Posts Tagged voucher system

The Conservatives have barely stuck their head above the parapet with their new education green paper but the backlash from the self-appointed champions of the disadvantaged has already begun. Fiona Millar attacks their policies as re-heated Thatcherism.
Admittedly, the Tories have left themselves open to this sort of criticism. Their policies are a bit of mishmash that combine suggestions for greater parent choice and hesitant supply-side reforms with centrally driven directives that threaten teacher autonomy every bit as much as the New Labour regime. These policies include targets to get every child reading by the age of 6 using synthetic phonics and more streaming by ability within schools. The problem, as we have commented before, is that no matter how well designed these ideas are, imposing them centrally often produces perverse consequences. The, originally Conservative implemented, National Curriculum is a case in point: centralisation leads to politicisation and the easy corruption of teaching by whatever ideologies are nested within Whitehall.

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