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hereview

Complaint to The UK Statistics Authority

13th July 2009 by Jax Blunt 5 Comments

Hi

I am writing to express my concern at the statistics used to inform Graham Badman’s review of home education, released 11 June 2009.

The review can be found here as a free download.

and the particularly disturbing section, on which the vast majority of the call to action and most upsetting recommendations are based is the section about child abuse, which was the primary reason for the review in the first place.

Thus:

First, on the basis of local authority evidence and case studies presented, even acknowledging the variation between authorities, the number of children known to children’s social care in some local authorities is disproportionately high relative to the size of their home educating population.

This statement has then been reported in the press as

Children educated at home are twice as likely to be on social services registers for being at risk of abuse as the rest of the population, the head of a government inquiry into home education said yesterday.

and

Graham Badman, the former director of Kent County Council’s children’s services, headed the review. He said the ratio of home-educated children who were known to social services was “approximately double” that of the population at large.

Freedom of Information requests have been made to find the basis of these figures, and resulted in the release of an Annex (pdf):

The statistics within this annex are at the very least problematic, and honestly, they are downright misleading.

First, only 25 of 90 authorities asked responded. It is reasonable to assume that it is likely to be the authorities that perceive a problem that will respond, so the immediate response should be called into question. Why were only 90 of 150 authorities asked in the first place?

We are not told which authorities responded, which seems unreasonable as we are therefore unable to do any research to prove or disprove theories based on their figures.

Next, the median is used as opposed to the mean. There is rarely any good statistical reason to use the median figure, the mean is the average that most people expect to be employed.

Thirdly these figures are then extrapolated to give figures across all local authorities, I do not know of any basis in statistical working to extrapolate from a median of such a small and self selecting sample to give authoratative figures. Even if this was reasonable, we are told that a median of 7 extrapolated across 150 authorities gives 1350 EHE children known to social care – by my calculations it should be 7 * 150 which is 1050.

We are then told that this figure is 6.75%, but as we have been told repeatedly in the report that the known population of home educators is about 20,000 while the actual figure could be as high as 80,000 this is utterly meaningless.

*If* we used 1050 over 80,000 we would come up with a percentage of 1.31 % which is so small as to suggest perhaps the government should instead be shutting all schools down and recommending home education as the best way to safeguard children – surely as reasonable a conclusion as the one that

they have drawn?

I await with interest your response to this complaint – can you advise what you are able to do about incorrect use of statistics in government reports?

Thank you

ps please note, I originally sent this to authority.enquiries@statistics.gov.uk as listed on this page:

of your website, and my email bounced. I think you need to check the email addresses you are giving out.

I have now resent to authority.enquiries@statistics.gsi.gov.uk.

To readers – please feel free to also write and complain 🙂

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Filed Under: home education review Tagged With: Graham Badman, hereview, home ed review, home education review, statistics

Democracy in action?

1st July 2009 by Jax Blunt 4 Comments

Tonight I am feeling betrayed and let down by a man who in all reality has no responsibility to me at all.

Lord Lucas has placed an amendment against the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill as follows:

311 Insert the following new Clause—

“Support for home education

Support for home education

(1) The Secretary of State shall establish a body to be known as the Home Education Consultative Committee (the “HECC”).

(2) The Secretary of State shall appoint to the HECC such persons as he considers appropriate.

(3) The Secretary of State shall consult the HECC whenever he intends to make proposals that will have an effect on home educating families.

(4) The HECC may undertake investigations into areas of policy or practice in relationships between the government and the home educating community.

(5) The HECC may produce and promote guidelines and examples of good practice in relationships between the government and the home educating community.

(6) The HECC may make proposals to the Secretary of State for changes in practice or policy of home education.”

So why is this a problem?

Well, let’s have a look at what the Secretary of State did when he wanted a review of home education. He appointed some bloke who knew nothing about it, who took a wide range of responses, chopped them up to suit his purposes, ignored academic research that he didn’t like the look of and came up with a list of recommendations that are so far from the five principles of good regulation to make you want to cry. What makes us think that a HECC appointed by a secretary of state would be any more responsive to home educators at large?

Perhaps it would be as responsive as the current largest home education support charity. Cue more hollow laughter.

I suppose we should have seen this coming. If you read more on what Lord Lucas has been saying recently in parliament, it appears that despite many of us attempting to persuade him to the contrary, he thinks EO is representative and that their ideas are sound. Or maybe, just maybe, as he wasn’t elected, and this government is hardly democratic in its makeup he just doesn’t care.

I am tired of this. I have written to my MP and not had so much as an acknowledgement. I would like to be listened to, but I have no faith that it will happen. I have commented on newspaper articles and written to journalists, and I would really really like to believe that in a democracy, my voice will be heard.

But I think I may need to shout louder. I think that this system is rotten to the core, and it’s time for change. In the meantime I will continue to lobby “my representatives” as well as the leaders of the other political parties, but I am also thinking that a system that doesn’t recognise my right to self-determination or listen to my voice is not a system that has a right to tell me what to do. If necessary I will withdraw my cooperation – this government only governs by the consent of the governed, and if enough of us withdraw that consent, then they have a real problem.

I have always been a law abiding citizen, but then again, I’ve always thought we lived in a representative democracy. I’m coming to the sad conclusion that we do not any more and that as such, this government has no legitimacy and no right to my cooperation. It’s a rather scary thought, but one I feel I have to face up to. I am saying No to the DCSF.

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Filed Under: home education review, political stuff, Stealing your freedom Tagged With: Graham Badman, hereview, home education review, Lord Lucas

Home education review, what can we do now?

30th June 2009 by Jax Blunt 4 Comments

Lord Lucas asks

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether, as required by the Code of Practice on Consultation, they have published an impact assessment to accompany the “Registration and Monitoring Proposals” consultation following Mr Badman’s report on Elective Home Education; and, if so, whether they will place a copy in the Library of the House.

Baroness Morgan responds

An impact assessment is not required for the consultation at this stage as the proposals are still at an early stage of development. We do not expect them to place any significant additional burdens on local authorities as most already monitor home education, and our proposals will provide additional powers that will assist local authorities in dealing more efficiently with the small number of cases where home education does not come up to scratch. If we decide to proceed with legislation we will publish an impact assessment and will place a copy in the Library of the House.

Given this gem on the Draft Legislative Programme yesterday

FAIR CHANCES FOR ALL: BUILDING THE NEXT GENERATION OF PUBLIC SERVICES

Improving schools and safeguarding children Bill

which is to include

improving monitoring arrangements for children educated at home;

they appear to have decided to proceed with legislation, and therefore we should expect the impact assessment forthwith. (I didn’t know what an impact assessment is, but if Lord Lucas is asking about it, I assumed it was something I needed to know about, and looked it up.)

You can comment on the exchange between Lord Lucas and Baroness Morgan on the link above, and give your thoughts on the Draft Legislative Programme as follows:

Do you think the Draft Legislative Programme reflects the right priorities for the United Kingdom and, if not, what other issues do you think the Government should be addressing?

To comment:

Please email dlp@commonsleader.x.gsi.gov.uk

Or send responses to:

Freepost RSCA-KKCU-ELTJ

Legislation Committee Secretariat

70 Whitehall

London

SW1A 2AS

And Lord Lucas can be reached through his blog which he is using to garner opinion on a number of issues.

Another avenue of complaint is the Better Regulation Executive who say

The five principles of good regulation

A cornerstone of the better regulation strategy and implementation, and key to BRE’s work, is the five principles of good regulation. The principles state that any regulation should be:

  • transparent
  • accountable
  • proportionate
  • consistent
  • targeted – only at cases where action is needed

Do you have an idea on how to improve regulation? Visit our better regulation website and tell us how we can make a difference.

I think we are mainly agreed that the Badman recommendations are none of the above and the consultation about them certainly hasn’t been transparent.

Get those letters/emails written. And if you haven’t heard from your MP it may be time to consider a follow up. I’m giving mine two weeks, then printing out the email I’ve already sent him and posting it. It annoys me though that I’ve got to kill trees to get answers. Just one more minor irritation in the grand scheme of things though!

If you are a bit lost about all of this, I suggest you might want to pop back to my first post on what to do and start there. You are probably also wondering why I’m not pushing you to fill in the consultation. My reason there is quite simple, I don’t think it’s time yet. I don’t think we need to tip our hand to the government by filling in their consultation, which is increasingly looking like form filling which will be ignored anyway, as many of the submissions to the review were. I think it’s time to do other things, as above.

You could sign the petition if you wanted though.

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Filed Under: home education review, political stuff Tagged With: Graham Badman, hereview, home education consultation, home education review, Lord Lucas, petition

Aged five and on flexi-time

24th June 2009 by Jax Blunt Leave a Comment

Well, the publicity is continuing post Badman review, with an article in the Guardian today about flexi-schooling with the tagline “New regulation for home educators could mean a rush to take up part-time schooling, a parent writes”.

I have commented as follows:

Just because the review was accepted in full by ministers does not mean that regulations will necessarily follow. The home education community does not accept the independence or impartiality of Graham Badman, and many of his conclusions are flimsy at best or based on personal opinion at worst.

It would be nice if the guardian would reflect some of the concerns of home educators about the review, rather than accepting it as a done deal!

That said, it would be good for ppl to have more access to flexi-schooling and for there to be more recognition that different children have different needs that can be met in a variety of different ways.

Please feel free to join in! The more times we put across our point of view the better I think.

Also in my google alert today, Parents’ anger at home education recommendations grows. Looks like we’re getting at least our emotions over there then! Their forums are buzzing with ppl’s views to be passed to the new Children’s Minister. Feel free to drop by and have a look.

And finally (for this post) Lord Lucas has been in action again. It’s well worth reading the Hansard report of the debate into the Welfare Bill and his amendment, as it becomes obvious that home education is becoming a more familiar topic of discussion in the House of Lords atm. I can only hope this is a good thing. Certainly having members of the legislature who have the first idea what they are talking about will have to help!

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Filed Under: home education review, political stuff Tagged With: Graham Badman, hereview, home education review, Lord Lucas, welfare bill

My letter to my MP, John Gummer about the home education review.

19th June 2009 by Jax Blunt 4 Comments

Dear John Gummer,

I am writing to draw your attention to the review of home education carried out by Graham Badman and presented to the government on 11 June, last week. Ed Balls stated that he accepted all recommendations from the review, and immediately launched a consultation into changes in how home education will be regulated.

I do not accept the review nor the recommendations in it. I do not believe that Graham Badman was truly independent, nor do I think he approached the subject with an open mind. He has dismissed years of academic research into home education outcomes with the phrase “I am not convinced” and believes (16 times) in a variety of things that appear to have no basis in fact.

The most damaging slur to our community is the association of home education with child abuse. Graham Badman does this without producing any evidence for his assertion as follows:

“To return to the two questions posed earlier. First, on the basis of local authority evidence and case studies presented, even acknowledging the variation between authorities, the number of children known to children’s social care in some local authorities is disproportionately high relative to the size of their home educating population. Secondly, despite the small number of serious case reviews where home education was a feature, the consideration of these reviews and the data outlined above, suggests that those engaged in the support and monitoring of home education should be alert to the potential additional risk to children. So saying is not to suggest that there is a causal or determining relationship, but simply an indication of the need for appropriately trained and knowledgeable personnel.”

Local authorities regularly admit that they don’t know how many children are home educated, so to assume that the number of children is high in proportion to the size of this population is manifestly pointless. Also many children who are home educated have SEN, meaning they are more likely to be known to a number of services. And finally, many home educated families are referred to social services purely because they home educate and the referrers don’t know that it is legal – which proves the point that the existing systems do get welfare concerns passed on to them, as well as adding to the number of home educated children known to social services.

Of course, this phrase has been picked up by the mainstream media and reported as “twice as likely to be abused”, and I’ve met many people in the last couple of weeks who have read this and picked up on it, including non home educators who feel that home educators are being unfairly labelled.

To give weight to the review a number of organisation and individuals including local authorities submitted responses. Mr Badman has editted those responses to give the appearance that he required, so for example, the C of E response, which was long, makes an appearance in the form of just one paragraph which states:

“that children and young people not in formal education are missing the benefits and challenges of learning in community with their peers. Children who do not go to school may not experience the social and cultural diversity encountered there; they will not learn how to deal with the rough and tumble of everyday life; they may never meet people with different faith and value systems. All such encounters, even the difficult or painful ones are enriching. We are concerned not only with the five Every Child Matters outcomes, but also with the spiritual well-being of all children and young people. Spiritual well-being arises not only from being cared for in a loving family and/or faith community, but also in encounters with people of different opinions and backgrounds; in learning to listen to a variety of opinions; to encounter diversity and the riches and life-enhancement it can bring. Spiritual well-being depends on living and taking a full part in community life. Children and young people in schools learn about and from the five major religions. This may be a difficult part of the curriculum for home educators to provide, yet it is vital for the Government’s community cohesion agenda that all children learn in a balanced way about the variety of religious values and practices, and to be encouraged to question their own beliefs and practices.”

The entire response can be found here: http://www.natsoc.org.uk/ (see links on the right hand side.

If only one paragraph had to be chosen, I think I’d have preferred point 10, (the final paragraph, the place most people put their conclusion or summary) which reads:

“We have seen no evidence to show that the majority of home educated children do not achieve the five Every Child Matters outcomes, and are therefore not convinced of the need to change the current system of monitoring the standard of home education. Where there are particular concerns about the children in a home-educating this should be a matter for Children’s Services.”

This answers the specific question posed by the review, but not in the manner that Mr Badman seems to have preferred, as it does not insist on changes to regulation. He has ridden roughshod over any opinion that disagreed with his and not highlighted anything of that sort.

I would appreciate hearing your opinion on the issues I have raised, and would welcome the chance to meet with you and discuss the issues further at your convenience. I believe that the recommendations accepted by the government were not the result of an independent, impartial review and as such I would also like to know if there is any way to challenge the results of the review, either via parliament or legally.

Thank you for your time.

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Filed Under: home education review, political stuff Tagged With: Graham Badman, hereview, home education consultation, home education review, John Gummer

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