Deciphering Tory Education Policy?

[PiqueABoo]

So does anyone have their finger on the pulse of what's happening here because I'm struggling to reconcile some aspects?

At heart we appear to have traditional-ish vs. progressive education, and most things lately can be seen in terms of weakening the pillars of progressive e.g. unqualified teachers won't be brainwashed with progressive during training, privatised schools will undermine the progressive torch carrying unions, similarly minded LEA advisor sections are decimated or bypassed via new-academies and so on. So far so plausible, but the reason I'm asking is that I just tripped over a DT article on the Sats results with the headline: Thousands of boys 'at least four years behind in reading' which is more or less how they do most of these stories i.e. it's another variant of Ofsted Wilshaw's "every child.. above average", these disadvantaged kids are being failed by the rubbish school system blather, blather.

But that isn't the 'elitist' thing that every other Leftie keeps accusing them of, is it? Sure it's softening up the teachers ready for Wilshaw-wannabees clutching Sadistic Managlement[tm] manuals, but they've nevertheless defined much of their mission as the same old task of dragging lowest performers up to the floor-levels. Cynic that I am I think the power of education is finite, that they've set themselves up for failure and given the relatively hostile methodology, that will be used against them for a long time. But they're not that stupid surely, so what's the get-out? Or, and it seems very unlikely, are Gove et al genuinely convinced they've got the solution?

:: puzzled ::