Leave those rich kids alone

The latest skirmish in the battle to `raze standards', as Summerhill pupils might say, beggars belief

WHAT DOES the indictment of Slobodan Milosevic for war crimes have in common with the appointment of Andrew Motion as poet laureate? Or with the abolition of hereditary peers in the House of Lords? Or with the formal notice of complaint to be issued against Summerhill School? Or with countless other developments we have witnessed under the Blair Government?

They are all examples of "pragmatic" New Labour's tendency to make ideologically driven leaps before they look. In the case of Milosevic, it might have been expedient to have issued a warrant for his arrest before piling in and slaughtering members of the Serbian public. In the case of Motion, it might have been wiser not to spray people's-poet rhetoric around like pre-pubescent train-taggers before enstating the obvious. In the case of the Lords it would, of course, have been more sensible to have had just half an idea about how the old sods might be replaced before handing them their jotters.

And in the case of Summerhill? Well, the Government's education policy has from the beginning been notably illogical and lacking in sensible priority. But this latest skirmish in the battle to "raze standards", as we are led to believe that Summerhill's pupils might put it, beggars belief.

It's not that I have any interest in defending the rights of wealthy leftie parents to shell out pounds 6,500 a year so that their children can skip maths and learn to French kiss. It's not that I believe that AS Neill's progressive ideal of children being allowed to "develop free from fear" is unique to Summerhill and that it should be protected. It's not even that I want to engage myself with the idea that some Summerhill pupils are there because they have not responded to traditional methods anyway, and that it is this factor that contributes to the school's poor standards.

It's just that I object to taxpayers' money being spent on interfering with the opted-out education choices of the international rich (at Summerhill between a half and two-thirds of the pupils are from abroad). Because I'm certain that the Government's education wallahs must have better things to do with their time and money than engage in all kinds of ideological argy-bargy just to shut down a private school with some funny ideas and a maximum of about 30 British pupils in attendance.

Like, oh, I don't know, continuing to defend the previous government's insistence on parental choice, so that really privileged progressives such as prime ministers can get an education for their children that's much better than Summerhill's, only absolutely free.

Or, wait! Even better! How about deploying all of the human and financial resources at the disposal of the Government to make all schools within the state education system second to none, thus ensuring that the only reason for opting for private education, or indeed exercising any parental choice at all, is sheer social snobbery?

Then how about making it clear that opting out of state education means subsidising it, by paying through the nose for Ofsted inspections, for participation in state examinations, for inclusion in the league tables, for attendance at further education establishments and for every other service that the existence of a integrated, nationwide, state-education structure provides?

Whoops! I forget myself. The above outcome is pretty much in tune with what David Blunkett wants for British state education, as I understand it anyway. And I know that Blunkett's opinion is that columnists who agree with the Government's broad aims have no business criticising the way they think they ought to go about achieving them.

When I suggested in a previous column that New Labour's plan to give bright pupils at poor schools extra tuition at better schools was hardly likely to improve the schools the pupils were in fact attending, while compulsory setting and more resources would, I got a very nice letter from Mr Blunkett in which he basically explained that he wanted nothing more than to do these very things, and that I should stop being so hostile.

His argument was an interesting variation on the already dodgy idea that the end justifies the means, which suggested that in the world of New Labour, the aim justifies the means. Since that letter I've noticed this tendency in a great deal of New Labour rhetoric. So the aim of stopping intimidation and bloodshed in Kosovo is right, therefore the means by which the Government has chosen to attempt to do this is right. The aim of changing the role of the people's poet is right, so it follows that Andrew Motion must be a radical choice.

The aim of tackling the stranglehold of hereditary peers is right, so it stands to reason that those directly appointed by the righteous ones will be an improvement.

But, in fact, this mindset is disastrous, and it is in the Government's education policy that this is most apparent. Of course closing Summerhill school shouldn't be a priority at a time when many of those who have no choice but state education are getting such a raw deal. But then neither should the abolition of assisted places at private schools, the dismantling of grant-maintained schools, or the destruction of grammar schools. All of these, especially the continuing lack of traditional educational standards at Summerhill, are an affront to the Government's stated beliefs on education. Seeing the back of them is something that David Blunkett and I both want. But I'd rather get the job of improving state education done first, so that there is no need for these sorts of selection.

The way of doing this is, of course, to improve teaching standards. On this, again, I have no disagreement with Mr Blunkett. But while the Government says it is turning the corner on teacher recruitment, another report published yesterday says that yet more inspectors have found that literacy and numeracy standards among newly qualified teachers leave much to be desired.

So what has Chris Woodhead been doing since he declared all those years ago that we must kick out the bad teachers? (Well, apart from defending his record on sex with pupils.) Wouldn't it have been more sensible to have taken a look at testing the spelling and numeracy of potential teachers before they were trained? And wouldn't it, while we're at it, be more sensible to foster the idea of public service generally, rather than press ahead with tuition fees for students?

For this, again, is a disaster for future teaching standards and for standards among public service professionals generally. Why should people finance their own further education so that they can become state school teachers, or National Health Service doctors or civil servants? Maybe Gordon Brown can't balance his budget without tuition fees from students, but the lack of goodwill towards public service that is likely to be created by the fact that you now have to self-finance the privilege of being overworked and underpaid will surely cause problems for years to come.

Why is it that the Government happily continues to implement the very policies that will jeopardise their aims? It is because despite their professed denials of ideology, they are still caught up in it. For them, the aim is the thing.

While David Blunkett's "read my lips, no selection" is guaranteed to come back to haunt him for years to come, the braver thing would be to accept that the state education system is not yet ready for the dismantling of what remains of selection. When that time comes, school selection can be left to wither on the vine. And so can Summerhill.

In the meantime, can we stick to sensible priorities, instead of grand gestures that squander time and money and mean little in anybody's scheme of things?