People are stopped and searched all the time. The black community is also to an extent better organised.
There is also a reluctance amongst many Irish people to see it as their issue, despite the fact that Irish people are over-represented in the prison population and so on.
The Prevention of Terrorism Act does to an extent discourage Irish people from becoming politically involved in Britain but there is also a greater experience in the black community of really terrible brutal deaths, and people are very frightened that it may happen to 12.00-5pm, St Aloysius Social Club Phoenix Rd London NWI (5mins Euston station)
SPEAKERS will include LEW ADAMS, ASLÉF General Sec; TONY BENN MP; GEORGE BRUMWELL, UCATT General Sec; ANNE BLACK, Labour Reform; TONY DUBBINS GPMU Gen Sec; MARIA EXALL, CWU Executive; I MARK SEDDON, editor Tribune. Admission £l /Détails Network of Socialist Campaign Groups, c/o 3, Blades House, London SELL 5TW. 0171-254-0241 Unite for Labour Democracy!
SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 13
Education, Education, Education? More like Managerialism, Underfunding, Inequality & EDUCATION Richard Hatcher LABOUR'S new Education White Paper Excellence in Schools has been widely welcomed by a spread of opinion from the teaching unions to the Tory press.
All teachers and parents should welcome the ending of some of the worst features of Tory education policy - the assisted places scheme for private schools, nursery vouchers, opting-out, more 11-plus selection -and improvements in provision such as maximum class sizes of 30 in infant classes.
But it is not surprising that the Murdoch press, from the Times to the Sun, also approved.
Firstly, because Excellence in Schools accepts the bulk of the education reforms of the previous government, rather than replacing them. The Conservatives' national curriculum, the national tests, league tables, the Tory version of local management of schools, the Ofsted model of inspection, all reSecondly, the rationale for what is different about New Labour's education policies is that they will serve the needs of the capitalist economy better than those of the Tories.
Managerialism
One of the main criticisms of Tory education policy was the huge increase in central government control. New Labour's approach is an even more centralised managerialism.
The White Paper sets national targets for pupil achievement. tells schools when to teach literacy and maths, and soon they will be told how to teach them. LEAs are rescued from the Tory scrap-heap, but only as the local implementers of national government policy.
The clearest signal of the character of the new regime was given by the government, only a few weeks after it was elected, when Stephen Byers, junior minister (and vice-president of the Socialist Education Association!) named 18 "failing schools", and Chris Woodhead, the chief inspector, called for more teachers to be sacked.
Among the sacrificial victims are Islington Green school, in spite of an increase in GCSE grades A-C from 25 to 38% in one year, and Ingram School in Croydon, where a quarter of the teachers are told that they must "improve" by Christmas or be sacked, overriding agreed employment procedures.
The government's defence is that all this is justified if it raises standards in education, and who could be opposed to that? There are two problems here.
One is its narrow and instrumentalist definition of the goals of education. Being able to read and getting good GCSEs are important, but New Labour has little notion of wider, let alone emancipatory, aims in education.
The second problem is that New Labour's approach may well raise standards overall, but it will also increase rather than decrease inequality in education, and in particular the wide gap between what middle-class and working-class pupils gain from it.
Selection
Blunkett says what matters is standards, not structures. No one could disagree with wanting to improve standards, but a system which perpetuates selection holds down working class standards.
It isn't just a question of the failure to limit in any way the privilege and power of the private schools, nor the obvious reluctance to tackle the remaining grammar schools. It's the reinforcement of classbiased hierarchies within the comprehensive system:
• Grant-maintained schools will become "foundation" schools, deprived of the Tories' doublefunding but still privileged, owning their premises and employing their Labour's commandist approach leaves little room for the individual needs and pressures on schools and pupils staff, and seen by many parents as 'better' than the LEA 'community' schools.
"Specialist" schools are encouraged, selecting pupils by 'aptitude.
They will inevitably disadvantage other neighbouring schools, as the American "magnet schools' on which they are modelled have demonstrated. They will also be required to secure private funding.
There is no national admissions policy of 'nearest and siblings first', leaving the door open to covert social selection.
• Grouping pupils by ability will be the norm - setting, fast-tracking, 'accelerated learning'. Yet the evidence is that these often disadvantage working class pupils who end up in the bottom groups.
Funding
While not every proposal in the White Paper costs money, most of them do. Gordon Brown's July Budget gave an extra f2.3 billion for schools. This is a one-off increase from the windfall clawback and from reserves, which at best postpones for a year the chronic underfunding of schooling.
£1.3bn is for capital spending, but spread over the next 5 years. This falls far short of what local authorities say they need - £3.3bn for outstanding repairs now, and a total of £5.9bn over the next 3 years. Blunkett's answer is the Tories' Private Finance Initiative, mortgaging the schools to the banks.
The other £l billion is for education spending, but at least half of it will be needed to fund teachers' pay - which the White Paper has nothing to say about improving.
Councils will be under pressure to transfer some of the remaining money to other services such as Social Services which the government is starving of cash.
Pupils, parents, teachers The consequence of New Labour's commandist managerialism is that, in spite of the rhetoric of 'partnership' with teachers, pareducation.
Education Action Zones The clearest test of Labour's policies, and the sharpest expression of their limitations and contradictions, is what they will mean for poor working class areas.
The White Paper proposes to create up to 25 Action Zones over the next two or three years in so• cially deprived areas with 'underperforming' schools, each having 2 or 3 secondary schools (at least one of which will be a 'specialist' school) and associated primary schools.
Each Action Zone will be based on an 'action forum' of community, business and education representatives. There is obviously the potential here for exciting developments, but there are also dangers of repeating past failures such as the Education Priority Areas and Community Development Programmes of 20 ycars ago.
Nó extra money is to be allocated, though the AZs will have first call on some national support programmes. No account is taken of wider economic and social factors outside the schools.
And the White Paper suggests that the 'action forum' may put forward plans to close schools and open new ones - again, Labour's "management by threat" approach. Support and Pressure Support and pressure is what the White Paper says schools need -though the combination of managerialism and underfunding means it's a lot more stick than carrot.
That could also sum up the response we should make to Labour's education programme. Certainly we should support what is positive in it. But we need to build the maximum pressure - among teachers, parents, communities and the wider labour movement- to oppose its anti-democratic features.
The first lines of defence are likely to be around:
• Funding- the campaign led by FACE against Tory cuts will need to revive to challenge Labour underfunding.