Following Manchester Labour’s extraordinary attack on the pupil premium – describing the policy as a “sham” – news reaches The Voice via Lib Dem councillor Steve Beasant that a Labour cabinet member on North East Lincolnshire Council has joined his Manchester colleagues in their criticism.
As Paul Walter reported earlier, Nick Clegg was asked about the comments of Manchester’s Labour councillors at Tuesday’s Deputy Prime Minister’s Questions by Lib Dem MP Duncan Hames. Here’s the full exchange:
Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD): Wiltshire schools have long felt short-changed by funding allocations for education, so they will welcome the doubling of pupil premium moneys for our schools in Wiltshire to more than £5 million next year. Now that Labour councillors in Manchester have voted for the pupil premium to be scrapped, will the Deputy Prime Minister consider giving our schools next year some of the more than £80 million of pupil premium that their council has rejected?
Deputy Prime Minister: The pupil premium, which by the end of this Parliament will be £2.5 billion of extra money to help schools that are educating children from the most challenging backgrounds, is a very powerful, progressive policy, and I am very proud that we have delivered it, as a coalition Government. We have been searching in vain for months to find out what the Labour party would actually cut in public expenditure. Now, we have the answer: Labour councillors want to cut the pupil premium that benefits some of the most deprived children in this country. That is progressive politics for you!
* Nick Thornsby is a day editor at Lib Dem Voice.
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11 Comments
And with Manchester schools not able to educate 50% of their children up to GCSE grade A-C, that’s more than HALF are failing to get 5 GCSEs A-C in Manchester…….. well
It’s almost like they want to keep people in poverty?
Tish, Louise, Labour don’t want to keep people in poverty. Far better* to keep them a smidge above poverty, with the spectre of the Tories taking away a tiny bit and pushing you back under. Let people get too far away from poverty, or they might gain their own voices and make their own choices.
* from the point of view of socialists seeking re-election
What a surprise from the Labour council that was happy to make 2500 redundant to help Labour win the Oldham East byelection.
Of course, as I’m sure you know really, the pupil premium isn’t actually an increase, or “additional money” – it simply replaces a cut to the schools budget, so you’re back where you started. And it comes from elsewhere in the education budget.
See Channel 4’s Factcheck.
Mark, that Fact Check is over a year old, since which the Pupil Premium has been increased at least once if not twice. Is it still accurate?
Even if it is, rebalancing the way education is funded so that more goes to the poorest pupils (who often have the lowest educational achievement) is surely a good thing. After all, when Labour’s economic mess is sorted out, the pupil premium will remain. Unless a future Labour or Tory Government decides to scrap it – possibly because they think it’s a “sham”?
Dave, I think you’ve misunderstood. The pupil premium was always set to rise every year, and this was understood at the time it was announced at last year’s Spending Review, and factored into the Factcheck article I posted. When Nick Clegg refers to £2.5 billion of extra money, he means that it will rise to 2.5 billion by the end of the Parliament – it isn’t at £2.5 billion now – next year it will be worth £1.25 billion. This means that every year the government gets to announce that it’s risen, but it’s not a rise over and above expectations, it’s just the rolling out of a pre-announced policy. This can be seen in the fact that this month’s press release announcing an increase has the same £2.5 billion 2014-15 figure as last year’s spending review.
In other words, the Factcheck analysis is still correct.
As a teacher in a struggling school, I back the idea of the pupil premium.
It will only work, however, if it’s dramatic enough to change the incentives currently at work. Again and again, I see better schools in the area able to hand us some of their most challenging students on “managed moves”.
They don’t want to be seen to expel them but they also don’t want these student to bring their results down. Our school (and others like it) aren’t in a position to say no because of falling rolls.
If this works as it should, schools should end up competing over the chance to educate these students rather than trying to pass the buck.
If you are poor, your chance of getting 5 good GCSEs including E&M is 44% in London, and 29% in Manchester. I think Manchester cllrs really should concentrate on running their own schools a bit better. http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/business/commentary/bernard_ginns_lse_economist_lays_bare_brutal_facts_of_failing_schools_1_4055244 (The underlying source of these stats is the National Pupil Database)
“If you are running education in one of these cities then you should be deeply ashamed, because you have betrayed your cities and you have betrayed your young people growing up in your cities.”
Perfectly put
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/dec/26/schools-funding-cuts-hits-literacy
Pupil Premium the pride of the Liberal Democrats
Manchester Labour haven’t been able to get a majority of their students to get Grade A-C for a looong time.
Still no answer from the critics on this thread as to why Manchester Labour shouldn’t be apologising to Mancunian children.