Italian lesson as teachers fight Performance-related Pay
PERFORMANCE RELATED PAY (PRP) for teachers is a key part of Labour's overall plan for education. Labour want to open education up to the interests of business and to reshape schools as enterprises which produce the kind of workers global capital needs in the twentyfirst century. Teachers have fought successive attempts to fit the curriculum more closely to the needs of capital; for example through the boycott of the SATs. They are now fighting on an issue which is not simply about the defence of wages and conditions, but also about the very nature of education. Gill Lee looks at the issues involved.
The introduction of performance related pay has substantially weakened trade unions where it has been introduced. In the Civil Service, a majority of the workforce say PRP has left them demotivated and demoralised.
At the 1000-strong demonstration and rally organised by STOPP (School Teachers Opposed to Performance Related Pay) on February 12, Michael Rosen, poet and educator, put the case against performance related pay like this:
" It will lead to a permanent sense of injustice, whinging and carping among teachers. New Labour know this. So why are they introducing it? For one reason - to smash the union. "
To carry out their plans to restructure education in the interests of big business New Labour needs to weaken the teachers' unions.
Performance Related Pay is a very effective tool in doing so, since it reduces the role of the unions in determining the pay of their members (already substantially weakened through the imposition of pay settlements through the school teachers' pay Review Body). It also strengthens management.
Not only will teachers' pay be influenced by how well their Head Teacher feels they are doing their job, but, through tying pay to pupils' results it substantially reinforces the importance of results - however narrowly defined by the government.
This may mean teachers focusing on particular groups of pupils whose improvements are key to PRP targets, rather than catering for the differing educational needs of all their pupils.
It means an increased emphasis on those educational goals which are measurable and quantifiable, rather than those which are not (such as ability to work with others; ability to question, and think critically). It ties teachers more closely to New Labour's educational policies and reduces their willingness to mediate these in the interests of their pupils.
PRP is also about blaming teachers for the failures of the educational system.
As Nick Davies' well-researched articles in The Guardian proved, the main cause of failure in education is poverty, and the main cause of failing schools is an increasingly divided school system in which there are few true comprehensives left.
Schools are increasingly divided into 'sink' schools and those which have a high proportion of their pupils from relatively privileged backgrounds.
PRP will reinforce this divide with teachers increasingly choosing to teach where targets are easier to meet, and 'sink' schools increasingly employing temporary and agency staff. None of this is to the advantage of working class children, or teachers.
The teaching unions have yet to be pushed into decisive action on PRP (the NUT has agreed a boycott of appraisal linked to the performance management part of the PRP proposals). The 1999 Conference of the National Union of Teachers unanimously passed a motion calling for a campaign of action beginning with a one day strike. The majority "broad left" (right wing) National Executive of the Union has however consistently blocked calls to deliver a ballot on strike action.
STOPP, heavily influenced by the Socialist Teachers Alliance, has begun a series of demonstrations, pickets and lobbies aimed at putting pressure on the government and the teaching unions.
In Italy, threats of strike action by teachers made the government retreat on PRP. The fight will be on again at NUT conference at Easter to make sure that a similar course is followed here.