Status Anxiety: Left behind

Listening to the delegates rant and rave at the teaching unions’ annual conferences last weekend, the overwhelming impression was of a group of people who have completely misunderstood the thinking behind Michael Gove’s education reforms. The general consensus was that he is intent on breaking up our state education system to pave the way for mass privatisation. Indeed, some of his critics went further and conjured up some dastardly plot involving Rupert Murdoch, Gove’s former employer. He is at best an unwitting puppet of an evil robber baron, at worst an active collaborator who will be personally enriched thanks to his role as a ‘weapon of mass destruction’ (actual words of an NASUWT delegate).

It’s not just the teaching unions who take this view. Fiona Millar and Melissa Benn are convinced that academy conversion will leave state schools vulnerable to takeover by private education providers, while the Guardian’s Seamus Milne believes that a substantial number of academies are already being run by for-profit edubusinesses.