Guest blog from Paul - a Fryent resident and teacher.
Anyone would think that this
government is using Toby Young's How to lose friends and alienate
people as an instructive text for their members in cities.
Not only are they freezing the
overall education budget by 2020, which means an 8% cut across the board, they
are also proposing a sharp shift in spending away from cities to rural
areas*.
The most cautious estimate is that
inner London would be hit with an additional 9% cut, with a comparable impact
on Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool. This, an accumulated cut of
17%, has been described by one director of children's services as
"catastrophic".
If carried out it would mean the most
significant disinvestment in education in the cities in modern times. The
last years of the lean cow in the 1990s, also under a Conservative
government, saw an overall drop of 4%.
Imagine your child's school with 1 in
5 fewer teachers and TAs and resources cut back to match.
The Conservatives describe their
proposals as "fair funding", but this is fair in the same way as flat
tax is fair. Their redistribution would hit the most deprived areas the
hardest.
This would have drastic knock on
effects on everything from crime to how sophisticated the workforce is going to
be. It is a recipe for national decline. A country that can't afford to invest
in its future citizens is on its way down and out and the Conservatives are
leading it there; doubtless straightening their ties and singing the national
anthem as they do so.
In London there is a very broad
campaign opposing this, involving MPs, councillors, council officers, Heads,
teachers, support staff, parents and students. http://keeplondonschoolsgreat.org/ At
present it has been concentrating on pushing counter arguments in the
governments consultation, but teachers and TAs have already been out
pushing hard copies of the petition in playgrounds and leaflets have been going
up in local shops, so the word is getting out.
This too is an issue that should be
shouted out loud and clear by Labour in the run up to the May elections. Turn
out is traditionally low in local elections, but parents care very deeply about
the prospects for their children, so everyone opposed to these proposals should
be making sure that people know how hard hit their children's schools will
be; and vote accordingly.
*The underfunding of rural areas
reflects a historic pattern of under spending by Conservative councils
more concerned to keep the rates down than investing in local children.
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Fryent Councillors.
