My hero: Lord Harris, the Conservative millionaire who is saving schools

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/29/hero-conservative-millionaire-saving-schools

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We don't put up many statues these days. Ours is a post-heroic age, and it is assumed that no one really deserves to be put on a pedestal. But I know of many people who deserve to be remembered for acts of overlooked heroism.

The teachers who dedicate their lives to helping children from disadvantaged homes to achieve their potential are my heroes. Long after others have given up, they refuse to accept failure. Some of these heroes, like David Sellens in Thomas Jones primary in London's North Kensington, work in local authority schools; some, like Dame Sally Coates of Burlington Danes in London's White City, run academies; others, like Liam Nolan in Birmingham, have opened free schools. But none inspires my admiration as much as a carpet salesman who left school, as my parents did, when he was just 15.

Philip Harris, now Lord Harris of Peckham, became a successful businessman. He is still, at the age of 71, an energetic chairman of Carpetright. But what earns him hero status is that this Conservative peer has done more to help working-class children than any Labour politician since Attlee and Bevan.

He was one of the first philanthropists to set up a city technology college, in the 1990s. These schools, forerunners of the city academies, were socially comprehensive but academically ambitious. Harris was then one of the first to take advantage of Tony Blair's and Andrew Adonis's academies programme. He took over failing comprehensives run by leftwing local authorities. Labour politicians who preached social justice had been too afraid to challenge educational underperformance, and were happier appeasing unions than championing children.

Harris changed everything about these schools – except the intake. He introduced all the characteristics of the type of school middle-class parents pay thousands of pounds for. In came uniforms, house systems, academic subjects, strict discipline and zero tolerance of truancy. He also ensured his schools were led by traditionalist teachers who refused to accept excuses for failure – people such as the inspirational Sir Dan Moynihan.

The result of Harris's and Moynihan's work has been near-miraculous. Schools where around one child in 10 secured five decent GCSEs have recorded a 400% improvement in results. Schools that were once shunned by desperate parents are now heavily oversubscribed. Their success deserves to be celebrated by anyone who believes in the emancipatory power of education. Democratising access to knowledge should be a great progressive cause. Guaranteeing working-class children the qualifications and confidence to secure the job or college place they want should be at the heart of any true liberal's long-term economic plan.

But many on the left cannot accept that traditional teaching, the celebration of knowledge, discipline, respect for adults, a refusal to accept background as an excuse for underperformance, and academic and sporting competition are all approaches that help working-class children most.

We saw that resistance towards helping disadvantaged children when it was proposed that Harris take over the failing Haringey primary school Downhills: the local Labour party and trade unions united in denunciation. But Downhills has been transformed. Last week, Ofsted judged it to be comprehensively improved – with outstanding leadership and delighted parents.

Have we had a sorry from those who stood in the way of these children being saved? Or even a wry headscratch from the Labour party as it finds that a millionaire Conservative is more progressive and practical than its own leaders? All one hears is the silence of consciences unexamined.