According to Ken Boston, Chief Executive of the UK’s Qualifications and Curriculum Authority,‘the creation of the specialised Diplomas is the most ambitious and important educational reform currently being undertaken anywhere in the world.’ April 2006
So, when last Friday, the Secretary of State for Education, said that the introduction of the new diplomas "could go horribly wrong” alarm bells should be ringing http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6435563.stm . Especially as the Secretary of State’s comments come at a time when concern has been expressed by some of those responsible for developing and rolling out the diploma programs http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6234063.stm . They need to be worried: if the 14-19 diplomas are not a success, then there is little chance that any of the government’s learning and skills aspirations can be achieved. It would also be a disaster for its widening participation into higher education strategy. Indeed, it would damage the government’s whole anti-poverty strategy, as this is dependent on creating a high skilled workforce, in a high wage, high skill economy. There is also a specific link between improving life chances for disadvantage students and vocational education; a failure of the vocational would primarily be a blow to the disadvantaged.
On the basis of a few ‘off the record’ conversations, I’m worried that too many people in the education system are just waiting for this train to hit the buffers. This is wrong, this initiative is too important. I think that just as the Sutton Trust bangs on about private schools all the time, we should be banging on about these diplomas. For example, a key question for the future of Bright Journals is will the Russell group universities treat the diplomas as equivalent to top grade A levels? How many UCAS points will an advanced diploma be worth? These questions need clear answers now. Obfuscation at this time will mean that those who have any sort of choice will stick with the traditional qualifications.
The Brightside Trust could also focus on the way the health diplomas are being run and seek to improve their operation. There is still time; but the history of education in the UK has repeatedly shown that if vocational based qualifications are not seen to of high value, and that means at least as valuable as traditional qualifications, then they are doomed to be seen as second best.
Friday, 16 March 2007
2 There is an elephant in the room and it isn’t Charles Clarke
I was interested to see that ex-ministers Charles Clarke and Alan Milburn had launched a website. It was, they said, to facilitate discussion as to how the government could renew itself. I thought it interesting that launching a website is now the modern thing to do in politics; in the old days it would have been a manifesto, or a political program, or at the very least, a rant in some cold drafty room http://www.the2020vision.org.uk/index.php/pages/have-your-say/the-2020-vision However, when I viewed the site I was struck by the first sentence of their mission statement
‘Politics is about the future not the past.’
Why begin with this ridiculous remark? - Especially from these two. As you all know, I’m not one to gossip, but I can remember when Milburn was part of a collective, running a bookshop called ‘days of hope’, known locally as ‘haze of dope’ – his politics at that stage was overtly based on historical materialist analyses. Clarke lived in Cuba for a while, in order to be part of history. As young men, both of these chaps would have been very insistent, that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat its mistakes. So, when did history become bunk?
Well, some might say, not me you understand, that if you had the ministerial records of these two, then you wouldn’t want to look too closely at history either. For example, Charles Clarke, according to his successor, failed to notice that the Home Office wasn’t fit for purpose. Also, when education secretary, he castrated the proposals for 14-19 educational reform contained in the Tomlinson report by committing the government to keeping GCSEs and A levels http://education.guardian.co.uk/1419education/story/0,15147,1330607,00.html . This piece of surgery has left the present secretary of state worried about the future prospects for the 14-19 diplomas (see above). However, I think the problem goes beyond an evaluation of the ministerial competence of these two politicians.
I think these two have the same problem as other government supporters, such as Anthony Giddens, who seek renewal http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2034138,00.html Their problem is that according to the Moses of new Labour, Phillip Gould; the first commandment of winning elections is thou shalt not be seen by middle England to be divided. So, how can it be possible for a modern political party to conduct an honest audit? Wouldn’t the passion, self criticism and disorder that any such exercise would inevitably entail, be seen as division. The new Labour answer is to maintain unity by agreeing that everything the government has done has been a complete success - everything has worked wonderfully, no mistakes, no failures - so looking back is pointless and unproductive. Why are there still problems? It can only be that the world has changed and this has presented us with new challenges.
This will not do. In my opinion, the government has indeed fashioned some major successes, for example, the massive reduction in unemployment, the sure start program, the upcoming raising of the educational leaving age to 18, all truly historic. However, there are other stories, the PFI deals, the failure of housing policy, increasing inequality and decreasing social mobility.
Unfortunately, it’s even more complicated than recognising good and poor outcomes. It’s not just a matter of what worked, it’s also about what might have worked better, what might have worked differently, what were the alternatives?
So, what chance a fearless debate? - Fat chance.
However, without a truly critical reappraisal, then the goal of renewal is not possible. The elephants of new Labour’s creation are in the room, they must be seen, spoken of, and come to terms with. I’ll go further; if the likes of Milburn and Clarke, living in their eternal rose-tinted present, really are allowed to drive policy, then the importance of looking back will soon become apparent, as ‘history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce.’
‘Politics is about the future not the past.’
Why begin with this ridiculous remark? - Especially from these two. As you all know, I’m not one to gossip, but I can remember when Milburn was part of a collective, running a bookshop called ‘days of hope’, known locally as ‘haze of dope’ – his politics at that stage was overtly based on historical materialist analyses. Clarke lived in Cuba for a while, in order to be part of history. As young men, both of these chaps would have been very insistent, that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat its mistakes. So, when did history become bunk?
Well, some might say, not me you understand, that if you had the ministerial records of these two, then you wouldn’t want to look too closely at history either. For example, Charles Clarke, according to his successor, failed to notice that the Home Office wasn’t fit for purpose. Also, when education secretary, he castrated the proposals for 14-19 educational reform contained in the Tomlinson report by committing the government to keeping GCSEs and A levels http://education.guardian.co.uk/1419education/story/0,15147,1330607,00.html . This piece of surgery has left the present secretary of state worried about the future prospects for the 14-19 diplomas (see above). However, I think the problem goes beyond an evaluation of the ministerial competence of these two politicians.
I think these two have the same problem as other government supporters, such as Anthony Giddens, who seek renewal http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2034138,00.html Their problem is that according to the Moses of new Labour, Phillip Gould; the first commandment of winning elections is thou shalt not be seen by middle England to be divided. So, how can it be possible for a modern political party to conduct an honest audit? Wouldn’t the passion, self criticism and disorder that any such exercise would inevitably entail, be seen as division. The new Labour answer is to maintain unity by agreeing that everything the government has done has been a complete success - everything has worked wonderfully, no mistakes, no failures - so looking back is pointless and unproductive. Why are there still problems? It can only be that the world has changed and this has presented us with new challenges.
This will not do. In my opinion, the government has indeed fashioned some major successes, for example, the massive reduction in unemployment, the sure start program, the upcoming raising of the educational leaving age to 18, all truly historic. However, there are other stories, the PFI deals, the failure of housing policy, increasing inequality and decreasing social mobility.
Unfortunately, it’s even more complicated than recognising good and poor outcomes. It’s not just a matter of what worked, it’s also about what might have worked better, what might have worked differently, what were the alternatives?
So, what chance a fearless debate? - Fat chance.
However, without a truly critical reappraisal, then the goal of renewal is not possible. The elephants of new Labour’s creation are in the room, they must be seen, spoken of, and come to terms with. I’ll go further; if the likes of Milburn and Clarke, living in their eternal rose-tinted present, really are allowed to drive policy, then the importance of looking back will soon become apparent, as ‘history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce.’
3 i-spark
i-spark is a social networking site described as "MySpace for engineers and scientists". It's backed by the Engineering and Technology Board, Altran and the Guardian. Will this catch on? http://www.i-spark.org/ would you visit?
4 The motives of volunteers
Does it matter if people have ulterior motives for volunteering? An article in the Guardian explored this question http://society.guardian.co.uk/voluntary/story/0,,2024273,00.html what do you think? Also, on the volunteering front, a new volunteering website for 16 to 25 year olds has been launched. This is part of the Gordon Brown’s community service scheme which hopes to recruit a million volunteers.
http://society.guardian.co.uk/voluntary/news/0,,2034917,00.html Is this a place for us to recruit? http://www.vinspired.com
http://society.guardian.co.uk/voluntary/news/0,,2034917,00.html Is this a place for us to recruit? http://www.vinspired.com
5 Welfare Reform
There continues to be much debate about the numbers of people of working age in the UK who are dependent on benefits and not working. While no leading UK politician’s are, as yet, publicly discussing the merits of the changes pushed through in the USA by President Clinton, I know they are privately very impressed. I confidently predict that if the recent Freud report recommendations, for the Department of Work and Pensions, do not produce the desired results, then a future Conservative or Labour government will move to reform benefits, American style. I thought the following article from the Sunday Times waltzed quite nicely through the changes and debate in the USA.
From The Sunday Times
March 04, 2007
How America tried to cut single parents the welfare way
Did Bill Clinton find a way to aid family life? It’s complicated, says Tony Allen-Mills
When America marked the 10th anniversary of former President Bill Clinton’s sweeping welfare reforms of 1996, there was an improbable reaction in right-wing Republican circles. Conservatives who normally regard anyone named Clinton as an agent of Satan were to be found huddled in Washington corridors, admitting that maybe their arch-nemesis had done something right.
The president who had boldly promised “to end welfare as we know it” turned out to have done exactly that. It took a comparatively liberal Democratic president to achieve what right-wing ideologues had been opining about for years — a fundamental shift in welfare policy that forced millions of dole-seekers to work.
Despite dire warnings that families would starve and children die in the streets, Clinton pushed through a reform package that imposed strict limits on benefit entitlements and deadlines for recipients to begin fending for themselves.
The results, at first glance, appear staggering. There had been no significant decline in the number of American welfare cases for almost half a century, yet within five years, caseloads had dropped at least 60%. In some states that introduced extensive back-to-work programmes, dole queues were cut by up to 80%.
Yet before anyone in Britain leaps to conclude that what worked for Clinton would work for new Labour, meet Vivyan Adair, a former welfare recipient who got on her bike, took a university degree and became an assistant professor at Hamilton College in upstate New York.
“If the goal of welfare reform was to get people off the welfare rolls, bravo,” said Adair. “If the goal was to reduce poverty and give people economic and job stability, it was not a success.”
Through the blizzard of statistics that descends on any debate about politicians and social engineering, there is one that stands out in the continuing controversy over the impact of Clinton’s reforms.
Having identified single-parent families as the biggest drain on welfare funds, Clinton set out to promote the traditional nuclear family as the surest economic safeguard against poverty. His reforms abolished automatic cash grants for single mothers and effectively forced them to work at least part-time.
Yet a federal study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last year showed that despite many different measures to prevent unplanned pregnancies and to promote family life, out-of-wedlock births have reached a record high.
Almost 40% of children born in America are now born to single mothers, compared to 33% before Clinton’s reforms. For the first time in US history, married couples have become a minority, accounting for only 49.7% of US households.
Both right and left have seized on these figures as evidence in a continuing dispute over how much poverty really exists in America, and to what extent government policies are aggravating or relieving it.
The debate is complicated by ethnic, racial and geographic issues — 68% of black children are born out of wedlock. The only thing that seems clear is that America’s welfare revolution cannot yet be declared an enviable success.
In one respect Clinton helped usher in a genuine transformation. Teenagers of all races are having fewer babies. Despite an overall increase in single-parent families, the unmarried teen birthrate has fallen to its lowest level since the late 1980s.
Various groups have claimed credit for the trend, from liberals promoting contra-ception to evangelical Christians who have launched chastity campaigns. Clinton’s admirers also claim that his crackdown on welfare made young women realise they would not be able to rely on government handouts if they became pregnant.
Yet just as teenagers were changing their lives, the birth rate for single women in their twenties and thirties began to rise. Older women who remain unmarried are increasingly deciding to have children on their own. Different kinds of economic pressures then emerge as these women struggle to balance their children and their jobs.
“The chief goal of Clinton’s 1996 statute, as revealed by its preamble, was to reverse the decades-long decline in the nuclear family,” said Professor Amy Wax of the University of Pennsylvania law school. “If judged by this objective, welfare reform has been an abysmal failure.”
Wax argues that requiring single mothers to work has done little to discourage single-motherhood and obliges state governments to prop up one-parent families in different ways — with tax credits or food, health and other benefits. “The possibility of economic self-sufficiency has been mugged by reality,” said Wax.
Further clouding the welfare issue are new claims that the number of American families living in severe poverty reached its highest level for more than 30 years in 2005. A study last month of the recently released 2005 census statistics found that nearly 16m Americans were classified as severely poor, up 26% from 2000.
The study by the McClatchy newspaper group defined “severely” poor as individuals earning less than $5,080 (£2,610) a year and families of four with an annual income of $9,903 — half the official poverty line.
Several experts claimed these statistics reflected the creation of a permanent underclass. Conservative researchers say the statistics were not reliable as many poor people underreport their incomes.
Arloc Sherman, a senior researcher at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal think tank, offered a different interpretation. “What you see in the data are more and more single moms with children, who lose their jobs and who aren’t being caught by a safety net,” he said.
From The Sunday Times
March 04, 2007
How America tried to cut single parents the welfare way
Did Bill Clinton find a way to aid family life? It’s complicated, says Tony Allen-Mills
When America marked the 10th anniversary of former President Bill Clinton’s sweeping welfare reforms of 1996, there was an improbable reaction in right-wing Republican circles. Conservatives who normally regard anyone named Clinton as an agent of Satan were to be found huddled in Washington corridors, admitting that maybe their arch-nemesis had done something right.
The president who had boldly promised “to end welfare as we know it” turned out to have done exactly that. It took a comparatively liberal Democratic president to achieve what right-wing ideologues had been opining about for years — a fundamental shift in welfare policy that forced millions of dole-seekers to work.
Despite dire warnings that families would starve and children die in the streets, Clinton pushed through a reform package that imposed strict limits on benefit entitlements and deadlines for recipients to begin fending for themselves.
The results, at first glance, appear staggering. There had been no significant decline in the number of American welfare cases for almost half a century, yet within five years, caseloads had dropped at least 60%. In some states that introduced extensive back-to-work programmes, dole queues were cut by up to 80%.
Yet before anyone in Britain leaps to conclude that what worked for Clinton would work for new Labour, meet Vivyan Adair, a former welfare recipient who got on her bike, took a university degree and became an assistant professor at Hamilton College in upstate New York.
“If the goal of welfare reform was to get people off the welfare rolls, bravo,” said Adair. “If the goal was to reduce poverty and give people economic and job stability, it was not a success.”
Through the blizzard of statistics that descends on any debate about politicians and social engineering, there is one that stands out in the continuing controversy over the impact of Clinton’s reforms.
Having identified single-parent families as the biggest drain on welfare funds, Clinton set out to promote the traditional nuclear family as the surest economic safeguard against poverty. His reforms abolished automatic cash grants for single mothers and effectively forced them to work at least part-time.
Yet a federal study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last year showed that despite many different measures to prevent unplanned pregnancies and to promote family life, out-of-wedlock births have reached a record high.
Almost 40% of children born in America are now born to single mothers, compared to 33% before Clinton’s reforms. For the first time in US history, married couples have become a minority, accounting for only 49.7% of US households.
Both right and left have seized on these figures as evidence in a continuing dispute over how much poverty really exists in America, and to what extent government policies are aggravating or relieving it.
The debate is complicated by ethnic, racial and geographic issues — 68% of black children are born out of wedlock. The only thing that seems clear is that America’s welfare revolution cannot yet be declared an enviable success.
In one respect Clinton helped usher in a genuine transformation. Teenagers of all races are having fewer babies. Despite an overall increase in single-parent families, the unmarried teen birthrate has fallen to its lowest level since the late 1980s.
Various groups have claimed credit for the trend, from liberals promoting contra-ception to evangelical Christians who have launched chastity campaigns. Clinton’s admirers also claim that his crackdown on welfare made young women realise they would not be able to rely on government handouts if they became pregnant.
Yet just as teenagers were changing their lives, the birth rate for single women in their twenties and thirties began to rise. Older women who remain unmarried are increasingly deciding to have children on their own. Different kinds of economic pressures then emerge as these women struggle to balance their children and their jobs.
“The chief goal of Clinton’s 1996 statute, as revealed by its preamble, was to reverse the decades-long decline in the nuclear family,” said Professor Amy Wax of the University of Pennsylvania law school. “If judged by this objective, welfare reform has been an abysmal failure.”
Wax argues that requiring single mothers to work has done little to discourage single-motherhood and obliges state governments to prop up one-parent families in different ways — with tax credits or food, health and other benefits. “The possibility of economic self-sufficiency has been mugged by reality,” said Wax.
Further clouding the welfare issue are new claims that the number of American families living in severe poverty reached its highest level for more than 30 years in 2005. A study last month of the recently released 2005 census statistics found that nearly 16m Americans were classified as severely poor, up 26% from 2000.
The study by the McClatchy newspaper group defined “severely” poor as individuals earning less than $5,080 (£2,610) a year and families of four with an annual income of $9,903 — half the official poverty line.
Several experts claimed these statistics reflected the creation of a permanent underclass. Conservative researchers say the statistics were not reliable as many poor people underreport their incomes.
Arloc Sherman, a senior researcher at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal think tank, offered a different interpretation. “What you see in the data are more and more single moms with children, who lose their jobs and who aren’t being caught by a safety net,” he said.
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