Michael gove

I gave it a passing mention in my last post, but it’s worth highlighting Michael Gove’s mischievous comment piece in the the Guardian today.  Why “mischievous”?  Well, because its purpose seems to be to rile Ed Balls and mobilise his internal opponents: ‘In a series of not so subtle signals to the grassroots, Ed has been emphasising, whenever the opportunity arises, that he is the socialist candidate for anyone in the party who wants to move away from the sullied compromises of Blair era. In a recent interview he explained that the battle for the leadership would be a struggle between David Miliband and himself – setting up the contest

Michael Gove’s speech today is another sign that the Tories are serious about raising educational standards. In it, Gove proposes a series of measures to improve the quality of teachers trained by the state. Under a Conservative government, those in state-run teacher training would not be allowed to retake the literacy and numeracy tests multipile times. Primary school teachers would need at least Bs in both English and Maths GCSEs (remember that in the state sector primary school teachers are generalists not specialists). Also, those who do post-graduate teacher training will have to have a 2.2 or better. Personally, I’m sceptical of the whole concept of teacher training. Teach First