Only The Tories Are Listening to Parents

Something struck me yesterday about that whole SATS hoo haa, with education unions about to boycott them, and it was this. In all the news coverage that I saw, not one reporter had thought to ask any of the people who really do count when it comes to education, namely, the 'customers': parents and children. The teachers' and Heads' views are all very well and the benefits or deficiencies of SATS testing is still very much moot.

What's unacceptable is the idea that teachers and Heads, as much as the (Labour) politicians themselves, believe that they can just do what they like without even considering the possibility that the one group they should be consulting, parents (and children, to a certain extent, although I have a fairly old-fashioned view about pupil power), should be sounded-out.

The letter to the Guardian today signed by 650 parents groups, criticising the excruciating Balls and his Labour chums for rubbishing Tory plans for the deregulation of the entire school system, will prove this reality to every sane person. Every sane person, that is, apart from the people who really do need to be re-educated: teachers, Heads and socialists (are those terms tautological?). The Spectator has written something good about this.

But there are two other things that this letter proves that are just as significant:

1) Parents will not be ignored any more and will have their say on these matters, and demand that their right to choose the educational future of their children is respected, and whether agenda-driven, 'we know best' educators (believe me, they don't), officials and politicos like it or not.

2) The Tories have been listening for a long time, and Michael Gove has created a plan that in my view takes a manifesto to that happy place that is so often so hard to reach: a policy that is affordable, popular and right.

The Tories have won the argument on education. Let's hope they win the argument on running the rest of the country too.

I still believe they will, not least because they deserve to, but also because I believe that with policies like this one, they will convince enough people of this reality so they agree with me.

We'll see.