Why are people so upset with Mr Gove?

[nlondondad]

An invitation to people to give an explanation as we can take it as given that people ARE upset.

Note: Two kinds of possible answers to this question.

1. Why you think other people are upset
   

1. Why you are upset...
   

Answers which do not give reasons, will be marked down.

Now to go away for a bit, I wonder what will happen while I am gone?

[noblegiraffe]

This thread is about Gove, and why people are upset with him. Why are you looking for comments not related to the OP?

[HabbaDabba]

RE Gove's proposals for History, according to the BBC website 15 notable historians including Professor David Starkey and Niall Ferguson signed a letter to the Times supporting Gove's proposals.

I have absolutely no idea who these people are but if the BBC consider them to be 'notable' then that is good enough for me :)

So when posters go on about how all historians think Gove's plans are ill thought out you were stretching the truth a bit. So what else are you stretching?

[HariboAndWine]

Teachers and schools are not perfect and nobody on this thread has claimed they are. Unfortunately, children and families are in increasing crisis in many areas and in my experience, schools are expected to ensure all children experience the same success without being given the resources needed to provide for those who are disadvantaged. This is not a gove thing or even a conservative thing. It is a failing of consecutive governments

[BoneyBackJefferson]

HabbaDabba

Would those history propsals be the ones where his facts where incorrect and had to be re-written?

[Feenie]

Typical attitude these days - to pay more credence to celebrity historians than The Historical Association, who might actually know something about teaching aswell as history.

[exoticfruits]

He won't listen to teachers. Last week a primary head explained that one of his pupils missed the SATs and instead of being worried about one of his vulnerable pupils his first thought was that his results would be 2% down, Gove said that this wouldn't happen and had to have his own rules pointed out to him.

[noblegiraffe]

I can't see anywhere on this thread where posters claim all historians are against the curriculum proposals

[TheOriginalSteamingNit]

His 'Mr Man' speech sums it up for me: it was a piece of complete bullshit, based on spurious anecdotes, designed to undermine and to show off at the same time, and the source from which he got it completely undermines everything he was trying to say.

[Feenie]

I can't see anywhere on this thread where posters claim all historians are against the curriculum proposals

More selective reading!

Short on actual evidence - much like Mr Gove himself.

[ipadquietly]

On to pay...

From next year, individual schools are setting their own pay differentials based on performance management. The positive thing about this is that the efforts of some hard-working teachers can be recognised by senior management, without having to rely on annual, national increments.

The negatives (I'm sure there are more!):

1. In September, every school will have to have its own criteria for pay progression. This means that the 'school down the road' may be paying less for the same job. I believe this will lead to stagnation.
   
2. Maintained schools' budgets are suffering, and these schools will not be able to match salaries paid by an academy. (This has already been reported to be happening by the media.)
   
3. The system is open to abuse by HTs, governors and senior managers.
   
4. There is little accountability regarding performance management targets, and these may very significantly between schools.

[deadsimple]

I'm upset that Gove is taking so long to sort out under performing schools and poorly performing teachers.

[BoneyBackJefferson]

deadsimple

So you approve of turning underp[erforming schools into selective academies?

[LynetteScavo]

Last week a primary head explained that one of his pupils missed the SATs and instead of being worried about one of his vulnerable pupils his first thought was that his results would be 2% down

How sad is that?

[Copthallresident]

Habba I actually said 4% of Historical Association members, thought the changes were positive and linked to the HA's analysis of the results of their consultation. Then gave my views. Seems like a reasonable presentation of the evidence. Not sure even Niall would have been in the 4% though.

He is a respected right wing historian who does actually engage in the debate we should be having about how we develop and improve the History Curriculum and move forward, obviously there are different views and different perspectives and one would hope that the final product would take those into account. He would be the first to accept his is just one perspective on History and the key thing is to enable our children to reach their own conclusions. The problem is that Gove parted company even from the Historians that supported him. Quote from Niall "The new national curriculum is not flawless, to be sure. It runs counter to the advice I gave Gove by being much too prescriptive. The 34 topics to be covered by pupils between the ages of seven and 14 already read a bit like chapter titles and, if there is one thing I hope we avoid, it is an official history textbook (even if it's written by Simon Schama)". www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/feb/15/history-teaching-curriculum-gove-right Others have also come out to criticise "Steven Mastin, head of history at a Cambridge school, who worked alongside historian Simon Schama as an adviser to Gove on the curriculum, said the end product bore "no resemblance" to drafts he worked on as late as last month. Mastin, a fan of Gove's aim for greater rigour, said the proposed version that emerged from the education department tragically failed to offer children the broad and balanced education the education secretary had promised. Something had gone terribly wrong. "Between January and the publication of this document ? which no one involved in the consultation had seen ? someone has typed it up and I have no idea who that is," said Mastin, who stood for the Tories at the last general election. "As far as I am aware, we will be the only jurisdiction in the western world that won't teach world history." www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/feb/16/historians-gove-curriculum



Andrew Starkey is a right wing historian who is reasonably sound on the facts of the Tudors, beyond that ...............

Both Starkey and Ferguson do lots of popular History programmes on the BBC.

[noblegiraffe]

Wasn't David Starkey awful on Jamie's Dream School?

[Feenie]

Yes - told a pupil he was 'fat', as I remember....

[deadsimple]

No Boney under performing schools appear to remain under performing academies, particularly once they have been taken over by chain groups. Those that flourish tend to do so under their own steam without the support of the chain group.

[Talkinpeace]

Why am I upset with Mr Gove?
Because he does not make use of evidence based decision making

There is no evidence that the changes he has underway will "improve" education.
There is no evidence that the UKs education system needed root and branch review.
There IS evidence that constantly changing targets lead to falls in performance.
There IS evidence that retrospective changes are never successful.

[pointythings]

There is no evidence that the UKs education system needed root and branch review.

This.

I have two DDs in the school system in the UK. I grew up in the Netherlands in the 70s and 80s and I was considered very able. My DDs are learning things I was not even touching on at their age - algebra, geometry and statistics from Yr5 in maths, genre writing/non fiction writing/letter writing at the same age, photosynthesis and electrical circuits in science also from yr5. They are far more advanced than I was at that age. They can spell too.

[ipadquietly]

He is about to introduce a 'national' curriculum to raise standards of education in this country, so England is top of the global league tables blah blah blah.

Except the academies and free schools (the flagship Govian schools; the schools he is citing to be the visions of achievement) don't have to follow this 'national' curriculum.

Perhaps he made a little slip-up, and typed an 'a' instead of an 'o' when he was scribbling that idea on the back of his fag packet?

[Copthallresident]

David Starkey, not Andrew! On TV now talking about something he does know something about.....

[creamteas]

Oh and not only am I angry about the destruction of our education system, I am also angry at the way he is destroying areas of child protection (sorry for the non-education topic- but it is part of my anger).

Gove wants to introduce 'fostering to adoption' . This means that any child that goes into care could be adopted. So for example, if the well-cared-for child of a single-mother needs foster-care whilst she is in hospital, in theory the child might never come home.

He also want to speed-up adoption and introduce a statutory length of time to process adoptions. This is likely to fundamentally contravene the principles of the Children's Act which says the child's welfare is paramount. There will be no time to either work with birth families properly or ensure the potential adoptive parents are a good match.

Adoption breakdown is a major issue and rushing adoptions will make this worse. Can you imagine what it is like for a child to be taken away from your birth parents, rushed through foster care to a new 'forever' family who the reject you?

On adoption, just like education, he refuses to engage with either the evidence or professionals.

Between this and education, he is threatening the future of a whole generation.

[BoneyBackJefferson]

deadsimple

Do you have any support to support that?

[Talkinpeace]

My impresseion is that deadsimple should have written "despite" rather than particularly.
There are schools whose systemic problems run so deep that nothing will improve them without masses of intervention in the families in their catchments.
It is facile to expect otherwise of head teachers.
Especially now that mass exclusions have been stopped.

Gove does not recognise this because like all of our current political "class" they have never worked in the real world or interacted with people from normal state schools.

[LadyLech]

Surely his failed exam reforms are all we need to know he's a pile of crock.

He wanted to ditch GCSEs for his bacc programme. Except, the teachers, the head teachers and the association of businesses in GB opposed it. He dismissed this as a bunch of whiners. 21 university lecturers and specialists in education wrote an open letter explaining why his plans were wrong. He dismissed them out of hand. Didn't he also refuse to admit that the head of OFQUAL opposed his changes at a select committee, if I recall correctly. Then the head of OFQUAL published the lettter, highlighting very grave concerns about his plans, and so finally once he was faced with the fact that teacher, schools, businesses, professors in education and the examination authorities all said publicly and repeatedly he was wrong did he finally back down.

Now he is wanting to ditch the AS level, despite the universities and the teachers saying no, that they work. Oxford and Cambridge have both publicly condemned his reforms (that he claims will improve education) as detrimental and a backwards step.

Why do I hate Gove? Because he comes up with ill thought through ideas and refuses to listen to those who do actually know what they're talking about!