DCSF looking for evidence to justify Badman recommendations
Elective Home Education (EHE) Review - Request for Supplementary Data
In as big an admission as you could ask for that the so called evidence underpinning Graham Badman’s not at all Independent Home Education Review is tissue thin, slanted, manipulated and all around utterly rubbish the DCSF are actually going to the LAs and asking for “Supplementary Data”.
That’s right, the “evidence … which led to Graham Badman making 28 recommendations” isn’t good enough to stand up to Select Committee scrutiny and the DCSF are asking the LAs to bail them out.
They aren’t even pretending any more! They’re desperately and publicly scrabbling for anything they can to justify the policies that they have already decided on. As Pete Darby points out, we did already know that was what was going on, but at least there was some pretence that they were basing policy on evidence. We knew it was a lie but they at least granted us the small dignity of being worth lying to. Now it’s right out there in the open!
Ronnie Said on September 19th, 2009 at 10:44 pm quote
This may interest you:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmselect/cmchilsch/432/8022507.htm
This is a Commons select committee; at this stage questions are being asked about whether the intake of kids with Special Educational Needs by the English “Academies” is at an appropriate level, (q176).
After replies by other witnesses, Graham Badman interjects, :
“When you have a strong partnership between schools, authorities should not be afraid to use their powers of direction. We can direct admissions where there are special educational needs or looked-after children, and I do. That applies to Academies as well.”
A Committee member corrects him twice.
Mr Badman’s response at this point is most interesting, remember , this is in front of a Commons Select Committee.
He does not continue to maintain his position.
He doesn’t admit that he is wrong.
Instead he says, “Well, please do not tell them in that case.”
Was it said earnestly?
Was this done with a knowing wink?
What we can surmise is that by refusing to argue the point, Mr Badman, has tacitly admitted that he was wrong.
It would be possible at this juncture for Mr Badman to have said, “I’m sorry, I have made a mistake, on my return to my desk I will inform my subordinates and the Academies in my county of my error.” He does not.
Instead he asks the others to join him in his subterfuge.
The end of achieving the appropriate intake into the Academies of the “correct” number of SEN pupils, as defined by Mr Badman, is given precedence over the means; which is asking other parties to break the law; in front of a Commons Select Committee.
If it was said in earnest, what can we conclude?
That Mr Badman sees himself as above the law?
That he has been careless in revealing this attitude in front of a Select Committee?
If it was said jokingly, what can we conclude?
That Mr Badman is accustomed to riding roughshod over the law in the privacy of the corridors of power and has revealed this by letting his guard slip and being unable to bring himself to admit to an error in front of a colleague?
What would such a character do in a hypothetical situation where he was looking to marshal evidence in support of a particular argument?