Teachers Unity 2013 N2

Unity! www.communist-party.org.uk

Easter 2013

A spectre is haunting Mr Gove

T

by Nick Wright he secretary of state for education thinks that a hundred university education professors make their criticism of his curriculum policies from a 'classically marxist perspective”.

At the height of the Cold War the US secretary of fefence, William Forrestal, defenestrated himself after going nuts in fear of communism. We must worry that Mr Blobby is having the same effect on Mr. Gove.

The state education system goes back to the 1870 Elementary Education Act that turned the patchwork of voluntary, charity and church schools into a national system.

The act was the idea of Liberal MP William Forster and put into practice an idea by Frederick Engels: “... the general education of all children without exception at the expense of the state, an education which is equal for all and continues until the individual is capable of emerging as an independent member of society. This measure would be only an act of justice to our destitute fellow creatures, for

clearly, every man has the right to the full development of his abilities and society wrongs individuals twice over when it makes ignorance a necessary consequence of poverty.”

Sensible employers and capitalists backed the idea although they may not have been very happy with the further thoughts of Engels': “It is obvious that society gains more from educated than from ignorant, uncultured members, and while, as may be well expected, an educated proletariat will not be continued on back page

It is women who are the blame for the eff this capitalist cr for coalition T

by Anita Wright here is no doubt that David Cameron and George Osborne are determined to stick to their austerity programme. Like the Wizard of Oz, they have conjured up an illusion.They have used the media to persuade ordinary working people and their families that the government's economic policy is necessary for the good of the country, They've tried to liken their strategy to a family that's got to learn to live within its budget, or that of a firm but well-meaning father offering tough love to his children. But if we pull back the magician's curtain we can see their real intention - to maximise profit in the hands of Cameron and his capitalist friends.

To achieve this end it is vital to push down wages by structurally embedding unemployment in our economic system, forcing workers to accept poor pay, wage freezes and part-time work.

With the loss of over 250,000 public-sector jobs since 2010 - 30,000 jobs in the NHS and 71,000 in education for starters - and women constituting 65 per cent of public-sector workers we know that women have been severely hit by this strategy as workers, carers and service users.

The private sector has not faired any better, with a dramatic drop in manufacturing contributing to an expected triple-dip recession. It's estimated that 40 per cent of high street shops will close in the next five years.

The government's policies - unfettered freedom for big business and financial institutions, which can rely on state bailouts, while pursuing ruthless privatisation of all social aspects of the state such as the NHS are creating long-term economic chaos.

There is no investment in the building or manufacturing industries.

The bankers are still getting their bonuses

and the profits of the energy companies are soaring. But at the same time 30 per cent of British children are living in poverty and ordinary families are struggling with rent rises and housing benefit cuts.

The gap between rich and poor in this country is widening at a disgusting pace. Sales of houses worth £1 million or more rose by 118 per cent in the last year.

The Cameron-Osborne economic strategy is underpinned by an ideological attack on working-class people in general and women in particular.

Despite public statements about equality, Tory hardliners show their real reactionary attitude towards women when talking about family life and abortion rights.

The subtext of Tory policy is that women are to blame - we should be at home with the children.

This was illustrated clearly during the civil unrest in 2011, when riots exploded around the country following the police shooting of Mark Duggan. This triggered the old debate

about single-parent families and the role of schools in developing children's sense of right and wrong.

Given that 90 per cent of lone parents are women, and the majority of teachers are women, it implies that we, not society as a whole, have failed to educate our youth.

The subtext of Tory policy is that women are to blame – we should be at home with the children.

It also gave Cameron another opportunity to spout his disingenuous drivel about broken Britain without a hint of irony. That he is the chief cause of this destruction - having scrapped the education maintenance allowance and standing by while youth unemployment rises to over 21 per cent for 16-24 year olds - was not mentioned.

Our demand for decent, affordable childcare is also seen as a refusal to know our place. Despite some tax-credit subsidies for working parents, childcare costs are rising at

getting ffects of risis and policies twice the rate of inflation.

A part-time nursery place now averages £106 a week for a child under two years old and £104 a week for older children - a rise of 4.2 per cent and 6.6 per cent respectively in the last year. With job shortages, low wages and pay freezes this is making it unaffordable for many women to work.

The Tory attitude towards women is also evident in the debate about a woman's right to choose.

Recognising that an all-out ban on abortion is not going to get through Parliament, many attempts have been made to reduce the time limit for abortion and strip termination providers of their counselling role.

Cameron has said he is sympathetic to these views while simultaneously criticising women who have children they can't afford.

This has given the green light to the extraparliamentary campaign of anti-abortion groups like 40 Days for Life to intimidate women outside clinics while remaining silent on the tragic death of Savita Halappanavar in Belfast, who was denied a life saving abortion.

This ideological attack is an attempt to divide working-class men from women and weaken the opposition to austerity policies.

The fundamental problem is that this government and the capitalist class object to our aspirations - equal pay for jobs of equal worth, affordable childcare, decent housing, free health care, reproductive rights, freedom from violence and - horror of all horrors equal representation in the corridors of power. In fact, all the demands laid out in the Charter for Women.

This is why the trade union and wider labour movement must ensure that these demands are not simply an add-on but become integral to the fight for a progressive and social just society.

Anita Wright is secretary of the national Assembly of Women

ORGANISING

by Gawain Little

One month ago, the Department for Communities and Local Government released a paper entitled 'Taxpayer Funding of Trades Unions'.

It claimed: “For too long in the public sector, trade unions have received taxpayer funding that is poor value for money and inadequately controlled. Reducing such public subsidies to trade unions is a practical way that councils can save money... Trade union activities and campaigning in local councils should be funded by members’ subscriptions, not bankrolled by the taxpayer.”

The paper was a follow-up to a previous recommendation to councils to “scrap trade union posts” (50 Ways to Save, December 2012). This is part of an ongoing drive by the government to present trades unions as a drain on the economy, the enemies of progress, and to distance us from our own members and potential members.

Of course the reality is really very different.

Trades unions save considerably more money than the cost of facilities time and there is a lot of evidence to show the importance of their role in resolving disputes and ensuring that inequality does not go unchallenged.

But of course what is actually wrong is the premise of the debate. Trade union representation should not be judged on the basis of how much money it saves the employer, or how much it helps them avoid costly tribunals. Trade union representation is a fundamental right, fought for and won by working people. And now that fundamental right is coming under attack, we need to fight again to retain it.

The key question for us is how that fight is most effectively conducted.

When trades unions win victories for their members, they win for all workers, regardless of their union membership. When teacher unions win for their members, they also win for children and for local communities.

We must make all those who benefit from

trade union activities our allies in the struggle to retain trade union rights.

We must also build our own strength to resist these attacks, and that means highlyunionised workforce, united behind a single banner, with a voice in every classroom.

Key to this will be the extent to which we can unite the existing teacher and lecturer unions into a single teaching union, representing all those employed as teachers in schools in England and Wales. Talking about Professional Unity is no longer enough. We must take concrete steps to create it.

This means a grassroots organising agenda to develop strong school groups with welltrained elected school representatives, capable of collectively defending their terms and conditions and of rooting the Union's national campaigns in local experience.

We cannot accept the dangerous cynicism which suggests that this is not possible or that it should not be pursued. The key strength of teacher unionism is its membership. Our members are the source of our strength and it is they who should control it. To suggest that they cannot, or should not, organise collectively to wield that strength is the antithesis of trades unionism.

Finally, we must not accept that the battle is over before it has begun. It would be a huge tactical mistake for our unions to take on the employer's responsibility for paid release time.

This is what, in effect, we would be doing if we agree to pay the salaries of local officers.

Rather, we should re-affirm the responsibility of every employer to release recognised trades union representatives to carry out their duties.

Our members have a right to trade union representation. It is a right fought for by generations of working people before us. We must not allow this government to take it from us by any means.

Gawain Little is secretary of Oxfordshire NUT and a member of the NUT national executive

continued disposed to remain in the oppressed condition in which our present proletariat finds itself, the calm and composure necessary for the peaceful transformation of society can also be expected only from an educated working class.”

Coalition policy – academies and free schools, centralising the inspection regime whilst fragmenting of the school system, weakening the local authority role, cash incentives to academies and this latest bid to undermine nationally regulated pay and conditions –taken together would reverse the process begun in 1870.

It is intended to bring in a privatised education market. Michael Gove clothes his policies in touching concern for those most disadvantaged but the effect will be to make things even more difficult for working class kids to get access to decent schooling whilst widening opportunities for the relatively privileged to find a niche in an increasingly selective education system.

Wide access to a broad education is a common good that both benefits the individual student and guarantees employers and state alike with the kind of skilled workforce that a modern economy needs.

Employers have a clear idea what kind of educated workers they need. They are usually keen for education and training costs to be borne by the state (or more accurately the taxpayer).

Michael Gove should pause in his headlong rush to replicate pre 1870 learning theory and listen to the CBI when it says that “memorisation and recall are being valued over understanding and inquiry” and that “we have a conveyor-belt education system that tolerates a long tail of low performance and fails to stretch the able”.

Employers are driven by the need to find new investment opportunities, to maintain and increase the rate of profit, to survive against their competitors.

Since capital exists only to produce profits it constantly seeks further investment opportunities to put its newly generated profit to work and to maintain and increase that rate of profit.

Gove is famously in touch with free market think tanks on the Tory right whose policy wonkery drips with anticipation at the profits to be made form privatising public services.

Only a Liberal Democrat in a hurry would be taken in by the idea that Gove's adolescent drive to find headlines during the education conference season is driven only by his bid to find favour with the people who will elect the next Tory leader. Like his millionaire Cabinet colleagues it is profit which fuels his dreams.

Nick Wright blogs at 21centurymanifesto

Against the odds

by Robert Wilkinson Teachers, in our daily task of education, recognise the profound influence that home circumstances have upon the chances of success or failure in achieving qualifications.

A famous German philosopher once said that ‘“Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please; they do not make it under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past”.

There is no denying that a few individuals are able to overcome adverse circumstances and achieve success. The Olympics gave enough examples of that and the Paralympics even more so. Yet it is a myth that every individual can go from rags to riches, from obscurity to fame, purely by strength of will alone.

We have to recall the words of another famous German philosopher who defined insanity as "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”.

For many youngsters from disadvantaged backgrounds, this unfortunately is their experience of the education system.

Teachers are aware that right from the first day at school some pupils are better prepared than others for what the school expects of them. Education is a great liberator, it can and does provide opportunities for some to overcome their

circumstances and secure upward social mobility, but against the odds, swimming against the stream.

The reality is that the education process, as it exists at present, actually reinforces social division. The gap in attainment at the age of 5 grows wider and wider at each Key Stage.

The process of testing and assessment helps to reinforce social deprivation.

Save the Children has a poster saying ‘It Shouldn’t Happen Here’. Child poverty should not happen anywhere but it is true that Britain is a wealthy country – wealth created by the skilled labour of previous generations of men and women. But that wealth is being increasingly concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. And the rest of society robbed of its inheritance – the social capital that resides in our libraries, our NHS, our playing fields and our comprehensive schools.

At the dawn of the Welfare State, William Beveridge identified 5 social evils: ignorance, want, idleness, squalor and disease. The elimination of these 5 Giants has now gone into reverse. Now, according to Daniel Dorling, we have 5 principles of injustice: elitism is efficient, exclusion is necessary, prejudice is natural, greed is good and despair is inevitable.

If we want to eliminate child poverty we need to change the circumstances, in education and in the wider society.

Charity will not solve the problems of the poor. It is time for real social justice.

United against austerity

Easter Monday in the Novotel Hotel Liverpool at 7.30pm.

Speakers include: Hank Roberts Unify, EfL and ATL President -pers caps Alex Kenny NUT Exec and Peoples Assembly Robert Wilkinson Communist Party education workers group Chair: Dan Thompson Windsor & Maidenhead NUT organised by Morning Star, Education for Tomorrow and the People’s Charter