Education has not improved
THE Sentinel report which stated that our seven-year-olds had come bottom of a table of achievements made me angry.
I would just like to present a timeline regarding the educational needs of our children in the city.
At the beginning of a new Labour Government on July 9, 1997, Joan Walley MP, below, stated, in Hansard, that "Education is a burning issue in Stoke-on-Trent and in north Staffordshire. I, too, want to make education a crusade in the area that I represent. We must ensure during this debate that we put on the map the urgent education needs of Stoke-on-Trent and Staffordshire."
Leap forward to 2009 after 12 years under a Labour government, to the Stoke-on-Trent Organisational Assessment report.
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It states: "Stoke-on-Trent City Council scores two out of four for managing performance.
"While provision for early-years education is good, once they get into primary and secondary school many children are under-achieving compared to most other parts of the country."
Now on to November 2011 when the Education Minister, Michael Gove, in a discussion with Joan Walley MP about academies, said: "As she knows educational standards in Stoke-on-Trent have not been good enough for too long and we particularly needed to tackle under-performance at primary level."
Finally to The Sentinel's report – 15 years on and we still have the same problem.
It can't be the children, they've grown older and been replaced with new intakes. So what are the common denominators?
These are a Labour Government, a Labour-led council for the last two years, a Labour MP whose educational crusade appears not to be worth anything and a problem with people responsible for educational attainment levels.
On the council's website and speaking about the 'Stoke-on-Trent School Improvement Strategy', Councillor Alan Dutton, Cabinet member for education, said: "The city council will work with schools and their governing bodies, assisting with information sharing, providing constructive challenge and arranging support – either from council experts or outside suppliers."
Remember those two words 'outside suppliers'. Cue another raft of expensive consultants to do the jobs of highly paid but failing education leaders.
Councillor Dutton, it's the same old verbal diarrhoea.
If you believe in what you've said in that statement you shouldn't be working with these leaders, you should be sacking them.
ALAN LEAR
Fenton
Comments
by truestokie
Friday, October 05 2012, 10:24AM
“Once again after 13 years of Labour control generations of our children are lost by incompetence and interference by Government.
The frightening thing is "council experts" (surely an oxymoron as look to the state of the city) and "outside suppliers" are able to interfere with our children's education.
These wouldn't be unions would they?
Brain washing immediately come to mind.”