Nicky Morgan booed at Teachers conference

Op-ed: In December 2015 'rabbit-in-the-headlights' Tory MP for education Nicky Morgan was booed as she appeared on BBC1s question time. She refused to distance herself from David Cameron's wild accusation that Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn was a terrorist sympathiser and added the Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell into the mix.

She stuck by her guns in spite of boos from the audience and other panel members calling her out.

So she is no stranger to boos which may be a good thing as her plans to enforce academy schools in England begin to unravel.

Late in the week Jeremy Corbyn addressed the National Union of Teachers conference and received a very warm welcome; a standing ovation in fact. He called Tory plans to force all public schools to become academies a step towards "asset stripping" and "privatisation".

A day later a somewhat smug-faced Nicky Morgan addressed the same conference and was widely booed; teachers attending conference heckled and threw in laughter for good measure.

Saturday she was the first Tory Education Secretary to address the annual NASUWT, National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers, conference since 1997 reports the Daily Mirror.

She began by trying to flatter the teachers but it soon turned sour.

Academy schools were a Labour initiative and in some cases there lies the rub.

These days the Tories are pretty good at picking up Labour initiatives such as a living wage for all but then running off with them in a different direction.

They take the electorate for fools when they try the 'he did it' approach by blaming the Labour party.

Labour introduced so-called academy schools to help improve standards at failing schools which were mainly located in deprived areas of the country.

The Lib Dem Tory coalition ran with it in 2010 and the Tories have never stopped running since though the direction has changed.

For clarification this how the BBC describes academy schools:

---

What is an academy?

Academies are independent, state-funded schools, which receive their funding directly from central government, rather than through a local authority.

The day-to-day running of the school is with the head teacher or principal, but they are overseen by individual charitable bodies called academy trusts and may be part of an academy chain.

These trusts and chains provide advice, support, expertise and a strategic overview.
They control their own admissions process and have more freedom than other schools to innovate.

That report also says:

Currently, 2,075 out of 3,381 secondary schools are academies, while 2,440 of 16,766 primary schools have academy status.

The number grew dramatically under the coalition government, from 203 in May 2010, and has continued under the present Conservative government.

ITV News rounded up Osborne's education budget proposals as follows:

Radical plans to pull every school in England out of the control of local councils and transform them into academies are set to be unveiled in today's Budget announcement.

The Chancellor will also "signal the end of the Victorian school day" with the abolition of the traditional 3.30pm finish time.

Under the Budget proposals, English schools will be able to apply for new funding to provide their pupils with at least an additional five hours a week of lessons or high-quality extra-curricular activities, including sport and art.

Why the Tory government feels a need to interfere in 'free' schooling is not clear.

Most of their MPs send their kids to private or as we call then in the UK public schools or faith school.

If you are a cynic you may well wonder if these constant changes are all about cutting costs, allowing some people to make money and actually wrecking education for many kids in the UK.

After all we will always need people to do some more menial jobs until computers take over completely.

So with that in mind:

• Who will make money out of academy schools?
• Do any of those making money have links directly or indirectly to the Tory party and its donors?
• Are these schools a one size fits all and fit for purpose?

When Chancellor George Osborne added an announcement on enforced academy schools to his recent shambolic budget many questioned why. Was it merely to pad out to his weak budget? Was it to improve the standard of English education? Was it to cut costs and make money?

The Tory government likes to use a cracked record on a loop laying the blame for the country's economic woes anywhere but close to the Tories but how much longer can this government pass the buck?

But each roll out of benefit changes, initiatives and more requires huge sums of money in administration alone.

As Chancellor Osborne and Prime Minister Cameron play with your kids’ education they have nothing to fear. They may send their children to a state school at some point but know they will not be there for the entirety of their education.

And as those two for example do not live in deprived areas of the UK those state schools will be a cut above.

Shame the self-proclaimed one nation Tories are so divisive.

Morgan, 43, was born in Kingston upon Thames, Surrey.

She grew up in Surbiton and attended the private, fee-paying Surbiton High School before studying Jurisprudence at St Hugh's College, Oxford.

Although elected Treasurer of the Oxford Union Society, she failed in her bid for its Presidency.

She qualified as a solicitor in 1994 and worked as a corporate lawyer at Travers Smith specialising in mergers and acquisitions before taking on an in-house counsel role advising on corporate law matters.

In some matters then, just another clueless Tory.