The Guardian notes this morning that:
Teachers' workloads are being increasingly stretched by their pupils' mental health and family difficulties, according to MPs who were critical of the government's efforts to tackle chronic staff shortages in England's schools.
They added:
The education select committee said it was “concerned that since the pandemic teachers are spending more time on addressing issues that would typically fall outside the remit of schools, including family conflict resolution and mental health support,” and called for the government to support better provision inside and outside schools.
Tellingly, they also noted that:
The MPs said those tasks were contributing to the excessive workload cited by teachers as pushing them out of the profession, while it said reports of deteriorating pupil behaviour could also be discouraging prospective teachers.
Let me put this in context. Yesterday Keir Starmer promised he would recruit an additional 6,500 teachers in England. There are roughly 500,000 teachers in England right now. That means he plans to add just 1.3 per cent to their total - which I think we can reasonably describe as an almost insignificant goal. But he said it nonetheless.
What he did not say was what he was going to do to make the lives of teachers better so that more would wish to stay in the profession when so many leave within years of completing their training.
Here, he could have talked about better pay, and if he had, he would have been right to do so.
He could have talked about more support. Again, he would have been right to do so.
He could have talked about removing the ghastly quasi-market structure of education, which is designed to oppress those working at the front of classrooms.
He could have addressed the problems with assessment, which is excessive and fails to appraise almost any of the skills that anyone - including employers - really values in young people joining the workforce, but does instead focus on skills almost no one needs.
But most of all, he could have talked about the biggest problems of all in schools.
He could have talked about the dire ventilation in schools that let Covid spread and maintains carbon dioxide at levels so high that almost no one can learn in them.
He could have talked about ending the two-child benefit cap that puts about a million children into poverty and leaves them living in families with such deep stress that, of course, some of those children are disruptive in school.
He could have talked about redistribution from the wealthiest to those in need.
He could have addressed the issue of insecurity in private rented accommodation, which means that far too many children move too often to school, which has a dire impact on their educational achievement.
He could have said he would ensure that interest rates are cut so that the folly of the Bank of England is not foisted on households with large mortgages, many of whom will include children, denying them the childhoods they deserve, all to serve the interests of bankers.
He could have said all this, and no doubt more. But he didn't. Because he doesn't care about children, or teachers, or the families that support those children and those teachers. He only cares about balancing the books and serving the interests of big business.
And that is why he will be a dismal prime minister.
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More Harmer With Starmer! That’s the top and bottom of it!
He’s got a shadow education minister and a shadow children’s minister for almost all of that. Sir Keir will do well because he believes in team working and trusting his appointments. With the TBI over his shoulder we’ll be in safe hands.
So why have we not had a positive reform agenda from the shadow educatoin and children’s ministers ?
Undoing the structural damage done by Gove etc., ought to be high priority.
TBI ? Traumatic Brain Injury ?
TBI=????/
The TBI is the biggest think tank operating in Britain at the moment.
In terms of staff and income it’s around 10 times bigger than the IEA who were once accused of running Liz Truss.
Well, the TBI are running Sir Keir Starmer. And doing a beautiful job from the shadows, massive poll lead, bringing in the donors, and very few people know of the think tank that is guiding him.
Hope that helps Tampa.
Tony Blair Institute
Traumatic Brain Injury
@ Russ Starmer may have an education team to help him but every proposal they make that requires substantially higher spending after 14 years of Tory under-funding will be met with we can’t afford it! The underlying sub-text of Starmer’s statement being I’m against making the rich pay their fair share of taxes!
“And that is why he will be a dismal prime minister.”
I agree, but Starmer’s route to No 10 lies in the hands of UK voters.
Vote Dismal – Vote Starmer
Not something to encourage people to put a tick next to the LINO candidate.
Thanks for the list – I’ll use it if I may?
Of course
The crisis in provision for SEND children -special educational needs and disabilities – is dreadful.
People applying for a plan are usually turned down though many will win on appeal. Those kids with parents determined to persevere may get help eventually. Those without parents who don’t know how to work in the system or lack confidence, will lose out. And it costs money. I know of one case where an appeal has been granted -in a year’s time!
This is a real crisis
That’s just the tip of a massive iceberg that is SEN provision. I’m a teacher in a special school in Lancashire and the erosion of services over the last 14 years has been starck and upsetting. All the therapists that support our pupils have been hollowed out to the point of uselessness. Speech and Language discharging pupils because there is only 1 therapist able to see pupils A WEEK. Occupation health and physiotherapy triaging pupils on how bad their needs are rather than working as a collaborative team to provide the best outcomes for their physical development. We no longer have a nurse or HCA on site despite pupils having more severe and acute needs due to better medical intervention means TAs are trained to give pupils life extending medication rather than NHS staff. It’s a shit show, and add to that the cap on paying TAs a set wage across the county rather than pay them what according to the job they are doing and how much they are worth (which is immeasurable) means no one wants to work in SEN schools. I’m sorry if this comes across as a rant, but this is the reality I’ve had to live over the last 10 years and it makes me feel a bit better to say what is happening rather than put a brave face on which is what we have to do on a daily basis to the best for the pupils under our care
Thank you for sharing your justified frustration
I have a friend who specialises in SEN – and she corroborates your story
“…serving the interests of big business”, i.e. the corporate capture of the government of this country.
This is why all your wise words and sound suggestions are effectively idealistic pie-in-the-sky. And I say that as someone very much in sympathy with what you are saying.
But – ‘Twas ever thus’.
See: Ned Beatty’s speech in the film ‘Network’ (1970s); Tony Benn pointing out that governments no longer govern by political principle and the programme derived from that, but merely ‘administer the country in the interests of big business’ (magazine article, probs late 1980s); George Monbiot’s book ‘Captive State’ (2001); two more recent books – Oliver Bullough’s ‘Butler to the World’ and Angus Hanton’s ‘Vassal State’. Loads more – Gary Stevenson, Grace Blakely, Will Hutton etc.
Are these all just words analysing the problem, or can we do anything about it? It would need some sort of near-revolution. I don’t sense any mass discontent at what’s going on. Maybe many people don’t know about it. Surely people would vote for the kind of change we need? It would be in their interests.
Given that what’s needed is major reform, then what’s lacking is a politician with zeal to drive this reform. For a long time I’ve felt that what’s needed is – and I apologise for using the name – a ‘Thatcher of the left’. Someone with clear ideas, a really good brain, strength of character, clarity of purpose, and energy to drive change. Just driving things along the lines you advocate, not pushing the neoliberal economics that you mention very often. This ain’t Starmer, obviously.
Can Starmer be anything other than dismal in these circumstances? I fear not.
Are we screwed? I fear so.
@ Nigel Okey this is why every effort should be made to hold the feet of the staff at the Guardian to the fire until they understand MMT and become the country’s first MMT newspaper. In theory it doesn’t take a lot just be willing to be truly moral and bring in Richard and Stephanie Kelton to talk to them.
An MMT supporting newspaper…
Great idea Schofield?
I hope Richard will take this on
AND that he’ll educate The National newspaper in Scotland too.
The National is pretty keen on MMT
No other newspaper gives it as much coverage
This is how things currently stand with the Guardian which is true of of other mainstream media outlets (the article is in relation to government spending to deal with the Covid pandemic):-
“The repairs to developed economies, which are already building up ballooning deficits, will be costly. Trillions of dollars will have been spent by governments on furlough schemes, emergency lending programmes and extra health funding. The bill will have to be met.”
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/apr/12/treasury-bank-of-england-ways-and-means-facility-debt-mountain
The final sentence “The bill will have to be met.” reveals, to put no finer point on it, the nation is the hands of Kamikaze liars at best ignoramuses. The chapter and verse to support this is in the following document the central point of which is there is never “a bill to be met” only the necessity to avoid deflation and abnormal inflation (In the case of the latter see Richard’s Taxing Wealth Report).
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/public-purpose/sites/bartlett_public_purpose/files/the_self-financing_state_an_institutional_analysis_of_government_expenditure_revenue_collection_and_debt_issuance_operations_in_the_united_kingdom.pdf
As a footnote see the following:-
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/ways_and_means_ii_account
Thanks Richard. I know you write for the National (Always good) but an “educational” on MMT would be great.
Have you seen the Scotonomics series?
The teacher pledge – as you say Richard couldn’t be more trivial . But all the issues you mention – teacher retention, pay, spillover from family poverty into school , clean air classrooms etc. – is just another list of issues on which they have banned discussion. This is all part of their strategy not to engage, not to debate about possibilities or feasibilites – all in the service of getting elected by offering no targets for the Telegraph/Sun/Mail – ‘saying nothing’ while ‘saying something’ .
But I still think he will have problemsjust ‘serving the interests of big business’.
The economy and society is in the middle of a downward self reinforcing spiral – during which its internal contradictions will make his austerity strategy increasingly impossible to sustain.
Dangerous but fertile groudn to show ther is money and things can be done differently.
I retired from teaching 15 years ago and this is one of the best summaries of the state of education in England that I’ve read in the meantime.
The stresses then were league tables ,the over assessment,government ministers interfering with the curriculum and the content of exams and Ofsted.
And it’s got far worse,especially for pupils.
If other regulatory bodies had the same demands as Ofsted there would be no private companies delivering public services.
Thank you
There are 32,000 schools in Britain. 6,500 teachers means that each school would get 0.2 teachers (or one teacher per school for one day of the week).
The government could “afford” however many teachers it wants. The cost of having a poorly educated population is incalculable.
My data suggests a smaller number, and I used English only data
But I agree with your conclusion
Surely nobody believes Starmer gives a moments thought to any of the “other” three nations?
Nope, if he keeps his nose clean, England’s electorate will happily vote for him as P.M. simply because he isn’t a Tory, despite the fact that all outward appearances suggest he is.
As usual Scotland will be dragged along.
I’m probably one of the very few commenting here who is a current teacher. I retired 11 years ago, but for financial reasons teach 24 periods a week to 6th form. I teach in a bog standard ex state school with 41% SEMH students. The curriculum is grossly inadequate, the students have huge problems, the building leaks, etc etc. Richard is exactly right, and it is getting worse. That’s one reason I loath Starmer and all he has turned out to be.
The Labour Party has been Tory for nearly fifty years now:-
https://billmitchell.org/blog/?p=60987
Is it any wonder the country’s in decline there simply is no longer a radically progressive party in the country that’s going to pull it out of that decline.
And when you get a mildly radical leader of Labour who is willing to present a more socially responsible set of policies (and whose position on matters like Palestine has the integrity so shockingly lacking everywhere else), everyone, including those calling for a change from the Tories, and especially his own so-called Labour Party, turns on him and savages him into silence. We had our chances in 2017 (the unmentioned election) and 2019, and we failed.
My wife & I wetre talking to a head teacher yesterday.
He said that he thought education was letting children down and while the Pandemic didnt help it is a major cause of the mental ill health many young people are suffering from.
My view is that the biggest thing you can learn in life is that its possible to do things and as a friend of mine who worked in FE said thats something thats all to often beaten out of children from some backgrounds
In reference to the Guardian saying “the bill will have to be met” the massive nonsense in its argument is the non-circularity of its thinking. Do they really think the government can repay the bank it owns, the Bank of England, with money that doesn’t require redemption? Do they really think such money exists like some kind of mythical unicorn springing out along with rays of sunshine? Do they not understand that without the government having the power to contribute redemptive circularity to money it will become problematic in regard to value stability? That this power to impose redemption leaves the Bank of England impotent to create money on its own? That it’s a joint effort?
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/apr/12/treasury-bank-of-england-ways-and-means-facility-debt-mountain
The fundamental thing that needs to be done to improve education is to reduce class sizes
That would definitely help
‘re media covering MMT: any hope with Byline Times (which has many regional offshoots)? Have you got any contacts there?
I am regularly in several of the Bylines regional papers, but only occasionally in the main one….