Jonathan Jones

Public opinion is split on Gove’s reforms

It seems most of the public agrees with the need to improve our schools. A YouGov poll out this morning shows that 53 per cent think education standards have deteriorated over the past 10 years, while only 12 per cent think they’ve got better. 48 per cent think exams are too easy; just 28 per cent say they’re ‘about right’ and a mere 3 per cent think they’re too hard. And when it comes to discipline, the consensus of inadequacy is especially strong: 83 per cent say schools are ‘not strict enough’, while 0 per cent say they’re ‘too strict’. You don’t see 0 per cent in response to questions like this very often.

But when it comes to how to improve our schools, the public is divided fairly evenly for and against Michael Gove’s reforms. On ‘turning schools into academies’ — something the government has been doing at a prodigious

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