Shawn Tyson has denied April murder of James Cooper and James Kouzaris in Newtown, Sarasota A youth accused of shooting dead two British holidaymakers in a crime-ridden Florida neighbourhood confessed to a fellow inmate shortly after he was arrested, according to newly released court documents. Shawn Tyson, 16, has denied killing James Cooper, 25, and James Kouzaris, 24, as they staggered drunkenly through Newtown, Sarasota, in the early hours of 16 April after a night out drinking. But, according to prosecutors, Tyson told the prisoner: “Yeah, I did it” only 24 hours after the shooting. The inmate said he asked what had happened and Tyson replied: “It’s trill,” – a slang word for “gangster”. In a recorded phone call from the Sarasota county jail to another witness known only as “brother”, Tyson apparently lamented the discovery by detectives of bullets at his house of the same calibre used to murder the Britons. “They found the bullets. That’s the only thing that’s going to fuck me up,” he told the friend. The same witness told police Tyson claimed he approached the Britons from behind after watching them stagger along the road and that he went to “fire off” at them because he assumed they were trying to break into a vehicle. The new details come in about 300 pages of documents released by the state attorney’s office in Sarasota that set out the largely circumstantial case against Tyson, who has been in custody for almost two months after being charged as an adult on two counts of first degree homicide. Included are witness statements that shed light for the first time on how Cooper and Kouzaris travelled to The Courts housing project, seven miles from the upmarket Longboat Key resort where they were enjoying a three-week holiday with Cooper’s family. The question had puzzled detectives for weeks until a taxi driver came forward to report that he remembered picking up two men “with British accents” at the Smokin’ Joes bar in central Sarasota and driving them to a 7-Eleven late-night grocery store in Newtown. Kouzaris, from Northampton, and Cooper, from Warwick, were caught on CCTV drinking in the bar just before closing time, about an hour before they were found dead in the street in Newtown, two miles away, shirtless and with multiple gunshot wounds. Medical records released by the Sarasota coroner, meanwhile, show that the pair, who became friends as students at the University of Sheffield, had blood alcohol levels more than three times Florida’s legal limit for driving. Although the documents reveal how the pair got to Newtown, they appear to stoke further speculation as to what they were doing there. A neighbour who lives close to the murder scene allegedly told police that she believed one of the Britons had previously visited her neighbour’s boyfriend. Another female resident of The Courts, listed only as a “confidential informant”, told detectives that she saw Tyson leaping in through the open window of his mother’s house within moments of the shooting. She identified Tyson as one of two people she saw running away. She said she heard shots then a neighbour told her that someone had been killed. Sarasota police, who have previously admitted they were seeking a second suspect, are investigating another shooting in Newtown, in which a 21-year-old was killed. Willie Hadley, 21, who lived less than a mile from where Cooper and Kouzaris were shot, was gunned down during the early hours of Monday on Martin Luther Way, five blocks from the scene of the April shooting. Police called to the scene at 2am found Hadley, who had been released from jail only a few days previously, lying dead in the road after local residents reported hearing gunfire. Tyson’s trial is expected to take place next year. He faces a probable life sentence if convicted. Gun crime United States Florida Richard Luscombe guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
Prime minister attempts to make virtue of policy U-turns and revised timetable for change David Cameron issued a robust defence of his decision to introduce “substantive” changes to the government’s NHS reforms, hailing the move as a “sign of strength”. As Ed Miliband accused the prime minister of planning to waste billions of pounds in a “bureaucratic reorganisation”, the prime minister said the revisions would allow the NHS to thrive as a service free at the point of delivery. The government has been under in recent weeks fire for embarking on a series of policy U-turns, most notably its plans to water down health secretary Andrew Lansley’s proposals for greater competition to the NHS and to hand 65% of the NHS budget to new GP-led consortiums. The prime minister, who outlined significant alterations to Lansley’s blueprint at Guy’s hospital in London, tried to make a virtue of his change of heart. Standing alongside Nick Clegg and Lansley, he said: “Politicians aren’t very good at saying, we didn’t get it right first time. Politicians hate it if they ever get anything wrong. “But actually I think people respect a government that feels it is strong enough to say, hold on, we haven’t got every element right, we’re not taking enough people with us, let’s stop, let’s get this right. That is what you do in any other walk of life, so it seems perfectly good common sense to do it in government. I think people respect that. “I think it is a sign of strength to pause, to change, to improve and to recognise you’ll have a pretty uncomfortable couple of months and people will throw a few bricks at you. But so what? “The NHS is too precious, this is too important not to get it right. I absolutely think we have done the right thing. I think it has been a good process. I really paid tribute to the Future Forum and the way they have run it. We have had a massive engagement and as a result we have [emerged] much stronger and can now go ahead.” The prime minister defended his performance after the government accepted the bulk of a report on the health and social care bill by an independent panel of experts. Cameron appointed the Future Forum in April amid Liberal Democrat concerns about creeping privatisation and Tory fears that it was jeopardising his work in neutralising the NHS as an issue on which voters used to distrust the Conservatives. He announced that the bill will be amended to make clear that the primary duty of Monitor, the health service regulator, is not to promote competition. It will only do that if it helps patients. Cameron said: “You wanted us to make clear that competition isn’t there for its own sake, but to make life better for patients – done.” The membership of the new GP-led consortiums will be opened up. “You wanted us to get specialists, not just GPs, on commissioning groups – done,” Cameron said. “You wanted us to join up the different parts of the NHS, to put integration right at the heart of our reforms – done. We have listened, we have learned, and we are improving our plans for the NHS. We come here today with a substantive package of changes.” Among other changes to the plans: • Clegg announced that the proposal to allow “any qualified provider” to deliver NHS services will be introduced at a slower pace. • Lansley confirmed that his original 2013 deadline should be relaxed. The department also confirmed that the “relevant parts” of the health and social care bill will be sent back for consideration at the Commons committee stage. Sir Stephen Bubb, who runs the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations and who wrote the competition chapter in the Future Forum report, indicated that the changes would make little difference to the level of competition in the NHS. Asked on Channel 4 News whether there would be more or less competition or whether it would remain the same, Bubb said: “I suspect it will.” Miliband said: “The best thing the government could do is go back to the drawing board because they are still going ahead with a bureaucratic reorganisation.” Cameron and Clegg had an awkward moment when they were interrupted as they chatted to a patient in a ward at Guy’s for the benefit of the cameras. “Excuse me, I’m the senior orthopaedic surgeon in this department,” a man said, as he took exception to a camera crew and Downing Street aides on the grounds that they had not taken the correct measures to comply with hospital hygiene rules. “Why is it that we’re all told to walk around like this and these people … ” he added as he stormed out. Cameron told his staff to leave the ward. David Cameron NHS Health policy Liberal-Conservative coalition Andrew Lansley Ed Miliband GPs Health Public services policy Nicholas Watt guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
Mitt Romney, the presidential frontrunner, topped in debate by the congresswoman who also poses threat to Sarah Palin No sooner had Michele Bachmann hijacked the Republican presidential contenders’ debate to declare she is indeed a candidate for the White House than her newly minted campaign website said she is on her way to “reclaim America”. Americans may know far less about the first congresswoman from Minnesota than they do of that other darling of the Tea Party movement, Sarah Palin. But they are about to learn fast. Her performance in Monday night’s Republican candidates’ debate marked her out as a serious threat, not only to Palin’s ambitions but by having the potential to force issues onto the agenda – even if she faces an uphill struggle to build enough support to win the nomination. Politico rated her as runner-up in the debate to the favourite in the early stages of the long race for the nomination, Mitt Romney , in part because “she did not say anything embarrassing or scary”. Others thought she did better than Romney, using her ascribed twin weapons of bluntness and charm to make the men in the debate look hesitant. Bachmann, 55, believes her country needs to be reclaimed from a socialist president, a gay mafia, and treasonous liberals, responsible for, among other things, robbing Americans of the freedom to choose their light bulbs. It’s a far cry from Bachmann’s first dabble in politics as a student in Jimmy Carter’s 1976 campaign for president. She said at the time she was attracted by Carter’s deep religious convictions, a constant in her life, but was ultimately disillusioned by his support for abortion rights and his economic policies. Four years later, Bachmann campaigned for Ronald Reagan. From then on, she was on her way to becoming a Tea Partier avant la lettre, rising through the Minnesota state legislature and into the US Congress in 2007 with an increasingly strident conservatism built around the belief that big government flies in the face of the America imagined by its founding fathers. She did not shy from making clear she was driven by her Lutheran beliefs including her decision to bear five children and foster 23 more. Neither did she hide her belief that those who disagreed with her were somehow disloyal to the country, once calling the then presidential candidate Barack Obama anti-American. Questioned on the issue, she went on to suggest that some of her fellow members of Congress might be similarly flawed: “Are they pro-America or anti-America?” No issue appears to rile Bachmann more than gay marriage, and homosexual rights in general, which she sees as a vast and spreading conspiracy to change the sexuality of the nation’s children. She has accused the courts of rulings intended to indoctrinate the young. “What a bizarre time we’re in, when a judge will say to little children that you can’t say the pledge of allegiance, but you must learn that homosexuality is normal and you should try it,” she said on one occasion. (The words “under God” were added to the US oath of loyalty in 1954, and in 2005 a California judge said he would if asked stop teachers making children in their charge repeat the oath.) On another occasion, Bachmann said that teaching children the achievements of gay men was a means of promoting homosexuality. “Very effective way to do this with a bunch of second graders is take The Lion King for instance, and a teacher might say, ‘Do you know the music for this movie was written by a gay man?’ The message is: ‘I’m better at what I do, because I’m gay’,” she said. Bachmann is also famed for getting her history wrong, truncating the fight to abolish slavery by a century. “We also know that the very founders that wrote those documents [the constitution] worked tirelessly until slavery was no more in the US,” she said. Her legislative initiatives include the Light Bulb Freedom of Choice Act in an attempt to overturn the phasing-out of incandescent bulbs, She has also dismissed global warming as a hoax. She has even gone so far as to suggest that recent swine flu scare may have been the fault of the Obama administration by noting that a similar outbreak occurred “under another Democrat president Jimmy Carter”. “I’m not blaming this on President Obama, I just think it’s an interesting coincidence,” she said. It is those kind of statements that have left Bachmann with a long way to go to win over the independents and mainstream Republicans who are crucial to taking the White House. But Monday’s performance did her no harm. “Bachmann all but stole the show at the Republican presidential debate,” said Howard Kurtz of the Daily Beast. “She offered a passionate and inclusive defence of the Tea Party, saying that unlike the distorted picture painted by the media, the movement includes ‘disaffected Democrats’, ‘independents’, ‘libertarians’ and ‘people who’ve never been political a day in their lives’. Not bad for a rookie who kept smiling as she reeled off her best lines.” The most crucial endorsement came from the senator regarded as godfather of the movement, Jim DeMint, who said: “Bachmann does impress. She should not be underestimated.” Not what Palin wants to hear. Michele Bachmann Republican presidential nomination 2012 Tea Party movement Mitt Romney Sarah Palin Gay rights Chris McGreal guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
Chancellor to argue that invisible walls between investment and high street operations would protect British economy George Osborne is to give government backing to plans that will force banks to ring-fence their high street operations in an attempt to minimise the risks of a second financial crisis. The chancellor will use his annual Mansion House speech to lambast the system of City regulation inherited from Labour and will argue that putting invisible walls between the investment and high street arms of Britain’s big banks will make it unlikely they will ever need another taxpayer bailout. Amid mounting speculation in the City that the Treasury is about to announce plans to sell off Northern Rock, Osborne will say he intends to endorse proposals by the Independent Commission on Banking (ICB), chaired by Sir John Vickers. In a report in April that was criticised for not being radical enough, Vickers recommended that banks be forced to ring-fence their high street banking businesses and also hold more capital – “at least” 10% compared with the 7% currently required. Commissioned by the coalition to deal with the issue of banks being “too big to fail”, Vickers’s final report is due on 12 September and bankers may be surprised that the chancellor is prepared to back his interim recommendations so far in advance. A Treasury source said: “This is a far-reaching shakeup to make high street banks safer and protect taxpayers. The government set up the banking commission to ask the difficult questions that weren’t asked before the crisis and this is right at the heart of their answer. Britain is now leading the world in learning the lessons from the disastrous failures of the last decade.” Osborne is keen to exploit the current difficulties of the Labour party by contrasting his plan for City regulation with the cumbersome tripartite system created by Gordon Brown. He will make the announcement a year after he told City grandees that he intended to scrap the Financial Services Authority and to give the Bank of England a bigger role in policing the financial sector. Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, who has been hounding Osborne over the weakness of the economy, was City minister for part of Labour’s third term. Treasury sources said the chancellor intended to provide “certainty” by providing details of the “repair job” for the City the government intended to undertake over the coming months. Osborne will await the final Vickers report before finalising his plans. “We need to see what Vickers concludes before deciding how high and how thick the walls need to be,” one Treasury source said. Bankers are deeply divided over ring-fencing and how it will work in practice, and the chancellor is expected to acknowledge that much work needs to be done to establish how retail businesses can be protected. One key issue to tackle is whether corporate loans and deposits should be included in the ring fence. At a hearing before the Treasury select committee of MPs last week, Stephen Hester, chairman of the bailed out Royal Bank of Scotland, warned that the value of the taxpayer’s 84% stake could be reduced by the Vickers proposals for ring-fencing. He said that ring-fencing operations away from a financial institution’s riskier investment banking operations could “create a protected beast that the government will support”. However, others were supportive of a ring-fencing idea – although disagreed about which assets should be included in the ring fence. The ICB was also set up to look at competition in the sector. It infuriated the bailed-out Lloyds Banking Group by suggesting it should sell off branches to bolster competition on the high street. Competition was reduced as result of Labour’s decision to overrule competition concerns to allow Lloyds to rescue HBOS at the height of the banking crisis. Lloyds is currently trying to sell 632 branches to obey EU rules over state aid and is pressing ahead with their sale before the final Vickers report in September. George Osborne Banking Retail industry Labour Regulators Conservatives Liberal-Conservative coalition Jill Treanor Larry Elliott guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
Hopes being pinned on Muammar Gaddafi agreeing to flee the country or defections by Libyan leader’s aides Almost three months into the campaign of air strikes, Britain and its Nato allies no longer believe bombing alone will end the conflict in Libya, well-placed government officials have told the Guardian. Instead, they are pinning their hopes on the defection of Muammar Gaddafi’s closest aides, or the Libyan leader’s agreement to flee the country. “No one is envisaging a military victory,” said one senior official who echoed Tuesday’s warnings by Admiral Sir Mark Stanhope, head of the navy, that the bombing cannot continue much beyond the summer. Stanhope, whose comments caused fury in Downing Street, was expressing publicly what many senior defence officials say in private, officials made clear. The conflict is also straining relations between Washington and its European allies. Although few Nato countries are taking part in the air strikes, Europeans – including the British – are dismayed at the refusal by the US to deploy its low-flying A10 “tankbusters” and helicopters. The UK has deployed four Apaches, the French 12 attack helicopters. There are 150 other attack helicopters in Nato which can operate from ships but they all belong to the US Marine Corps, said Brigadier Benjamin Barry, senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). The latest tension between Nato allies follows a withering speech in Brussels last week by Robert Gates, the outgoing US defence secretary, who referred to the “spectacle of an air operations centre designed to handle more than 300 sorties a day struggling to launch about 150″. The problems within Nato are mirrored among rebel fighters on the ground in Libya. In Misrata the militia leaders, few with military experience, have failed to coalesce into a co-ordinated army which can undertake manoeuvre operations. A second obstacle to an advance is the lack of heavy weapons which would allow them to punch through the ring of Gaddafi forces facing them – and then hold that ground against counterattacks. While some militia leaders have told their troops to dig in, others have refused, leading to troops facing artillery fire out in the open. The result, last Friday, was slaughter; after British Apaches launched their first attacks on the Misrata front the night before, Gaddafi’s forces hit back with an unprecedented barrage of thousands of Russian-made Grad rockets. The Apaches did not reappear in daylight to attack the rocket launchers and rebel units suffered 31 deaths and 120 other casualities. The absence of Apaches dismayed rebel units, not all of whom are sure of Nato’s motives in failing to offer co-ordinated air support. None will say so publicly, but some commanders say the alliance may want Tripoli to rise up against the dictator, rather than be “liberated” by rebels from elsewhere – an event that could trigger political infighting in the postwar period. One member of the Misrata military council complained that some commanders had suggested it would be better to have a lightly-held first line with a defensive belt a kilometre or two behind it – a standard tactic for professional armies. “It’s a good idea,” he said. “But nobody wants to be on the second line.” A rebel logistics officer, Suleiman Abfalga, said: “We cannot live in holes in the ground, we have to show we are not afraid.” It has emerged that Nato has been dropping leaflets threatening Apache air strikes against government forces. The leaflets – each featuring a picture of an Apache helicopter and a burning tank along with the words: “If you go on killing the children and families you will be destroyed” – were sprinkled from a bomb that detonated above no-man’s land east of Misrata, raining down over rebel units who had advanced beyond the frontline without telling Nato. Political considerations among rebel leaders are also having an impact, preventing an order to assault Zlitan, the next town on the road to Tripoli: longstanding grievances between the two populations plus a fear of killing civilians – have seen Misrata’s units refuse to attack until Zlitan’s own rebels rise up – a problematic exercise given that Zlitan is home to the 32nd Brigade, one of Gaddafi’s few elite formations. Gaddafi’s problems are the reverse of those facing the rebels. He has vast stocks of Grad missiles, but his troops are demoralised by what one British source described as “incremental attrition”. One Nato official observed: “Defiance can only be measured by loyalty.” He expressed the view that the conflict was “close to the tipping point”. Sources told the Guardian that indictment for war crimes against Gaddafi and his inner circle before the international criminal court can be put on the back burner, in the hope this would encourage the Libyan leader to seek sanctuary in a friendly African country. There is concern, meanwhile, that the longer the conflict goes on, the greater the risk of civilian casualties as Nato commanders succumb to political pressure to step up the bombing campaign. “The longer the war goes on the greater the chance of a blunder resulting in significant civilian casualties,” warns the IISS in its latest Strategic Comments. It adds: “The risks also increase of both the government and rebels becoming more radicalised and perpetrating war crimes.” The IISS warns that fighting could spill over into Tunisia. Increasing instability in the Middle East, such as the current crises in Syria and Yemen, could compete for strategic attention and military resources. Other problems spring from the flight of nearly 1 million people so far from Libya to neighbouring states and Europe. “Any of these factors, either individually or in combination, could weaken the coalition’s military strength and political resolve.” Of the 10,000 sorties flown by Nato aircraft since mid-March, around one-third have been conducted by aircraft able to attack ground targets. This is far fewer than those flown over Serbia and Kosovo in 1999. The MoD says British aircraft have been involved in 400 strike sorties, dropping some £80m in weapons, according to official figures released to MPs. Libya Middle East Africa Muammar Gaddafi Arab and Middle East unrest Military Defence policy Nato Richard Norton-Taylor guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Hopes being pinned on Muammar Gaddafi agreeing to flee the country or defections by Libyan leader’s aides Almost three months into the campaign of air strikes, Britain and its Nato allies no longer believe bombing alone will end the conflict in Libya, well-placed government officials have told the Guardian. Instead, they are pinning their hopes on the defection of Muammar Gaddafi’s closest aides, or the Libyan leader’s agreement to flee the country. “No one is envisaging a military victory,” said one senior official who echoed Tuesday’s warnings by Admiral Sir Mark Stanhope, head of the navy, that the bombing cannot continue much beyond the summer. Stanhope, whose comments caused fury in Downing Street, was expressing publicly what many senior defence officials say in private, officials made clear. The conflict is also straining relations between Washington and its European allies. Although few Nato countries are taking part in the air strikes, Europeans – including the British – are dismayed at the refusal by the US to deploy its low-flying A10 “tankbusters” and helicopters. The UK has deployed four Apaches, the French 12 attack helicopters. There are 150 other attack helicopters in Nato which can operate from ships but they all belong to the US Marine Corps, said Brigadier Benjamin Barry, senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). The latest tension between Nato allies follows a withering speech in Brussels last week by Robert Gates, the outgoing US defence secretary, who referred to the “spectacle of an air operations centre designed to handle more than 300 sorties a day struggling to launch about 150″. The problems within Nato are mirrored among rebel fighters on the ground in Libya. In Misrata the militia leaders, few with military experience, have failed to coalesce into a co-ordinated army which can undertake manoeuvre operations. A second obstacle to an advance is the lack of heavy weapons which would allow them to punch through the ring of Gaddafi forces facing them – and then hold that ground against counterattacks. While some militia leaders have told their troops to dig in, others have refused, leading to troops facing artillery fire out in the open. The result, last Friday, was slaughter; after British Apaches launched their first attacks on the Misrata front the night before, Gaddafi’s forces hit back with an unprecedented barrage of thousands of Russian-made Grad rockets. The Apaches did not reappear in daylight to attack the rocket launchers and rebel units suffered 31 deaths and 120 other casualities. The absence of Apaches dismayed rebel units, not all of whom are sure of Nato’s motives in failing to offer co-ordinated air support. None will say so publicly, but some commanders say the alliance may want Tripoli to rise up against the dictator, rather than be “liberated” by rebels from elsewhere – an event that could trigger political infighting in the postwar period. One member of the Misrata military council complained that some commanders had suggested it would be better to have a lightly-held first line with a defensive belt a kilometre or two behind it – a standard tactic for professional armies. “It’s a good idea,” he said. “But nobody wants to be on the second line.” A rebel logistics officer, Suleiman Abfalga, said: “We cannot live in holes in the ground, we have to show we are not afraid.” It has emerged that Nato has been dropping leaflets threatening Apache air strikes against government forces. The leaflets – each featuring a picture of an Apache helicopter and a burning tank along with the words: “If you go on killing the children and families you will be destroyed” – were sprinkled from a bomb that detonated above no-man’s land east of Misrata, raining down over rebel units who had advanced beyond the frontline without telling Nato. Political considerations among rebel leaders are also having an impact, preventing an order to assault Zlitan, the next town on the road to Tripoli: longstanding grievances between the two populations plus a fear of killing civilians – have seen Misrata’s units refuse to attack until Zlitan’s own rebels rise up – a problematic exercise given that Zlitan is home to the 32nd Brigade, one of Gaddafi’s few elite formations. Gaddafi’s problems are the reverse of those facing the rebels. He has vast stocks of Grad missiles, but his troops are demoralised by what one British source described as “incremental attrition”. One Nato official observed: “Defiance can only be measured by loyalty.” He expressed the view that the conflict was “close to the tipping point”. Sources told the Guardian that indictment for war crimes against Gaddafi and his inner circle before the international criminal court can be put on the back burner, in the hope this would encourage the Libyan leader to seek sanctuary in a friendly African country. There is concern, meanwhile, that the longer the conflict goes on, the greater the risk of civilian casualties as Nato commanders succumb to political pressure to step up the bombing campaign. “The longer the war goes on the greater the chance of a blunder resulting in significant civilian casualties,” warns the IISS in its latest Strategic Comments. It adds: “The risks also increase of both the government and rebels becoming more radicalised and perpetrating war crimes.” The IISS warns that fighting could spill over into Tunisia. Increasing instability in the Middle East, such as the current crises in Syria and Yemen, could compete for strategic attention and military resources. Other problems spring from the flight of nearly 1 million people so far from Libya to neighbouring states and Europe. “Any of these factors, either individually or in combination, could weaken the coalition’s military strength and political resolve.” Of the 10,000 sorties flown by Nato aircraft since mid-March, around one-third have been conducted by aircraft able to attack ground targets. This is far fewer than those flown over Serbia and Kosovo in 1999. The MoD says British aircraft have been involved in 400 strike sorties, dropping some £80m in weapons, according to official figures released to MPs. Libya Middle East Africa Muammar Gaddafi Arab and Middle East unrest Military Defence policy Nato Richard Norton-Taylor guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
Michael Gove says worst performers should meet current average by 2015 in bid to end ‘low-expectations culture’ The education secretary, Michael Gove, will try to demonstrate the coalition has not lost its zeal for public service reform on Thursday when he announces tougher exam targets for Britain’s worst-performing schools. In an attempt to end what he sees as the low-expectations culture in some schools, he will say that by 2015 he expects every secondary school in England to be achieving the national average of at least 50% of pupils achieving five A*-C grades at GCSE, including English and maths. If not the school will be regarded as underperforming. The current threshold to avoid that label is 35% of pupils getting five “good” GCSEs, including English and maths. The new goal would require 870 of the 3,000 secondary schools in England to improve by 2015 to avoid being taken over by a neighbouring headteacher or academy. Gove’s proposals indicate that neither the mishandling of the NHS reforms, nor the threat of a national teachers’ strike over pensions, have prompted a loss of confidence in the coalition about public service reform. In the speech Gove will challenge the country to recognise the scale of the education improvement still required in many schools by turning the current average performance into a minimum requirement. The plan represents a huge increase in the speed of demanded improvement in comparison with what Labour attempted after 2004. The targets will also inevitably become the yardstick against which Gove himself will be measured as education secretary by the next election. He will also propose as an interim measure that after the 2012 exams the floor of minimum performance is raised to 40% of pupils achieving five A*-Cs including in English and maths. At present 407 secondaries are below that level, but that number is dynamic and the list is bound to change by 2012. Gove will argue the rise of Asian economies and the sweep of technology are changing the demand for knowledge and skills so fast that Britain, and indeed Europe, has to accelerate the pace of improvement if it wants to avoid long-term economic decline. The education debate in the UK has been too inward-looking and failed to grasp the skills transformation in the far east, he will say. He will also argue that radical improvements will occur only if led by outstanding academies and headteachers on the ground, not micromanaged by Whitehall. In an attempt to confront parents, and the teaching profession, with the scale of the challenge, he will point out that in Singapore about 80% of pupils achieve at least a C in English and maths O-levels. In Britain, by contrast, about one-third of pupils do not achieve basic levels in English and maths at 11, and only half achieve at least grade Cs in English and Maths GCSE aged 16. If Britain is to justify claiming to have a world-class curriculum, exam system and world-class teachers, the levels of achievement in Singapore need to be matched, he will argue. Pointing once again to successful academies, such as Mossbourne in Hackney, east London, as well as his experiences in the US, Gove will argue that the envisaged improvements are achievable. Gove has the power to allow outstanding academies to take over failing schools and build new chains. In his speech, marking a new phase in schools reform and ending a period of relative silence from one of Cameron’s closest allies, Gove will also seek to rebut claims that he has perverted the academies programme by refocusing it solely on successful schools. The academies programme under Tony Blair was aimed at failing schools. In response Gove will also announce the government will turn at least 88 struggling schools into sponsored academies over the next two years. This is more than the Labour government achieved between 2000, when the academies programme was first announced, and 2008. Seventy-three of the new sponsored academies will be secondary schools and 13 primaries. Since coming to office Gove has already raised the minimum level of performance once, demanding all schools ensure 35% of pupils, as opposed to 30%, achieve five A*-C. The new demanding thresholds will be overseen by Dr Elizabeth Sidwell, the schools commissioner and a former headteacher and chief executive of three academies. She has already warned: “While there are many excellent schools in the country, the tail of underperformance is a long and depressing blight on our education system.” In his speech Gove will also promise that he will not tolerate underperformance in academies, vowing he will not allow the introduction of a two-tier system in which excuses are made for academies. He will argue that in academies by their nature it is simpler and easier for governors to act, but he will say he will not tolerate failure amongst academies. But he believes research overwhelmingly shows that academy status improves schools through innovations such as extended school days, changed payscales, and cuts in administrative costs such as payroll systems. Gove believes with the right leadership some schools can be turned around within three months. Gove will argue the key to building an effective education system is not Whitehall diktat, but by creating a system that leads to self-improvement. He will argue there are seven key pillars to reform, some of which he has yet to introduce: • Self-governing schools with a simple way to start new schools, and improvement driven by chains of schools which focus on the worst. • A higher entry bar for teaching, better pay for good teachers, and a faster system to remove unsuitable teachers • Planning and building regulation reform to make it easier for new and good schools to expand. • Improved curriculums and use of technology. • A more focused Ofsted inspection team. • A more transparent funding system. • Data transparency exemplified by the national pupil database going live on the web in 2012. Schools GCSEs Michael Gove Liberal-Conservative coalition Patrick Wintour Nicholas Watt guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …
Michael Gove says worst performers should meet current average by 2015 in bid to end ‘low-expectations culture’ The education secretary, Michael Gove, will try to demonstrate the coalition has not lost its zeal for public service reform on Thursday when he announces tougher exam targets for Britain’s worst-performing schools. In an attempt to end what he sees as the low-expectations culture in some schools, he will say that by 2015 he expects every secondary school in England to be achieving the national average of at least 50% of pupils achieving five A*-C grades at GCSE, including English and maths. If not the school will be regarded as underperforming. The current threshold to avoid that label is 35% of pupils getting five “good” GCSEs, including English and maths. The new goal would require 870 of the 3,000 secondary schools in England to improve by 2015 to avoid being taken over by a neighbouring headteacher or academy. Gove’s proposals indicate that neither the mishandling of the NHS reforms, nor the threat of a national teachers’ strike over pensions, have prompted a loss of confidence in the coalition about public service reform. In the speech Gove will challenge the country to recognise the scale of the education improvement still required in many schools by turning the current average performance into a minimum requirement. The plan represents a huge increase in the speed of demanded improvement in comparison with what Labour attempted after 2004. The targets will also inevitably become the yardstick against which Gove himself will be measured as education secretary by the next election. He will also propose as an interim measure that after the 2012 exams the floor of minimum performance is raised to 40% of pupils achieving five A*-Cs including in English and maths. At present 407 secondaries are below that level, but that number is dynamic and the list is bound to change by 2012. Gove will argue the rise of Asian economies and the sweep of technology are changing the demand for knowledge and skills so fast that Britain, and indeed Europe, has to accelerate the pace of improvement if it wants to avoid long-term economic decline. The education debate in the UK has been too inward-looking and failed to grasp the skills transformation in the far east, he will say. He will also argue that radical improvements will occur only if led by outstanding academies and headteachers on the ground, not micromanaged by Whitehall. In an attempt to confront parents, and the teaching profession, with the scale of the challenge, he will point out that in Singapore about 80% of pupils achieve at least a C in English and maths O-levels. In Britain, by contrast, about one-third of pupils do not achieve basic levels in English and maths at 11, and only half achieve at least grade Cs in English and Maths GCSE aged 16. If Britain is to justify claiming to have a world-class curriculum, exam system and world-class teachers, the levels of achievement in Singapore need to be matched, he will argue. Pointing once again to successful academies, such as Mossbourne in Hackney, east London, as well as his experiences in the US, Gove will argue that the envisaged improvements are achievable. Gove has the power to allow outstanding academies to take over failing schools and build new chains. In his speech, marking a new phase in schools reform and ending a period of relative silence from one of Cameron’s closest allies, Gove will also seek to rebut claims that he has perverted the academies programme by refocusing it solely on successful schools. The academies programme under Tony Blair was aimed at failing schools. In response Gove will also announce the government will turn at least 88 struggling schools into sponsored academies over the next two years. This is more than the Labour government achieved between 2000, when the academies programme was first announced, and 2008. Seventy-three of the new sponsored academies will be secondary schools and 13 primaries. Since coming to office Gove has already raised the minimum level of performance once, demanding all schools ensure 35% of pupils, as opposed to 30%, achieve five A*-C. The new demanding thresholds will be overseen by Dr Elizabeth Sidwell, the schools commissioner and a former headteacher and chief executive of three academies. She has already warned: “While there are many excellent schools in the country, the tail of underperformance is a long and depressing blight on our education system.” In his speech Gove will also promise that he will not tolerate underperformance in academies, vowing he will not allow the introduction of a two-tier system in which excuses are made for academies. He will argue that in academies by their nature it is simpler and easier for governors to act, but he will say he will not tolerate failure amongst academies. But he believes research overwhelmingly shows that academy status improves schools through innovations such as extended school days, changed payscales, and cuts in administrative costs such as payroll systems. Gove believes with the right leadership some schools can be turned around within three months. Gove will argue the key to building an effective education system is not Whitehall diktat, but by creating a system that leads to self-improvement. He will argue there are seven key pillars to reform, some of which he has yet to introduce: • Self-governing schools with a simple way to start new schools, and improvement driven by chains of schools which focus on the worst. • A higher entry bar for teaching, better pay for good teachers, and a faster system to remove unsuitable teachers • Planning and building regulation reform to make it easier for new and good schools to expand. • Improved curriculums and use of technology. • A more focused Ofsted inspection team. • A more transparent funding system. • Data transparency exemplified by the national pupil database going live on the web in 2012. Schools GCSEs Michael Gove Liberal-Conservative coalition Patrick Wintour Nicholas Watt guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Firefighters are desperately trying to keep the wildfires that are ripping through Arizona from spreading to New Mexico, as dry conditions and wind fan the flames. The Wallow fire, which has been burning since May 29, is still only 18% contained, and now covers more than 452,000 acres, the…
Continue reading …