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You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jul/18/trojan-horse-inquiry-draft-report-michael-gove-blob-birmingham-schools
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| The Trojan horse inquiry’s draft report shows Michael Gove had to go | The Trojan horse inquiry’s draft report shows Michael Gove had to go |
| (about 2 hours later) | |
| A eureka moment. We spent 48 hours trying to understand why the prime minister was so easily able to abandon his friend, Michael Gove, and to park him not as party chairman, where he would have a primary role to drum up votes for the Tories, but as chief whip with internal responsibilities. We will be seeing him everywhere, in the flesh and on TV, and hearing him on the radio, it was said. After today’s damning draft report on the alleged infiltration – on his watch – of Birmingham schools by ideologues and zealots, one wouldn’t bet too much on him being omnipresent. | |
| For the draft report, leaked to the Guardian, makes it clear that in his zeal to attack “the blob”, as he called the teaching establishment, he crafted and then lauded structures that paved the way for the virtual capture of a clutch of schools by extremists. Not terrorists. The review finds no evidence of terrorist proslytising or links to terrorist activity. But it claims to have unearthed ample evidence that schools were targeted by groups whose allegiance was to the propagation of their own particular strand of Sunni Islam and antipathetic to the beliefs and values of everyone who existed outside their own circle. | For the draft report, leaked to the Guardian, makes it clear that in his zeal to attack “the blob”, as he called the teaching establishment, he crafted and then lauded structures that paved the way for the virtual capture of a clutch of schools by extremists. Not terrorists. The review finds no evidence of terrorist proslytising or links to terrorist activity. But it claims to have unearthed ample evidence that schools were targeted by groups whose allegiance was to the propagation of their own particular strand of Sunni Islam and antipathetic to the beliefs and values of everyone who existed outside their own circle. |
| Emails circulated among a cadre of figures at one school who called themselves the Park View Brotherhood are said to display a corrosive mindset deeply at odds with the attitudes wider society, and Gove himself, would want to instil in our children. “The all-male group discussions include explicit homophobia, highly offensive comments about British service personnel, a stated ambition to increase segregation at the school, disparagement of Muslims in sectors other than their own, scepticism about the truth of reports on the murder of [soldier] Lee Rigby and the Boston bombings, and a constant undercurrent of anti-western, anti-America and anti-Israel sentiment,” according to the draft report. | Emails circulated among a cadre of figures at one school who called themselves the Park View Brotherhood are said to display a corrosive mindset deeply at odds with the attitudes wider society, and Gove himself, would want to instil in our children. “The all-male group discussions include explicit homophobia, highly offensive comments about British service personnel, a stated ambition to increase segregation at the school, disparagement of Muslims in sectors other than their own, scepticism about the truth of reports on the murder of [soldier] Lee Rigby and the Boston bombings, and a constant undercurrent of anti-western, anti-America and anti-Israel sentiment,” according to the draft report. |
| That is not to say that those views impacted on all the children. These were schools that had many academic achievements and qualities. But it suggests that in an era of supposedly tight safeguarding to protect children from indoctrination and risk, pupils were in fact put at risk. The main culprits are those who hold extreme views and might seek to impose them on state-run, state-funded establishments. But if this account is right, there also appears to have been systemic failure. | That is not to say that those views impacted on all the children. These were schools that had many academic achievements and qualities. But it suggests that in an era of supposedly tight safeguarding to protect children from indoctrination and risk, pupils were in fact put at risk. The main culprits are those who hold extreme views and might seek to impose them on state-run, state-funded establishments. But if this account is right, there also appears to have been systemic failure. |
| The author Peter Clarke calls for reform to “the process by which single schools are able to convert to academy status and acquire a multi-academy sponsor status to ensure appropriate checks are conducted on the group and key individuals, and there is an accurate assessment of the trust’s capability and capacity”. | |
| Not all of the schools under the spotlight were academies. But the current process, much endorsed by Gove, “happened too quickly and without a suitable system for holding the new academies accountable for financial and management issues”. | |
| Part of the attraction was their independence, or, as Gove argued it, their ability to cast off the fetters of the blob and the dead hand of local political accountability. But in practice this approach left schools “vulnerable to those without good intentions”. | Part of the attraction was their independence, or, as Gove argued it, their ability to cast off the fetters of the blob and the dead hand of local political accountability. But in practice this approach left schools “vulnerable to those without good intentions”. |
| Clarke continues: “In theory, academies are accountable to the secretary of state, but in practice the accountability can amount to benign neglect where educational and financial performance seems to indicate everything is fine. This inquiry has highlighted there are potentially serious problems in some academies.” In future, “the department’s systems need to be more sensitive to detecting changes in governance to make academies more effective in responding to warning signs to ensure they deliver the provision for which they are contracted.” | Clarke continues: “In theory, academies are accountable to the secretary of state, but in practice the accountability can amount to benign neglect where educational and financial performance seems to indicate everything is fine. This inquiry has highlighted there are potentially serious problems in some academies.” In future, “the department’s systems need to be more sensitive to detecting changes in governance to make academies more effective in responding to warning signs to ensure they deliver the provision for which they are contracted.” |
| These are basic failures, and they happened on the watch of the education secretary whom rightwing allies have been mourning as one of the finest visionaries and administrators of his generation. Here we see the truth is different. The department he ran is damned by the report he himself commissioned. Even if some question the validity of that report – and they will, citing Clarke’s past life as a head of counterterrorism – Gove can hardly reject its findings. One mess too many from the Mr Magoo of Whitehall. It makes sense that he had to go. | These are basic failures, and they happened on the watch of the education secretary whom rightwing allies have been mourning as one of the finest visionaries and administrators of his generation. Here we see the truth is different. The department he ran is damned by the report he himself commissioned. Even if some question the validity of that report – and they will, citing Clarke’s past life as a head of counterterrorism – Gove can hardly reject its findings. One mess too many from the Mr Magoo of Whitehall. It makes sense that he had to go. |
| So what should be the response of Gove’s successor, Nicky Morgan? She needs to assure the House of Commons at the earliest opportunity that there are now suitable measures in place to ensure due diligence in school governance: that the war against the blob no longer takes precedence over the establishment of effective structures. That schools become again a focal point for communities in the broadest sense, not limited, sectional interests. That transparency becomes the norm, for as the prime minister so often says, sunlight is the best disinfectant. | |
| The idea that schools will automatically thrive if left to their own devices, shielded from “interference” and cut loose from local accountability in all its forms was always a nonsense, but now we see its dangers. If there was zealotry in Birmingham, it found its echo in Gove’s department of education. |