Yes, Dr John Dunford is right that "The government should trust school leaders more, hold them to account intelligently, have clearer priorities and take fewer, better planned initiatives," and yes, they should also show more regard to the views of parents. But Dr Dunford is quite wrong to see the moves from the city to the classroom as a sign of the lessening moral regard young people have for banking jobs. People are leaving the city because they have lost their jobs, and not applying because there aren't any to get.
To be fair to fair to him, Dr Dunford does spend all his time around teachers and as such it will be hard for him to understand being sacked; we all know useless teachers are just moved on to other schools.
Dr Dunford is also right to criticize the so-called ‘Tesco Model’ of Ed Balls as explained as Whitehall being the company headquarters with teachers as the branch managers and shelf-fillers. However, the Tesco analogy is a bad one, as state education would be run better by Tesco than it is at present: at least it would be customer driven and bad teachers would be shown the door.
Given that Dr Dunford’s job is to look after the interests of ASCL members, one cannot expect much better from him. I would welcome the day when children are taught at an equivalent level of service we get at supermarkets, with competition for customers equivalent to that between the likes of Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Lidl, Co-op Waitrose, Whole Foods and Morrisons.
