Gove offers 'freedom' for teachers?

Here is an interesting piece from the web site Teacher Talks: http://thinkpolitics.co.uk/tpblogs/teachertalks/

The writer discusses what Gove means when he talks about providing more freedom for teachers with reference for their plans for early reading.

"Look also at their plans for reading. Of course, the fact that the Government has a centralised doctrine on how children should learn to read indicates Gove is not quite the radical, let it all hang free and loose Secretary of State he thinks he is. Whatever your views on the rights and wrongs of their chosen methodology (and this one prompts passions on both sides), Michael Gove and Nick Gibb have, with a so far undisclosed expertise in these matters, decided what’s best for the classroom. Politicians, not teachers, are calling the shots.

Not only do they advocate one particular approach to reading (synthetic phonics), with all the inherent dangers of putting your eggs in one basket, they would like to introduce a test in Year 1 of a child’s school life to make damn sure schools do what Gove wants.

However, the crude lesson from the SATs – the dreaded tests faced by Year 6, the final year of primary school – is that what matters gets measured, and what gets measured gets done. Too many schools, knowing they will be judged by their test scores, play by the book and play safe - in other words, they teach to the test.

What this means is that everything else gets squeezed, pushed to the side or ignored completely. Horizons shrink. This is dismal enough for eleven year olds, even worse for children experiencing their first moments of formal learning.

So, by prescribing in precise terms how reading is taught and then introducing a test to see whether schools are complying with their exhortations, Gove and Gibb have certainly called into question their credentials as freedom-bringers (not to mention whether the reforms will actually work).

The attempt, pitiful, it must be said, to disguise their controlling tendencies – by calling this test, a ‘check’ – doesn’t disguise that this is Whitehall taking control and that it will have a direct effect on teaching and learning. Strange that the recent White Paper was called ‘The Importance of Teaching’, perhaps ‘The Importance of Following Directives from Education HQ (contd.)’ may have been more apt.

The schizophrenic approach to policy – torn between the rhetoric of freedom and the instinct to prescribe – is confusing, muddied further by the seemingly random selection of targets. Why the strong views on teaching reading, yet nothing said on writing? Why review Year 6 tests because of the negative, limiting effects on the curriculum, yet bring in more of the same when children are even younger? Why trust free schools to appoint who they like, yet tell teacher-training institutions who they can and cannot let on their course? And, let’s cut to the quick – why Dryden?"