SELECTING LABOUR

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Education lawyer Anita Chopra was one of the guests on the closing education debate on this morning's Today. She's unaligned to any political party (according to my very thorough Google search) and sounded studiously neutral on matters of politics throughout.
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The other guest was a very different kettle of fish - Fiona Millar, 'chair' of Comprehensive Future and 'significant other' of chief-killer-of-decency-in-politics Alastair Campbell. Justin Webb, in introducing her, said she "campaigns for education provision for all". (Why did he simply parrot this completely vacuous cliche? Who isn't in favour of education provision for all? Nobody!!!!!!)

Ms Millar made attacks on selection and faith schools - and, you won't be too surprised to hear, on the Conservatives. This attack on the Conservatives came as the result of a generous-invitation-to-attack-the-Tories-disguised-as-a-question from Justin Webb. He allowed the all-too-inevitable attack to flow unabated and unchallenged. Job done for Labour, job done for Justin!
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Justin sounded sniffy about the idea of choice in his introductory remarks and his questioning of the lawyer (who represents parents who are unhappy with the school they are offered) was noticeably more brusque than his questioning of the choice-hating La Campbell. Indeed, for all his interruptions (not that there were many), Justin didn't ask a single challenging question of Fiona Millar. He did, however, ask Anita "Anita Copra, is that a potential issue here, people just look, glance, at admissions tables, at league tables for exams, and actually make decisions that aren't really necessarily the best for their children?". So, the only substantial question of the entire segment comes from the Left perspective that opposes one of the few New Labour principles I enthusiastically agree with - proper measurement of schools performance (the practice of course is something else!!).
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Justin questions from a Left perspective here. The programme's choice of guests is tilted towards the Labour Party. That's the Today programme for you! That's the BBC for you!!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8542000/8542374.stm

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Today didn't just speak to Labour supporters, it also talked to an ex-Labour-supporting novelist who left the Labour Party because, through its support for Bush and the Iraq War, he no longer found it left-wing enough, Hanif Kureishi. He followed straight on from 'civil rights leader' Jesse Jackson, who Justin Webb valued for his "friendly but critical analysis" of Barack Obama. All Justin's questions came from a stance pretty much identical to Rev. Jackson's, criticising Obama only from the Left. This was not good interviewing by Justin Webb ("some people say that he's been too timid in fighting back against those interests", "It's a reasonable point, isn't it, that Americans do have a strange view of the government - they both are involved it and yet dislike it, and yet his critics say, especially his critics on the Left, that actually he cold have punctured all of that if he'd been willing to go to Congress with a plan of his own early on and say back me.")

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The Conservatives were not excluded, however, as the Today website makes clear: "Why are UK voters so unsure about the Tory party? They had a 26-point poll lead 18 months ago, but according to a YouGov Sunday Times poll, that lead is down to just two points. David Cameron addressed the Tory Spring Conference yesterday and himself admitted that his party faced a "real fight". John Strafford who runs the Conservative Campaign for Democracy, and Editor of Spectator Fraser Nelson, discuss what Cameron and his party have done to deserve such a drastic fall in support in the crucial run-up to the general election." Justin and Nick Robinson discussed the difficulties facing the Conservatives before John and Fraser did battle. Justin Webb interrupted them both, especially Mr Stafford. Together the conflicted Conservatives got just over 3 1/2 minutes of BBC airtime.
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Council spending cuts and 'severe austerity', in Evan Davis's words, were the main story of the day. BBC reporters from Yorkshire and the Midlands reported the disapproving view of the unions before L.S.E. professor, Guardian columnist and long-standing BBC favourite Tony Travers, described as a 'local government expert', presented his opinions. He didn't single out the government for criticism. Later left-wing BBC Home Affairs editor Mark Easton also quoted the unions ("a dark period of rationalisation and savings, cuts to jobs and services as the unions prefer to describe it") before characteristically putting Labour's point of view (without balancing it with criticism of the government from the Conservatives'): "Central government is keen to avoid blame for damaging local services and makes the point that local budgets are already agreed till 2011." This is the 'to be fair' principle, easily applied to your friends.
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Then came the big political interview of the day with Labour's communities' secretary John Denham, who immediately began by saying that Mark Easton was right.
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Now came the redeeming feature of this typically biased edition of the programme: Evan Davis got tough with John Denham, strongly resisting his immediate attempts to attack David Cameron and forcefully and repeatedly pressing the Labour minister to come clean over his party's spending plans, even pointing out at one stage that Labour ministers seem incapable of answering such questions.This is something neither Marr nor Naughtie (nor most other BBC interviewers for that matter) would have pursued with anywhere near as much vigour (if at all) and this rebounds to Evan's credit. The I.C. was a high 1.8. There's still hope for the lad (despite recent lapses)!
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THE SWEDISH MODEL

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Following Newsnight's flawed onslaught on the Swedish schools model favoured by the Conservatives (see http://beebbiascraig.blogspot.com/2010/02/liz-is-too-mackeen-to-attack-tories.html), the BBC News website has another go, using a report from The Centre for Economic Performance (who?):
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8520208.stm

The C.E.P. (which turns out to be part of the L.S.E) gets 14 paragraphs and another critic, leftie Swedish bureaucrat Per Thulberg, gets 3 more. The Conservative response (mostly squeezed in the middle) gets just 4 (generally very short) paragraphs and a photo! (I have a photo too - of another Swedish model. Sorry, but some puns just have to be made!!).
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Hardly a balanced article.
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More on the C.E.P. can be found here: http://cep.lse.ac.uk/_new/about/default.asp. Its co-founder (and key member) is Labour peer Lord Layard (of whom Wikipedia - which is infallible! - says 'He advocated many of the policies which have characterised the New Labour government, partly by founding the influential Centre for Economic Performance at the London School of Economics.' ) No wonder the BBC article names no names at the C.E.P.
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LIZ IS TOO MACKEEN TO ATTACK THE TORIES

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On the same edition of Newsnight, the Swedish model for independent schools, and their supporter here, the British Conservative Party, came under attack from Liz MacKean on Newsnight.
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The report did make some efforts at fairness, featuring Bo Nyberg, headmaster of one of the new schools, children and parents who go to the new schools and Anders Hultin, former advisor to the Swewish School Ministry, who helped establish the system. Mr Hulton criticised the Tories for not allowing the profit motive into the scheme. This, he argued (doubtless correctly) might mean that the scheme won't take off as it should.
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The overall tenor of the report, however, was critical and hostile. Though we heard early on from Lena Jendi, headmistress of an old state school who is unhappy with the new schools , the report's onslaught against the Conservatives really kicked in at 33.50 on the BBC i-Player. Of the Conservatives' argument that standards have risen in Sweden, Lizzie was emphatic: "That's not what we've been told." She went on, "A few years ago it was notice that in fact standards across all schools in Sweden were slipping. International comparative studies, as well as national research, confirmed the decline. It's not known why (but that didn't stop Liz from speculating...) that the slide began at about the time the schools were introduced." (Aha! Cause and effect, or pure coincidence? No smoke without fire?) Her star witness in 'confirming' this decline was bureaucrat Per Thulberg, Director General of the Swedish National Agency for Education. "So overall results are down," she continued, "and there are strong indications of increased social segregation inside the school system." "It won't be what the Conservatives want to hear", she gloated. "They even told me that their view that competition improves all schools was based on a hunch. So what does the Swedish experience really tell us?" For her answer (which the Conservatives also wouldn't want to hear) it as straight back to the leftie bureaucrat.
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"Swedish politicians are now having a re-think," we were then told, before Liz reached her conclusions: "The new schools remain popular but they're likely to face more inspections and more rigorous testing. After a period of freedom, it's time to introduce more ground rules."
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Much of this is strongly disputed, from the statement that Swedish politicians are having a re-think to the whole idea that standards really have declined. Michael Gove certainly disputed it, saying "I enjoyed Liz's report but there were no facts in there". Emily Maitlis, who conducted this interview, was not too happy with this and later interrupted (as he was in the middle of making an interesting point to counter the 'increasing segregation' argument) to say "Let me just give you a hard fact because you wanted one." Guess what the source of the 'hard fact' was? "The Treasury is estimating that the running costs of 250,000 extra places - which is what you want - would be £1.8 billion. From where?". She soon butted in again to repeat this 'hard fact' from the oh-so-very-honest Treasury: "These are extra places. £1.8 billion pounds for those extra places to create the choice...". Well might Mr Gove have commented, "Those are figures that have been produced by the Treasury. What they do in that report is they deliberately misunderstand our policy". Who'd have thought that of this government!!" He added "It's a Labour Party document" as Emily pressed him further. 'Hard fact' indeed!
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Here's the whole of a post on ConservativeHome from Harry Phibbs:

Swedish school choice is working

There is a consensus in Sweden that their policy of school choice, introduced in 1992, has driven up standards. This has been the result of the expansion of independent schools from covering 1% to 10% of pupils. It is not just that the new schools have achieved good results but they have pulled up the results of the state schools competing with them.

However there is not unanimity in Sweden. Newsnight are pleased with themselves as they have got the top education bureaucrat in Sweden, a man called Per Thulberg, to tell them that the whole thing is a failure. But reading his paper, What influences education achievement in Swedish schools, upon which Newsnight based their report, one finds plenty of left wing assertions but not much in the way of solid evidence. There are general references to "research" showing this and that but no solid data. For instance the report says streaming in schools is a mistake because it has " a stigmatising effect."

Anyway the Burning out Money blog has done a very good rebuttal although I thought he was a bit unfair saying Michael Gove was "back-footed" by the BC attack. I thought old Govey did pretty well. If he had tried to quote the facts then Emily Maitlis would have thought he was very boring and shut him up.

BOM points out that the Swedish free schools get a Grade Point Average that is 20 points higher than the state schools.

What of the evidence of standards being driven up elsewhere?

A study by Anders Bohlmark and Mikael Lindahl of Stokholm University found that an increase in the percentage of free schools in an area increased pupil performance across all schools. Most of this increase was due to competition in the school sector, forcing all schools to improve their quality. Åsa Ahlin of Uppsala University found that a ten per cent increase in the number of children attending free schools led to a five per cent increase in Mathematics performance across the area.

See also this Bergstrom and Sandstrom study.

UPDATE.

Maria Rankka of the Swedish think tank Timbro emails to say:

"Per Thulberg is wrong. There have been academic evaluations of the school voucher reform and the fact is that schools in geographical areas where competition exists are performing better than schools in areas where there still is no competition."

The Swedish Association of Independent Schools have more details on their website. What helps comparisons is that not everywhere in Sweden has the free schools system:

The proportion of students in independent schools has grown considerably since the beginning of the 90s, although the sector is still very small. In school year 1990-91, about 0.9 per cent of all
Swedish pupils in compulsory education (ages 6-15, approximately) were enrolled in independent schools, whereas in 2007-08 the figure had grown to about 9 per cent. The same trend may be observed in secondary education (ages 16-18, approximately), where the share has grown from 1.5 per cent to 17 per cent during the same period.

In about 210 of the 290 local councils in Sweden, independent schools “compete” with public schools run by locally elected school boards; as yet there are no independent schools in the other local councils. The urbanized areas of south and middle Sweden, in particular in the Greater Stockholm area, have the highest concentration of independent schools.

That makes it possible to judge the impact the free schools have on standards in the state schools.

Critics said that it is highly motivated parents who opt to take their children out of local council schools, thus leaving those schools with disadvantaged children, or that independent schools impose financial burdens on the school boards by disrupting their planning.

Where comparisons have been possible, independent schools have performed better in terms of knowledge and skills than local council schools, and have achieved this at a lower cost. This has inspired some local community schools to improve their organisation and teaching in order to improve results.

More can be found here at Burning Our Money:
http://burningourmoney.blogspot.com/2010/02/does-swedish-model-actually-work.html

BAKER DAYS

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The BBC's coverage of education is so tied to the left-liberal agenda of the educational establishment that it has long placed it to the left of New Labour, never mind the Conservatives, on these issues. The attacks on testing have been going on for so long now, it's easy to take them for granted.
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The BBC website's main analyst remains Mike Baker, the BBC's former education correspondent, who is now a trustee for one of the educational establishment's newest forums, the National Education Trust (and, naturally, also a columnist for The Guardian.) Plenty of his articles are easilly accessible on the Education page of the website. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/default.stm
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His latest article for the BBC can be found here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8449521.stm
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It's not a report, it's an opinion piece.
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It begins by drawing the sort of analogy to global warming that you would expect from the BBC: "Just like the difference between the climate and the weather, there are long-term and short-term trends in education. So, while it still feels as if schools, particularly in England, are wading through deep drifts of accountability - everything from Sats and league tables to Ofsted inspections - there are growing signs that a long-term change of direction has begun." He quotes the views of many of the usual suspects, and those of the NET (of which he is a trustee, though he neglects to mention that in his article), and ends: "However, as the current dispute about the Sats at 11 shows, the government and the Conservatives still fear the disapproval of the tabloids (as a proxy for public opinion) should they consider switching from external testing to monitored teacher assessment. They are not yet ready to trust teachers' professionalism. But are they still fighting yesterday's battles?" 'Monitored teacher assessment rather than external testing', 'trust the teachers', all the usual sorts of things.
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The aspects of Labour's education policy (particularly before Brown and Balls took over) that Mike Baker and the BBC regularly attack are precisely those ones that right-of-centre people tend to like most. Now there's a surprise!
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