EDUCATION in Hackney, one of the poorest boroughs in the country is under fierce attack.
Ministers Byers and Barber (the latter himself an ex-Director of Hackney Education) are determine, to uce the cohoole torchere and children as a laboratory for their "naming and shaming" policies.
The borough had already been under the magnifying glass of an schools inspectorate. This report acknowledged Hackney as one of the most impoverished areas in Western Europe. However they did not then go on to recommend any measures to counteract this such as more resources for the schools or the Education authority.
Judging Hackney by the government's own standards the report recognised an improvement. GSE results have improved "at a rate that is faster than the national average. The five A-C grades index has rocketed from 14 per cent in 1990 to 32 per cent last year.
Byers responded to all of this by sending in an "improvement team" in September - an unprecedented intervention into the affairs of a local education authority. Just to make sure that this was a group that workers and users would have confidence in, he put Richard Painter - the man primarily responsible for the closure of Hackney Downs school - in charge.
Painter adopted a novel strategy and organised a cheese and wine event to which he invited all Head Teachers in Hackney. This was obviously the best way to follow the mandate to "set... clear targets for raising standards in schools."
Telling tales
That is if you think that telling tales on the authority, its officers, the record of other schools or even your own staff is the road to higher morale and a better for the children. Some positive recommendations did come out of the inspection team's report - such as their acknowledgement that the abolition of the Director of Education's post by the Council and its replacement by a lower graded and less powerful post was a mistake.
This was all in the name of "Transforming Hackney' - an agenda that has introduced internal "trading units' to the council and forced thousands of workers to apply for their own jobs.
However these recommendations from Painter were brushed aside by the authority who stood by their new Chief executive, Tony Elliston, formerly of Brent council.
They have been supported by the government in their determination to Transform Hackney' into a slicker outfit - with the same old What is been taken on board in team's stress that schools should be following the agenda of the government's white paper on Education by undermining and indeed abolishing mixed ability teaching.
Stephen Byers made clear in The Guardian Education debate that "Naming and Shaming'"' is official policy and will be used well beyond the boundaries of the borough.
From this, naming and sacking teachers is not far off. The White Paper is both an attack on progressive teaching methods and on teachers' working conditions.
Sickness
The problem is further compounded in Hackney by another attack on primary school teachers. Schools have been told they are not very good at managing sickness (which translated means they don't force teachers to come to work when they should be in bed because they are ill.)
As a result of this it is now proposed that instead of getting money from a central pool to cover staff on long term sick, schools will have to manage their own cover budget.
This may sound fine - but what it means in practice is that once a school has someone on long-term sick the money will run out very quickly and no riore cover can be paid for.
This new attack must be resisted by teachers, parents and governors.
Hackney Teachers Association have an alternative perspective on the situation.
They are planning their own report "Hackney Schools speak for themselves", which will show that what is needed is not naming and shaming but more resources to provide the stanaara or aduleation that at Hack. ney's children deserve.
However insufficient resources are being devoted to this campaign - a recent lobby of the council and public meeting were sparsely attended. What is desperately needed is a strong and confident critical analysis of New Labour's project in Education.
This is needed at a national level - but in Hackney the need is more urgent.
The long-awaited reunion: returmed deportee Abdul Onibiya and wife Joyce welcome home deported son Ade as he arrives at Heathrow Mark Jansen THE ONIBIYO family were told by the Home Office last month that they had finally won their struggle against deportation.
They had lived in Britain since 1964 and were granted permanent residency in 1976. But because Abdul spent over 2 years working in Nigeria he lost his right to permanent residency.
Abdul had been active in the pro-democracy movement in Nigeria and was quite clearly under threat from the dictatorship. He was deported to Nigeria in October 1995, where he was arrested and beaten.
When his son Ade was deported, the Guyanan government offered him a safe haven rather than see him face the same fate as A Delu The Nigerian government sent Andrew Wiard