Brown sets private schools target

I meant to put this up on the blog a week ago but you know how it is...

BBC NEWS | Education | Brown sets private schools target

This is a return to a theme that I have run throughout this weblog: the attempt to close the percieved gap between state a private schools.

On the one hand there is the gap in funding to consider. Independent schools are meant to be "richer" than our colleagues in the state sector. Perhaps true, but I am certain you can name schools whose budgets are as tight as the village primary school at which I am a governor. However, state schools aren't working with many of the business-related pressures under which independent schools operate.

On the other hand is the claim that funding makes independent schools "better". Again I know educators, working in state schools, whose passion, creativity and desire to effect change in pupils lives is greater than I could ever hope to emulate. Yet we are told that more money would make better schools. What will make better schools, be they state or independent, is the freedom to teach creatively and allow pupils to learn in a way that is engaging and challenging.

Throw all the money you like at schools, school improvement will only occur with independent thinking not independent funding