Dave just had a letter published in the Times Educational Supplement, the schoolteachers' weekly publication. A far longer/ more complete version of this is posted, as a 21 point education manifesto, on this blogspot, under `Resources'. Dave will be having a series of schoolgate meetings outside primary schools in Brighton kemptown over the next 3 weeks, talking with parents and handing out the Brighton TUSC education leaflet, with TUSC education policies.
Letters
Published in The TES on 9 April, 2010
By: Dave Hill
It is ludicrous for soft-left luminaries to argue that "education should be depoliticised". The very choice of what and how education should be taught, organised, funded and a consideration of "who wins and who loses" are all intensely political.
Britain's schools need a socialist manifesto: smaller class sizes; no league tables or Sats; democratic control of academies; a fully comprehensive schools system; the abolition of private and faith schools; and a curriculum that encourages critical thinking.
Many of our schools are brilliant. But with better funding, smaller class sizes, an end to the destructive competition between them and with more professional judgment allowed for teachers, all state schools could match the results of the more lavishly funded private schools.
Dave Hill, Middlesex University; Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition parliamentary candidate for Brighton Kemptown.
