Educational Standards are Slipping.

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has published the finding of its 2006 assessment of educational standards, this is call the PISA with an assessment made of more than 400 000 fifteen year old students from 57 countries. Those participating countries account for somewhere close to 90% of the world economy with the focus of the tests on science, reading and mathematics.

Britain has slipped down the ratings dramatically, from 7th to 17th in reading and 8th to an appalling 24th in mathematics.

This gives undisputable evidence that Labours educational policy is not working.

In an attempt to refresh the memory on just what labours policy might be I visited the new departments website, for Children, Schools and Families,

“The Department will build on the successes in education and children’s services that we have seen over the last decade” so they are in denial.

But then in the next sentence “It will now focus on the significant challenges that remain – raising standards so that more children and young people reach expected levels”.
All this from the party of Education, Education, Education. One can only wonder at what they have previously been focusing on in that case!

There is a simple reason for this, it is called poverty of aspiration, our youth are uninspired by life under this Labour Government of uniformity and blandness.

Conservatives Education Green Paper in Summary

Practical steps, employing common sense principles

"We believe that ensuring every child has an excellent education is the principal role the state can play in making opportunity more equal."

1. Immediate action driving urgent improvement
Improve discipline and behaviour in schools, shifting the balance of power in the classroom back in favour of the teacher.
Get every child who is capable of doing so reading by the age of six, so that every minute in the classroom thereafter is productive.
Reform the testing regime in primary schools to reduce bureaucracy and focus on every pupil’s real needs.
Deliver more teaching by ability which stretches the strongest and nurtures the weakest. Reform the schools inspection procedure to ensure there is tougher, more effective and more searching scrutiny of under-performance.
Champion excellence in the comprehensive sector by evangelising for the best professional practice in the state system, and more generously rewarding those who deliver for the poorest.
2. The supply-side revolution
Provide over 220,000 new school places. That would meet the demand from every parent who lost their appeal for their first choice school in our most deprived boroughs.
Allow educational charities, philanthropists, livery companies, existing school federations, not for profit trusts, co operatives and groups of parents to set up new schools in the state sector and access equivalent public funding to existing state schools.
Ensure funding for deprivation goes direct to the pupils most in need rather than being diverted by bureaucracies.
Divert more resources to pupils who come from disadvantaged backgrounds, ensuring they get the earliest possible opportunity to choose the best schools and enjoy the best teaching. Make it easier to establish the extended schooling (from summer schools through Saturday schooling to homework clubs and breakfast clubs) which drives up achievement, especially among the poorest.
Remove those obstacles in terms of centralised bureaucracy, local authority restrictions and planning rules – which prevent new schools being established. Allow smaller schools and more intimate learning environments to be established to respond to parental demands.

Education, Let Teachers Teach How They Know Best

Raising the bar, closing the gap.
David Cameron has today promised 220,000 extra school places as part of Conservative plans to raise school standards and make opportunity more equal.
Speaking at the launch of 'Raising the bar, closing the gap', the Conservative Green Paper on education, David said, "It's time for a revolution in the supply of education in this country."
Michael Gove, the Shadow Children's Secretary, set out plans to tackle educational under-achievement in the immediate term through policies such as more teaching by ability and giving teachers more power.
And he laid out plans to increase the number of good school places through a long-term programme that:
- Allows educational charities, co-operatives and parents to set up new schools
- Diverts more resources to pupils who come from disadvantaged backgrounds
- Removes obstacles which prevent new schools being established