John Abberley: Education problems will not be solved with legal threats

AS ANY responsible parent will tell you, a good education depends largely on a child going to a school where there's strong leadership, firm discipline and a team of teachers who know their job.

In my view you don't really need much more than that, although state schools these days are judged to be good, poor or useless by Ofsted inspectors, who seem to be the sole arbiters of the nation's educational standards.

Well, perhaps not quite the only judges. Schools Secretary Ed Balls is what I'd call our educational commissar. And he's decided that children must have a legal right to a 'good education', as if it's something which can be supplied on demand.

He's admitted his latest brainstorm could even result in parents taking a school to court if it fails to come up with the goods. What on earth is the man talking about? Does he think he can clear up all the problems by threatening legal action?

All right, this crazy idea is contained in one of Labour's proposed Bills in the Queen's Speech and it's obvious that the thing won't get off the ground, let alone become law, because the present Parliament will be disbanded in a few months' time.

All the same, it demonstrates yet again that blundering politicians like Ed Balls haven't got a clue how to tackle the overall decline in standards of education over the last couple of decades.

You can give schools fancy names like colleges or academies, but it doesn't make for improved quality, or disguise the fact that in areas like Stoke-on-Trent educational achievement has reached rock bottom.

It's also further evidence of the damage caused by constant political interference and the Government's failure to see the folly of a system in which so-called children's rights are given priority over the authority of teachers in schools.

I feel the biggest handicaps in schools nowadays are bad behaviour by a minority of children with no respect for anybody and parents who are always ready to blame schools rather than their own kids who are out of control.

That's where the Schools Secretary should promise to make changes, instead of compounding the disastrous errors already made.

All this makes me wonder about the wisdom of ploughing vast sums into building new schools when the true problems in education lie elsewhere.

This brings me to the question of whether we're on the right track in persisting with new-style academies, even though politicians of all political stripes seem to favour them as a kind of educational panacea.

I remain to be convinced, although one half of me is attracted by the fact that academies are independent in some measure from control by the local education authority.

However, with around 200 now up and running they still have to prove themselves. I see that some have been graded as inadequate by Ofsted. The one shining exception is Manchester Academy, classed as outstanding.

Here in Staffordshire were are still waiting for the first academy, now being built with great expectations by JCB at Rocester and due to open next year. From what I've read this venture sounds promising.

But what can we expect when or if academies are built in Stoke-on-Trent? The controversial scheme proposed by private consultants Serco comprises mergers of existing schools on new sites.

So the main difference will be schools twice as large as they are now. I have never been a fan of schools with an industrial-size population. Big is not beautiful in education. But people like Ed Balls will never grasp that with their conveyor-belt mentality.

Only his week there's been a good example of how slimming down can bring improvements. Longton High School at Meir, due to close next year, has gained a satisfactory ranking from Ofsted now that the number of pupils is down to 250.

Doesn't that prove something? I rest my case.