Stop New Labour’s old Tory policies

NUT conference: Stop New Labour’s old Tory policies

EVERY CHILD should have the right to a good education at their local
school. But too many parents fear that their children may not be getting
the opportunities they deserve. Now New Labour’s Education Bill is going
to make things even worse.

Martin Powell-Davies, secretary Lewisham National Union
of Teachers

Selection and underfunding has already opened the gap between schools
at the top and bottom of the league tables. Labour’s latest plans to
encourage schools to break away from the local authorities will only
widen that divide.

These schools would be allowed to set their own separate admissions
policies. Instead of schools working together, they will compete with
each other for the pupils they want to choose.

For every family that wins the place they’re hoping for, there will
be many more that will lose out. For every school that succeeds in
selecting the pupils it wants, another school will be plunged further
into difficulties.

New Labour’s ideas on education aren’t "new" at all. They
are just what the Tories tried under Margaret Thatcher. Blair even had
to rely on the votes of Tory MPs to get his proposals through
Parliament. New Labour are carrying out Old Tory policy.

When Labour are in trouble, they turn to "spin", but who
believes them any more? Gordon Brown claims he is going to fund state
education as generously as private schools! But his actual spending
plans go nowhere near it.

We have some of the highest class sizes in Europe. Teachers work some
of the longest hours. Schools are struggling to find the resources to
meet the needs of every pupil.

Parents, teachers and students must not allow New Labour to get away
with fragmenting and privatising our schools. Together, we must fight
for schools to be united through a common agreed admissions policy and
genuinely funded so that they can meet the needs of every pupil.

Local community campaigns, such as those that have successfully
fought off the threat of privately-sponsored Academy schools, will be
vital. But these campaigns need to be linked together into a national
campaign to defend comprehensive education and all our public services.

The National Union of Teachers, meeting for its Annual Conference in
Torquay over Easter, must take a lead in carrying the campaign against
the Education Bill into local communities and the wider trade union
movement.

Delegates must also make sure that the union builds on the recent
victories that have been won where school groups have taken strike
action to oppose pay cuts threatened by imposed salary restructuring.

Such a collective approach will be vital to win campaigns on
pensions, pay and workload, as well as to defeat the threats from the
Education Bill.

But while fighting these battles, more and more teachers will
conclude that trade unions need a political voice as well.

That’s why the Campaign for a New Workers Party will be calling on
NUT delegates for support in building a new party that can challenge the
big business parties that work together to tear apart comprehensive
education.


Socialist fighter re-elected

SOCIALIST PARTY member Linda Taaffe has been re-elected to the
executive of the National Union of Teachers, on an increased vote. Linda
has one of the four seats in the Outer London area.

The left is continuing to make steady gains on the executive as more
and more teachers look for a trade union which will defend their
interests in the face of government attacks. Over the next two years,
the life of the new executive, the union will have to fight back in
particular, against the privatisation of education inherent in the
Education Bill.