As we go to press it is not known what compromise will be reached between the government and the hundred or so Labour MPs who oppose the White Paper. The main point of disagreement about school admissions policies.
At present only a minority of schools can decide their own admissions - grammar schools, voluntary- Church schools and aided (i.e. Labour's new category of 'foundation school' status (which very few schools have opted for).
Most admissions alC decided by the local authority, taking account of parental preference. The White Paper encourages every school to become a Trust school controlling which pupils it admits, with fairness ensured by the national donoussions code or conduct
Critics, including the dissident MPs in their statement 'Reshaping the Education White paper', the NUT in their response, and Melissa Benn and Fiona Millar in their Compass pamphlet Comprehensive Future, rightly argue that the result would be more social selecuon.
Schools will use parental interviews and other procedures to pick middle-class pupils to boost their exam scores. The admissions code is no obstacle, since it is only advisory. They point to Blair's own choice of school, the London Oratory, which continues to select by interview.
Related to the admissions issue are two others. Local authorities would be commissioners of services, not providers, and popular schools would be free to expand. The aim of both is more marketisation, in terms both of companies selling services and competition between schools for pupils.
The fourth key issue in the White Paper is that the Trust schools would have external sponsors - companies, charities, religious organisations, parents' groups - who could have a minority or a majority on governing bodies.
Like Academies, sponsorship is strictly on non-profit basis, tough, unlike academies, sponsors would not have to put any money into Trust schools. A Trust could also sponsor a number of schools in a 'federation'.
Here the so-called 'rebel' MPs' Melissa Benn (left ) and Fiona Millar hold up their new pamphlet A Comprehensive Future, refuting the White Paper. alternative is hopeless. Not only does it not oppose them outright, it actually goes further than the White Paper by calling for 'private partnerships with all types of schools'.
Why is the government staking so much on this White Paper? Two reasons. First, the underlying rationale for all New Labour's education policies is economic. The job of the school system is to produce a profTaole ture worktorce
The problem for the government is that its principal solution - micromanagement of schools and teachers through everything from the Literacy Hour to Ofsted inspections - is running out of steam.
Results are levelling off - and research is showing that government's claims for its effectiveness were greatly exaggerated anyway. The White Paper gears up two other mechanisms for 'driving up stancaros.
One is to reinvigorate marke competition and consumer pressure. The other, borrowed from Academies, is the role of sponsors in bringing management methods and business and religious values. Will schools follow White Paper road?
Opposition to the White Paper is widespread and indicates how politically risky it is for Blair. It goes far beyond the 'rebel' MPs and will remain whatever compromises they reach.
The political weakness of the government on this issue is also indicalea by the tact that the White It isn't just that the government is being pressured to retreat on the White Paper, its whole education project is unravelling Paper proposals are only options, they are not compulsory. This raises another question: will schools actually choose to implement them? Here we need to make a concrete analysis, not just jump to a worstcase scenario.
Let's take Trust status. Why should schools want to move to Trust status? Why should a headteacher or a governing body want to hand over control of the school to an external sponsor?
There is no financial incentive from government. The Conservative government tried to get all secondary schools to opt out of LEAs by offering a substantial bribe of an additional 15% of funding, but even so only 18% of schools opted for grant-maintained status. There is no such extra funding for Trust schools - though Trust sponsors may donate money, as they can already to specialist schools.
Nor is there any real additional freedom. Trust schools own their premises and employ their staff, but SO do Foundation schools, and take up Foundation status since 1997 few have done so.
From the sponsors' point of view, will they want to take majority control of the governing body, or even get involved as governors at all? Again, of course some will, but it seems likely that, as with current sponsors of specialist schools, many will not.
Similarly, will popular schools want lo expand? schools undoubtedly will, but the large majority won't, either because they can't - there is no space - or because There is no mcennve
Many heads and governors will not be attracted by the prospect of a bigger school, and expansion may actually make the school less popular, perhaps by admitting pupils who lower the academic standards which have made it popular.
However, one way for popular schools to expand, encouraged in the White Paper, is to take over other schools, forming federations. There are some entrepreneurial or religiously motivated heads and governing bodies who will want to seize this ODDOLLunILV to create chains of 'branded' schools.
Parents will have the power to demand a new school or even to open one as Trust sponsors. It is unlikely this will happen apart from occasional exceptional cases.
Will schools want to break away from agreed LEA systems and control their admissions? There are two reasons why most schools will not.
One is that they have a commitment to serving their local area. The other is that they will prefer to leave admissions to local authorities to deal with, as now, because admissions administration is fraught with problems, including appeals. It is significant that the majority of secondary schools already have the right to select 10% of their pupils by 'aptitude' but hardly any do.
As for local authorities, the 'from provider to commissioner' policy is not new. For some years they have had to outsource many of their services they provided to schools as a result of enforced delegation of budgets, which has created a profitable market for 'edubusiness' companies.
However most LEAs have continued to provide services, albeit on a of local market pressure.
The degree of pressure on schools varies from area to area, depending on a number of factors, including the existing hierarchy of schools, the extent to which parents are exercising choice, whether rolls are falling, and whether schools are in danger of 'failing.
In a really competitive local market, perhaps intensified by the opening of an Academy or two, one obvious way for a school to compete (perhaps reluctantly) is to seek Trust status, and perhaps take control of its aumissions loo in an allelol lu boost its image and attract more middle-class pupils.
In each area there is a critical threshold. Once the proportion of schools 'playing the market' reaches it, the pressure on the remaining schools to follow suit becomes very difficult to resist. Whether the aim is conscious or not. the outcome will be to reinforce of social inequality in local school systems. Now press home the advantage
It isn't just that the government is being pressured to retreat on the White Paper, its whole education project is unravelling. Now is the time to press home the advantage, not just settle for some compromises over the White Paper.
The 'rebel' MPs have shown little desire to organise the widespread opposition to the White Paper in an active popular campaign. That has been left to activists on the ground, in particular the day of action in London on March 2 initiated by Ealing and Islington NUT branches.
The two forthcoming conferences on education - one organised by the TUC on March 17, the other by the NUT on March 25 - could be launch-pads for a powerful united campaign to challenge the whole basis of New Labour's education policies, provided they open up the platform to grassroots activists such as the hundreds of parents and leacners involved In more llan a dozen local can Dales Academies.
And where the White Paper does resull In moves by schools to Dreak from local authorities and seek Trust status and control over admissions, it will need vigorous local campaigns to stop them.