I'm entirely in favour of the idea that schools should have more independence from central government, and should be able to set more of their own curriculum and lesson structure, but this idea can have a dark side. As this case shows, some schools may abuse the freedoms they already have:

The principal of an Islamic school has admitted that it uses textbooks which describe Jews as "apes" and Christians as "pigs" and has refused to withdraw them.

Dr Sumaya Alyusuf confirmed that the offending books exist after former teacher Colin Cook, 57, alleged that children as young as five are taught from racist materials at the King Fahd Academy in Acton.

This is plainly, simply and unequivocally wrong. There is not really any need for a debate on the subject; it can be taken as read that such material has no place in a school in Britain. The case raises no greater question than 'why was this not brought to light sooner?'.

Roll up, roll up!

In the blue corner, Mr Simon Heffer!*

In the red corner, Sir Simon Jenkins!#

See if you can spot who said what:

The injustice and the insanity of removing charitable status would be immense. Most private schools do considerable work for their communities. They share their facilities, offer in some cases huge bursaries to poor but clever children, and take an enormous burden off the state. They did all this, by the way, long before the Government began bullying them.

versus

I might insist that anyone who wanted subsidised higher education should have spent at least two years in a state school. Just as taxpayers should not subsidise social segregation through state schools, so they should not subsidise such segregation through tax relief to private schools. Such places, noble as they may be, are not charities but agents of social apartheid.

We suggest you should turn to Cicero's more thoughtful take on things.

-----------------------------------------
* King Edward VI Grammar School (State, Chelmsford) and Corpus Christi College, Cambridge

# Mill Hill School (Independent) and St John's College, Oxford

Does this prove the theory that the grass is always greener on the other side?

One of my highlights of Conference was the Lib Dem Youth and Students fringe on their 'Stop Homophobic Bullying campaign'. At a time when schools are expected to record, challenge and tackle racist incidents, it's high time incidents of homophobia were taken equally seriously.

And the LDYS campaign is starting to get some media coverage, for instance this in the Pink News. I have several of the pink badges, which are apparently becoming a collectors' item in some London clubs. However, the "Stop Homophobia Now" postcards LDYS has been handing out at university Freshers Fairs, showing the slogan emblazoned on the shirt of a sultry-looking model, are also not to be missed.

Study after study shows that young lesbian and gay people are more likely to suffer depression, commit suicide or suffer other mental health problems . Sign the petition today!

The Guardian reports today that the CBI is criticising the Government and the Education Sector for the falling numbers of science graduates from British Universities.

Perhaps the CBI ought to examine the plank in its own eye. Science graduates quite clearly are not stupid; nor are teenagers picking GCSE and A-Level subjects. They can "do the math" well enough to work out that a poorly paid career in science or engineering is a less attractive option than one in the City or a profession that will earn them many times more. And I speak from experience on this issue.

If that question were addressed it would help to reverse the decline.

The Liberal Democrats have launched a new policy commission, called the "4Rs commission".

I'm all in favour of some fresh thinking on education, and I don't necessarily share Jonathan Calder's reservations about the makeup of the panel. The announcement simply states that they will be providing ideas on schooling, not a full policy package, so I assume that we will be free to scrutinise their findings before any changes are made to policy.

I think it's important to draw a distinction between ideas and policies, particularly where education is concerned. A long-standing and fundamental plank of Lib Dem policy on a whole range of public service questions is that decisions need to be taken locally. There is no "one size fits all" policy that will serve every child best, or that every school should be commanded to adopt. Different schools serve different needs and they should focus on doing the best for their pupils, not for an abstract average pupil as determined by educationalists or government policymakers. I hope that this commission does not represent a move towards such centralised policy dictation.

However, one accusation that can be levelled at localists is that we're not offering a clear vision of what would happen. In saying "local people must decide", there is a risk that we isolate certain areas from debate and dialogue. Having commissions to discuss the kinds of policies that might work in certain situations is valuable in helping people to decide on local policies. If anything, a localist party has a greater duty to promote debate, discussion and comparison of different methods.

A National Curriculum, of the kind Margaret Thatcher introduced, and comprehensive education, begun by Labour in 1965, centralise decision-making so that it is impossible to compare different methods directly, or fit methods to circumstances. If the system appears to perform badly, the only option is to hold a full-scale revolution, turning the entire system around to face in a new direction. That such wheeling and turning leaves teachers and pupils disoriented is little surprise. Worst of all, schools which already perform well are forced to undergo unnecessary change, at great cost and disruption.

But localism, aside from having the obvious virtue of greater accountability and the application of local solutions to local problems, also embodies some of the principles of the empirical scientific method. This holds that experimentation is vital; we can't necessarily know that something works just by thinking about it. Sometimes there are unintended consequences, sometimes our assumptions are incorrect and sometimes our logic is simply wrong. By experimenting, we eliminate our failures and arrive at a better understanding. Localism allows many different avenues to be pursued, many new approaches to be tried and many new improvements to be made. Rather than revolutionary changes, mandated from Whitehall, the path to success lies in a myriad of small changes and improvements, built up over time, within a framework that allows and encourages such initiatives to be taken up locally. A vigorous debate and dialogue is a necessary part of finding out what works, and spreading new ideas and discoveries between different areas.

There is one further point worth commenting on, which may turn out to have more signifiance than first appears. The "fourth R" is "aRticulation"; the ability to listen and speak with confidence and fluency. At first glance, this looks a bit vague and woolly. Yes, we need to teach children to spell, read and add up. But listening and speaking? Don't these come naturally?

The human brain is, of course, built for communication. We are designed to be able to articulate thoughts and feelings to each other, and we can learn to do so without any formal instruction. But what often matters is not what you say, but how you say it. I am reminded of a post by Chris Dillow here, where he comments on declining social mobility (amongst other things - read the whole post). He explains the difference between hard skills (engineering, software design, architecture) and soft skills (salesmanship, negotiation skills and team-working) and goes on to say that:

3. Bright working class youngsters, relative to middle-class ones, have relatively more hard skills than soft ones (There are of course countless exceptions.) Think of the dweeb, geek, Northern chemist stereotype - people like us. Or alternatively, consider Ewart Keep's theory, that soft skills are often just a proxy for being middle-class.

As a Northerner with hard skills in software development, I recognise the stereotype all too well - perfectly intelligent people who, because of their education, cannot express their ideas properly and so lose out to the well-educated smooth-talker who makes up for his lack of knowledge with a manner of speech that most people find authoritative.

A focus on articulation is long overdue in British education. In times gone by, it would have been considered central to a good education that the pupil be taught to express him or herself clearly, and be able to listen and absorb the speech of others. This went out of fashion as new educationalists believed that attempting to teach standards means of expression would repress dialects and local idioms; I believe it would do nothing of the sort and, in any case, would be preferable to repressing the ability of pupils to express themselves clearly to all. One of the last vestiges of class in British society is a person's manner of speech; by giving children the ability to choose how to express themselves, we will hopefully overcome barriers which prevent people from rising to the status they deserve.

I had intended to comment on this yesterday, but ran out of time to do so.

Jonathan Calder (author of the Liberal England blog) had an excellent piece on the Guardian website yesterday. In it, he called for the Liberal Democrats to be more liberal on education. In particular, he suggested that the party should rethink its opposition to choice in schooling, arguing that choice is a fundamentally liberal concept.

I wholehearedly agree. I've long been quite confused about the opposition to choice in schooling. Whilst the notion of ensuring that every school is a good school is appealing, it is a utopian idea that should have no place in a party that prides itself on pragamatism and common sense. Failure does happen, and a head-in-the-sand approach simply allows it to continue for longer. Parents must be empowered to act when the standard of education their child receives is inadequate.

In particular, this passage caught my attention:

Yes, the Liberal Democrats want to return powers from Whitehall to councils, which would make education more democratically accountable and probably improve the quality of decisions.

But even then a parent whose child is receiving a bad education is unlikely to feel that the chance to vote for a different councillor in four years' time is much of a remedy. The Lib Dems must accept that such parents will be deeply interested in choice.

This underlines a crucial point which I think deserves much consideration - the principle of subsidiarity, or the principle that decisions should be taken at the lowest practicable level. This principle has been part of Lib Dem thinking on Europe for some time ("National parliaments should be given a new role in ensuring that Brussels’ proposals for legislation do not breach the subsidiarity principle - that decisions should always be taken at the lowest practical level." - link here).

Consistent application of this principle means that decisions should be kept as close to the people affected as possible - whether national, regional, local or individual. In the case of schools, this means giving parents as much choice about where and how their child is educated as possible. Children have different needs and even schools which serve the majority well may be unsuitable for some children. Standing up for minority interests is a traditional liberal theme and should be embraced in the field of education.

Following the arrest of Des Smith, former member of the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust council, the focus of attention has moved away from loans to the Labour party and towards donations and sponsorships of schools.

This may prove to be something of a red herring. On the face of it, Smith was caught red-handed offering honours in return for money. As first reported in the Sunday Times on the 15th of January:

On Friday, Smith told a reporter posing as a donor’s PR assistant that “the prime minister’s office would recommend someone like (the donor) for an OBE, a CBE or a knighthood�.

“Really?� replied the reporter. “Just for getting involved with the academies?�

“Just for, yes, they call them ‘services to education’,� replied Smith. He went on: “I would say to Cyril’s office that we’ve now got to start writing to the prime minister’s office.�

There can be little doubt about it - the offer of honours was made. But this is not in return for giving money to the Labour party, it is in return for giving money to schools.

Of course, any financial transaction leading to an honour is something that can be regarded as corrupt, when the object of the transaction is primarily to procure the honour. However, I can't see very much wrong with rewarding people for donating money to schools, which is surely the sort of thing the honours system is designed to encourage.

Many famous honours recipients are chosen not because of their celebrity status, but because of some work they've done, or donation they've made, for a charitable purpose. They get their medal, the charity gets their money and the whole thing can be regarded as entirely good. If a trip to Buckingham Palace and a medal helps to secure millions of pounds for education, or cancer research, then who can complain?

Well, there are two reasons.

The first is that, through his closeness to Lord Levy and thus the Prime Minister, Des Smith had an unfair advantage in fundraising due to his apparent ability to procure honours for his donors. Other fundraisers, such as Mike Smithson cannot make such pledges and are thus less able to get the donations that their organisations need.

Secondly, the honours in question were not limited to minor honours - a seat in the House of Lords was offered if the donation was large enough. This crosses a line between a simply honourific title, and a position of political influence. Again, I've got nothing against genuine philanthropists getting seats in the Lords, but this should not be done as part of some shady dealings involving the Prime Minister's aides.

In my opinion, this adds considerable weight to the argument for an elected House of Lords. It also adds weight for a more open and transparent honours system. I hope we do not go so far as to stop rewarding those people who donate large sums to charity, but we do need to ensure that favoured donors are not simply able to buy seats in the Lords.

Earlier in the post, I referred to Des Smith as a "red herring". The reason for this is simple: the focus of attention is now on him, rather than on the people who "loaned" money to the Labour party (and the Tories). Whilst the two strands may be connected, I would very much hope that the police keep in mind that buying political influence through donations/loans to parties themselves is far worse than buying influence through genuine philanthropy.

There has recently been controversy over a case of alleged racist abuse. The accused is a 10-year-old boy, alleged to have used racist language in an insult to a fellow classmate.

The case has gained prominence because of the remarks of the judge who, in requesting that the prosecution reconsider their case, branded the case "crazy".

The BBC reports his comments:

"Have we really got to the stage where we are prosecuting 10-year-old boys because of political correctness?

"I was repeatedly called fat at school. Does this amount to a criminal offence?

He added: "Nobody is more against racist abuse than me but these are boys in a playground, this is nonsense.

This case has divided commentators. At the Guardian's Comment is Free site, two commentators - Hannah Pool and Cameron Duodu - argue that the judge was wrong. At Spiked Online, Josie Appleton argues that the judge was right.

It should be obvious to all that such racial epithets should be regarded as wrong, and their use discouraged - by punishment if necessary. There can be few who would argue otherwise.

So why is there an argument? The case appears to hinge on a crucial point: whose responsibility is it to mete out punishment? In my view, nobody can have any complaint if the school decides to punish such language. It is clearly wrong and children must be taught right from wrong. But, having reached that conclusion, I cannot understand why this case is going to court. Do we really need to use the full weight of the law to explain to a 10-year-old that it's wrong to use racial slurs? Are teachers and schools that afraid of tackling these issues directly?

To me, it seems as if this whole case could have been avoided if the school had handled it. There should be unanimous agreement that racial slurs are bad and that schools have a right to discourage them. The child could have been punished and educated about the wrongs of racial abuse without the matter ever leaving the confines of the school, save perhaps to inform his parents. Surely this is the sensible course of action, and any well-meaning commentator would point this out?

But that's not what happened, and that's not what the commentators are saying at all.

Hannah Pool makes the following argument:

Either we are against racial abuse or we're not. Either it is legislated against or it isn't. You can't start exceptions because thing have become a little uncomfortable.

This seems, to me, to be a tragic confusion of means and ends. The end - that racial abuse be discouraged and eventually eliminated - is clearly correct. But the means of the courts are almost certainly the wrong way of achieving that end. I am loathe to turn this into a free speech matter, because it is not; nobody is defending the right to use racist insults. But the law is not always the best tool in changing behaviour and the police and state are not always the best agents for ensuring respect within society.

The argument that "if we're against something, we must legislate against it" is, in my view, an illiberal one. It reminds me of the famous Thatcher (mis)quote, that there is "no such thing as society". The argument that we have a binary choice between legislating and not legislating is tantamount to asserting that there is no such thing as society and only the law can be used to condition behaviour, that only the force of the courts and police count for anything. If we give up on the idea that schools, communities and families have the biggest role to play in ensuring respect and good manners, we give up on the idea that there is a society worthy of the name.

Hannah Pool goes on to make several sensible points, and at the end agrees that the matter should not have reached the courts. But, if that's the case, then we do need to develop a better understanding, as a society, of just what the law is for. And we need to develop a better trust in schools and families and their ability to impart the right values.

Cameron Duodu makes a better argument in favour of the use of the law though, although I think he stretches the facts of the case somewhat. His argument is that the harm caused by racist abuse can be so severe that it causes permanent disruption to the education of the child receiving the abuse. This is a much stronger argument and, in cases where there is persistent abuse, expulsion from the school and even legal proceedings are called for. As I said, nobody has a right to use racist insults and schools are perfectly within their rights to take strong exception to their use.

But this brings me back to a point Hannah Pool made:

Finestein, who apparently has a reputation for speaking his mind, went on to reminisce about his school days, during which other children taunted him about his weight. "I was repeatedly called fat at school. Does this amount to a criminal offence? This is political correctness gone mad, it's crazy," he said. Ah yes, that old chestnut. When will people realise racism is not just about the words said but the history of oppression behind those words.

This I have to disagree with. I very much doubt that the child concerned is fully aware of the history of oppression and certainly can't be held responsible for it. The test is not the words used, or what the speaker did or didn't know, but the harm done. Taunting a child for being fat, wearing glasses and any of the multitude of insults that are used to isolate and ridicule in the playground has the potential to cause just as much insult and injury as a racist taunt. The schools has a duty of care to its pupils and therefore has a duty to punish those who cause such suffering. There should be no 'magic words' that are punished more harshly and no exceptions that are punished more lightly.

Whilst the judge is accused of triviliasing racism, I could equally accuse the commentators quoted of trivialising other forms of bullying which can have effects just as severe. This whole case reminds me of the fact that what's important is not trying to carve out special cases, but establishing and enforcing, primarily through society rather than the state, good principles that we can all agree on. That bullying is wrong is something we all agree on; that racism is wrong is something we all agree on. How about placing a bit more emphasis on getting these values across rather than point-scoring and legal proceedings?