Bill should give statutory backing to this role by requiring all publicly funded schools to work together to achieve the aims of Every Child Matters and the overall objectives of the Government's education policy.

- We believe that further measures should be taken to strengthen the performance of local authorities, some of which perform significantly worse than others. The current inspection regime should be tightened and there should be a greater willingness to use powers to intervene where necessary to tackle failing authorities, including the transfer of responsibility to another body including other local authorities. Facilitating intervention by teams from high-performing authorities to turn around an authority in difficulties, as has happened successfully in the case of Warwickshire and Doncaster, Blackburn and Rochdale and Telford and Walsall is one well-tested mechanism which has obvious potential. The key strategic responsibilities which we propose on school planning and admissions should be balanced by the right to appeal to the adjudicator against unreasonable decisions.

A new approach to admissions

- The Revised Code of Practice on Admissions should not be published in advance of the new Education Bill. The Revised Code should provide a clear definition of fair access and list the criteria that are considered to be acceptable in a fair and non-selective admissions policy. The Code should be statutory and all publicly funded schools should be required to comply with its provisions. The Bill should set out how local authorities should monitor and ensure compliance.

- Local Authorities should be given additional powers to coordinate the admissions process for all schools. Admissions Forums should become responsible for approving the suitability of local admissions policies in the context of the broader interests of all children within the local authority's jurisdiction.

- These mechanisms should ensure the retention of the requirement under the 1954 Education Act that the Local authority is required to find a place for every pupil in its area.

The governance of schools

- Local Authorities should retain the power to decide whether to function solely as commissioners, and not providers, of education. There should be no outright ban on new schools being developed as local authority community schools. Conversely, if Local authorities feel that it is right to establish new parent-led schools in their areas, then, subject to the framework set out in these proposals, they should be enabled so to do.

- There must be a genuine choice of school governance models with no in-built financial of other bias in favour of trusts and academies and against community schools.

" We can see many ways in which private and voluntary organisations could work with community and Foundation schools to raise standards. We do not believe a case has been made for concentrating their involvement on Trust schools. Government policy should facilitate and encourage voluntary and private partnerships with all types of school.

- The Trust concept must be more fully developed and discussed before it could be enshrined in primary legislation. There would, for example, need to be a mechanism for bringing Trust schools back into Foundation or Community status should they fail or this proves to be in the best interests of all pupils. Consideration should be given to restricting Trust status to established federations of schools. Robust evidence must be provided on the number and nature of potential sponsors of Trust schools.

" There is no need to establish an expensive new bureaucracy in the form of the Office of School Commissioner, duplicating the role and work of local authorities. Eliminating this proposal will make significant savings.

Finally, we have deep reservations about the White Paper policy of allowing some children from poorer backgrounds to have free transport to the school of their choice. Whilst at first sight this might appear as a progressive policy, we believe it signals a retreat from Labour's original aim: 'Every School a Good School'. Instead we fear it signals a much less ambitious aim of providing a route for a few pupils and parents with high aspirations to escape from failing local schools. This should not be good enough for a Labour Government.