Frightening the donkeys

In the weeks leading up to the general election it's become ever more clear that the unions are getting just a tad nervous about what might happen should the Tories win and implement some fairly radical changes.

Telegraph.

Teachers are proposing industrial action and a wave of protests to block an expansion of academies and the creation of new-style “free schools”.

The National Union of Teachers will use its annual conference in Liverpool next month to warn that Tory proposals to effectively privatise hundreds of state schools would fuel social segregation and undermine local democracy. 

Academies were first established by Labour, but the Conservatives have promised to put “rocket boosters” under the programme by dramatically expanding the number of schools run independent of local council control.

The Tories want to allow all top performing schools to become academies within months of a general election victory.

They have also pledged to introduce legislation giving parents, charities and private companies powers to open their own “free” schools. These privately-run schools would be allowed to compete for pupils at taxpayers’ expense to create more local competition and drive-up standards, the Conservatives say.

But at the union’s annual conference, activists are expected to back plans for a new wave of strikes and protests to block the expansion.

Now you'll notice that it says "teachers are proposing" when in fact it's nothing of the sort, union activists of the teaching unions are actually doing the proposing and they are probably not teachers at all but full time activists locked into their 70's style confrontational policies. Most normal teachers will stay away from the conferences as it's a) boring and b) full of socialists who haven't got an anchor to reality. So we're probably looking at some sort of teachers strike over a proposal to improve education standards. I suspect the real reason is though that schools out of state control will attract the best teachers and the state dinosaur rump will look even worse by comparison, possibly to the extent of threatening the useless teachers jobs as it will become increasingly obvious that they are not performing up to acceptable standards.
Naturally the socialist answer is to drag the good down with the bad so the useless can hide amongst them, after all if all schools perform poorly then it's the fault of anyone but the teachers. Equality is a wonderful thing, save only that it should only be applied to laws not people as people vary so much and have different requirements, needs and desires. Locking them into a one size fits all (or else) system is never going to work and will only drag down the best and brightest to the point where they'll leave, that applies to all people, teachers, pupils, engineers, doctors. We should be encouraging opportunities and not as the teaching unions are doing stifling them.