Katharine Birbalsingh: The Right education

I was 15 years-old when Katharine made her infamous speech at the Conservative Party Conference in 2010. My school was populated with students from disadvantaged backgrounds in the ‘inner city’, a euphemism for the ethnic-working-class. The corridors were loud and chaotic, bullying was often undetected and organised fights in local parks were weekly affairs.

When watching the speech today, there were uncomfortable parallels drawn between the school I went to, and the system that she described as “broken because it keeps poor children poor.”

The crowd at the conference roared in agreement with Katharine’s right-facing position, but she hadn’t always been so unabashed in her thinking. In the speech, she “admits that the left has done enormous good for the teaching profession, but teachers seem to be blinded by leftist ideology”. She goes on: “And I come to you today, finally–ready to overthrow the shame that I have felt, literally shame because in the last election, I voted Conservative.” A cacophony of laughter and applause emits from the crowd.

I pondered on her phrasing, on her use of the word ‘Shame’, by far one of the most intolerable of emotions.

Brene Brown, author of five #1 New York Times bestsellers, and whose TED talk on Vulnerability is amongst the top 5 most viewed TED talks in the world, describes shame as “the most powerful, master emotion. It’s the fear that we’re not good enough”.

I thought, ‘this is interesting, why should someone feel shame i.e.: ‘not good enough’ because they resonate with values which foster academic achievement and overall success? The answer lies in Katharine’s racial identity. To be black and on the right is to be racially homeless.

Although she is in the minority (mixed-race woman, Tory), she is part of a rise in public-facing black people who actively resist progressivism. In 2019 Glenn Loury, Professor of Economics at Brown University and author of books that question liberal orthodoxy on race, told an audience “I’m for racial equality. Not for patronisation. Don’t patronise my people.” When she finally got over the ‘literal shame’ that washed over her for being a Conservative, she realised that she leans more to the right because she “wants to empower black people to take charge of their lives and conquer the world, as opposed to putting their hand out to white establishment saying ‘please, I’m helpless.’” This is a recurrent view from those who contest social justice rhetoric. Jason Riley begins his book Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make it Harder For Blacks to Succeed with “The sober truth is that the most important civil rights battles were fought and won four decades before Obama’s presidency. The challenges faced within the most deprived communities are to do with values and habits and not the oppression of a racist society.”

African-Americans are more vocal about their reservations towards social justice. ‘Black Conservatism’ as a movement is more popular across the pond, where racial tensions are (arguably) more visible. However, opposition to progressive ideas can be a shot in the foot. For many black people–not believing that government benefits, affirmative action, diversity schemes and so on are helpful is racial suicide, blackness? Revoked.

There’s a special type of discrimination that is unique to people who stray from the status quo as implied by their ‘black roots’, from “bounty” to “Uncle Tom” to the lacerating and historically loaded, “coon” which all seek to describe someone who is only black in appearance but 100% a race traitor on the inside. A dominant yet unspoken ‘rule’ of blackness is the idea that to be black, is more than just skin colour but to adhere to a ‘politically black’ consensus. To listen to certain music, to value a particular aesthetic, to be wary of whiteness and white spaces and most detrimental– the awareness that whiteness, which has its own meanings, is the antitheses to blackness.

‘In America’ Katharine tells me, ‘kids will go on about ‘talking white’ and what they mean by that is ‘you’re talking properly’ talking in grammatically correct sentences is ‘talking white’.’ Katharine’s outspoken Twitter feed means she is no stranger to such deductions. To those questioning her racial identity, she says ‘being black is not to think in a certain way, it is to be BLACK!’

Reflecting on an old friend who was born and raised in Nigeria, Katharine tells me that he faced the same racial exclusion because an author is not ‘a black profession’. “There’s something really disturbing about how being a rapper, being rude about women makes someone more black than someone writing a book.”

During our conversation, she argues that working-class children are not exposed to the same advantages that other children can be exposed to and therefore it’s ‘up to the school to open these avenues for them.’ She goes on: ‘Children will come from families where they don’t have uncles and aunts who have been to Oxford or Cambridge, they don’t have cousins who are doctors and lawyers.’ For Katharine, the role of state education is to ‘expose children to an alternative way’ so they become aware of other options in life.

Critics of Ms Birbalsingh argue that schools and the government are not making excuses for children from disadvantaged backgrounds, that there are valid reasons for their performance and the school should support them whilst understanding their circumstances. But for Katharine, success is an indicator of hard work and the making of a successful adult begins with parents ‘habituating their children into a culture of hard work.’

‘Education is an investment’ she goes on. It’s more than finding your child a half-decent school and leaving them to it.’ She believes in reading to children, from the moment they are born. ‘And when we read, we draw our finger underneath the words. Reading to them for at least half an hour a day when they are babies.’

By age 5, she advises an hour of reading with the child. In her years of teaching, she has found that parents often make the grave mistake of assuming the school is solely responsible for the success of their child. “You shouldn’t imagine ‘oh, the school will take care of that’. You cannot depend on the school.” To Katherine, raising a child is a job not to be approached without the appropriate planning.” This militant take on education is not to everyone’s taste and Ms Birbalsingh makes it clear during our conversation that this is not a demand of parents, but a set of rules for a ‘successful’ child. Especially one whose odds are already not in their favour, growing up on the lower side of the socio-economic scale, or being from a single-parent household, for example, can hinder chances of success.

‘Small c conservative’ values of hard work and a prioritised education are values that are drummed into the children of immigrants before they can speak. Hard work. Good education But time and time again these values are not represented in voting trends amongst these groups.

Data produced by Runnymede on Ethnic Minorities at the 2017 General Election shows that Labour remained the most popular party both in 2015 and 17 receiving 77% of ethnic minority voters. When asked why she thinks ethnic minorities vote against their small c conservative beliefs, Katherine says that her parents are a great example of this. “My parents will vote on the left until the day they die and are horrified that I am who I am [laughs!] And hold the views that I do. But isn’t that interesting, why do I hold these views? Because of the way that they brought me up.”

“And the reason is perfectly understandable, for many decades, the left was on the side of ethnic minorities, I don’t think they are on the side of ethnic minorities anymore.”

No political party is without fault, and ethnic minority groups have their reservations about the Conservative Party too, and for good reason. Enoch Powell’s 1968 “Rivers of Blood” speech in which he said ‘we must be literally mad, as a nation to permit the annual inflow of 50,000 dependents, who are the material of the future growth of the immigrant population.” And to the more recent, Jacob Rees Mogg implying that the victims of Grenfell tower should have used ‘common sense’, by leaving the burning building against the fire brigades wishes. These are just some of the reasons why minority groups distrust the Conservative party.

Politics is as messy as people are, and voting for the lesser of two evils is the best advice. For Katharine, that choice is a no brainer. ‘New Labour is for the contemporary middle class, university-educated metropolitan elite.’ She tells me enthusiastically. ‘They’re on their own side, wanting to virtue signal and feel good about themselves at dinner parties and say…’ She puts on an ultra posh-accent ‘I’m a good person you know, I vote on the left’.’ They’re on their own side because if they were on the side of ethnic minorities, they would look at what their policies do and they would think ‘is this having a good impact or a bad impact?’ and if it was having a bad impact they would change those policies.’

A culture of outrage has resulted in opinions that were considered acceptable a few years ago, especially amongst the black community, to now be a punishable offence. A 2007 study by the Pew Research Centre titled Blacks See Growing Values Gap Between Poor and Middle Class found that 61% of black American’s believe Hip-hop to have a negative effect on the black community and 71% saying that rap has the same damaging effects.

No stranger to controversy, Katharine recently came under fire for a string of tweets about Grime rapper Stormzy, saying that the content of his music is harmful to young people. “This defence of Stormzy just shows how broken we are as a society.” She says,

“It is so sad. He swears and wears stab vests on stage and we don’t have a problem with this. Nor do we see how this glamorizes knife crime and gangs.” During our conversation, I asked Katharine what she thought of drill music– a form of rap music that originated in the South Side of Chicago, a place that is notorious for its gun violence. Its popularity has exceeded America, you can now find a sea of UK Drill artists on YouTube, donning masks to protect their identity while they wax poetic about murder. This controversial style of rap polarises both the Left and the Right. Her opinion…“Don’t destroy your child’s mind and motivation and their understanding of what is important in the world by allowing them to listen to Drill music.” Her suggestion instead? Mozart, Beethoven and Barque. “It will develop their minds, and allow them to access a level of cultural literacy that is normally only permitted to those that go to private school. You’re not sending them to private school because it’s very expensive, I get that, but you can make it up in other ways.”

Year 7’s at Michaela are ‘explicitly taught and deliberately practice our silence, entrance, exit and toilet routines and rules.’ Mobile phones? Not in this school. If seen or heard they will be confiscated until the end of the term. Michaela students study English, Maths and Humanities for at least five hours a week! Four hours of Science, three hours of French and two hours to Art and Music “which is double the provisions of many schools” — their website declares proudly.

Ms Birbalsingh has created a school modelled on the ethos of private education but for children from ordinary backgrounds. In English, the year 7’s read Homer’s The Odyssey, the classic Greek myths and Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. You could say that she is education’s answer to Robin Hood, borrowing high standards of teaching which are the norm in Britain’s most esteemed schools, and making them accessible for children from ordinary backgrounds.

Such rules and updates to the curriculum at Michaela would not have been possible if not for the Academies Programme which began under Labour in the 2000s to fix schools with poor outcomes in disadvantaged areas.

Then shadow education secretary Michael Gove passed The Academies Bill during the 2010–2015 coalition government. Gove described Britain’s failing schools as “a threat to our international competitiveness”. Gove, like Katharine, was concerned. “Poor performance is so powerfully concentrated in areas of disadvantage. Far too often, deprivation is destiny.”

The bill encouraged parents and independent groups to set up their own schools in hopes that competition will raise the standard of teaching while allowing the local community of teachers and parents to take direct action if they are unhappy with the state schools already in their area.

Gove’s push for the Academies Bill was in part due to research from the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) which found that more autonomy for individual schools raised standards. But much of what has been marketed by the Tories as a ‘push in the right direction is not without scrutiny.

Research by the Education Policy Institute concluded that turning schools into academies does not automatically improve standards. In fact, in all of my research, the resounding findings are that academies and free schools are not living up to their utopian vision. Rachel Wolf, founder of the New Schools Network and a former education advisor to David Cameron said that governments had “consistently failed” parents. She goes on to say the free school’s programme was designed to offer “real choice” but instead “focused on areas with population growth” like London and the south-east.

Ms Birbalsingh’s ‘small c conservative’ approach to education is a rebuttal of what she describes as “a culture of low standards” through expecting ‘the very least from our poorest and most disadvantaged. It is a reminder of the many ways one can extend care to the disadvantaged, one that does not look like a handout, but a manual of good habits. “I suppose I think it’s far better to teach a man how to fish than to give him a fish. A fish lasts a day, knowing how to fish lasts a lifetime.”

Michaela’s 2019 GCSE results were some of the best in the country, with 54% of students receiving A-A* grades. Gove’s push for the Academies Bill was to enhance our flailing education system and although the initiative is not without fault, many schools like Michaela have done exceptionally well.

Michaela’s methods are not for everyone, there is not ‘a one-size-fits-all’ for learning, political beliefs or otherwise. Mutable characteristics; age, gender, race etc are not indicators of beliefs and one’s acceptance within their cultural groups should not be dependent on blind submission to the most dominant modes of thinking.

There are many who would not benefit from Michaela’s militant teaching style, and there is little need to agree nor disagree with Ms Birbalsingh’s approach, but one thing stands true: No child should be harmed by the self-limiting beliefs of the schools, teachers and their political leanings. Education must be an engine of open thought and the pursuit of knowledge. An underprivileged background shouldn’t predict one’s future but should reinforce the need for concerted efforts to expose children to that which isn’t present in their everyday lives. The role of schooling in a child’s life is to open doors that would have otherwise remained closed, not to pander to circumstances and expect less from them as a result.

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