LABOUR’S SHADOW Education Secretary Angela Rayner recently gave an interview to The Spectator, which was expanded upon in The Guardian. The editors focused on what she had to say about her own upbringing and the low academic attainment of white working class students, especially boys.
Now there’s a lot to admire about Angela Rayner. Right wing Spectator columnist Frazer Nelson says, “she’s the most effective Labour Shadow Education Secretary for a generation” and she is – by far.
In the National Education Service, Labour has the most comprehensive and far-reaching education policy in a generation, or two to be more exact. Abolition of tuition fees, expanding free school meals and free nursery provision played a big role in winning votes last June.
But Labour’s programme on schools is underdeveloped and somewhat underwhelming. Angela’s interview highlighted some of the problems.
Confronted by the fact that UCAS tables have white working class boys “bottom of the heap”, the shadow secretary said,
“I think it’s because as we’ve tried to deal with some of the issues around race and women’s agendas, around tackling some of the discrimination that’s there, it has actually had a negative impact on the food chain [for] white working boys. They have not been able to adapt. Culturally, we are not telling them that they need to learn and they need to aspire. They are under the impression that they don’t need to push themselves in the way that maybe the disadvantaged groups had to before.”
Inadvertently Rayner is feeding the lie that anti-racist and anti-sexist policies themselves have a “negative impact” on the life chances of white males. They don’t. In fact the opposite is true. By “tackling some of the discrimination that’s there” more working class students are included and the classroom becomes a livelier, happier place to collaborate and learn.
If Labour reduces the problems of demotivation and disengagement to this subgroup or that subgroup performing badly, then they will not only build up unnecessary rivalry and resentment between sections of our class, but they will miss the opportunity to change the whole system.
The most persistent obstacle to academic success is social class – across gender and racial divides. Angela must know that teachers and support staff constantly emphasise the “need to aspire” and the “need to push themselves” to all students. The problem is, aspire to what?
Capitalism only offers low-paid, insecure, uninspiring jobs, the constant threat of deprivation if driven into reliance on shrinking benefits, inadequate and expensive housing, and debt.
A socialist education policy has guarantee to every young person a job, an apprenticeship on full trade union rates or a college or university place, with free tuition and proper living grants. Funding from a steep rise in taxes for the rich and corporations – both of whom benefit directly from the exploitation of today’s and future generations of workers – should pay for a massive expansion of teachers and support staff, so that targeted interventions can multiply.
It’s not a question of “robbing Peter to pay Paul” but making education work – and pay – for everyone.
But it would not be truly socialist unless our policy also empowered staff, parents and students to have a direct say in how our schools are run, what should be on the curriculum and which values are promoted.
This will not be achieved without struggle – against the employers, against the outrageously elitist private school system, abolishing the profit-factories of Academies and free schools, and against reactionaries who prefer schools to continue churning out call centre and gig economy fodder, atomised and dispirited before they turn 18.
Luckily, with a mass membership and the ability to relaunch Young Labour as a democratic, fighting and independent socialist youth movement, the party can and must start that battle now.
