Why did I have to be so Frank?

June 30, 2009 by matthewtaylor
Filed under: Politics, Public policy, The RSA 

I need a holiday. I keep making mistakes. I did it again today.

Michael Gove spoke here this morning. In a typically robust and engaging performance he repeated his scepticism about competence based curricula like our own Opening Minds. Gove is highly rated by just about everyone and is very likely to be running our schools this time next year. I need to keep on the right side of him to try to persuade him and his team to be a bit more open minded about Opening Minds. So, this morning I politely asked Michael if he would have an on-line debate with me so we could go into the issues in more depth than was possible in a ten minute Q and A session. He kindly agreed.

So far so good. But then this afternoon I was at a Conservative Home conference organised to brief various public affairs types on the Tory Party as it prepares for power. 

In response to a question about whether the Conservatives could have a positive message for the next election I contrasted Conservative health spokesman Andrew Lansley (who was here last night) with Michael Gove.

I recalled the difference between Labour’s education strategy pre-1997 and their health strategy. In the former case, David Blunkett battled with his own Party to make clear he would keep most of the framework created by Kenneth Baker in the 1988 Education Reform Bill but with some changes at the margins, acceleration of elements like the literacy strategy and also using money from abolishing assisted places to reduce primary class sizes. In health, by contrast, Labour said the Tories were totally wrong and pledged to dismantle the Conservative internal market, which they subsequently did, only to later rebuild it under Alan Milburn at huge cost.

Approaching the next election Lansley is in the Blunkett position, broadly endorsing Labour’s approach but emphasising areas he would change, things he would stop and new offers he would make. But Gove sounds more like Labour on health in 1997 suggesting that the whole school system is in a mess and that only the practice he likes from the very best schools is worth emulating. Gove is also arguing for some profound changes in funding and structure. Indeed his agenda was described by Tim Montgomerie of Conservative Home as ‘a school revolution’.

The contrast was underlined in the audience reaction to the speeches. Both got warm applause, with many people clearly agreeing. But while no one seemed to want to disagree loudly with Lansley, with Michael Gove I have never known an event where so many people came up to me at the end to express concern about what they had heard, including two head teachers. (Not that this will worry Michael too much as cocking a snook at the educational establishment is, I suspect, part of his strategy)

Not everyone will agree with me so far, but it’s not that which is the problem. You see, the minister in charge of health policy for Labour in 1997 was Frank Dobson and so, in front of lots and lots of Conservatives, I said ‘in his tendency to condemn the schools system wholesale Michael Gove reminds me a bit of Frank Dobson’.

It is a toss up which of these two eminent politicians of different generations would be most appalled by my comparison. But when Michael is told – which he most certainly will be – that could be our bridges burnt.

I suppose it’s too late to say sorry?

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Comments

11 Comments on Why did I have to be so Frank?

  1. Joe Nutt on Tue, 30th Jun 2009 9:10 pm

    2. Matthew,
    I was also in the audience this morning and whatever the heads had to say to you after the event, my 20 years teaching in both the “challenging” state sector, and the elite independent sector, and a decade subsequently in the education business (at the heart of BSF for example) meant I recognised Michael Gove’s description of the current educational landscape as not just wholly accurate, but genuinely perceptive.

    The question I would ask yourself about the heads who expressed concern is, “Where they genuine educators, or misplaced politicians,” because one of the things Michael Gove has spotted, is that the UK educational landscape is overwhelmed with the latter. Hence the politicised, utilitarian curriculum he was so keen to condemn as failing to educate.

  2. Brian Hughes on Wed, 1st Jul 2009 10:44 am

    3. I’m mildly amused by the current Tory line about freeing up teachers to teach because thirty years ago similar Tories were busy harrumphing about how teachers were a bunch of lefties filling our unfortunate children’s heads with all sorts of loony notions.

    It’s always good to remind them that it was a Conservative education minister who set us on the road to centralisation, targets and OFSTED.

    As so often, a dogma-lite Third Way is what’s really needed…

    PS Today’s comforting cliché – only he who does nothing makes no mistakes.

  3. Jenny on Wed, 1st Jul 2009 2:27 pm

    4. Oh, don’t worry about, it was funny (and a good point, well made)

    Or am I underestimating politician’s egos…

  4. Martin Robinson on Tue, 7th Jul 2009 9:23 pm

    5. Matthew,

    I was hoping that the suggested online debate was going to take place. I take it that the opportunity has gone. That’s a shame. I wanted to make a contribution, however I have done so in blog form. My first ever blog! In it I talk about the debate between the two of you and how CLR James might offer an answer! If anyone is interested in what I have to say, go to http://blog.yesassess.co.uk/

  5. Martin Robinson on Wed, 8th Jul 2009 8:09 am

    6. Matthew,

    I was wondering whether the suggested online debate was going to happen? I’ve made a comment about this on my blog: http://blog.yesassess.co.uk/2009_07_01_archive.html
    The Conservative education policy seems to be going in two directions at the same time… What constraints will there be on the ‘autonomous networks’ in relation to the National Curriculum, or will they be free to follow their own curriculum?

  6. matthewtaylor on Thu, 9th Jul 2009 8:59 am

    7. Thanks Martin. I really liked your blog and you, are of course right that this area is full of false dichotomies. Opening Minds does question the value of traditional subject specialisms, especially in key stage three, but it isn’t anti-knowledge. Indeed it is in part about helping young people see the underlying concept attached to a piece of knowledge. Take learning how to put numeric information into a visual form, for example a table of graph. In a traditional KS3 curriculum you might learn this in different ways in geography, science, mathematics and maybe even other subjects. In OM the idea is that you get the concept of showing information visually so that you can then apply that concept in the different subject settings.

  7. Martin Robinson on Thu, 9th Jul 2009 6:50 pm

    8. Matthew,

    Thank you for your very kind comment about my blog.
    I am glad that Opening Minds questions traditional subject specialisms, and I know that OM is not anti-knowledge; I’m convinced that transferability of skills and the ability to connect and make links between and through disciplines is an essential part of schooling. I am worried that the Conservative Education Policy won’t see things that way. I am also worried that under a Michael Gove education department a split between ‘traditional academic subject teaching and a more experiential/vocational learning might occur, not within schools but between schools. In other words, a return to Grammar Schools and Secondary Moderns through the back door.
    The work I have done with YesAssess is about using assessment of Soft Skills in any type of curriculum as a way to encourage progression and to enable students, their parents, their teachers and schools to see how, what and where said skills should be developed. I have worked on these YesAssessments for traditional schools and also for schools who have a more creative approach to the curriculum. I believe assessment is the last piece in the jigsaw of the ‘competencies’ approach to education. In fact skills assessment makes what can sometimes seem complicated or threatening, especially for some teachers, much simpler for all, without undermining the subtlety and importance of the skills being developed.
    I have started working on a YesAssessment model for the Opening Minds curriculum and would love the opportunity to trial it in one of your schools so that we can properly establish how it works through an OM approach to learning.

  8. Steven - Electronic Cigarettes on Mon, 16th Nov 2009 7:57 pm

    9. Interesting points here Is your blog just you writing? Nicely done, Steven.

  9. matthewtaylor on Tue, 17th Nov 2009 12:01 pm

    10. Hi Steven. Yes it’s all my own work. Although I am finding it harder to think of subjects since the Charity Commissioners stopped me writing about politics.

  10. Bonlounda on Mon, 23rd Nov 2009 9:16 pm

    11. Amazing Article , I thought it was wonderful

    I look forward to more great postings like this one. Does This Blog have a RSS I can subscribe to for fresh posts?

  11. matthewtaylor on Wed, 25th Nov 2009 10:06 am

    12. Hi

    Thanks very much for such a nice comment.

    There are a couple of ways you can do this:

    1) Subscribe to the feed by going to http://www.matthewtaylorsblog.com/feed/rss/

    2) Subscribe to the blog via email so they get it in their inbox, by entering their email address in the box on the right of the blog.

    Thanks for reading!

    Matthew

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