Surprised? Successful schools would mean one less area of our lives for politicians to use for their own purposes – look, boys and girls, we are doing something for you.
Surprised – having learnt just a few months ago that Margaret Thatcher introduced the GCSE, which she considered inferior to O-levels, knowing that to do so would provoke teachers?
Ever since politicians pushed wedges between parents and teachers – for parents the notion of choice and meaningless comparisons between schools, for teachers more and more rules and regulations – it has been easy to alarm ourselves about state-funded schools.
Until parents and teachers together put politicians back in their place “other people’s children” will remain vulnerable. For the moment the only way to be sure about your children’s education is to send them to the schools to which politicians send their children.