MORE THAN 50 FAILING WEST MIDS SCHOOLS FACE CLOSURE

25-02-2008

More than 50 failing secondary schools could be closed across the West Midlands under government plans to improve academic standards. More than 20 are at risk in Birmingham, nine each in Walsall and Sandwell and half a dozen in Wolverhampton.

The news emerged in a Guardian interview today with childrens’ secretary Ed Balls (http://tinyurl.com/2wy6yt).

He revealed that secondary schools where fewer than 30% of pupils leave with five GCSE’s at Grade A to C are being targeted. Head teachers and other senior teachers from more successful establishments will be sent in to improve the performance of their less successful counterparts.

Local authorities will have to provide “action plans” by the summer – options will include becoming a trust, an Academy, or shutting down altogether.

Birmingham’s Education chief Les Lawrence, who chairs the children and young people’s board at the Local Government Association, is quoted as saying: “We haven’t had the powers to improve schools for long. We need some time to make them work.

“There is this attitude that if you become an Academy or trust school you will become the Eton of the state sector overnight. There is no evidence to support that.”

But the govenment's intolerance of academic weakness, even in inner city areas, will strike a chord with parents like Naseem Akhtar who founded the Birmingham Schools Improvement Forum because of her impatience with low expectations and low achievment in some parts of the inner city (see link here)

To see the full list of schools at risk in the West Midlands click here

Is this the way to improve education?

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