Michael Gove is naturally having some fun with Stephen Twigg’s schools speech. The Education Secretary has responded to Twigg’s plan for ‘parent academies’ by saying:
‘Labour’s policy on free schools is so tortured they should send in the UN to end the suffering. On the one hand Stephen Twigg says he will end the free school programme, but on the other he says he would set up ‘parent-led’ and ‘teacher-led academies’ – free schools under a different name. As Andrew Adonis has said this morning, “free schools are academies without a predecessor school”. When is a free school not a free school? When Stephen Twigg is trying to appease the teaching unions.
‘Stephen Twigg also says it’s a ‘scandal’ to set up new schools in areas where existing schools are failing and parents have no choice. We don’t think it’s a scandal, we think it’s vital. Too often the poorest families are left with the worst schools.’
Although the jibe about sending in the UN is entertaining and classic Gove, his strongest point is on school choice.
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