Tories pledge 3% cuts to school budgets, proving they are terrible at managing money and terrible at managing education

[noblegiraffe]

The Institute for Fiscal Studies has examined the Tory pledge to put £4bn more funding into schools and found that this would result in a 3 per cent cut in real terms in per pupil spending for schools between 2017/18 and 2022/23.

inews.co.uk/essentials/news/education/tory-4bn-spending-pledge-will-mean-3-cut-school-budgets/

In other news, the Tories spent over half a million pounds training a grand total of 49 teachers in a program designed to get teachers to return to the classroom.

inews.co.uk/essentials/news/education/government-recruitment-scheme-hires-just-49-teachers/

Which reminds me of their Troops to Teachers scheme which cost millions and resulted in 28 qualified teachers.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-35595424

When will they realise that fancy schemes to try to attract teachers are doomed to failure when they are so hell-bent on ruining the job for the people who are actually doing it?

Then we have the millions spent on free schools, paying over the odds for land.

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/tories-accused-of-wasting-millions-on-free-schools-after-report-finds-costs-ten-times-over-estimate_uk_58ac7d8ae4b002e2bdc7928c

Millions wasted on UTCs which close soon after opening. Even Gove admits that this idea was a failure.

feweek.co.uk/2017/02/10/gove-admits-the-utcs-experiment-has-failed/

The same for Studio schools, 15 closed since opening.

feweek.co.uk/2017/03/02/fifteenth-studio-school-set-to-close-out-of-36-nationwide/

In the meantime while the Tories piss money away on failed projects, schools are suffering severe real terms budget cuts, teachers are leaving in droves and the education of children and young people is suffering due to rushed through and poorly thought-out curriculum and qualification changes, and not having qualified teachers to take them through it.

And the Tories are set for a landslide God knows what condition schools and education will be in by 2022 when they've managed to balls up everything so completely since 2010.

Oh bloody hell I've just seen this blog comparing the Tory education manifesto commitments for 2015, and for 2017.

They've dropped the pledge that no state school will be allowed to make a profit

Now why would they do that?

cogitateit.wordpress.com/2017/05/20/meet-the-new-boss/

Don't disagree with any of that just have a few comments. If school funding is so tight would it even be possible to make a profit from a school, if that is what you are implying.

Some of the schemes might have been less successful, but is that being weighed against the successful ones. ie you have to crack some eggs to make a pancake.

Right now (not the future) are more children being taught in good schools? (I hear that said a lot). Exam results are still going up (in England anyway). So something must be going right (I repeat not looking at the future).

Interested to know your opinion.

If school funding is so tight would it even be possible to make a profit from a school

It's impossible to run a school properly on the funds available. However, there are certainly academy chains out there who are paying their CEOs well over the odds while taking measures like only hiring NQTs and getting rid of them after a few years. Without a cap on CEO pay, and with the potential to turn a profit, we could see more of this.

I'm trying to think of successful schemes to get people into teaching. Teach First, perhaps, but that's a very expensive route, and it intends that its trainees leave teaching after a couple of years!

In terms of opening new schools, given the lack of funds we can't afford to experiment and have failure as an expectation. New studio schools and UTCs can't be justified. Letting random groups with no track record set up schools can't be justified (Tottenham Hotspurs!). And yet instead of allowing councils to open schools where needed, the government is scrabbling around for someone, anyone to open up new schools (private schools and universities will be penalised if they don't, in the new manifesto), in random buildings that look like they might do.

Exam results are still going up

Exam results are set based on KS2 results. As KS2 results increased under Labour, so would GCSE results increase correspondingly 5 years later under the Tories.

PISA results have remained static.

Well said OP - absolutely.

I'd like to also draw attention to the privatisation of the NHS that is already happening with 'Virgin Healthcare'.

This only came to my attention recently via Facebook - I thought it was a joke, but no, it's all together real.