No more excuses

Ed Balls, education secretary

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Ed Balls sets out his vision to improve underperforming schools to Karen Day.

It's the 50-day deadline for councils to submit their 'radical' plans to turn around the country's 638 underperforming secondary schools in what Ed Balls describes as his "ambitious, demanding and uncompromising" National Challenge.

Back in June, the education secretary revealed a list of 135 local authorities harbouring schools that had failed to meet a basic standard of 30% of pupils achieving five C to A*-grade GCSEs. These councils, a mix of urban and rural, were given 50 days to compile realistic action plans on how exam results will improve in 2008, '09 and  '10.

The time constraints were also made abundantly clear: those stuck on the lower performance scale would be closed and re-opened within 24 months as either academies or trust schools in a £400m improvement programme.

The news met with a backlash from both councils and teaching unions, who dubbed it 'shocking and random'. Local government leaders privately condemned it as good old-fashioned council bashing designed to regain political ground and were furious that seemingly good schools had been labelled failing.

A drive to improve secondary schools is hardly unwelcome, but its tone and the choice of schools haven't won the schools secretary many friends, even among his own ministerial colleagues.

The f-word

Ed Balls is adamant that not all of the 638 are in fact "failing". "To tar all of them with that brush would be the wrong thing to do and I've never done that," he tells LGC. "I've never used the word failing."

It's true that you'd be hard-pressed to find an instance where Mr Balls uses the f-word. But it's not a massive mental leap from naming and shaming those not meeting a basic standard, to the threat of closure and a clear inference of failure.

"About a third of schools have been stuck well below and are unlikely to make progress without some radical change. These are schools that have got 6% or 7% to that level every year for the last four or five years and are clearly not succeeding," he says.

Mr Balls says failure is easier to report for the media and two-thirds of the schools are redeemable. "At the point when you lay the challenge down, you say we're going to get every school up to this standard and we're not going to accept excuses, we'll do what ever it takes. I think it's a positive and balanced message, but it has to be school by school. That's hard to report and it's much easier to say failing schools will have to close."

He expects some schools to push through the 30% mark this August, while about a third that have already changed leadership will need an extra push and financial help over the next two years.

NUT wrath

But it is the very inclusion of these schools that has infuriated unions. According to the National Union of Teachers, around 26% of the schools have already been deemed high performing by Ofsted, while around 25 are the very academies expected to drive up exam results. The union estimates that about 11% of the 638 schools actually need intervention.

Mr Balls is well aware of the feathers that he's ruffled, but he responds that his initiative is just as much about a "challenge to local authorities to tell us whether they on track, and if they need more help." He adds that it's also an opportunity for councils and he wants to make clear their role in school improvement.

"Sometimes I think the government has been a bit unclear in its message on schools. I want to be really clear. We don't expect
local authorities to run schools. In the 2006 act local authorities are commissioners, first and foremost.

But I take that commissioning responsibility really seriously. I think local authorities are vital to school improvement. That's why in the National Challenge I've not asked for a report back governing body by governing body, but I've asked local authorities to tell me school by school whether they are on track."

Mr Ball concedes these "mixed messages" may have confused some councils over their role in school performance, and he's clearly frustrated that so few have used the schools intervention powers granted in the 2006 education act. "Perhaps councils haven't thought it was their role and that maybe it was someone else's job," he says. "We do think it's their role."

National Challenge 'demanding'

Mr Balls warns that his National Challenge will be demanding for councils and he intends to be "pretty uncompromising" on those that use the "excuse culture" and hide behind socio-economic problems.

"I think that sometimes councils have had low expectations of what particular schools were able to achieve. And the reason why the National Challenge is being done the way it is, is because fundamentally I want to challenge that assumption that there is a link between poverty and attainment. I want to challenge that excuse culture."

Part of this challenge will be a new power due in the autumn legislative programme to allow the education secretary to compel local authorities to intervene and bring in private partners to help them.

Mr Balls adds that poor performance is not a peculiarly urban issue either and often the common denominator between "challenge councils" is pupil selection. "In the top five or six authorities that have the most National Challenge schools, they tend to be ones that have partial or full selection. It's true of Kent, Birmingham and Gloucestershire. We have to face up to the extra challenges that being a comprehensive school in a selective area throws up.

"The intake of these schools for example will include a number of children that have already been told that they've failed."

In all of this, Mr Balls consistently uses the word "radical". He expects any plans, which despite the headline-grabbing 50 day deadline won't be fully fleshed out until the end of the year, to include radical solutions.

So how does this translate and what will it mean for local government's commissioning and role in education?

Mr Balls says it could mean more academies, of which he is able to fund a further 70 in the next two years, National Challenge Trust schools or the creation of federations of local schools where the best lead the worst. "We think that kind of more radical solution could comfortably do a third of these schools," he adds.

Mr Balls expects councils to opt for more academies than he can fund, but he also anticipates many will choose the National Challenge Trust model. "For the first time we're putting up a big financial incentive to becoming a trust. If schools pair up with another high-performing local school we'll give them a million pounds."

The education secretary maintains that despite councils' reaction, his programme is about strengthening local government's role in school improvement.

"If you don't recognise the local authority role, you
either stand back, tolerate poor performance or you essentially centralise the whole of education policy. I don't think it's sensible for me, school by school, to be directing those interventions."