Stories + Views
Listen to the teachers
Very interesting report in the TES this morning ( Friday 22nd April) indicating that fewer than 1 in 10 teachers think that Government school reforms will improve the education of the disadvantaged. The survey, commissioned by the Sutton Trust, canvassed the opinion of 2,199 teachers.
Gove has repeatedly claimed that his reforms will mean schools will become ‘engines of social mobility’ but two thirds of the teachers believe free schools will in fact lead to greater social segregation and 59% agree that already privileged pupils are the most likely to benefit from their schools being given academy status.
According to Sir Peter Lampl, chairman of the Sutton Trust, ’Teachers are not only knowledgeable about what is likely to work but they are also the key players in implementing Government reforms and the fact that less than 10 percent think they will improve outcomes for less privileged children is very serious.’
More than half the teachers asked thought that the pupil premium needed to increase significantly to have a real impact; only 27% thought that academy freedoms would improve pupil achievement.
So when will the government listen to those who know best, and will they do so before it is too late? Current government policy is shaping up to be a chaotic, fragmented disaster.
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Comments, replies and queries
Reply
Of course the government should listen to teachers but the DfE seems to hold the teaching profession in contempt. The Conservative Party education press office have adopted a snide and sniping attitude taken towards members of ASCL and now it befalls on Toby Young to put the boot into Mary Bousted and the ATL by saying the pretext for strike action over pensions is “flimsy” and that “she and her trade union have an obligation to abide by the decision of the British people and respect the will of its elected representatives. To call a strike this summer would not only be an unforgivable attack on our schoolchildren, it would be an affront to democracy.” However, the 26th March protest showed that the tide has turned and that the British public, unionised or not, have a great deal of sympathy for public sectors workers and see their union representatives voicing their own anxieties over cuts and job losses.
This inconvenient misrepresentation masks the fact that ATL do have concerns about the education of children, but as Mary Bousted explained in the Guardian, their “representations about synthetic phonics, the reform of the national curriculum and free schools have all yielded little or nothing in terms of policy change.” And Young also ignores the real flashpoint between the government and unions – when Lord Hill, the minister responsible for academies wrote to academies telling them to ignore the NASUWT’s request that academies would sign up an agreement that their teachers would continue to work under national pay and conditions. Furthermore, he hinted, ministers might even turn down schools for academy status if they declared themselves happy to stick with national pay agreements. NASUWT warned Hill that schools that failed to consult unions about academy plans faced possible legal action.
The government’s response has been intransigent. NASUWT met Gove last month to discuss the issue, but saw no signs of a concession. The relationship with the NUT has been “unproductive”. They have “significant differences with him on a number of issues, including academies and free schools, the English baccalaureate and the use of synthetic phonics” but these concerns fall on deaf ears.
So it’s not just about pensions and militancy. It’s because teachers know about and care about teaching. But teachers are only good for Gove when they agree with him.
He is abolishing the GTC, and has decided that the enforcing of the new teacher standards will be a toss up between Headteachers and himself. When he will find time, when he will already be sorting out the problems created by free schools now that he has also removed another obstacle to centralisation of power – the Schools Adjudicator?
As Chris Keates of NASUWT says “You can meet ministers, but the question is, are they listening? And if they aren’t listening, it means deep down they don’t really think we’ve got anything to contribute. That’s the only impression you can come away with”.
The elected represtentatives have no mandate for some of the policies they are pursuing. The Tories didn’t ( couldn’t) win the General Election, the Liberal Democrats manifesto included completely different policies on school structure and governance to those they are pursuing in government and the Coalition Agreement did not include many of the changes the government has since announced.
There was a cartoon in a paper* recently which showed a doctor talking to a patient. The doctor said the patient had Lansleyitis. The patient asked what was the nature of this condition. The doctor replied, “You’re hearing but you’re not listening.”
I think this condition much afflict many Ministers. In Mr Gove’s case it is, of course, Govitis.
*I think it was the Times, but I’m not sure. Perhaps someone will correct me if I’ve got it wrong.
There are a lot of “gestures” towards getting teachers involved with decisions, but things like “online” surveys are rarely useful and, I suspect, largely ignored. The fact is that this government has made up its mind before any consultation takes place.
Consultation becomes a sham when the public becomes overwhelmed. Take the Red Tape Challenge. The Government will publish a huge amount of legislation for consultation. The Government says it will act on the feedback. It then buries possible responders in an avalanche of Acts and Statutory Instruments. Even if responders manage to dig themselves out they are then faced with the problem of posting a comment. It must work for some people (there are comments on the site) but when I tried (3 times) I received an error message saying I was submitting comments too quickly and should slow down.
Alan B’Stard couldn’t have thought of a better wheeze. “Consultation – we’ll give them consultation! Just bury them in bumf.”
http://www.redtapechallenge.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/home/index/
Of course, I know perfectly well the government won’t listen, especially not to the teachers. But we should; it’s an important building block in developing opposition to what’s going on, as is Peter Lampl’s comment. I must admit I was quite surprised at the extent of their hostility to government reforms. Can’t see it ending well for the government if the people they put in charge of the changes don’t support them.
“Teachers heckle schools minister over pension proposals” at the ATL conference in yesterday’s Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/apr/21/nick-gibb-atl-conference-pensions-row , which also says that “Teachers are also fiercely opposed to the coalition’s education changes, with a survey underlining the challenge facing the government. The survey commissioned by the Sutton Trust found only 8% of teachers believe free schools will raise standards, while 69% believe the expansion of academies will lead to greater social segregation.”
It is teachers, opposition politicians and parents who need to group together, get organised and challenge the government over these unsustainable and divisive policies which will undermine the social fabric of this country for decades to come.
No – Gove hasn’t listened to teachers, so perhaps he ought not to be surprised at the level of scorn he and his serfs are now getting,
“The elected representatives have no mandate for some of the policies they are pursuing.”
To be fair, the same’s true of all governments in power: you can’t put the entire five year programme into your manifesto, because of events, dear boy, events. Labour stated that they wouldn’t introduce additional fees for university education, but went ahead and did just that, and two of the major debacles of their time in office — ID Cards and Connecting for Health — started without any manifesto commitment. Even had they been in a manifesto, it’s hard to claim a mandate: I campaigned passionately against ID cards, but I nonetheless voted Labour because on balance ID Cards were less important than the NHS and Education; I don’t think it’s reasonable to claim that Labour had a manifesto to implement ID Cards just because they won the 2005 election (in which they were in the manifesto).
The Tories have started doing stuff that they have no explicit mandate for faster than Labour did, but they’re hardly treading new ground. Ultimately, you elect politicians to make decisions, rather than the general election being a referendum on the detailed contents of the manifestos (how do I vote for “taxes sufficient to run an effective education and healthcare system, with deficit reduction important but to be taken slowly and carefully, but without ID Cards and Connecting for Health, please?”)
Labour won those elections (mostly with hefty majorities). The Tories didn’t win in 2010. They haven’t managed to win an election since 1992. They have no mandate.
“Teachers heckle schools minister over pension proposals”
If teachers make final salary pensions the primary subject of heckling and, indeed, strikes, public sympathy will last about five seconds. Step outside the public sector and find out about pension arrangements, and then ponder just how much support there will be for complaints about career average schemes from people with defined contribution schemes or no pension scheme at all. Making pension arrangements the focus of industrial action is a perfectly legitimate thing for a union to do; however, if the intent is to make a broad attack on government education policy, it’s a sure way to lose public support.
“The Tories didn’t win in 2010.”
They did. They got more seats than any other party and were able to form a coalition. Arguing the outcome of elections is the stuff of opposition; going out to win elections is the stuff of government.
Labour were unable to win the election, even though the Tories had a leader people didn’t trust and policies that people were not convinced by, because it lacked the political will and the resolve to dispose of a leader who was dragging them down. 1992 is an excellent example: the Tories won it because they had the steel to defenestrate a leader who was popular in the party but an electoral liability, while Labour lost 2010 because they defenestrated a leader who who was popular in the country but not in the party and replaced him with the opposite.
The Tories see loyalty to a leader as incidental to the interests of the larger party and (in their perception) the country; Labour saw loyalty to Brown as more important than either.
We have a Tory government because Labour deposed a three time general election winner who could communicate, replaced him with a man who has the electoral appeal of a car accident and when the evidence was clear that he would lose the election, did not have the character to do anything about it.
The Tories won. For bad, stupid reasons. But Labour would do better to look at why they ended up losing an election with a leader who made a decent party look bad against a salesman who made a bad party look decent, rather than (literally) arguing the toss. Until Labour face up to the disaster that was Gordon Brown, and understand why they could not produce one single alternative to him when it mattered, they will remain in futile opposition for a generation.
Tokyo says that there will be no sympathy for those campaigning for the present provision of public service pensions. He is correct. A wedge has been driven between public and private because:
1 Generous private pension schemes have been closed to save employers money. This is unfair to workers in the private sector who are now reliant on less generous schemes.
2 There is relentless publicity about “gold-plated” pension schemes in the public sector. This ignores the fact that public sector employes pay for their pensions. In some cases (ie the Teachers’ Pension Scheme), the scheme was set up in such a way that the Treasury takes all the teacher contributions at the time they are paid. In return for spending these contributions (instead of investing them) the government promises that the tax payer will pay teacher pensions in the future. It is not the fault of teachers that a past government decided to set up their pension scheme in this way. And if taxpayers think this is not an acceptable way to run a public sector pension scheme then they should watch out – this government is planning to do the same thing with the Royal Mail pension pot.
3 There has been little publicity about changes to the Teachers’ Pension Scheme made by the last government in 2007. This made teachers’ pensions affordable in the long term. I repeat: affordable in the long term. However, this government has decided to ignore this and cut teacher pensions provision not because they are not affordable in the long term (they are) but because they want to use pension reduction as a means of reducing the deficit. That is why teachers are angry – they have already accepted changes in their pension scheme to make it affordable, but the government has reneged on this agreement.
I would like all workers in the private and public sectors to campaign for decent pensions for all. However, it suits this government to pit private and public workers against each other – divided they fall.
The Tories were handed power via a fragile coalition with the LibDems. This is not the same as winning an election
“Generous private pension schemes have been closed to save employers money. This is unfair to workers in the private sector who are now reliant on less generous schemes.”
Sorry, this is tosh. I was an employee trustee of a now-closed employer scheme, and the employer moved heaven and earth to continue with the scheme until the point that the deficit threatened to bankrupt the company (indeed, it was insolvent on all but the most charitable assumptions). Even now, the company is paying most of its profits into the closed scheme’s deficit, and will be doing so for the next decade.
Why? Well, for one thing, accounting rules were changed so that the scheme deficit is a direct liability of the company, shown in its balance sheet. Large deficit means that, no matter how secure the company’s trading position, it’s flirting with insolvency. And, of course, a Labour chancellor decided that pension schemes were all so well funded that he would remove the tax exemption on income within the scheme, meaning that all year-on-year investment gain (the very heart of the funding assumptions) was now taxed.
There are other factors. Post-Maxwell, no-one is willing to rely on companies being around in fifty years to pay pensions, so schemes have to be at least vaguely funded. Men, in particular, are living a lot longer.
But the basic viability of the schemes, however, was always suspect: if you work for 40 years, and expect to receive a 50% final salary pension (and many schemes purported to offer 66%) for the twenty five years you will on average live, with index-linked annuity rates at around 3% you need seventeen years’ salary at the point you retire. You have forty years to accumulate that sum. Discuss. Otherwise, you are reliant on your employer still being around to pay your pension seventy years after you started work.
Superannuation rates of 6% arose when a man who collected his pension for five years was doing well: work for 40 years paying in at 6%, ie 2.4 years’ salary, and collect 50% salary for five years. That works out, provided your real salary remains constant over the 40 years, or that investment gain matches increments and so on. Now, plug in twenty five years instead of five years and work out the same numbers.
We’re in danger of getting away from the central point of this thread; the teachers in our classrooms simply don’t trust what the government is doing to the education – and futures – of our children.
What is happening to their own pension schemes is a separate point although unlikely to improve their morale.
To connect up, for a minute, to another thread on this site, re Andy Burnham’s speech yesterday, I thought it significant that he said teachers should be on a par with doctors and lawyers. I think this is much more important than having ex soldiers or celebrities in to classrooms; we need to consolidate the experience and professionalism of teachers, and trust their judgement of our children. We more we take away from them, as professionals, the more they risk being controlled by politicians with passing whims.
That is why I have a lingering questions about Teach First. I like the idea of making teaching an attractive profession to our ‘ best’ graduates, but feel these graduates need to become subject specialists and have more training/experience before they are are let loose onto classrooms. Just because you went to a Russell Group university doesn’t mean you are going to be able to deal with a group of children.
“the teachers in our classrooms simply don’t trust what the government is doing to the education – and futures – of our children.”
They were hardly keen on the policies of the last government either. “In 1995 David Blunkett was chased, heckled and forced to take refuge in a side office…In 2000 delegates staged a walkout during a speech by Estelle Morris.” (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/2775765.stm). “Ruth Kelly is the worst education secretary Labour has had, a teachers’ leader has said.” (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/4383373.stm)
Could someone point out what the NUT and the NASUWT want, as opposed to what they don’t want?
I think you’re right Melissa. Unfortunately the present government appear not to be taking teachers’ concerns at all seriously. All the unions have complained that the topics they have raised from academies, to the curriculum to synthetic phonics fall on deaf ears so they do not feel that they government are taking any interest in what they have to offer.
I would be not surprised if teachers felt that they are not just being sidelined, but actually demonised, certainly by those who support government education policy, who are quick to lay the blame on all the education woes of this country at the feet of teachers, with not a thought as to how demographics, family life, language, segregation will have a massive impact on the raw data of the league tables of a school.
The teaching profession is a valuable part of our society and should be treated with much more respect. The pension issue is a separate point and should not be used to divert attention away from teachers’ concerns about how the government is jeopardising the teaching of our children and young adults.
Sorry Melissa, you’re right about going off-thread. And you’re right that teaching must be attractive to graduates. The recent OECD Economic Survey UK said that “recruiting the maintaining the most efficient teachers should therefore be prioritisied”. Recommended measures included improving remuneration, work conditions and providing continuing professional development. Top performing OECD countries tended to offer wages which were comparable to other academic professions. In England, however, despite starting salaries being high, the gap between teachers’ salaries and those of other academic professions widens over time discouraging more experienced teachers from remaining in teaching. The OECD also noted that “working hours in teaching are also fairly long compared to many other OECD countries.” (page 102). This situation is likely to worsen as many academies boast about the increased length of their working day and do not have to abide by teachers’ conditions of service. Deteriorating teachers’ conditions of service and remuneration, therefore, is unlikely to encourage teacher recruitment.
Which brings us back to pensions, which are part of Teachers’ Conditions of Service. Readers uninterested in the pension argument can stop here. Tokyo – you have actually agreed with my statement that private pension schemes were closed to save money. You have given the reasons why – changes in accounting and Gordon Brown’s taxation rules, both of which were reprehensible moves. However, you must also remember the massive pension “holidays” taken by pension fund holders which were allowed by Thatcher, Major and Blair – a dangerously short-sighted policy.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/1576543/Taxpayer-money-funding-MP-pension-pot.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/1576543/Taxpayer-money-funding-MP-pension-pot.html
Tokyo – for information on what the teacher unions are campaigning about see:
http://www.nasuwt.org.uk/index.htm
http://www.teachers.org.uk/
http://www.atl.org.uk/
“despite starting salaries being high, the gap between teachers’ salaries and those of other academic professions widens over time discouraging more experienced teachers from remaining in teaching.”
Teachers in schools typically have a first degree and a PGCE or a first degree in education. Teachers in FE may or may not have a PGCE, but will mostly have a first degree. It’s for practical purposes impossible to get a job in a university without a PhD, and the number of teachers in schools with PhDs is small (they exist, mostly in science, and what that tells you about scientific research investment in the UK isn’t pretty). The pay in universities at the professorial levels is roughly comparable to that of school headmasters, but if anyone has cases of people getting a PhD, going into school teaching, and then returning to academia to go on to get a professorship, or conversely getting a PGCE, teaching in schools, then getting a PhD and becoming a prof, wheel them out, because that’s going to be an incredibly rare event.
“However, you must also remember the massive pension “holidays” taken by pension fund holders which were allowed by Thatcher, Major and Blair – a dangerously short-sighted policy.”
Pension funds weren’t “allowed” to take holidays, they were forced to by the Inland Revenue. Based on what have proven to be ludicrously “optimistic” (if you can call assumptions about people dying young optimistic) assumptions, pension funds of the 1970s and 1980s were deemed to be over-funded. Because pre-Maxwell companies were able to borrow money from their pension funds, it had become standard practice to make large contributions in times of plenty, knowing that would balance out times of famine, and that in extremis the money could be borrowed back (for honest companies, this was not a bad strategy, as the long-term health of the employer is in everyone’s interests).
As can be seen from the runaway success of endowments taken out in the sixties (which coloured people’s judgement and led to problems in the 1990s), real investment returns in the 1970s were pretty good, so funds were indeed well funded, and therefore a lot of corporations had massive surpluses in their pension funds against the funding assumptions of the day, and would have been pretty healthy by today’s standards as well.
The Inland Revenue didn’t like the loss of corporation tax on contributions, so set maximum funding levels on pension schemes before they would be punitively taxed: the scheme value was set against an assessment of future liability, and “surpluses” were declared. Employers who had regarded pensions as a good way to retain staff while still having some access to the money (I repeat: honest employers, not Maxwell) were suddenly forced to account for their scheme surplus and reduce it to a mandated level, on pain of the scheme’s tax status being rescinded.
Thus contribution holidays. Rather than continue to pay and be charged corporation tax on the money, they instead invested in fixed assets, distributed dividends to shareholders and otherwise used the money for other things, until the “surplus” was reduced by the reduced contributions. Lo and behold, come the next slump and revised funding assumptions as lifespans rose (which they had been doing all along, it had just been ignored) and the pensions were in savage deficit. And just as they were recovering in the late 1990s boom, along came Brown to tax them into the ground.
Tokyo – sorry, I would have spared you a long response if I’d made it clear that the OECD was referring to jobs available to professionals with the same level of academic qualifications, not just jobs in academic circles.
Also sorry if you felt the need to supply us with a history of pension contribution holidays: allowed, required, whatever. Still ruinously short-sighted as I’d made clear.