Green Party policy on home education

The Greens appear to have done quite badly this election after factoring out their victory in Brighton. Their share of the vote is down from that in 2005. I'm wondering if the recession is responsible or are other factors (including home education) to blame? Remember that the Greens were almost annihilated in the early 90s recession.

There is a political theory that in a time of a recession society jumps to the 'right'. This years election saw a rise in the UKIP and the BNP vote as well as an overall swing towards the Conservatives. Under a PR election system UKIP and the BNP would have got more MPs than the Greens.

The Greens this time are much more advanced than in the early 90s because they have more councillors, MEPs, and now an MP, and the benefits of the internet. Success or failure will depend on their policies and which issues they campaign on. I have criticised the Greens many times for having some ridiculous and unpopular policies, and failing to campaign on the issues that matter. But to be fair on them, they do have many good economic policies that less well off people will benefit from in a time of a recession. If the Greens can focus more on these then they could win much support. I will be watching Caroline Lucas in Parliament to see what issues she involves herself in.

I agree with you that the Green Party results were disappointing outside of Brighton as I was expecting to see an overall increase but something obviously went wrong. The HE community should definitely approach Caroline Lucas and try to convince the Greens to support HE.

Another disappointment was the independent doctor from Wyre Forest losing his seat to the Conservatives.

I consider the defeat of Richard Taylor to be quite a sore loss although he still managed to win over 30% of the vote. Did he know much about HE or AS?

Institutionalised education was discussed at the Green Party conference this September.

Doug Morgan, assistant secretary of National Union of Teachers Birmingham branch, and co-organiser of Birmingham Schools Kick Racism Out of Schools, said that: "I believe that schools exist to provide all of our children with a well-rounded education to prepare them for life rather than to swell the coffers of big business."

Believe that then believe anything. Teaching union bosses really do live on another planet.

Richard Hatcher, professor of education at Birmingham University and founder member of the Anti Academies Alliance, was also on the panel. The Alliance's website says that city academies are "an attempt to destroy a democratic, planned, state education system and replace it with a two tier, market driven collection of independent schools at the mercy of education companies driven by profit."

There's much criticism of academies from the AS community but the planned state education system is undemocratic to the core and has always been. Parents and children absolutely no say over the curriculum or teaching methods used. The only shred of democracy in the state education system is that parents and children have the choice to take it or leave it - something the last government was on the brink of destroying.

Romayne Phoenix, national Green Party Campaigns Coordinator, chaired the panel. She said today: "With the coalition government rushing through expansion opportunities for academies whilst opening up our educational system to include free schools, any dreams of being able to provide a decent fair and comprehensive education for our children have been thrown out the window. We urgently need to mobilise against further marketisation of public services, with a particular focus on protecting our education system."

Nothing to say about home education?

If Doug Morgan said what he said to me in person I would not hesitate to break his neck!

Teaching unions exist to stick up for the interests of teachers such as workload, stress, pay, etc.. They don't give a damn to the welfare of the children or their long term future and there isn't a schoolchildren's union yet. Some teaching union bosses have gone as far as to harass teachers who go out of their way or alter their teaching method to support children with AS or other SEN.



KS4 students don't even get half as many GCSE options as the students did back when I chose my O Level subjects. Somehow I think there is much less democracy in schools today than there was 30 years ago. Primary schools could in theory teach what children and parents wanted providing the teachers had the resources and ability to teach it. Nowadays they have to follow the National Curriculum.



I'm rapidly concluding that the Green Party is now trying to 'outLabour' the Labour Party. Now that Nick Clegg has openly announced that there is "no future" for the Liberal Democrats as a left-wing alternative to Labour, the Greens will surely capitalise on it to further drive forward the project to become a clone of Old Labour.

The Greens are fighting tooth and nail to get the unions on their side. I doubt that they will sever their ties with Labour and jump ship in the foreseeable future. In the meantime expect to see the Greens embracing large swathes of what union bosses believe in when forumulating future policies.



I think that once the news gets out that the Lib-Dems are Tories with sandals who believe in the same economic policies as Thatcher believes in complete with swingeing cuts then expect the Greens to win considerable support from the disgruntled left if Labour remains as a party in disarray or selects the odious Diane Abbott as its leader.

I really wish the Greens would focus their attention on the environment and economic reforms rather than attempt to pick up where old Labour left off. If there really was a demand for an old Labour type party then one would already have been invented years ago.

The Greens have now announced on their website that the nature and scale of the Tory-Lib Dem coalition’s public spending cuts could force many Lib Dem members, activists and voters to switch allegiance to the Green Party.

http://www.greenparty.org.uk/News/2010- ... ation.html

Time will surely tell what happens and whether the Greens become friendly or hostile towards the HE community.

Another damning comment from the Green Party in their critique of David Cameron's speech at the Conservative Party conference.

“He said he will give people power, such as to choose what school their kids will go to. But the issue isn’t choice, it’s making sure every child has a place at a good local school.”

Nothing about home education, again.

I'm starting to get the message that the senior Greens have not made much effort to ask parents about their children's education.

This might be a bit of a cynical thing to say. My own observations have revealed that parents with school age children are under represented in the Green Party. If party members don't have to deal with schools on a formal basis then it means they don't experience the problems parents who send their kids to school do.

There are good reasons for denying parents and kids and choice of which school they use that fits in well with the rest of Green Party policy.

1. The Greens want kids to walk or cycle to school. They know that one of the biggest reasons why so many kids are transported by car is because they don't attend the nearest school, and therefore, are outside of a reasonable walking and cycling range.

2. Allowing parents to choose which school their kids attend has created 'ghettoisation' in some towns and cities. It is quite common to find a school with a high proportion of kids from one ethnic group only half a mile away from a school with a high proportion of kids from a different ethnic group. The Greens are strongly in favour of multiculturalism and multicultural societies. They are opposed to any form of segregation even if it is self imposed by the personal wishes of parents and kids wanting to be with their own types more than others. Denying parents the choice of which school their kids attend will reduce this ghettoisation.

3. Allowing parents to choose which school their kids attend has resulted in good schools being heavily oversubscribed and bad schools left with a surplus of places in some areas. Some bad schools have ended up verging on dustbins for low ability or badly behaved kids because no parent with a child of average or high ability will dream of sending them to such a school. Denying parents the choice of which school their kids attend will reduce pressure on oversubscribed schools and help to improve bad schools by improving the overall quality of the kids that attend - although I dispute this last point.