Bad news for education (From Oxford Mail)

Bad news for education

10:00am Tuesday 15th May 2012 in Letters

VERY good news to have it reported (Homes and schools named top priorities, May 12) that Councillor Bob Price, Labour leader of Oxford City Council, said the “city council would invest £400,000 a year over the next four years” on state-maintained schools in Oxford city.

Not so good to learn that this “will be a joint project with the county council designed to improve results”.

Mr Price will be well aware that the county council, as demonstrated by the commentary of Cabinet Member for Schools Improvement Melinda Tilley, is slavishly Govite, committed to academy chains, free schools, university technical colleges and studio schools.

For those of us who voted in Labour councillors in Oxford on May 3, any suggestion that Mr Price and his council colleagues should collaborate with the ultra-conservative county council is distressing and shocking.

Far better for the £1.6m to be dispersed directly to city schools, in cooperation with heads and governing bodies, and not through Mrs Tilley and her pro-Gove hit-squad at County Hall – especially given their determination to support the academisation of everything in sight. Local democracy, Mr Price, should count for something: the ballot-box matters!

BRUCE ROSS-SMITH, Bowness Avenue, Headington, Oxford

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