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Attacking Teachers Professionalism...

A teacher's response to McCormac's review of Scottish Education...

Prior to the findings of the McCormac review I feared the worst. The reality is somewhat different; the 35 hour week survives (in theory) and the need for preparation time is acknowledged. However, to accept McCormac on a superficial level, and regard it as an innocuous document, would be naïve. The cynic in me says that it is both a monstrous perversion of the English language and a pernicious attack upon our conditions.

My fears stem from the sheer number of contradictions contained in the report. The document claims to advance teacher professionalism. Introducing unqualified staff does not advance professionalism; it is the very opposite. Introducing a convoluted system of calculating class contact time will not be “flexible”- it will be exploitative. On the one hand it claims to want an end to hour counting; on the other, having to calculate their contact time on an annual basis will leave teachers with the choice of counting or being exploited. You can only fear the worse when they claim that they want teachers to be more “mobile”. What does that mean? Greater employment instability? More short-term contracts? In an attempt to simultaneously attack conditions yet be inoffensive to teachers, McCormac has ended up as a report that in many instances simply doesn’t make sense.

There is a saying that ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it’. Industrial relations in teaching have enjoyed a harmonious period during the last ten years. The report even acknowledges this. It states that Scotland has “a well-qualified and committed teaching profession that provides a positive and stimulating environment for young people's learning”. Nonetheless, the authors have launched a sustained attack on teachers, their conditions and, the corollary of attacking either of these two, the welfare of young people.

The McCormac Review’s official title is Advancing Professionalism in Teaching. The irony is that by scrapping the Chartered Teacher Scheme, and introducing non-qualified staff, the report is in fact eroding professionalism in teaching. From the outset the report exudes an arrogant assumption that only management control – as opposed to teacher autonomy – can offer greater professionalism. The proposed end of the right for staff to work off-site is indicative of this; the implication being that we are not professional enough to work outwith the guise of management.

54% of responses to the McCormac review felt that Annex E should not be revised. By this, the report acknowledges that a majority of respondents do not feel that teachers should be carrying out any of the duties in Annex E. So, in what must considered a wholly disproportionate act, McCormac has recommended axing Annex E altogether.

There are a handful of positives that can be taken. The introduction of a national system for annual review will be a relief to those of us who have had to negotiate the dissimilar ways in which respective local authorities handle these matters. CPD requirements will be linked to this system. However, it is not clear what the report’s proposed changes to CPD will look like in practice.

Probationers will remain on the same contact time but it is calculated over a four week period. This potentially opens the way for probationers being taken for cover. This forces the probationer to hour count, keep a log of when they are taken for cover, so as to prevent management from exploiting them. Once again we face hour counting.

Unqualified staff are to be allowed to work with classes on their own given the assent of the Headteacher. The GTCS are to approve which unqualified individuals are allowed to do this, but by using the money that we pay them each year. In other words, we are paying for a move that could potentially lead to our own job losses. In another of the report’s wonderful contradictions, it is interesting to note that unqualified staff are to be allowed to look after children unsupervised, but experienced classroom teachers will not even be allowed off-site to complete their marking!

Advancing Professionalism in Teaching, is a misnamed, misguided and for the most part unnecessary document. It has been composed to ensure that Scotland’s local authorities fall into line with David Cameron’s sustained assault upon the public sector. The changes to working hours will allow authorities to hire fewer staff. As with all decisions in the public sector nowadays, its recommendations are driven by cost; the welfare of young people is afforded only lip service. However, in a rather perverse way, we are lucky. While London governs in a dictatorial fashion, in Scotland the authorities have to proceed with caution. McCormac is not as detrimental as it could have been, but it is far from an encouraging development for the teaching profession in Scotland.

Scottish Education- A Socialist Response to Curriculum for Excellence

On the Eve of the EIS Conference, SFST member, Allan Armstrong analyses the CfE

The combination of the over 40% rejection of the latest EIS/COSLA/SEED pay and conditions deal, with the publication of the decisions of the the McCormac Review, means that socialist teachers are now presented with a real opportunity to advance a far-reaching alternative. Otherwise, if the SEED/COSLA and Moray Place get their way, teachers only face increased demoralisation and depression as greater and greater burdens are placed upon our shoulders, only to meet fewer and fewer of our students’ real educational needs.

Perhaps, the employers’ greatest victory, stemming from the 2001 McCrone Agreement, was the EIS giving up any critical assessment of ongoing governments’ educational counter-reforms. In the late 60’s and 70’s, many classroom teachers were avid participants in educational debate. Publishers, including Penguin, issued regular Education Specials. In these the latest ideas - some decidedly whacky, some divorced from any classroom experience, but many very stimulating - were read and debated by teachers, especially socialist teachers, many of whom entered education after ‘68’.

In secondary education, as recently as the 1990’s, there were vibrant subject organisations, such as the Association of Media Education (Scotland), in which classroom teachers eagerly participated, discussed and debated the latest developments and practice, without any thought of advancing their careers beyond the classroom. These organisations weren’t insular and also sought out the most stimulating external speakers.

However, the SED and SEED completely failed to build on all this classroom teachers’ knowledge and experience, whilst the EIS leadership never took radical educational reform seriously - it was too associated with precisely those who contested them on pay and conditions.
Reforming Scottish education took a different course. ‘Experts’ were drawn from the senior promoted staff in the universities and colleges of education, aided by selected promoted teachers. They were prepared to accept the latest top-down changes in return for their own rapid career enhancement. Initially, there were consultation exercises, like that conducted around Higher Still. However, when classroom teachers challenged these top-down initiatives, they were just ignored. Higher Still was launched to a great fanfare, and crashed spectacularly in the first year of the new examinations in 2000.

Primary teachers offered similar warnings over National Testing. This would result in young school students being trained to pass through the requisite hoops (the national tests), at the cost of gaining the more rounded knowledge that could advance their education. Eventually, even the HMI’s (now employed solely to promote the latest government initiatives, and to cow and police teachers into doing so) cottoned on to what classroom teachers had long being saying. They eventually realised that the National Testing they had been pushing down primary teachers’ throats would have to go.

Therefore. the SEED came up with a new catch-all educational counter-reform to cover schooling from 3-18 - the Curriculum for Excellence (CfE). A key feature of CfE has been the total non-involvement of class teachers in its formulation or development. The SEED decided to avoid the challenges from classroom practioners they had faced over their earlier reforms. Furthermore, another key aspect of CfE has been to make the actual nature of the changes as vague as possible. This means the SEED can continually change the goalposts, revealing new changes as they see fit, knowing that classroom teachers have been disarmed in advance, since they have never had any input into the process.

Following earlier precedents, CfE produced its own round of jargon (what was once essential knowledge for would-be careerists is now just as important for those trying to get a permanent contract). However, every classroom teacher realises that the four ‘capacities’ are a burdensome add-on extra, which do not help actual educational practice. Does anybody know one person in school, charged with promoting ‘responsible citiizens’ throughout the curriculum, who took the opportunity of all the brouhaha surrounding the recent royal wedding to promote discussion in school on what being a citizen actually means - as opposed to being a docile subject? For the authorities and school management ‘capacities’ are just another addition to their armoury of control - monitoring and measuring our compliance by ticking boxes and through regular teacher appraisal.

As local education offices and schools develop an ever-extended and privileged hierarchy of managerial posts, these people, far divorced from classroom realities, have to produce longer and longer paper trails to provide evidence to their immediate superiors, that they are in control of things. Since there is continuous downward managerial pressure, every effort is made to ensure, at each subordinate level, that the requirements demanded are met on paper. However, as the paperwork is passed up the managerial hierarchy, it reflects less and less of the reality in the classroom.

Our new managerial stalinists face similar problems to their now departed predecessors in the old USSR. At present, most teachers remain committed enough to the job that they try to deflect all the top-down imposed crap, the better to get on with the real job of teaching. However, if the McCormac Review were to be ‘successfully’ imposed, schools would likely become dysfunctional workplaces, where “they pretend to pay us, and we pretend to work”. And school students confronted with more and more meaningless school work, and fewer and fewer decent job prospects, would be even more disaffected - a recipe for failure.

Most teachers would recognise the need for some administrative jobs to enhance our work in the classroom (e.g. curriculum development, pastoral care, dealing with necessary agencies). However, the reality underlying many of the new promoted posts is that they create work that detracts from the job of teaching. The more elaborate and dictatorial the managerial hierarchies weighing down upon teachers, the less teachers have meaningful control, and the less effective is the education we provide.

So what can teachers do? Developing meaningful education for our students means asserting teacher control over classroom education. Nobody has more interests in providing effective learning than teachers, since we soon know to our cost whenever we are unable to do this. The massively increased managerial pressures resulting from the McCormac Review, coupled to the worsened conditions and the pay freeze, have educational failure and breakdown written all over them. Furthermore, Scottish Labour*, the SNP and the Tories all have plans to protect the more privileged, especially from the middle class, from the consequences of their planned educational, social and economic measures. They want to develop a hierarchy of state funded private schools (which can set their own curriculum, pay and conditions) leaving behind a growing number of sink schools.

And central of all their plans is CfE. Here is the Wikipedia assessment of how teachers currently view CfE:-

“Many within the Scottish teaching profession, including the teacher's union EIS and it's members, believe that the Curriculum for Excellence is too vague, in particular with regards to its 'outcomes and experiences'. There exists a fear that this vague factor will result in teachers not knowing what is expected of them in the classroom. This has been further exacerbated by the confusion over assessment. As the implementation of the CfE continues, then assessment guidelines will be published. This includes assessment on literacy and numeracy from all subjects within Secondary Schools. The time required to complete such expectations risk taking time away from teaching subject content.”

And here is the official EIS response:-

‘EIS general secretary Ronnie Smith said the union, together with most teachers, supported the aims of the Curriculum for Excellence.

But he added they had "a number of concerns about how the process of implementation is progressing"’.

(http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/8039474.stm)

This reflects the fact that the EIS leadership, under McCrone, gave up the right to meaningfully criticise the nature of government educational policy. They can only confine themselves to negotiating the terms of its implementation (and thy have been lousy at doing that too!) This helps to explain why so much of the Scottish Educational Journal is indistinguishable from any SEED or Local Authority material promoting the latest government ‘education’ initiative. Moray Place has just become an additional personnel management service for our bosses.

On those occasions, Moray Place has been forced into taking action, it as been of a token nature, designed to let off steam. At the same time, as Moray Place was organising for teachers to attend the TUC’s display of trade union ‘unity’ against the cuts on March 26th, it was, at the same time, planning to be the first union to break that unity, with its latest sell-out. Putting demands on Moray Place is not sufficient. Socialists must argue the case now for independent action, which can not be recuperated and sold out by union officials. It may take a little time yet before we can make the sort of breakthrough achieved in 1975, with mass independent (unofficial) action, but the ground should be prepared. Scottish Rank & File Teachers were formed in1972, two years before this major breakthrough.

Therefore it is the gap between what teachers already clearly understand (see Wikipedia entry) and what Ronnie Smith and Moray Place oppose, that socialist teachers should address.

As a far from comprehensive starter, I suggest that the socialist teachers could initiate discussion around the following points:-

a) oppose the CfE on educational grounds
b) promote class teacher-controlled educational organisations (like the original AMES) to develop a meaningful curriculum and promote good educational material (pressing for resources and time from the SEED and Local Authorities - probably much cheaper than the current top- down, over-promoted and wasteful system, e.g. never ending costly glossy brochures, which just lie in cupboards, or are taken out before interviews, after their first in-service day airing!)
c) argue for democratising schools, with the scope and nature of necessary non-classroom work under class teacher control. Department (secondary) or Years Group (primary) organisers to be elected by the class teachers concerned (this would cut down unnecessary bureaucracy work to a mimimum) and to be subject to re- election.
d) reform the EIS, so all officials are directly elected, subject to regular re- election, recruited from amongst classroom teachers, and receive the average pay of classroom teachers (the impending replacement of the truly dire Ronnie Smith provides an opportunity to raise this issue).

Yes, this may seem like a ‘return to 1968’, however, I think it is such radical l thinking that is now required in the face of the ongoing economic, social and educational crisis we now face. Tahrir Square in Cairo may have seemed quite far away. However, when young students, workers and unemployed in Spain are joining daily protests in public squares, maybe ‘the spirit of 2011’ will once more take off across the world where ‘the spirit of 68’ left off. I still remember occupying Moray Place in 1974, as part of the movement which turned Scottish education upside down at the time. Bob Dylan may be 70, but perhaps ‘The Times They Are A’Changing’ again!

Allan Armstrong, 30.5.11

Just what ARE Labour's opinions?

LETTER TO THE HERALD:

Ron Mackay,

Milton of Campsie

While I agree with David Whitton's criticism of Jo Swinson's ConDem policies, I wonder what his policies are. Iain McWhirter in the Glasgow Herald says “The S.N.P. Is to be congratulated for sticking to it's guns and reaffirming the Scottish tradition of open access to higher education”. I'm a Socialist, not a member of the S.N.P. But I fully support that position. What are David Whitton's views on this matter? Again will Labour continue to call for the reintroduction of fees, or will it do a hasty U-turn of it's own and back the S.N.P.'s policy? To use David Whitton's phrase “I won't hold my breath."

David Whitton,a typical career politician, rarely misses a photo opportunity, and there he was posing with the post office manager. What are his views on the privatisation of the profitable parts of the post office? And where was he when the local posties went on strike last year?

What are his views on the cuts and the attack on the welfare state ?

Tories, Liberal Democrats, SNP and Labour Unite to attack Scottish Education Again...

Teachers, after suffering the blows of last years cuts in education, are being asked to work an extra half an hour a DAY in front of classes. In a cynical move, Labour run Glasgow City Council has proposed this as a reduction of “marking time” and called for a re-negotiation of McCrone – the agreement that was supposed to ensure teaching staff worked a 35 hour week.

Teachers in Scotland already work an average of 10 hours unpaid overtime and have borne the brunt of cuts that have meant class sizes on the rise and fewer adults in the class. Glasgow has already cut support workers and assistants jobs that help with children needing extra educational input.

Glasgow has also quietly shed 500 teachers in the past two years, and the Labour council also presided over closures of 22 schools last year under the previous scandal riven Labour provost, Steven Purcell.  All of this has impacted on teaching and learning.  Children are being made to suffer because of the neo-liberalist ideology of the combined forces of the Tories, Liberal Democrats and Labour and the apparent capitulation of the SNP.

Locally, this has been a complete capitulation to the Tories and Liberal Democrats by a so called Labour Glasgow Council. Not only have they quietly cut education provision through staffing, but now they are essentially asking teachers to take a pay cut.

Labour along with the Tories and Liberal Democrats are peddling the lie that cuts are necessary. The SNP are keeping a cynical silence and after Salmond and Cameron met shortly after the election of the most reactionary Government since Thatcher (and actually becoming more reactionary by the hour), the SNP seem powerless to criticise the ideological cuts they are telling us are necessary. This is not true. There are huge amounts of money around – but in the hands of the bankers and billionaires who caused this crisis (including the RBS who recently have launched an incredible campaign saying they are giving thousands of pounds to Scottish Education, when in fact they were one of the major factors that have led to the crisis in Education  over the past two years!)

SSP members in EIS wish to unite with other trade unionists in decisive campaigns – including coordinated industrial action – to defend jobs, pay, educational expenditure, and national action to enforce maximum class sizes of 20 across the board, as a pre-requisite to improved education and better conditions of work.

How will this be paid for?

The SSP have long been campaigning for a Scottish Service Tax in place of the Council Tax. This would mean the poorest families would pay nothing, but the highest earners would pay more – a fair tax in other words. The richest would pay a modest extra 10% in tax – which when you realise their income grew by 30% last year alone – is a drop in the ocean. The revenue generated by this tax alone would save our Scottish Education System, save jobs in the Public Sector and ensure the Tories and Liberal Democrats do not return us to the eighties when Thatcher and Major had public education on it’s knees.  See also our alternative budget

The SSP support the ballot for strike action the EIS are calling in March – but urge the union to unite with other unions and stand together in solidarity against these attacks on the working class.

Upcoming events at which teachers and the EIS can unite with others against the Tory and Liberal Democrat cuts:

Sat 4th Sept UNISON-convened anti-cuts strategy conference – aimed at all public sector unions and community groups. More HERE

Weds 29th Sept European TUC anti-cuts day of action.

Sat 2nd October Street Rally against cuts… as a Scottish contribution to the European TUC action, AND as a stepping up of efforts to bring members from across different unions and community groups together – as a means of building towards the STUC demo (see below), AND to begin to crank up unity in action BEFORE either the Tories and Liberal Democrats OR SNP govts set their spending cuts in concrete.

Sat 23rd Oct STUC Scottish Demo (more details soon)

What Should Jo Swinson be asking on YOUR behalf?

As you all know, we have an MP in East Dunbartonshire who is there to keep the Tories in power. Jo – a self publicised “hard worker for East Dunbartonshire” (I know this because it said so in the bin-bag full of leaflets that were delivered to my address during the election) – asked a question this week at Deputy Prime Ministers Questions.

Her opportunity to ask something worthwhile and pertinent to East Dunbartonshire came up towards the end of the Cleggeron’s session on Tuesday 27 July.

It annoyed me. I will leave it up to you whether you feel her contribution and opportunity to ask something the Cleggeron could have made a difference in our constituency.

Let’s look at her very recent record.

@joswinson - £64,766 (before expense claims) well spent?

Education is a devolved issue, that is, all decisions about Scottish Education are taken by Scottish MSP’s. In Scotland we have 11 new Tory, I mean “Liberal Democrat” MP’s – all supporting Tory policies Scotland irrefutably and overwhelmingly rejected. All of these MP’s, with the exception of two - Malcolm Bruce and Charles Kennedy – voted for the new Education legislation that will take money from deprived schools and give it to schools in already well off areas. It will give this and any future education secretary, in England, unprecedented powers, exercisable without reference to any elected body. "Independent" academies and "free" parent-led schools are, of course, wholly dependent on the secretary of state for their annual grants and solely accountable to him. So they may find it prudent not to annoy him.

The untrammelled concentration of power in the hands of a single government minister was what the Butler Education Act of 1944, now effectively dismantled in a couple of days, was careful to avoid. The Liberal Democrat leadership in the Commons has been complicit in allowing this. (see http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/jul/28/learning-curve-on-academies-bill for further arguments. This particular argument is from Peter Newsam).

Swinson was one of those who handed over unprecedented power to the Tory Gove, much to the ire of many Liberal Democrat voters in England. As Swinson has said herself, any legislation passed in England CAN be imposed on Scotland (see her closing remarks in this interview with Andrew Marr http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/sunday_am/4960004.stm )

Swinson is using her time down in Westminster to justify the work of the Tories - and to waste time during Questions both Prime Minister and Deputy.  She has been used as a patsy to remove left Liberal leaders in the past AND to remove the former Speaker of the House - one of the events planned by the tories to undermine the Labour administration and legitimise their own non-policy before the election in order to impose an idealogical sweep of our Welfare State.  The further legitimisation of the Tories comes from the Liberal Party support and of course, in the cover of the ecomomic crisis caused by the bankers and rich gamblers in the worlds stock markets.  This cover means the Tories can do what ever the hell they like all in the name of "needed cuts and savings", when, as we know full well, the cuts they propose are unnecessary (see our proposals on our main website)

This week I have met two supply teachers in Bearsden who are putting their houses on the market as they cannot get work next term. I know of other people living close to me who have put their houses on the market because they have lost an income because of Tory cuts in various departments in the Public Services that have been supported by the Liberal Democrats and Jo Swinson.

I tweeted questions Swinson COULD have asked, rather than the question she did – one she already knew the answer to.

I also tweeted -

The cost of having @joswinson asking questions she already knows the answers to is the equivalent of 3 newly qualified teachers. I met a colleague from #eastdunbartonshire yesterday having to sell her family home because of cutbacks in education.

- The cost being based on her salary and not including her expenses.

These are my examples. If you wish to tweet her she can be found on

http://www.twitter.com/joswinson

Questions @joswinson could have asked:Will the govt step in to stop the deportation of an abused woman (see @glasgow4mhangos ) and daughter who will be sent back to the abusive husband in Malawi?

Questions @joswinson could have asked:As the #PM has called #gaza a prison camp, are we going to stop selling arms to #israel that are used to enforce the #palestinian entrapment?

Questions @joswinson could have asked:as more of our soldiers are sent home dead, and wikileaks showing the #us are covering up civilian losses and the fact we are losing, shouldnt we appologise and leave Afghanistan?

Questions @joswinson could have asked:as we launch the big society, should govt be stopping the closure of local halls as they are used by the very groups we want to encourage as places to come together?

Questions @joswinson could have asked:could the govt conduct a survey into how many supply teachers are unable to get work at start of school term in #eastdunbartonshire ?

Questions @joswinson could have asked:as unemployment soars in#eastdunbartonshire shouldnt we stop trident replacement and pull out of afghanistan rather than hit public services?

Questions @joswinson could have asked: why is govt anti-public health?#eastdunbartonshire looks like it will lose health facility that serves a huge area. [Cala homes plans to demolish the local leisure Centre - the Allander - before a new one is built.  In effect, because of council cuts, this will mean no new facility is ever built...]

Questions @joswinson could have asked:what will govt do to help the huge teacher unemployment situation in #eastdunbartonshire?

Questions @joswinson could have asked:will there be legislation against corporations going to court again & again when councils dont grant plan permission? [This is regarding an ongoing battle with Tescos and a recent council defeat by Cala Homes]

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BUILD A MASS, UNITED PUBLIC SECTOR DEMO ON 10th APRIL

Make the rich pay – bail out all public services, not bankers’ and billionaires’ profits

By Richie Venton – SSP national workplace organiser

9th March 2010

Photos: John Lanigan




Two major trade union events in the space of 48 hours demonstrate the seething anger at public sector cuts, the potential for a united resistance across the trade unions, and the potency, increasing popularity and urgent necessity of the Scottish Socialist Party’s alternatives to this assault on jobs, services and conditions.

EIS 10,000 march

On Saturday 6th March, 10,000 teachers, lecturers, nursery staff, parents, pupils and other trade unionists poured out of Glasgow’s Kelvingrove Park, snaking their way round a mammoth route to the EIS union’s rally in the SECC.

This was the first national demo called by the EIS in decades. The overwhelming majority of the marchers had never been on a demo before. The age profile was a whole cross-section, from toddlers in buggies and primary kids, through trainee and newly qualified teachers, to bearded veterans of the profession – united in their fury at education budget cuts, whilst bankers’ bailouts, renewal of Trident weapons and bloody war cost the public a fortune.

Anger at that obscene contrast was reflected in speeches by the EIS president and others at the rally. They denounced the governments of Westminster and Holyrood for regarding these expenditures as more important than the education of our children, who represent the future, and lambasted the SNP government for now confronting children with the choice of either free school meals or smaller classes, when they had promised both and children deserve both.



SSP on the march

The EIS march is part of a campaign they have entitled “Why must our children pay?”

The SSP was the only party with a leaflet that directly dealt with the issues of the march, demanding “make the rich pay – not our kids; bail out education and all services – not bankers’ profits; 20’s plenty in any class – give our kids a chance.”

People snapped up the leaflets, smiled and murmured their agreement with the headlines, turned and quoted it to their friends as they assembled to march off.

The lively SSP contingent was joined by parents and children who fought the heroic Save Our Schools Campaign in Glasgow last year. As we marched we led the chant “Twenty’s plenty in any class – give our kids a chance”, which caught on with the crowd marching and bystanders on the pavements.

As the 10,000 trod towards the end of their marathon march to the SECC rally, we improvised an SSP “street meeting” on the pavement as they passed us! We belted out our message on a very loud PA system: “The SSP demands that the government tax the rich, to bail out education, not bankers’ profits and bankers’ bonuses.” Several sections of the march shouted back their agreement with us as they marched past, and even more contingents applauded us as they marched past. A sign of how profoundly the bankers’ bailout has changed people’s consciousness, including their open-ness to the SSP’s unashamed socialist demands.

The EIS leadership promised in speeches that this mass demo is just the start of the campaign, which is to be welcomed, and which EIS union activists and members will make sure is the case.

It is absolutely right that as the union representing 60,000 members in education they should take up the cudgels in defence of that service. But what would be tragic, and totally divisive and counter-productive, is if the EIS leadership argued for cuts in other services to save education; unity of opposition to all service cuts, combining the power and scale of members of all public sector unions and the communities they service is what is urgently needed to stop the slaughter.



Biggest civil service strike since 1987

It was therefore encouraging that an EIS representative (as well as speakers from the FBU, UNISON and STUC) addressed the 8th March strike rally in Glasgow, called during the 48-hour stoppage by all civil service workers, members of PCS.

This was the biggest civil service strike since 1987. Across the UK, over 250,000 workers brought services to a halt in tax and customs offices; Job Centres; driving centres; the Courts; the MoD; passport offices; the Scottish parliament (for the first time ever); Westminster … to name but some. 30,000 of these strikers were in Scotland.

They are overwhelmingly low-paid workers, whose partial compensation for low pay has been a modest average pension of £6,500 and a reasonable redundancy scheme – which is now under assault. The government has set in motion the legislation to slash the Civil Service Compensation Scheme, cutting the package that most workers would get on being made redundant by up to one-third, tens of thousands of pounds each. A sure sign that the Labour government (backed up quite openly by the Tories on this) want to slaughter tens of thousands of jobs on the cheap – in addition to the 100,000 already shed in the past 5 years – and usher in privatisation by making the prospect more attractive to the privateers.

The response to the 48-hour strike was absolutely overwhelming – forcing management to stoop to tricks like jetting in a handful of scab managers from Newcastle to open the Glasgow DVLA office.



Socialism in the civil service

Again, not only did SSP members in PCS play an instrumental part in building the strike, but our policies were more widely and eagerly embraced than for a long time: on the picket lines, at the PCS strike rallies in Glasgow and Dundee, and at the SSP public meeting in Glasgow after the union rally. This was a really large meeting, with over half those present attending their first ever SSP meeting. And strikers were enthusiastic in their support for our socialist aims – many commenting wryly that if only we could get a fair hearing in the media, imagine how popular our case would be – as well as our proposals on how to build public sector unity against all cuts in the immediate future.



Unity against the carnage - build 10th April Demo

Alongside a rolling programme of further industrial action by the PCS, railway workers are striking (Scotrail) and balloting for pre-General Election strikes (Network Rail). Numerous anti-cuts campaigns, involving council workers’ unions and communities, are campaigning against the brutal council cuts that loom. Already 5,000 council jobs face the chop, with hair-raising predictions of 32,000 jobs (one in every eight!) being butchered by 2014. And community centres face closure up and down Scotland.

So an immediate opportunity to tie all these strands of struggle into a rope to restrain the axe-wielders presents itself on Saturday 10th April. Scottish UNISON is calling a mass, national demonstration in Glasgow that day, in defence of public services.

SSP members in all the various trade unions – alongside other union members – need to move heaven and earth to make this an almighty display of the power of a united working class on the march, by calling on their unions to mobilise members into an event that dwarfs even the brilliant 10,000 on the EIS march.

As Labour, Tory, Lib Dem and SNP politicians sharpen their knives in a grisly pre-election competition for whose cuts are the deepest, the SSP in contrast will stand up for public sector workers and the communities that depend on public services.

We will build for a united march for public services – not private profit, demanding the governments tax the rich and bail out all public services - not bankers’ and billionaires’ profits.

We will campaign inside the unions for measures that would fund these services, protect and create jobs, and begin to re-distribute wealth from the millionaires to the millions.

Measures such as a 10% tax on every millionaire (to fund 80,000 new jobs in Scotland alone, on £25,000 a year for 3 years!); restoration of income tax on the rich to pre-Thatcher levels (83%) and likewise Corporation Tax on big companies, from the current paltry 28% to the 52% it was at before Thatcher and then New Labour made this country a tax haven for the tax-dodging rich.











A sea-change has begun in the outlook of workers in the frontline of public sector carnage by the parties that back big business and the profit system. Socialist measures – including full-blown public ownership of the entire banking sector, natural wealth, services and big industries, but with democratic control – are increasingly convincing to people whose future is under threat.

The time is ripe for the potential power of a united trade union movement to be mobilised – starting with 10th April – and for socialist demands to be boldly advanced amongst an increasingly receptive crowd of angry workers. The SSP will do its part, emboldened by the events of the past 48 hours.

East Dunbartonshire Council Review of Primary School, Nursery and Special Schools Estate

a response by Campsie Scottish Socialist Party



In view of the “consultation” on Schools, and taking into consideration the issues raised by the undemocratic and extremely flawed process in Glasgow (see HERE ), East Dunbartonshire Council need to take into consideration a number of points to ensure children have the best educational experience possible. Campsie Branch SSP have, with the consultation of members involved in Education, written this document.

Considerations for East Dunbartonshire Council and it’s current Education policy:

• The rising population in the country, and indeed the rising birthrate in East Dunbartonshire.

• The impact of closures on Class size. The need for larger classrooms, more “schooling space” – ie. indoors and outdoors and smaller class sizes.

• The impact on special needs pupils if forced out of building.

• The impact on mainstream children’s mental health after separation from their peers and established community.

• The financial cost of refurbishment/clustering/ sharing resources rather than closure/ building schools with larger populations.

• The community cost of closure.

• The impact on parents/children regarding childcare.

• The impact on implementation of the New Curriculum for Excellence.

• The impact on children’s journey to schools. Child safety – children should not have to walk/travel far to school. This also affects children’s health, and road safety as those who have cars will tend to drive them.

• The impact on education workers. The diabolical numbers of newly qualified teachers in East Dunbartonshire, and indeed across Scotland, without work. The numbers of other educational workers who will lose work due to closures.

• The impact on receiving schools ability to ensure “McCrone” can be properly operated.

• The impact of the flawed consultations and subsequent 22 closures in Glasgow has already been proven to be catastrophic.

Dichotomy

There is at present a real dichotomy in Scotland between the new skills based practices needed and being highlighted by progressive educationalists through publication of the New Curricullum for Excellence and the older, outdated, more conservative practices and cheap class environments wanted by those who want our children to behave like profitable products. Education is a public service – a right, not a market or a business. It should be run according to the needs of the children, not on the basis of how much profit can be made.

The newly built “cost effective”, privately funded classrooms built to minimum standards do not allow movement in the way the Scottish New Curriculum for Excellence calls for. Children in large classes are more likely to spend most of their day sitting at a desk for four hours – or more - of their six hour school day. Crowd control becomes the onus of the schools staff, rather than the children’s learning experience.

The present Government are creating a three tier system – private schools for those who can afford it; and a two streamed system based on the results of outdated tests and teaching practices and financial ability to move schools. Our present strained system and the financial plundering of education, instead of challenging an unequal society, reproduces it, benefiting those pupils and students from well-off families who can push to have their children moved to more “desirable” seemingly competitive schools, and who can then drive their children to these schools far from their homes. Choice is only available to families with the least constraints on their time and finances. This fails to meet the needs of most children in Scotland, especially those from working class families, single parent families and minority ethnic groups.

Competition and Crowd Control

Children, in the present system, learn to step on each other to “win” and come first, and also learn under these cramped, and therefore necessarily regimented crowded spaces, that their opinion is “unnecessary”. In a competitive learning system, there can only be one winner - and the rest of the children are "losers". There are other ways to encourage learning/ life long learning. Schools should be encouraging discussion, debate, critical thinking and peer to peer teaching. Cramped schools, isolated from the communities they serve, do not promote this at all.

New Curricullum for Excellence

If properly implemented, The New Curriculum for Excellence allows teachers to introduce proven, up to date educational methods that raise the attainment of children across the board – ie, those of “emulation” and democratic class and school methods – and these are most effective in smaller class sizes and in classes with less groups. The Government has cut funding for schools with special needs and for children who need help beyond a traditional classroom, but at the same time justify this by calling for “integration” etc. In the competitive classroom practises advocated by successive neo-liberal administrations, this is extremely alienating for huge numbers of disadvantaged, working class children. New, “emulation techniques,” rather than encouraging detrimental competition between individuals, ensures children as well as teachers, learn to pass on skills to their peers. A competitive system creates children who think, “I did better than you… I am better than you,” whereas an emulation system creates children who think, “I know something you may not. Passing my knowledge and skills to you improve the class group/community/society.”

The New Curricullum, regardless of the method of implementation advocated by the teacher/learning establishment/ local authority is extremely difficult to implement in an atmosphere of control/ in a place with little democracy/ in a place far removed from their community and in buildings built only to the minimum specifications in order for the private building company to make the biggest possible profit. Context in education is paramount. Children need friendly, welcoming, local schools with the maximum amount of adults per child possible (20 or less per adult). School closures negate all attempts to implement the very essence of the New Curricullum - democracy in education... and the active, spacious classroom needed in order to do so. Current policy in re-builds delivers the minimum specification possible in order to ensure profits for the corporations.

Outdoor Schooling

HMIE have called for more outdoors teaching – this, for any one adult, becomes difficult with class sizes over 20. It is a dichotomy to call for one thing, but make it near to impossible to implement. Smaller class sizes, plus close-to-home local schools where parents can help out etc can ensure a better learning experience.

Further considerations:

Research on lower Primary Years (P1-3) published in 2003 gives us much more to think of (while being told that because of our tax money being frittered on Bankers debts we must tighten our belts):

http://www.classsizeresearch.org.uk/results1.html (Department of Psychology and Human Development at the Institute of Education, University of London, UK.)

In the later Primary years (P4-7), large class sizes meant that, according to this research, “Pupils eligible for free school meals were found to make less progress than those not eligible in both literacy and maths during these years. These pupils were also behind in Key Stage 1 (nursery – P3), and fell still further behind during the later years. Pupils with special educational needs were found to make less progress in both maths and literacy. Girls were found to make more progress in attainment in literacy, whilst conversely boys were found to make more progress in maths.”

The research goes on to say, “Class size effects on classroom processes are not singular but multiple. As the size of the class increases, size and/or number of groups increases, and the management of groups, both in terms of size and number, becomes ever more crucial.
Perhaps the clearest effects of class size were on teaching. Pupils in smaller classes were more likely to be the focus of a teacher’s attention and experience more teaching overall in mathematics, while in larger classes pupils were more likely to be one of the crowd. Many teachers worry that in large classes they cannot meet the needs of all the children in their class.”

Large class sizes are detrimental to our children – and school closures rather than reinvestment in some of the smaller country and urban community schools, ensure our children struggle and have an unhappy school life isolated from their community. Current practise in replacing smaller schools with privately funded super-schools impair implementation of the New Curriculum for Excellence, so disadvantaging our children. The marketisation of Education has disadvantaged many low and middle income families.

read Rich Venton on "Twenty's Plenty in any class!"

Goodbye, safe, friendly community based schools...

Today, the Wyndford Primary School was bulldozed to the ground.

Quite symbolic really as the Government look for further cuts...

We have paid for this crisis with OUR tax money to plug the hole left by greedy bankers. We are paying through job losses; wage freezes and low pay.

Our children are also being made to pay.