Management by spin

The Times republishes a government press release about failing schools.

Headteachers from grammar schools are to take over the management of failing schools in their area under plans for reform in England.

The author of the piece, Alexandra Frean, who rejoices in the title of education editor, doesn't see fit to ask any questions about this announcement at all, which is surprising because the government has been saying for some time that its intention is to close down failing schools altogether. Reasonable people might wonder whether this is a change in policy or spin, or something else altogether. Ms Frean however is happy just to parrot the government line.

She goes on: 

There are 638 such [failing] schools in the country and the Government hopes to team up a significant proportion of them with grammar and other successful types of state school.

Again, this is a bit strange because there are only around 160 grammar schools in the country, so even if every grammar school head was put in charge of a failing school, the majority of failing schools would still have to be run by the head of another non-failing bog-standard comp. In other words, the headline would be more representative if it said that failing schools are to be taken over by their successful colleagues. Unfortunately, this is a headline which has already been issued umpteen times already.

That's the problem with government by spin doctor: eventually you run out of new things to say. Perhaps they might actually try, you know, doing something about the problems in the education system?