The long reign of bog-standard may be drawing to a close
BRUCE ANDERSON
It was a typical Blairite manoeuvre. Move into traditional Tory ground with policies and slogans designed to appeal to the suburbs, while taking the Labour core for granted. For once, however, New Labour may not have got the politics right.
There was nothing wrong with the PM's statements. Though the content was platitudinous and imprecise, there was aspirational rhetoric to appeal to middle-class swing-voters. But Alastair Campbell may have ruined the effect, with some anti-aspirational rhetoric which was anything but platitudinous: 'bog-standard comprehensives'.
One problem with educational reforms is that they take time to work through. Plenty of children attend bog-standard schools, and will continue to do so for years to come. Plenty of teachers work in them, ditto. So it was an insensitive way to refer to the schools which many Labour voters are stuck with; imagine the consequences if a Tory spokesman had made such a remark. It will reinforce a growing impression that this government does not care about ordinary people. Such sentiments are not reflected in the polls, but they could affect the turnout on polling day. For once, Mr Campbell was guilty of bog-standard spinning.
But even though the details were vague and the politics may not work out as Mr Blair hopes, it was an important initiative. It marks the emergence of a new dominant consensus on education policy.
Events have their own momentum, which is why fundamental changes in government policy are less common than politicians like to pretend: it takes a formidable politician to bring them about. When it came to education, the last Conservative government did not even try. The comprehensive movement which dominated British educational policy for a generation, and which came to power with the first Wilson government, owed its initial success to a mixture of old Labour idealism and Tory opportunism. From the Tory point of view, the Butler Act of 1944 had basic flaws. It was meant to divide state schools into three categories — grammar, technical and secondary modern — all enjoying parity of esteem. But that never happened. Only a few technical schools were established, and most secondary moderns were not estimable places. But if the Butler Act was bad education, it was worse politics, at least from a Tory perspective. Until 1944, the struggling middle classes had been able to buy their children a grammar-school education at modest cost. Post-Butler, that was no longer an option. Parents who could not afford to go private just had to pray that their offspring would pass the 11-plus, and thus escape the proletarianising consequences of the secondary modern. That was why so few Tories tried to protect the grammar schools. Some Tory idealists such as Edward Boyle were naive enough to believe in comprehensivisation. A lot of other Tories who were anything but naive pretended to do so because they knew that defending grammar schools meant defending the secondary moderns, which meant losing seats.
In her days as education secretary, Margaret Thatcher showed no dissatisfaction with the system she inherited and blithely signed grammar schools into oblivion. But by 1979, thoughtful Tories knew that the comprehensive system had serious faults, yet they did not know what to do about them. In 18 years, no education secretary got to grips with the problem, least of all Keith Joseph, Margaret Thatcher's longest-serving education secretary, whose five years in that office only demonstrated his unsuitability for office. I remember remonstrating with the younger Oliver Letwin, then Sir Keith's political adviser, over the abolition of 0-levels. 'We were lucky to save the A-level,' was his mournful response. 'What do you mean, lucky?' I expostulated. 'Who's in power, for goodness' sake?' Whoever was in power in the Department of Education, it was not Keith Joseph.
In 18 years, all the Tories succeeded in doing was launching a few lifeboats. Grantmaintained (GM) status, city technology colleges (CTCs) and the assisted-places scheme which rescued a few bright children from the comprehensives were all good ideas, but despite those successes at the margin, it is unlikely that the average child in a state school was receiving a better education in 1997 than in 1979. Meanwhile the high hopes which had gilded the dawn of comprehensivisation had long since dissipated. Many comprehensives were staffed by demoralised teachers in the grip of a resentful egalitarianism, who used educational methods which disparaged common sense and who were also incapable of maintaining discipline. Bogstandard was almost the norm.
In 1997 the Blairites seemed initially determined to ensure its complete victory. GM status and the assisted-places scheme were abolished while the remaining grammar schools and the CTCs were under threat. That is no longer the case. Mr Blair now recognises the folly of a 'one size fits all' approach. The phrase is Mr Hague's but the policy implications are common ground. Admittedly, Mr Blair cannot bring himself to use the 'S' word: selection. But he has a euphemism: specialisation. More church schools, more specialist schools: these are a means of reintroducing selection without admitting it. After three decades of dominance, comprehensivisation is in full retreat.
This does not mean that either party has a full blueprint for the replacement model, though the Tories have done more thinking. But there are a number of unsolved difficulties. If Mr Blair is serious about creating specialist schools, he will encounter one problem in any selection system: 11 is too early an age at which to make decisive judgments about a child's educational potential. It is often agreed that one weakness of A-levels — as opposed to the baccalaureat — is that they force children to specialise too early. If that is true of 15/16-year-olds, it applies a fortiori to 11-year-olds.
If Mr Hague is serious about allowing all schools to select their pupils, he will have to find ways of ensuring an education for the children whom no schoolmaster in his right mind would select. Admittedly, the Tories have one sound idea which would help to address this problem: sin-bin schools to deal with the thorough nuisances who make life a misery for their teachers and their fellowpupils. A far more fearsome sanction than corporal punishment, this would instantly alter the balance of school power in favour of the teacher, and of discipline.
Naturally, Mr Hague is irritated that Tony Blair should receive so much publicity for proposals which are little more than a rehash of Tory ideas; nothing annoys a politician more than a successful clothes-stealing exercise by his opponents. But Mr Hague is largely to blame. He gave Mr Blair his opportunity by appointing a shadow secretary, Theresa May, who is all shadow and no secretary, and who has not been able to publicise Tory policies.
But those whose primary concern is education rather than party politics should be delighted by recent developments. Over the next couple of decades, this new educational consensus might just ensure that British state education rises above bog-standard.
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