When Wandsworth council asked to withdraw from ILEA last year, without consulting parents. teachers or governing bodies, the response was swift. Beginning in September, parents held protest meetings in school after school in the borough.
By January, the Secretary of State had received 116 "representations' (of which only 3 supported the Wandsworth 'go it alone' policy). Wandsworth council, for obvious reasons, has refused to comment on how many letters it has received from parents denouncing their 'breakup' decision.
When the Baker Committee began to make its report-back in February this year, however, it became clear to Wandsworth parents that the council's move was merely the first step in a well co-ordinated Tory attack on ILEA.
FACTS?
During March, therefore, we continued our campaign by petitioning across the borough and the collection of ignatures 1s still going on 15,000 copies of a leafler were distributed and street meetings regularly held. The support gained from these activities was enormous.
since the attack launched on ILEA by local Tory councilLOTS - and their supporters on the Baker committee - were ginning to the end.
They were merely an excuse for trying to break up the comprehensive system and ram home a series of cuts which is easier on a borough by borough basis CRITICISM?
The criticisms levelled against ILEA by the Baker Report Lac o democrauc au countability? But isn't it a fact that the 35 GLC councillors are the only directly-elected members of an Education Committee anywhere in England? * Lack of financial accountabilly. but Isn l l equally a fact that if ILEA is to be indicted, so can local county councils and the police as well? * High costs? It is true thai ILEA does spend more per pupil than the national average. But isn't it a fact that it is responsible for a greater number of Higher Education Institutions and 88 special schools for the handicapped?
SOCIALIST ACTION PUBŁIC FORUM Which Way for the YS? Speakers: George Hold (Peckham YS) Graham Weight (Peckham YS) Streatham CLP)
And isn't it also a fact that it has a legal obligation to pay teachers London Weighting? * Low achievement? Poor exam results was a central trust of the report. But, as for exams, isn't it a fact that the figures used in the Report are generally acknowledged as sults in ILEA are no worse than anywhere else in the country?
OFFENSIVE The Times Educational Supplement - hardiy a radical journal - was forced to sum up the Baker Report as a 'hasty and unbelievably superficial document'. Wandsworth parents obviously share this view as can be seen ov their deter. mined effort to resist any Tory attempts to break up ILEA Although the Baker Report seems to have heen shelved more recently, the fact that another committee has been set up under Lady Young to continue investigation into ILEA clearly means that the Tory conspiracy is not yet over If it is to be stopped, this will mean extending the 'Save ILEA' campaign we launched in Wandsworth into other boroughs and showing the Tory government that parents have no intention of seeing the clock turned back on the education of their children.