Michael Gove is planning a revolution in schools
Michael Gove makes it clear today that the Tory "free schools" revolution will be launched immediately when they get power. This is more than clever politics: it is absolutely essential to the success of the project.
Few public services have such militantly well-organised vested interests as the state school system. Any hesitation which permits the teaching unions, local education authorities and educational establishment to regroup and assemble their campaign of resistance would almost certainly bury the policy. The Conservatives now realise that their programme of Grant Maintained Schools was effectively sabotaged in many areas by the protracted process of consultation which simply talked the reforms out of play, allowing local authorities to intimidate parents whose votes were required for a school to achieve independence from political control.
This time, Mr Gove seems to have anticipated all the possible obstacles that could be thrown up by local bureaucracy: even to changes in the planning laws which would permit popular schools to expand and new ones to be set up without excessive delay. If there is one area in which the Conservatives have clearly promised to make a profound and long-lasting improvement in the quality of national life, it is in education – both in its structures and its content – and it is clear that they really intend to follow through on this. Would that the rest of their programme was so lucid and determined.
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