One Birmingham school recently announced it was shutting up shop on Friday afternoons, and Labour MP Jess Phillips quipped she’d be dropping her son off to be minded at No 10. There is suddenly a rising sense, among parents and teachers, of a real funding crisis in the classroom. This is despite the fact that, as ministers like to point out, the “core schools budget” is as high as ever. So what’s going on?
On a long view, education has been the relative loser in the welfare state since at least the 1970s. For decades its share in national income was squeezed, and though it recovered after Tony Blair famously named it as his priority one, two and three, it never rose as fast as health.