Toby Young has a fantastic post for the Telegraph with a title that says it all:
Certainly not Mr Young, who provides an invaluable public service by fisking the living daylights out of these missives.
This week’s letter is signed by no less than fifty persons, who describe themselves as “the UK's leading experts on social policy and the welfare state”. One wonders how fifty people in any field can be described as “leading” it, let alone one as narrow as this. But all must have prizes – as they say in Wonderland.
Which brings us to another letter, which surfaced last week, signed by one hundred academic opponents of Michael Gove’s reformed National Curriculum. For a short and sharp take down of its contents see John Rentoul in the Independent. Toby Young, however, performs a more detailed dissection in the Telegraph, beginning with a key extract from the letter itself:
The scientific evidence (and common sense) would suggest otherwise – as summed up in the words of the American psychologist Daniel Willingham:
Despite their disdain for endless lists of facts, the letter writers trot out a few of their own, but get them wrong – for instance, in claiming that their position is supported by international comparisons of pupil performance:
A few months ago, the Deep End featured a brilliant essay in which Hirsch explains why the learning facts and vocabulary is so important to cognitive development. If Michael Gove’s reforms are based on this analysis then that is all the more reason to support them.
But there’s a problem. If Labour wins the next election, as the polls currently suggest, then the Marxist dementors of the educational establishment will be back in charge. Thanks to their independence, academies and free schools will have a measure of protection, but the National Curriculum is under central government control.
In order to protect his legacy, Michael Gove should extend the principle of choice and independence from individual schools to the National Curriculum. In other words, there should be a choice of national curricula – each openly declaring the purpose and ethos of its founders. Each school would then decide which curriculum to follow, something that parents would be able to take into account when deciding where to send their children.
Leftwing lecturers in 'progressive' educational theory would, of course, be entitled to put forward a curriculum of their own devising – but school governors and parents would be equally free to have nothing to do with it.