Michael Gove is comprehensively destroying the teaching unions

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Just look at the wailing and gnashing of teeth over at the Guardian!
www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/may/23/gove-struggling-schools-education-policy

Crap schools should buck up or close. Good ones should expand. Headteachers should sack crap teachers, and give raises/bonuses/promotions to good ones, irrespective of seniority. It's that simple.

I wonder how many Guardian writers send their children to bog-standard comprehensives? They regularly censor any comment which lists the former schools of their most prominent commentators, which show how pretty much all of them have been privately educated themselves.

Anyway, the effective loss of of national bargaining for the teaching unions is a tremendous achievement. Congratulations, Mr Gove!

I wonder if LFN has ever been on a bus.

When Thatcher deregulated the buses what happened? New outfits started running services on the most profitable routes, so the original local bus company would throw extra buses on those routes too, and the drivers would race each other to the next stop regardless of how many passengers they threw to the fall in the process. They would even leave passengers standing at a bus stop if there were only a couple there to make sure they got to the next, bigger, stop without being overtaken.

On the whole the small operators got squeezed out by the big ones, which then started taking each over for economies of scale.

And in the meantime - bus fares have increased way beyond inflation; way beyond fuel costs etc.

Councils still have to subsidise non profit making routes if they don't want whole chunks of their areas to not have a service.

Trains -> Potters Bar

Domestic Gas and Electricity -> vast price increases even though wholesale prices are falling; short termism where gas power stations were built to generate cheap electricity (and help kill off the mining industry) and oh dear now we've run out of gas. And do we get a better service? No we get door to door salesmen ripping us off.

And this is not even real competition because even the tories realise regulation is needed.

Are we really going to let these selfish rich b&%%^ds f* up our schools and hospitals?

Paul88 - So the clapham junction disaster, and all other ones between 1948 and 2000 weren't the result of nationalization, but phorters bar was the result of privatisation? It's not enough to show that bad things happen in privatised industries - you need to show that nationalised industries would have been better overall.

I think it's important to understand why a school fails. If it's a case of poor management then certainly without a doubt the management team should be replaced.

But like I said earlier, often the problems are more deep rooted. I bet if you look at the schools in special measures, all of them will be in poor areas where students have low aspirations and parents don't support teachers.

I bet though if you dropped the same teaching staff and management team into a middle class school where parents are more likely to support teachers and students are pushed to achieve then they'd perform much better.

Throwing good money after bad isn't the answer. I think its time to accept that the fact is that a school in a poor area simply will get worse results than one in an affluent area. Resources should be directed at sorting the families out, not at more books, computers etc.

and perhaps at not creating ghettos
I agree that parents are of fundamental importance
but if there are school where the majority of parents are interested the minority whose parents don't/can't can be more effectively helped, and their aspirations can be raised if they don't feel excluded

social problems disguised as school problems perhaps allow for easier answers but not very realistic ones

You people who believe in the power of the market and competition to sort out education make me so angry. Our children are not widgets in a factory! Your blithe assertion that failing schools can go to the wall is simply evil - what about the children in those schools? A school does not fail overnight - it takes months/years. So, during all of that time, you are happy for children to suffer as teachers leave the sinking ship?

Oh, of course it doesn't matter because the children concerned aren't yours are they?

Struggling schools are usually in this situation because they have the most difficult intake. They should be supported and helped to improve, not left to the whims of the market.

Gove's latest trick: let academies and free schools raise extra cash by taking on pupils from poor backgrounds and so get the pupil premium from those children.

Never mind that these will be the pupils from poor backgrounds whose parents care enough to get them into a school other than the default local one, and never mind that these academies/ free schools will be able to ensure that they don't take too many disadvantaged children as that would make it harder to teach - just make sure the money goes on his pet projects instead of where it is needed.

I don't see the problem with introducing private involvement into state education as Private Schools are vastly superior to State Schools and so if some expertise can be transferred then that will be a positive.

are they 'superior' and in what way?

are the teachers better?

or is it a case of tiny classes and money talking?

there is a huge difference between teaching a class of 12 and a class of 33+ pupils. I wonder which teacher would require the most skill?

They are superior in the way that the children who go to them tend to have a far higher educational attainment than state school pupils. From what I've seen of private schools there doesn't seem to be a massive difference in class size and a lot of them don't seem to bother with TAs.

leares That's because most private schools don't accept SN kids like mine and also have entrance exams! You are not comparing like with like. The teachers are not more skilled than those in state schools - far from it. From my experience of working in a huge range of schools, many teachers working in private schools would fail dismally working in an inner city comprehensive. And class sizes are smaller in private schools!

I've long thought that some of the teaching unions do not display their members in a flattering light.

I don't care whether the teachers at DS's private school are better than the teachers at state schools tbh. I don't suppose they actually are and have no interest in how well they would cope with an inner city comp. The tiny class sizes are precisely the reason why I send DS there.

I don't think its all down to the teachers. Its about the culture of the school, the school my brother goes to doesn't tolerate bad behaviour and if they do misbehave then they come down on them like a ton of bricks. I think if these attitudes were imported into state schools then they would be a great deal better than they are.

Which is a clearsighted way of looking at it Georgimama - you are simply buying more teacher-time per kid. Not to mention a class of peers whose parents have demonstrated their commitment to their kids' education in the most obvious way available.

Fair enough!

& that, leares, is why private schools often (although definitely not always) have higher exam results.

Meanwhile, I'm not sure whether LFN or Gove know less about education. Tbh, I'm beginning to wonder if LFN is Mrs Gove.

I agree with ravenAK and TUD.

I teach in a school in special measures. Today I had a conversation with the Head of Yr 11. We talked about 2 things...

1. A parent who had phoned to complain about the way a teacher had spoken to her son. I had dealt with the fallout from this particular incident. The teacher had asked the boy in question to put his drink away during his GCSE Revision session (English teacher) the boy had refused. The teacher had re-asserted the point, referring to school rules and pointing out that the child in question had just had break time so didn't need to be drinking at that point. The boy had argued. The teacher told him that he was behaving like a baby. The boy responded that the teacher was a fucking idiot. I was on callout duty and it took me and two assistant headteachers to get him to agree to follow due process and go to the isolation room. He insisted he had done nothing wrong, as he "always told the truth" and the teacher "IS a fucking idiot". And today, the parent of the boy phoned to lodge a complaint against the teacher because he told her son to stop acting like a baby.
2. A mother called to complain that we are not giving Year 11 students study leave in the same way that other schools are. Her son should have been in school for a maths revision session. He wasn't. The Head of Year explained that we are trying to give students the best chance of achieving their target grades, and so are running compulsory revision sessions for remaining exams. The mother complained that her son should be able to revise at home. The Head of Year asked if he could speak to the boy - he should have been in school. The mother said no, he wasn't in - he was out with his friends.

We are a failing school. But it's not the fault of the teachers. How are we supposed to deal with children whose parents place so small a value on education that they are happy for their Yr 11 children to swear at teachers and go out with their friends when they should be in school, and then call to complain that we're not doing the right thing by them?

The problem is that most of the kids who go to the poor schools couldn't care less about education and if they're not interested then its hopeless. You can't polish a turd.

This is an interesting article on Finnish education: 'The best in the world'?
www.independent.co.uk/news/education/schools/are-finnish-schools-the-best-in-the-world-2289083.html

The key point, imo, right at the end, is numbers ...

Only 18 UK teachers have been struck off for incompetence in the past 40 years, the BBC's Panorama has learned.

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Bristol University's Simon Burgess
This is despite estimates that up to 17,000 teachers are not up to the job.

Some bad teachers are moved between schools, rather than having their competency challenged, it has emerged.

Teaching unions dispute the claims. The General Teaching Council for England, which investigates complaints, says the number of poor teachers is "not clear".

However, the GTC admits the suggestion that the 18 struck off represented the total number of incompetent teachers in the system is not credible.

Two years ago, its chief executive Keith Bartley said there could be as many as 17,000 "substandard" teachers among the 500,000 registered teachers in the UK.

And former chief inspector of schools in England, Chris Woodhead, sparked anger in the teaching profession with his estimate of 15,000 incompetent teachers.

This is the real issue bad teachers simply get to stay or get shuffled between schools.

Incompetent nurses get sacked every day and I can tell you the number is a damed sight more than is in the whole of the uk

And the fact that people are trying to say oh well they might do better in another school is complete shit

If your not good with kids or don't have a good grounding in your subject then moving to another school won't help you should be out on your ear

I don't won't bad teachers in schools maybe the ones who can be saved should be demoted to teaching asstants and made to retrain

Good on gov

My other issue the quality of the degrees some of these teachers hAve just scraping by and I would also like a teacher who has a relevant degree to what their actually teaching I am not sure about being able to get on the pgce course with some random degree it should be in child care or a relevant subject like English can you imagine someone being able to beam a barrister with some random degree then doing a one year law degree I wondnt want that barrister thanks

"maybe the ones who can be saved should be demoted to teaching asstants"

Why demote them? Just sack them.

The teaching unions will not be able to defend the indefensible in the academy/free school world, without their national blackmail tactics.

Lazy and incompetent teachers should not be mollycoddled, left to destroy the life chances of yet more children. Thankfully, now that the teaching unions are being destroyed, it will become far more common to get rid of bad teachers.

"Thankfully, now that the teaching unions are being destroyed" - think you're running away with it a bit now, love.

Evil twin why is that so shocking that someone who is bad at their job should be demoted or even sacked it happens all the time

In other walks of life or perhaps you would like these teachers in your Childs school.

I don't think unions should be destroyed but should have much less power.

Makes me sick to know their are bad teachers out their and all the heads can do is move then on t another school or make them teach in the lower years so as not to do too much damage awful just awful

Nurses and doctors have faced up to he fact that their are bad apples amoungst them and its more than 15 so why can't teachers

All nurses and doctors who are currently undergoing displine action are published on line for the viewing public and nurses are encouraged to out bad nurses as it puts their job at risk and also makes more work for them

So when will teachers and the unions wake up

Their are bad heads, poverty and difficult but their are also bad teachers and not just 15

'I am not sure about being able to get on the pgce course with some random degree it should be in child care or a relevant subject like English'

A childcare degree, now. That'd be a right lot of use for teaching Physics A-Level, wouldn't it?

Actually, secondary teachers do have to have a subject specific degree. I'm not sure if it's ever been the case that they didn't; my degree's in Classics (Latin & Greek & so forth) & I had to do some fast talking 12 years ago to get on to an English PGCE. I think they've become less flexible since then...

As far as 'bad teachers' are concerned, I've worked with lots - generally briefly. Being a shit teacher is soul destroying; mostly people who are rubbish at it realise their mistake quite quickly & go off to do something easier for more money.

I know this is very MN, but it's pissing me off - Maypole - if you're going to come on here with your ridiculous, short-sighted and frankly ignorant opinions, then for fuck's sake, learn to spell. It's making me have even less respect for your ill-thought through arguments.