Psychoactive Substances: Rolling UK Politics in The Neo-Con Era

Our two will be done with school in about two years, thank god.

isn't massive centralization of bureaucracy supposed to be what the tories are against?

But they are for centralizing to unaccountable bodies, i.e. their friends. Its a very coherent model.

my fb feed is full of "If only we had a decent opposition/Of course Corbyn is the real villain" bollix. I need to stop reading it.

― "This is the worst part." (stevie), Tuesday, 15 March 2016 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The Blairite opposition would oh wait

Well, they're for transferring public assets into private hands, they're mostly entirely nihilistic about how this is achieved, or the consequences.

lol "lord adonis, you've always been a fierce opponent of academisation, what say you to these proposals?"

centralization of powers previously held by local authorities took a real surge under the Thatcher governments. the problem with local authorities from a Tory point of view is that many of them aren't Tory.

i still haven't read a proper explainer about what these 'charities'/trusts/private concerns etc get out of their 'sponsorship' of academies - and what the government gets out of it. what's in it for them? why do something so radical?

the goodness of their hearts

there are probably tax benefits for the private companies, charities kinda do what they do without thinking too hard about why a lot of the time. obviously having patronage over well-paying jobs is something that's always appealed to a certain kind of scumbag

This LRB piece on Free Schools is a good primer: http://www.lrb.co.uk/v37/n09/dawn-foster/free-schools Apparently the "business model" is based on rinsing attendant services such as IT systems, the likes of Crapita will be rubbing their hands with glee.

centralization of powers previously held by local authorities took a real surge under the Thatcher governments. the problem with local authorities from a Tory point of view is that many of them aren't Tory.

otm

Free schools are a slightly different beast even though they become academies in the end. It would be hypocritical of me to oppose the private sector playing some kind of role in the provision of free education under the circumstances but the monitoring of quality and apparent willingness to turn a blind eye to problems are a huge concern.

I suspect that, as with the NHS, a lot of people will only cotton onto the implications once it's too late

sounds a lot like the wholesale transferring of assets and liabilities that went through with the health and social care act 2012 paving a smoother way for private interests to find profit wherever they can and whatever the outcome and smashing to smithereens any concept of accountability

there'll be a fucking revolution if they try this

it's happening

it just seems unprecedented to me?? if anyone tried something similar in the united states they'd be laughed out of town

what will happen to the thousands of council jobs that look after the schools? is the govt really going to create a vast new educational bureaucracy to duplicate what the councils are already doing? will councils now have more money to spend on other things, as they no longer look after schools or will central government withdraw that funding? it just seems like madness to no clear benefit! particularly when primary schools, which are largely council run, have posted such massive improvements over the last 10-15 years

will councils now have more money to spend on other things, as they no longer look after schools or will central government withdraw that funding?

LOL

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_6n3Q0GyKM

http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/halo/images/9/9f/Trollface_emoticon.png

The funding which used to go to councils will go direct to the academies / multi academy trusts. The government has already created regional head teacher boards which carry out some of the former tasks of councils, headed by regional schools commissioners, but with the actual work done by civil servants.

The whole academisation programme is a leap into the unknown. The biggest issue for me is the wholesale transfer of assets out of the public sector to third sector bodies.

Free schools are a whole other level of scary.

Got chatting in a pub in Barnet a few months ago with a woman who works for a quango helping set up free schools. Didn't really want an argument, but ended up getting in one anyway, because fuck free schools. Although she was actually more annoyed by my insisting that the who free schools thing was largely an irrelevance anyway, being a diversion from the govt's main priority of transferring public assets into private hands via forced academisation.

Obviously, I came up with a show-stopping zinger that completely dismantled all her arguments, then breakdanced out of there while the whole rest of the pub burst into applause

whole free schools thing

scumbag toby young as poster boy speaks disgusting volumes

i fucking hate that piece of shit

Roll on the next Scottish independence referendum.

who owns the buildings/land? will that change?

School buildings and land in local authority maintained schools are owned by the LAs. As part of the academisation process these are transferred to the charitable trust (be that a single academy, or a multi-academy trust) that will run the school. This is either a permanent transfer or a long (99 or 125 I think) lease at no cost.

It's uncharted territory, but I think there are enough covenants in place that if the buildings / land were to stop being used for educational purposes they would transfer back to state control.

'transferred'. sorry is this russia in 1991??

Its Russia in 1901.

https://skwalker1964.wordpress.com/2012/09/07/the-nhs-act-allows-the-coalition-to-give-away-the-nhs-a-labour-govt-can-take-it-back-but-will-it/

Robert Peston ‏@Peston · 2h2 hours ago

Cutting benefits to disabled raises £1.2bn, which is same as cost of cutting capital gains tax & raising 40% tax threshold. #Budget2016

BETTER TOGETHER

transfer, transfer, transfer

Just transfer it, no bigs

Guess what? We've just heard that Network Rail is staying in public ownership! The government's Shaw Report which was considering 'full privatisation' has concluded:

“The report team has dismissed privatisation of the whole company…The report team is not recommending the introduction of private sector capital at the whole company level, recognising that, for the foreseeable future, Network Rail ownership will remain in the public sector.”

This is great news! It’s not the whole answer. Network Rail is still planning to sell off assets like railway stations so we need to keep fighting. But it's an important victory. So let’s take a moment to remind ourselves why we campaign – because sometimes it works!

sorry to be churlish and not celebrate but i'm still reeling about this schools thing.

if every school becomes an academy or free school, that makes teachers' unions completely obsolete, correct? national agreements on pay and conditions do not apply? sorry, isn't this UTTERLY beyond the pale??

i don't think the NUT will fold overnight

if you think this is bad (it is, obv) you shd see what's happening to the FE sector

Existing staff will transfer over on a TUPE usually and would probably still be bound by collective bargaining, new staff would not, though obviously teaching unions do more than just bargain centrally on pay.

Now I am starting to realise when I had a bad experience with a special free school, possibly the reasons why the very good headmaster left and they brought in this inadequate, nasty piece of shit as replacement.

SV's point about TUPE v relevant. my experience is that people will be TUPE'd over, but that new people coming in plus cultural pressure will force the pace. people who don't want to fit in with that pace will be "managed out". it wont take long before the entire employment landscape has changed. safeguards are worth nothing.

That is definitely true of a corporate environment and possibly true of sponsored academies but whether that culture would be pervasive in head-run schools being transferred over by default, I don't know,

did you know that all new schools are free schools and all free schools are academies?

Has anyone asked the question what an announcement about education policy is doing in a Budget speech? Education policy that only applies to England into the bargain. Could it be that this was a chance to have Osborne announce a major policy that would be very popular on the Conservative back benches, bolstering his Prime Ministerial credentials in the process? Or is there a more innocent explanation?

I was wondering that myself.

Part of it is the Tories wanting to take as much focus out of the Brexit infighting.

Maybe not a good idea then for Osborne, in said Budget speech, to use statements made by the (non-partisan) Office for Budget Responsibility to put the heebie jeebies up potential Brexiteers.

Everyone should study maths until they're 18 years old.... Why was this in the budget?

LOL

Its not going to take all the talk out of Brexit (nothing is), but I'm thinking one scenario is that warning from the OBR about the economic impact. The other scenario is talk about the OBR warning and other shit like selling out schools and learning maths till 18. Momentarily diverts focus, says that they are governing the fuck out of councils as well as fighting to remain in the Eurozone etc.

Enjoyed watching Sajid fucking Javid squirm on Newsnight. Claims he would not be part of government that would cut disability benefits; mutters angrily about welfare cap

did you know that all new schools are free schools and all free schools are academies?

Yes, but i don't know if it makes sense to always conflate the arguments against the two.

The free school policy is bad - it has some good elements and lots of interesting schools have come out of it but it's essentially the wild west - there seems to be very little oversight and insufficient safeguards to stop people with no experience or expertise from setting them up. The LRB article makes a strong case against it. It's also a huge waste of money.

Forcing failing schools to partner with third-parties, typically private sector companies, to become academies is bad. It's not cost-effective, there's limited evidence to show it's educationally effective and has similar problems with oversight and the ideological turning of blind eyes to problems.

Beyond that, it does get more complicated. Most of the academies that have been set up since the forced academisation of 'under-performing' schools have been the 'outstanding' schools who were given the freedom to do it if they wanted to. Again, there are arguments against it - the idea that it might give particular advantages including extra funding to schools already doing well is one - but it's not the same thing as turning the keys over to Ark or letting a bunch of cowboys pressure local families into petitioning for unnecessary new schools.

Extending that to other schools and making it compulsory requires its own set of arguments to oppose and they have to go beyond the grey areas around who has the right to sell off playing fields. It's not always going to be easy, but opponents might need to get across the reasons why ostensibly positive things like 'additional parental choice' and 'increased independence for headteachers and school administrations' are actually negative.

thank you for that SV. a lot to understand here.

i did not even twig that capital gains tax is going from 28% to 10%. jfc.