12/04/2017 Newsnight

The government is talking a lot about schools this week.

But does it have a strategy for good schools?

The Education Secretary is setting out her approach tomorrow -

but money's tight and pupil numbers are growing.

We'll ask whether there's a plan, or a few sketchy ideas.

I complained about that a long time ago and they made a change,

I said it was obsolete, it's no longer obsolete.

Is Trump changing the world or has

We'll ask if it's a random cock up or a problem with capitalism.

And the latest battle ground between populism

In to project an image around the world that is one of an open society

in which dissent is not persecuted. But there is a growing fear that a

new generation of political leaders want to shut down political voices.

-- Israel wants to project an image around the world that it is one of

an open society. Hello, school's out for Easter,

but schools policy is The Education Secretary Justine

Greening is to give a big speech She will undoubtedly restate

the aim of the government, to make better schools for ordinary

families, or the just But does the government

have a strategy for delivering that objective, in the absence of money

and student numbers growing? We know Theresa May is interested

in grammar schools, and today, the government announced another 131

free schools have been approved to open, creating

about 69,000 places. Chris Cook offers this assessment

of where things stand. We should all look at the cameras

and smile. Tomorrow the government's domestic non-Brexit extendable get a

rare airing. Justin Greening, the Education Secretary, will set out

her thoughts on what comes next for English education.

The English schools report card, though, isn't in great shape.

This graph shows average GCSE results.

It starts at the left where we have the results

from the children in the poorest neighbourhoods, moving to the right

The height of the line shows how well pupils

from that background did on average in English, maths,

What it shows is that the poorest children, at the left,

averaged around a D, and the very richest

That is a two grade gap. Closing that gap has been a focus of policy

the years, but this government wants to work on an ordinary working

families. That is to say not the poorest. You might think that

targeting particular pupils like Paul children like we do that that

would have any -- like Paul children like we do here, that it would have

a negative effect, but that isn't true. It benefits everybody in the

class. We have seen that from our work. And if you look at the best

scores they are doing well for the Paul children, the rich children,

and those in the middle. We've also not been that radical on helping

poorer children. This is footage of the process by which children get

places at some over popular US schools. It is quite hard to watch.

20. Still, it even harder for wealthier people to gain their way

in. England has another huge problem, geography. Going to school

in London in particular is very different to going to school

elsewhere. When you think of Westminster you probably think of

things like this, but behind all the pomp and circumstance and the

politicians here, there is actually an urban borough with serious social

problems. Happily Westminster has a really good schools that do a great

service by its poorest children, such as those eligible for free

school meals. You can see that if we go back to that measure of GCSE

performance across five subjects we used earlier. Poor Westminster kids

beat poor Isle of Wight students, here they get Bs and Cs, Cs and Ds

not. Here they beat the average of all children. It's much more

difficult to get teachers to move to the Isle of Wight compared with

London. Academy chains also struggle where local authority struggles

before them. We also know that areas with grammar schools don't do any

better than other places. Westminster's poor children get

higher grades than Kent's not poor children. There is a basic economics

problem. In short, it's running out of money. There are two issues

affecting funding. Schools are having to make their first real cut

since the 1990s. At the same time the government is proposing a major

shake-up of the school funding system, which will for the first

time ensure that similar schools are funded in a similar way. There are

winners and losers. In this case the losers are effectively losing twice.

Firstly from the national average cut and second any losses from the

new structure format. The government has coped just about with a baby

boom bust far, but that wave is about to hit secondary, so keep an

eye on it. -- bus far, but that wave is about to hit secondary, so keep

an eye on that. It is about to get hit very hard.

David Laws was a former Lib Dem schools minister

in the coalition government, and is now the executive chairman

Dr Jo Saxton - is a free school founder and CEO of Turner Schools -

an academy trust which was set-up to serve coastal

They will open one of the new free schools which was approved

How hard was it to get approval? Was it just a formality? It was a

rigorous process. The best part was we spent a lot of time consulting

locally with employers and parents, we really listened to what the

people wanted and hopefully we are delivering that. This will be a new

school, and Academy school, in Folkestone. It will be a brand-new

free school Academy in Folkestone, nonselective. Does it feel to you,

from your department, that they know what they are doing and they know

what the vision is for schools, and also how to make sure your school is

a good school? We are in a context where we need at least 400,000 new

school places by 2021. So prioritising new school places is

the most important thing. We know more and more about what makes a

good school from research, from people like the EDF, which you

highlighted earlier. David, do you think there is a strategy for making

schools better? We have seen some of the gaping holes and gaps and

discrepancies and differences, is there a strategy for overcoming

those? There is, but the problem is that it might not be a sound one. It

relies on having more academies that are freed up from local government

control. And also come under this government, having more grammar

schools, according to this government, which will select

pupils. Goblin is, firstly with academies, we know that where

academies have had strong leadership, and sometimes a lot of

money, for example Tony Blair early generation, they have added

impressive impact including from poor children. Other recent

expansion of free schools and grammar schools hasn't been -- the

other recent expansion of free schools and academies hasn't had the

same effect. So making sure the headteacher is good, and the school

knows what it is doing, basically? That's right. We have a lot of

autonomy in our schools system. Giving more autonomy to those who

already have that freedom doesn't make a difference. What makes a

difference is that school governors and leaders can get good teaching

staff, good headteachers, can do the basics well. Structural reform

doesn't always deliver that. On grammar schools it is more difficult

for the government, the evidence, grammar schools redistribute

educational opportunities, they don't raise overall attainment. Do

you agree with the basic contention that it has to be about how well run

the schools are, calling them academies, -- do you agree with the

basic contention that it is about how well run the schools are, not

what they are called, academies or whatever? Recognising that changing

the structure means the free school programme. The good thing is that

people have got excited about it. Who thought that was possible? My

free school group in Folkestone, we've had five applications on spec

from teachers and senior leaders enquiring about working there. I

think changing the structures has got people excited about education.

You were running a chain of academies in London. You are now

involved in a smaller chain in Kent. London schools are beacons for good

performance and good turnaround in the UK. What did they do in London

that worked, and are you able to bring that to Kent? That is what I

am trying to do in Kent. We have a tight jury graphical cluster in

Kent. We want to replicate that in Kent. The important thing about

academy structures is in a context of funding cuts we can work together

to do things efficiently and effectively to make a difference, to

prioritise front line teaching. You think organising is not the thing,

you think it is the leadership. I don't think that, that is the

evidence that the expansion of the programme, over the last few years,

has not led to that improvement in performance. You need a

counterfactual as to what the schools would be. We have those. By

looking at those schools that went on to become academies. Grammar

schools? Yes. The evidence that they don't work, that they are a

distraction from the government. Two points. First, virtually no poor

children get into grammar schools, so they are a bad vehicle for social

mobility. That's because most of the big disadvantages for young children

from poor backgrounds emerge before they take the test at 11. The other

thing we found, looking at the Department's information and looking

at grammar school and non-grammar school areas, it is true that

grammar schools have a small benefit for the pupils who get in.

Unfortunately, the more you have the more there is a dish benefit for

children who don't get in. -- there is a dis-benefit four children who

don't get in. There are some grammar schools who worked very hard for

deprived areas. In Folkestone, 20% of its cohorts are pupils in receipt

of the pupil premium fund... That is very rare. Most do not have any poor

children. I believe in success without selection. Grammar schools

have a place in a context where we need more school places and we need

diversity of choice for parents. We will hear Justin Greening 's speech

tomorrow. Thank you very much indeed. -- Justine Greening's speech

tomorrow. Rex Tillerson, the US

secretary of state, met President Putin this afternoon,

a new step in the evolving foreign Meanwhile the President

himself was speaking with the Nato secretary-general

in Washington this evening. The foreign policy evolved there

too; Mr Trump is a fan of Nato now. And despite the Syrian missile

attack, he was ready to make things We will see about Putin

over a period of time. It would be a fantastic

thing to get along with Putin and we get

along with Russia. That could happen,

and it may not happen. I tell you what I would

love to be able to do. Our diplomatic editor,

Mark Urban is with me. Mark, Tillerson's Russia trip

was meant to mark a turning point in relations -

did it deliver? A big moment. Yes, how did it go? It

is obvious Donald Trump would like improved relationships with Russia,

so everybody was looking forward to this. What we got was the meetings

of both the Foreign Minister and president Putin, and an

extraordinary press conference where they were going at one another about

their differences. Once the few phrases about it being good to have

a frank discussion came out, after that they went at each other,

criticism going both ways. Rex Tillerson, far from rolling back

sanctions on Russia, as some people suggested they would, seemed to be

suggesting there might be more on the way.

I think as to the question of the interference

with the election, that is

fairly well-established in the United States now,

and I think he's been spoken to on the hill as well

with the Congress, it is a serious issue.

It's one that, we know, is serious enough to attract additional

Where does the whole reset for Trump reset relations with Russia? I

suppose you can say that the President did this evening. I've

only ever said it is desirable but may not happen. It is extraordinary,

with the speed, that members of his platform have been jettisoned. Two

today, no longer labelling China a character manipulator. And that Nato

was no longer obsolete. An extraordinary turnaround. We've seen

quite a few of these. Is it the internal machinations inside of the

administration, the turf battles and feuding, does that drive a lot of

the direction of this? You can always say with an American

president, there's a difference between campaign language and what

they do, and way events then shape the Syrian gas attack, for example.

Then shape their platform once in office. But there has been a really

important change, I think. The real disrupters in the tent with Trump,

when he was inaugurated, Steve Bannon, Flynn has had to resign

after a few weeks in post. He was deeply in favour of improving

Russian relations. Steve Bannon look sidelined, general matters

apparently has some sort of deal, I've been told, by senior senators

not to make any sudden changes in policy.

Then we have the replacement, and in effect, Trump is being captured by

the permanent government in Washington. These people who have

held senior posts in the military, intelligence agencies, and

legislator, they have a sense of what is right and proper and

increasingly are seen to be driving it. Mark, thank you.

The Treasury organsied a conference in London today on Fintech -

a fancy label for a variety of technologies that promise change

Promise, or possibly threaten, because for existing banks this

The Governor of the Bank of England today preferred

Fintech has the potential to democratise financial services.

Consumers can get more choice, better pricing, small to medium

enterprises can access new and cheaper credit.

Banks themselves could become more productive, with

lower cost and operational resilience, and financial services

could become more inclusive with people better connected, more

But when you look at the big names in banking, they are often ones that

Have they managed to resist the technology that has wiped out

so many travel agents and book sellers?

Or have they introduced the technology?

Our technology editor, David Grossman reports.

Sun Jennings's business has blossomed in spite of the banks, not

because of them. Her florist stall at a busy London station was in a

prime location to grab commuters on their way home, except many of them

wanted to pay by card. She could not accept card payments. Getting a card

machine so that I could take electronic payments was out of the

question because it would be three to five days it would keep your

money from the mainstream banks, and they were charged so much per month

to use the machine, then you pay per transaction. It all adds up, you

cannot commit if you don't know. You can guess your turnover but

forecasting is guesswork and you do not know the reality. You cannot

sign in to contrasts which could cost you your business if you cannot

pay the banks that could close you down. The problem, everyone agrees

is a lack of competition. This is what the big five UK high street

banks look like before the unprecedented earthquake of the

financial crisis. The impact of this devastating once in a century event

was to cause two of them to merge. Because the banks were then pumped

full of government borrowed once said easing, they did not have to

compete for business. Tom Bloomfield is the CEO of the UK's newest bank.

They got their full banking licence just last week and is part of a new

wave of a technology-based institution designed to provide more

choice and better service. For example, things like unauthorised

overdraft fees, these are egregious, for some, banks charge ?16. Spam

e-mails come you can reject payments, I do not understand why it

should cost you ?15 for the spam e-mails. If I go abroad my bank

charges seven or eight pounds per transaction.

The government is trying to encourage competition.

The Treasury hosted a Fintech conference in London today, about

inspiring investment. The regulators in this country, the

government, forced through regulation and Challenger bank

licences. The big banks to wake up and to shake up the way they do

things. Challenger banks have shown in certain segments that you can

lend better and do credit better, and person-to-person payments

better. If those big banks do not follow suit, they will lose

customers. My iPad is my tale... For Sam, the answer came not from a bank

but a technology entrepreneur. The card reader she now uses is made by

Square, long established in the USA but launched in the UK only two

weeks ago. When will you see that ?10? Or PM tomorrow, working day.

The CEO of Square is also the co-founder of Twitter -- 4pm

tomorrow. Why is this technology next on the

list? It's not noticing the problem but it was a big job for our CEO, he

couldn't accept a credit card and lost a sale as a result. We saw that

another sellers we were talking to, they would miss out because they

could not accept payment devices that the buyer would to use. So we

learned really quickly about how to accept credit cards and make

hardware. The industry and what mattered most to the sellers, and it

was access and speed that was important. We built it, and it

resonated. There is another huge change coming next January, a new EU

directive called PST two, which would force banks to give customers

access to their data which should mean that new apps and ideas can

flourish. You might want to share it with a price comparison website.

Rather than having to type in the details of your car insurance, you

simply give them access to transaction histories, and they can

look through the last year and go, you can save money on your gas,

electricity, broadband, these are better providers... It puts the

power into the hands of consumers. I believe that fundamentally it will

probably be the biggest change in financial services, certainly in

Europe for a generation. Think back to streaming music. 20 years ago,

the idea that you would not buy a CD or vinyl and get a truck on the

move, inconceivable. This will do for banking what Apple has done to

music. But Apple and the other big

technology firms are already getting involved in financial technology and

it may be that ultimately, they are the big winners in the market. We

have seen Facebook launch bill splitting and sending money just

yesterday. Now, in messenger, you can send money and request money

from people, in the USA at least. It is a concern for us, the big banks,

that one of the big four that has come in and eat in every 1's lunch,

it is a huge market and there's room for a number of winners here. It is

perhaps too much to expect that people will ever send bow case to

their bank managers, but the revolutions in financial technology

should mean that people feel they have more of a choice and more of a

sense of control. Now, the story that has absorbed me

most this week is... That viral video filmed

on United Airlines and Not since Gerald Ratner has

there been such a self-inflicted corporate wound, exacerbated,

of course, by the name company corporate wound, exacerbated,

of course, by the lame company After mishandling it for 24 hours,

yesterday the company finally made a proper apology and today the chief

executive faced an interviewer on the subject and incidentally

gave the right answers Probably the word

ashamed comes to mind. You know, as I think

about our business and our people, the first thing I think is important

to say is to apologise to Doctor Dao, his family,

the passengers on that flight. In this stuff, all the stuff that's

been written about it, I do discern that all too human

desire for people to use these occasions to bolster the case

for their worldview. Shane Ryan in the digital magazine

Paste said, of United, they are a product of an indifferent

system that increasingly devalues individual life,

and that system is called America. Except they are conspicuously

good at valuing life Jeff Spross in The Week thought

United Airlines shows how inequality is putting the squeeze

on customer service. You can even see it in theme parks,

Disney World now offers its high dollar customer's premier hotels,

fine dining, VIP Tours, spa treatments and more,

while everybody else gets shunted into offsite lodging and bizantine

deals for cheap tickets. Or is it just normal that people

paying more would get finer dining Writer Helaine Olen tweeted,

make no mistake, the decline of customer service is part

of the political anger out there. Now, far be it from me

to defend America, or United, I really wouldn't, this was the most

ridiculous response to an awkward customer service problem ever

to have been caught on film. I've winced along with everyone else

and had thoughts of Fawlty Towers. For a man who is supposed

to be running a hotel, your behaviour, your behaviour

is totally incorrect... Is there anything

else I can get you? Look at that cheese,

isn't that lovely? Don't worry, a bit of cheese

went the wrong way. But does it really tell us much

about United Airlines? A secret policy of

beating up passengers? It has exposed weaknesses

in their overbooking system - probably that the levels

of compensation don't But was it not a random cock-up

rather than a meaningful one? It's nothing compared to say,

Volkswagen and the emissions scandal, that was pursued

for several years. Of course, social media demands that

any cock up caught on film, is properly punished; perspective

is not encouraged, incidents like this are too sweet

not to be savoured. Nassim Nicholas Taleb wrote a well

received book called Fooled by Randomness: he pointed out that

successful people often think they're clever

when they're simply lucky. Well, the inverse also may

hold: you can be unlucky, Joining me now from New York

is Felix Salmon, Senior Editor at the digital news provider -

Fusion and the journalist whose quote I just mentioned,

Helaine Olen. You wrote in the New York Times, we

saw your tweet there, are you guilty of reading too much into what was

obviously an enormous clock up and mistake? No, I'm not, what is going

up there, there is outrage posted on the Internet by the minute. Only

certain ones catch on. You must ask why this caught on. Why did

something else not? In this case, the answer is it tapped into

everything from people's frustration in feeling powerless against the

system, to the fact that yes, United seems a uniquely challenged

reputation out there. You spoke about demonstrating something about

militarisation in US society, governments out of touch with the

issues. I'm willing to bet that these were points on which you

already felt very strongly before you saw that video? These are

confirming your beliefs about America, rather than creating them,

correct? Well, they confirmed the beliefs about America as a lot of

people. Based on what you are writing and what others have said on

social media in the last 48 hours. This has gone on for the last three

days, not two days, excuse me. This isn't dying down in the least. It

seems to be tapping into any number of issues. Life is not either or.

Everything can be true at once here. It can be about powerlessness and

the system, be somewhat random and also about United commits all of the

above. Felix, what about you? You are right about this, it is going to

blow over and a lot of people will want to get their players

reinforced. A lot of people are looking for reasons to be outraged

now, we are in an incredibly polarised society where social media

does an incredibly good job of ramping up the outrage cycle. I can

already see that this is on the downswing. I feel like Sean Spicer

and his Holocaust clock ups overtook it at some point. It is bad for

United, their reaction made it worse. But ultimately, people are

still going to fly with them, it will not harm the company that much.

It did not hurt the stock prices that much... It knocked off $1

billion off the value of the company? Yes, that has not happened

since March the 14th, and then it went back up!

I would like to point out, it cannot hurt United because of the basic

reason of American life. United is a monopoly. Ten years ago we had nine

major carriers, now we have four. In a huge amount of markets United is

one of two. Even if people want to boycott it. As I tend to agree that

it'll blow over because most things do on social media, they couldn't

boycott it if they tried, unless they plan on not going anywhere.

They are stuck. Does it tell us anything about American capitalism?

All we have learnt is that people are angry. Everybody is in their

corners, everyone is fighting, everybody wants to get outraged,

which is not really news. Would you be surprised if I told you, because

you have read a lot of customer service into this, that people being

taken off flights is about half what it was in 1999. It is one in 1000

people. That is one every two jumbo jets. It isn't a problem, is it? Why

make a point about customer service? I think it is because, as I said,

United as they challenged reputation. If you look at customer

service data United is always close to the bottom if not the bottom.

Less than two weeks ago they were caught up in another social media

storm. Two young girls were reduced boarding because they were wearing

leggings and it was deemed inappropriate. If that is

inappropriate, so is half of American women walking around the US

right now, right? United seems to have had a particular problem with

this. This is going to come back up. The way societies think about things

is in little episodes, little stories that says something to

people and capture imaginations, maybe that is the way public

discourse works. Yes. We are storytelling animals. We always want

to try and lay our stories onto these individual discrete events

which happen. Right now we have a clear story in place. Everything

fits in. Thank you both. I doubt we will be talking about it on this

programme tomorrow. The peace process between Israel

and the Palestinians remains frozen, but meanwhile, Israel is itself very

divided, not least There have been fights over plays,

music, books, the funding The populist culture minister -

a rising star of the right - She is one of a new generation

of leaders who are unapologetic in their nationalism,

supportive of poorer dues of Middle-Eastern backgrounds

and of settlers in of Middle-Eastern backgrounds

and of settlers in Less tied to the values

of the old Europeanised So what is that

culture war all about? The Bastian of Israel's

liberal culture. At this theatre, the evening

show is sold out. This is a place for avant-garde

and fringe productions. This evening's play,

Palestine Year Zero, written and directed by Einat

Weizman. It deals with an insurance assessor,

who is estimating the cost of damage done to Palestinian homes

by the Israeli authorities. Before it was first performed,

the office of the culture minister A complaint had been lodged

because the play apparently contained messages of incitement

that undermined the state For the author, a very

uncomfortable situation. It was the end of the rehearsals,

and we became paranoid, because we were scared from everyone

who entered the door You were suspicious that the people

coming in to see the rehearsals had Yes, I started to be suspicious

of the cleaning people! For making art, you need

an autonomous place outside Israel likes to project

an image around the world that is one of an open society,

in which dissent is not persecuted. But there is a growing fear

here that a new generation of political leaders wants

to shut down critical voices. Some say the culture minister,

Miri Regev, is trying to gain control over cultural production,

putting the vitality of this country's culture and the freedom

of creation it has in jeopardy. Many talk of a culture war

that has been declared Even in the last year, Miri Regev

has become one of the most Her critics call her

Trump in High Heels. She generates a constant

stream of headlines. She has spent most of her career

serving in the Army, she became chief media censor

and then a spokesperson. A profile she made sure that

no one would forget... called artists arrogant,

hypocritical and ungrateful. And she reigns against

the liberal elite. She sets out a so-called

loyalty in culture plan, threatening to condition support

for cultural institutions and the contents they present,

or the place where they perform. Taxpayers are fed up

of being in a situation where they are paying money

for people who are describing themselves as an elite,

and are rubbishing the country. They say by all means,

go ahead and do it, but we are not That, I think, is the core

of what this is all about. So are you making the

case for censorship? So freedom of expression

with a limit? No, freedom of

expression and limited. -- No, freedom of

expression unlimited. Freedom to get government

funds is limited. Approval ratings show that a large

number of people believe that too. Miri Regev sees it as a cultural

revolution which takes us to one We followed her to

the occupied West Bank. That night was the first time

the National Theatre had ever A move that many say normalises

the residents of settlers And so here is a simple story -

not the question of settlements, Written by the Israeli Nobel Prize

laureate Shmuel Yosef Agnon. A tale of an impossible love,

at the turn of the 20th century, driving a young man

from melancholy to madness. The culture ministry issued

a memo that became known From now on, cultural

institutions that would perform in the occupied West Bank

would benefit from Those that wouldn't

may face funding cuts. For the artists who have so far

refused on moral grounds, For the public here,

it is a just recognition. If it is the National Theatre,

and it is a national budget, you must go everywhere

where there are people. But some of the performers

want to make their feelings clear. Before the show, the lead

actress visited the nearby She was guided by former soldiers

who now campaign to the occupation. -- She was guided by former

soldiers who now campaign Not a word, but her

face said it all. I can understand that the young

author, or a young playwright, can say I'm afraid I don't

want to lose by audience... -- can say I'm afraid I don't

want to lose my audience... Back in Tel Aviv, we met with one

of the liberal vanguard, AB Yehoshua, the 80-year-old writer

reflects on a society that is increasingly

turning sights inward. Their inner censorship is far more

dangerous than what you would call the government censorship,

or the government instruction. As the peace process

with the Palestinians remains frozen, and with new leaders leaning

towards more populous agendas, Israel is, for now, busy fighting

on the cultural front. But before we go, have you ever

wondered why your laces come undone? Some academics at the University

of California, Berkeley,