There is a lot to feel glum about right now. The EU referendum result assaulting any decent person’s sensibilities is one thing. The prospect of prime minister Gove is quite another.
While it is clear that many a leave voter is having buyer’s remorse, we will all repent at their leisure. Because, with a new prime minister there will of course be a new Cabinet, which in all likelihood means a new education secretary and quite possibly new ministers to flank them.
The cause of all of this - and the woeful “wisdom” of the British public - is depressing enough. But, beyond that, it will mean even more uncertainty in our little corner of England.
Project Fear characterised both sides of the EU referendum debate: take your pick from “Beware of the foreigners!” or “Beware of having less money in your pocket!” (both pretty distasteful, but one distinctly more repugnant than the other). And when we look closer to home, Project Fear has been alive and well in education for quite some time.
It has infected our thinking and our reason. Our friends in the mainstream media are feasting at the table with gluttonous delight, salivating at the next academy failure to be served up. It is hard to immunise yourself against the onslaught of negativity about academies and all their evil works.
The fact is that there is a kernel of truth in each of the problems besieging MAT-land. First and foremost (and I say this as a diehard supporter of the academies model), there just are not enough good multi-academy trusts. Many are just not up to the job. You need a lot of seriously good people to lift these schools out of failure. With the current recruitment challenges, these people are increasingly few and far between.
As we have seen, too many chief executives are driven by self-interest. Having been successful headteachers, they find that power goes to their head and see a life paved with gold ahead. And it’s not just that. The educational achievement argument has been neither made nor won. Because here’s another fact: MATs are not yet having enough impact on results.
Then there’s the regulatory system that “supports” these schools. The lack of good people in MAT-land is sadly replicated among the regional schools commissioners. Yes, we have some star performers, but one wonders whether they are only stars relative to the sea of grey, smug mediocrity that surrounds them.
Go one level higher to the ministerial team. Again, this is not strong. Yes, they have been extremely unfortunate, with the series of mishaps that have characterised the past few months in education. But, just as you make your own luck, you also sow your own misfortune: it is symptomatic of mismanagement that such errors - be they cock-up or conspiracy - could happen in such quick succession.
It is our job to raise the sights of young people who are growing up in extremely tough neighbourhoods, and whose futures have been made that bit harder by last week’s referendum catastrophe. This is true whether they are in a white, working-class area and at risk of being conditioned to think dangerous thoughts about anyone who is different, or in communities rich in diversity but where young people are being sent a clear message that they are not wanted here.
It is our job to help forge a less bleak future. We are teetering on the brink of becoming a country of negativity and naysayers. We must defy this and put hope ahead of fear, time and again. As Barack Obama said so brilliantly back in 2008: “Hope is that thing inside us that insists, despite all the evidence to the contrary, that something better awaits us if we have the courage to reach for it, and to work for it and to fight for it.”
What happens to UK politics or the country post-referendum is not in our control. But these words apply just as readily to the pernicious - and sometimes gleeful - tendency to talk down our sector. It’s time that those of us who do still believe in something better said: “Enough is enough”, and started fighting for hope.
The Secret CEO is the chief executive of a multi-academy trust somewhere in England
This is an article from the 1 July edition of TES. This week’s TES magazine is available in all good newsagents. To download the digital edition, Android users can click here and iOS users can click here
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