FactCheck: did Balls say the F word?
Updated on 09 September 2008
Schools secretary Ed Balls claims he doesn't use the phrase "failing schools". Is he right?
The claim
"We don't use the phrase 'failing schools'. I have never called these schools 'failing schools'."
Ed Balls, schools secretary, Andrew Marr Show, BBC One, 7 September 2008.
The background
At the start of the summer, Ed Balls launched a new carrot and stick initiative to improve performance in the 600-odd schools with the lowest GCSE results in the country.
At least 30 per cent of pupils should achieve at least five A*-C grade GCSEs, including maths and English, in all schools, said the government. Meanwhile, the £400m National Challenge would increase funding to those that don't make the grade.
If schools don't start to claw their way up the results charts by 2011, they will be threatened with closure, perhaps being reopened as academies or national challenge trusts.
The announcement was widely reported as a threat to "failing schools", and prompted a row between government and teachers.
The National Union of Teachers hit back, pointing out that just over a quarter of the schools had been given the highest rating by teaching watchdog Ofsted.
And many of the schools targeted had above-average "contextual value-added" scores - that's actual GCSE performance compared to the expected performance of the cohort.
On Sunday, when Andrew Marr asked the schools secretary about "failing schools" and the National Challenge, Balls said it was "really important" to pick up the interviewer on the use of the phrase failing schools.
"It's not a phrase that I've used and I don't think it's the right word to use," said Balls.
Is Balls right? Is the idea of a failing school really just media hype, or did it come from his department?
The analysis
Balls has talked of "failing schools" in the past year.
When launching the Children's Plan in December 2007, he told the Commons that: "over the past 10 years ... we have many more outstanding schools and many fewer failing schools."
Two months earlier, he talked in parliament of how "the number of failing schools - those that do not have 25 per cent of students gaining five good GCSEs - is down from 616 in 1997 to just 47 today."
Given Gordon Brown's use of the F word, Balls' claim that "we" don't use the phrase looks shaky.
This is a similar measure of "failing schools" to that used for the National Challenge schools, rather than, say, the far smaller number of schools which are in special measures.
At a first glance, it looks as though this theme continued when the detail of the National Challenge was announced in June.
'I will close up to 270 failing schools to improve standards, says minister' was the Guardian headline on 10 June 2008 - although Ed Balls did not use the word "failing" in any of the direct quotes attributed to him by the interview, or in the accompanying audio clip.
Even his own party seemed to have got the failing end of the jargon stick.
The junior higher education minister Baroness Morgan told the House of Lords on the same day that "today's announcement on failing schools - in which less than 30 per cent of pupils get five GCSEs - is welcome".
However, the term "failing schools" didn't crop up in the official press release announcing the scheme, or in a Today programme interview Balls gave on the same day - at least, not from Balls' lips.
Later that month, he hammered the "no failure" point home, telling MPs that the National Challenge schools "have our full support, but they are not failing schools at all".
He made similar comments in a speech to headteachers the week after the scheme was announced.
In fact, FactCheck has yet to find an incidence of Balls using the term "failing schools" in relation to the National Challenge Schools in recent months.
It's a different story when it comes to the prime minister, however.
In a speech on education last October, Gordon Brown trailed the national challenge proposals, talking of the need to put an end to "failure".
"We have cut the number of failing schools dramatically in the last decade," he said. "In 1997 over 600 secondary schools had less than 25 per cent of children getting five or more good GCSEs. Now instead of over 600, 26 do.
"But the latest figures still show that there are 670 schools where less than 30 per cent of pupils get 5 A* to C grades at GCSE, including English and maths, and while that is down from 1,600 in 1997 there is still much to do.
"So we must go further to end failure. And the secretary of state for children, schools and families has challenged local authorities to use new powers and this is a critical strategic role and challenge for local government."
And on 11 June this year, the day after the detail of the National Challenge was announced, Balls' boss fuelled the failing fire further, giving a pretty unequivocal answer on the issue in PMQs:
"The national challenge is intended to raise every school in this country to a higher standard," said Brown. "In particular, the aim is to deal with failing schools and to make sure that their results are better."
The verdict
As spin supremo Alastair Campbell, who dropped a rare PR clanger when he referred to the end of the "bog-standard comprehensive", could testify, knocking the nation's schools is unlikely to win friends in the education community.
Ed Balls' claim never to have used the phrase "failing schools" seems to stand up - at least since the detail of the National Challenge programme was announced in June.
But given Gordon Brown's use of the F word, Balls' claim that "we" don't use the phrase looks far shakier.
Even if Balls avoids talking about failing schools, the message does not seem to have got through to the very top of the government.
FactCheck rating: 3.5
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