I don't like to disagree either with a Dominican or with the National President of Pax Christi. But I honestly cannot see why Bishop Malcolm McMahon OP has come out in support of Michael Gove's demented "free schools" proposal.
The whole scheme is a gimmick, and an indication that the Tories know absolutely nothing about the state education system. The Department, the LEAs, the teaching unions and, for that matter, things like the Catholic Education Service will run rings around them. If even one of these schools is ever set up, then it will be astonishing.
The probable legislation, if there ever is any, will say "only if the local council approves it", and that will be that. Tory Councillors will be no more inclined to do so than anyone else. For Catholic or C of E schools, there will also be a requirement of diocesan approval. Hardcore Gove-like think tank boys on the backbenches and in the press might whinge and whine, but there will be nothing that they can do.
In any case, most practising Catholics would never vote Tory in a million years, no matter what the Conservative Party offered the Bishops. It would honestly never occur to them. It is not even that they are mostly working-class; that hasn't been the case in generations. No, they are largely in areas that simply don't return Tory MPs and that's that, and they are very largely public sector middle-class people. Especially teachers.
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I don't know the rules around faith schools, but on LEA approval and the need for it you are totally factually incorrect, as around 10 secodns research would have shown you.
ReplyDeleteWhat, about legislation that has yet to be proposed? Oh, to be so psychic.
ReplyDeleteGove can say what he likes now, but if any Bill ever made it to the floor of the House, then his departmental babysitters would have made sure that this provision was in it.
And that would be the end of the whole scheme, before it had even started.