Roy Jenkins, who died 10 years ago on 5 January, remains a formidable inspiration. As a social reformer, and in his relentless campaign to build a “one nation” social democracy, he is a radical model for today’s left. Jenkins changed the face of Britain with the liberal reforms of his two stints as home secretary [...]
Biteback Publishing announces: Education, Education, Education Reforming England’s Schools By Andrew Adonis RRP: £12.99 *Special Promotional Price: £9* OUT NOW Tony Blair said his three priorities were Education, Education, Education. Andrew Adonis played a decisive role in turning this slogan into a reform programme. This book describes his quest to transform [...]
Teach First has just celebrated its tenth anniversary. Last week more than 3,000 young teachers, with education and government leaders, gathered in the Festival Hall to praise its success in transforming schools in England’s toughest neighbourhoods. Nearly 1,000 top graduates started in the classroom through Teach First this September, with seven applicants per place. It [...]
Philip Gould: an Unfinished Life Edited by Dennis Kavanagh Palgrave Macmillan, 200pp, £18.99 Friends of the late Philip Gould from across and beyond the political spectrum celebrate his life in this collection of essays edited by Dennis Kavanagh. It is a starry cast, including Alastair Campbell, David Miliband, Peter Mandelson, James Purnell, James Harding and [...]
Two of the greatest challenges in English education today are, first, not just to reduce the number of underperforming comprehensives but to eradicate them, and second, to forge a new settlement between state and private education. I put these two challenges together because they go together. It is my view, after 20 years of engagement [...]
This article was originally published on the Policy Network website. Policy proposals to give England a truly world class education system for the many not just the few In 1997 New Labour promised to improve education radically, and we made reasonable progress. Academies, Teach First, Sure Start, the literacy and numeracy strategies, the City [...]
The House of Lords employs nearly 500 people. Not one of them is an apprentice, and only one member of staff is under the age of 21 – according to a Parliamentary answer I have just received. How can Parliament preach apprenticeships to the nation if it has no apprentices itself? There is a highly [...]
Originally written for the New Statesman The Years of Lyndon Johnson. Volume IV: The Passage of Power by Robert A. Caro, Bodley Head, 736pp, £35 What ultimately matters in politics is what you leave behind. Lyndon Johnson left behind the second most substantial legacy of any US president of the 20th century, after Franklin [...]
Written for The Times, 26th June 2012 Yesterday’s announcement that Liverpool College is to become an academy is perhaps the single biggest breach in the Berlin Wall between the private and state sectors of education in recent decades. It opens the way for many more private schools to join the state-funded system – giving [...]
Originally posted in The Spectator’s Coffee House blog Last year Mossbourne Academy in Hackney celebrated one of the most remarkable achievements ever recorded by a state comprehensive school with a largely low-income intake. It got eight students into Cambridge and another 70 into Russell Group universities. If every comprehensive was in this league, social [...]