Education Crisis in Birmingham: Elephant in the room
When Ed Balls, the Secretary of State for Education under the last Labour government announced National Challenge in 2007, the city of Birmingham found itself with 40% of its 75 secondary schools in the National Challenge category i.e. 30 secondary schools were failing to achieve the unambitious and arbitrary 30% of pupils passing five GCSE subjects at grades A*-C including English and Maths. This is underachievement on an industrial scale and one of the worst for size of Local Authority.
Had central government not micro-managed National Challenge Schools via National Challenge Advisers, Birmingham would have carried on coasting along, blaming historical low attainment on English as An Additional Language (EAL), Free School Meals (FSM), deprivation, feminism, and other unbelievable and lamentable excuses.
Lord Adonis's speech to the Lunar Society about Birmingham in crisis - MUST READ
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Extracts from Birmingham City Council's January 2012 report on OFSTED inspections of Birmingham Schools inspected September 2010 to July 2011:
"The Birmingham context around which these inspection judgements are being made should be recognised. The free school meal entitlement for Birmingham children
aged 5 - 16 is more than 15% higher than the national average at 34.6%. The number of pupils who speak a home language other than English is 40.4%. Using
the Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) just over half of Birmingham pupils age 5-15 live in the most deprived 10% of areas nationally."
and concludes by stating:
"Birmingham schools face significantly more challenge than the average English school on every measure of deprivation."
But a recent OFSTED report said that poor children are being let down by inadequate schools. Inspectors said that deprivation continued to be a “significant factor influencing the quality of schools” in England. In its annual report, the watchdog said that schools serving the poorest 20 per cent of pupils were four times more likely to be “inadequate” than those for the wealthiest 20 per cent. The report said that children subjected to a poor start in life were much more likely to be trapped in a low-paid job and less likely to climb the social ladder.