As we go to press, it is unclear whether Blair has made enough concessions to Labour rebels on the Education white paper, due for its second reading on March 15, to get it through the House of Commons without Tory support. As we argued in the last issue of SR, the majority of the rebels have only a skin-deep opposition to the bill. Certainly some key figures such as Neil Kinnock and John Denham now seem to be happy that Blair has done enough to keep them happy although others such as former education secretary Estelle Morris does not yet seem to have decided. At any rate the only way that the government's rotten vision of education for profit will be overturned is by mass campaigning by students, parents and education workers. BIRMINGHAM Council plans to turn seven secondarv schools into Academies. It claims its Birmingham Academies moder cams to be different from the Government's Academies model and supposedly avoid all its disadvantages.
They argue that the key difference that the Birmingham Academies will "work within a Birmingham framework".
Each Academy will have more than one sponsor (which is no different trom manv existing Academies), with one 'prime sponsor'. The sponsors would be 'business and community partners' with a local
They would work equally with 6 schools across the city, one of which wil be Birmingham Academy', in "6 Illa Ul Partner Networks'.
"The partner's f2 million contribution will be put into specialist facilities or services that will be available to all schools it supports."
But the reality is that on unis and every olner key question what is on ofter in Birmingham is just as rotten as the national model
The Council would like us to believe that there is no alternative. They falsely claim that Birmingham's Building Schools for the Future money
tied accepting Academies. They should take BSF funds without conditions imposed by the government.
So far consultation with heads and governing bodies has been tightly controlled and partisan. Parents in the affected schools have not been informed at all. Meetings with potential sponsors are being held in secret.
This is the largest change in education in a generation and it is being slipped through without debate.
The people of Birmingham have a right to know what is being proposed and a right to their say on it from the start.
Fortunately, the Birmingham National Union of Teachers is taking up the challenge. Building on the success of the recent Anti-Academy national conference Birmingham, street stalls have been set up in the locality of five of the schools being targeted.
A city centre public meeting is planned on March 30 and the process of lobbying COMPREHENSIVE EDUCATION
2006
love from
millions of
kids! Norman Traub PARKLIFE, a single issue campaign group formed in June 2001 to protect Priory Park in Southend, Essex, have set up Camp Bling, the UK's newest and first urban street camp. Southend Council is promoting a road widening scheme, which encompasses part of