Same old schools policy
From David Woodhead
Sir: Your leading article (29 October) is scornful of Labour’s vocabulary of school reform, in particular its use of the term ‘independent state schools’. But Labour is simply shamelessly resurrecting not only the terminology but also the education policies of Conservative governments which it so vehemently criticised when in opposition. The Conservatives, too, referred to their grant-maintained schools as ‘independent state schools’, with slightly more justification since they were more independent of local education authorities than Labour will allow its ‘Trust schools’ to be. The interchangeability of statements on education between Labour and Tory ministers is nothing new. In the late 1980s Mrs (now Dame) Angela Rumbold, as minister of state at the then Department of Education and Science in the third Thatcher government, said her ‘real ambition in life is that there should be no need for an independent sector as the state sector will provide parents with the standards and choice currently provided by the independent sector’. The same words are probably already in the draft of Ruth Kelly’s next speech.
David Woodhead Leatherhead, Surrey
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