General election: Education for the masses…

The election has moved onto the subject of schools – and about time, too.

For Tories class matter

The Tories’ plan to allow parents to run their own schools – “hundreds” in the first year, according to education spokesperson Michael Gove – has already run into the sands. Indeed, it has been sunk below the waterline by Kent and Hampshire Tory councillors Paul Carter and David Kirk. They point out that “free” schools could only be paid for by cutting the amount of money spent on state schools.

The fact that Gove immediately phoned Carter and got him to say he meant the opposite simply showed the shadow minister for schools up to be a playground bully.

The truth is that “free” schools would only be taken up by middle class parents, who could afford lawyers and raise the capital. Then they would fix the admission policy to ensure a disproportionate take of students from middle class backgrounds and exclude the disadvantaged and those with learning difficulties or English as another language. The result: more selection, more “sink” schools, more working class children failed by the system.

Liberals breaking the mould?

The Liberal Democrats sound better, claiming it would reduce class sizes for infants to 20 (currently averaging 26) and offer one-to-one tuition, after schools clubs and Saturday schools for children to catch up (which is already happening). They want a “pupil premium” to award £2.5 billion to students from the poorest 10% of families – £2,500 per pupil. They also like the Tories’ idea of “free” schools and Labour’s Academies.

The problem is who will pay? Only Labour has said it would ringfence (i.e. not cut) the schools budget. I see Chuka Umunna has used this fact to warn voters of the Tories potentially scrapping £280 million from school building funds in Lambeth.

The Lib Dems claim a £1.5 billion cut in tax credits for middle earners and £1 billion from “administration costs” would balance the books. One, we don’t think those on £25,000, or even £50,000 a year should pay more tax. Tax the super-rich and big business instead. Two, cuts to “administration costs”, as Paul Carter pointed out, would take money away from state schools, from child protection, from “statementing” (i.e. diagnosing and helping) children with special educational needs.

As the Institute for Fiscal Studies has pointed out, none of the main parties has properly set out how they plan to make the big cuts they say are necessary.

Anticapitalist solution

Only a nakedly anticapitalist plan can do that – by nationalising the banks and taking back the £1.2 trillion the Labour government gave them in the bailout, and by placing a steeply progressive wealth tax on the super-rich and big business.

We want to recruit, train and pay for more teachers and support staff to lower class sizes for all year groups to 20, to bring Academies and private schools into state ownership, and to run all schools under the direct control of staff, parents and the pupils themselves. Not the phoney “parents” control that is limited to the well-to-do, but control that has access to the funds needed to deliver education worthy of the name, education for life, not for the benefits of a capitalist economy.

Read our manifesto for more on schools.