‘UK Deputy PM school projects backfire’

February 1st, 2014

FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda

The money thrown at the pupil premium and universal school meals is not showing results among the poorest children.

In the Liberal Democrats 2010 constitution, Nick Clegg promised “a fresh start for Britain,” in which “no one shall be enslaved by poverty, ignorance or conformity.”

This week’s findings that one of the party’s flagship policies, the pupil premium, has done nothing for social mobility in schools must come as a particularly sharp slap in the face.

Analyzing last summer’s GCSE results, the think tank Demos found that the attainment gap between children from poor and affluent families had grown, and when London was excluded – given the fact that the capital’s state schools are impressively well-performing – the gap in GCSE grades grows even starker. In Wokingham, only 31% of those eligible for free school meals achieved 5 A*-C grades at GCSE, compared to the national average of 64.8%.

While the pupil premium – funding earmarked for disadvantaged children but is not tied to specific projects – is popular with teachers, many people, including schools minister David Laws, have raised concerns about how it’s being spent. With education and school budgets being slashed, some schools have used the pupil premium to plug funding gaps or to hire teaching assistants, rather than on in-school schemes specifically targeted to children in receipt of free school meals. Ofsted chief inspector Michael Wilshaw, currently “spitting blood” at reported smear attempts from inside the Department of Education (DfE), warned that schools had to target these “invisible children,” and complained of “indifferent teaching.”

From next year, the DfE is front-loading the pupil premium to primary schools, with £1,300 for each disadvantaged child. In theory, this sounds brilliant. In practice, this might mean even less money for schools due to a funding catastrophe caused by another of Clegg’s pet schemes: universal school meals. When Clegg announced it in September at the Lib Dem party conference many wondered whether this had properly been thought through: if the pupil premium allocation is worked out based on the number of children on free school meals, making them universal means pestering parents with unnecessary admin, in order to chase funding.

Low uptake of school meals already means some schools miss out on pupil premium funding, so with little incentive for parents to fill in forms, even 10 children not returning letters means £13,000 less in a school’s annual budget. Many more and serious cracks start to show in already winnowed bank accounts. Clegg also failed to cost his scheme before launching it with fanfare: initially assuming it would cost a “mere” £600m, his advisers had failed to take into account the extra £150m needed to fund emergency construction of kitchens in which to cook the meals – £80m of this will be taken from the DfE schools maintenance budget so there may be a few leaky roofs in primary schools next winter.

All this feels very much like Clegg sits in a darkened room in Whitehall and is occasionally allowed out with a half-baked idea, while Michael Gove rampages through the sector paying him no heed.

Even the free school meals policy was a bribe in exchange for Lib Dem support of the married couples tax allowance. The pupil premium, like free school meals, can’t be viewed as a silver bullet for social inequality for future generations, without viewing it in the context of coalition policies in general.

Throwing money at two small projects in education won’t undo greater ills caused by austerity, and welfare cuts: a child whose mother collects meals for the week from a food bank won’t be buoyed by receiving free school meals. And catch-up lessons, paid for by the pupil premium, are unlikely to offset the stress caused by your parents growing up in poverty due to government cuts. As social geographer Danny Dorling says in his latest book: “Like a child accompanying the school bully when he takes pocket money off a weaker child, and who later claims he did not know what was going on, the Liberal Democrats appear to be very gullible coalition partners.”

GMA/HSN

Source Article from http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/01/31/348630/uk-deputy-pm-school-projects-backfire/