Is the battle over opting-out already lost? The Labour leadership says yes.
On 10 June Jack Straw and David Blunkett, Labour's spokespersons on education and local government, issued an 'acvice note' urging Labour Local Education Authorties (LEAs) to cooperate with opted-out schools.
At the same time as they threw in the towel, in a community centre in Handsworth, Birmingham governors, parents and local leaders of teachers' unions NUT and NAS/ UWT were meeting with counciliors and Labour activists. It was the launch of a campaign to stop a local secondary school opting out. • Opting out will cut the school off from the benefits that the LEA provides - ranging from support services and in-service provision to administrative back-up and bulk purchasing.
• Opting-out means extra money, but;
- most of it will go on services that the LEA used to provide any gains are at the expense of other local schools - It's only a short term bribe which wil dry up soon • Opting-out undermines local democracy. lors and Labour Party governors, the school would be run by a governing body dominated by non-elected, so-called Tirst governors", answerable only to the Secretary of Stato.
• Opting-out will undermine trade union rights and conditions. the cheap, undercutting union rates at the expense of local authority direct lahour. Teachers wil become more vulnerable to artrary management freed from the constraints of local authority agrooments.
• opting out is the first step to selection.
For some schools, selection wil croop in by the back door.
June 27, 1992 the country, and many of those campaigns will win, just as some already save. One of main deterrent: against opting-out, for parents governors, is the foar that they wil lose all the support that LEAs provide in numerous ways. Green light The Labour leadership's retreat gives them the green light to opt-out. safe in the knowledge that they wil continue to be supported by the LEA yay has the Labour loadership are undermining. abandoned its opposition to optingout? It is yet another application of the logic of accepting the Tory agenda for education, rather than risk supporting Why you should say no to opting-out instead of a measure of control by the community through elected counciMany schools will seize the opportunity to get maintenance work done on their aim is to basome selective schools. For many more, No. 24 undoubtedly take place in the autumn. Its size will depend on the new funding arrangements to be announced in a White Paper later in the summer.
But fears that everyone will opt-out ar mistaken. There is stll a strong attachment among governors, parents and heads to the LEA system. And lis doubtful whether the government wants every school to opt out.
Maior's announcement on 16 June of plans to 'intervene' in failing schools Prepare now to campaign • Monitor schools - identify the ones at risk bodies are considering opting-out. • Organise a joint union response tial to prepare their members. The teachers' unions also need to liaise with non-teaching unions whose members' jobs may be put at risk by opting-out. • Get the Labour Party organised ' branch, constituency and district level, with regular LEA-wide governors' meetings and local working groups.
is a lack admission of this. A much more likely alm is around 20 per cent of secondary schools, enough to create a new selective system. In that context, there is everything left to fight for. The left should ignore any responsible talk of 'opting-out from the loff and prepare now to campaign. it should press Labour councils to retain their commitment to cutting off services to optech-out schools as an Build up an LEA-wide picture of which heads and governing United action between the NUT and the NAS/ UWT is essenLocal Labour Parties need to coordinate their governors, on a
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