Hes pleased with its progress. I complained about that a long time ago and they made a change, and now they do fight terrorism. I said it was obsolete, its no longer obsolete. Is trump changing the world or has the world changed trump . United airlines. Is it a random cock up, or a problem with capitalism . And the latest Battle Ground between populism and liberalism. Israel wants 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. Hello, schools out for easter, but schools policy is very much in this week. The Education SecretaryJustine Greening is to give a big speech on education in england tomorrow. She will undoubtedly restate the aim of the government to make better schools for ordinary families, who are just about managing. But does the government have a strategy for delivering that objective, in the absence of money, and with 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. But is that an Education Policy . Chris cook offers this assessment of where things stand. We should all look at the cameras and smile. Tomorrow, the governments domestic non brexit agenda gets 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, isnt in great shape. Lets start off with sociology. This graph shows average gcse results. It starts at the left, where we have results for children in the poorest neighbourhoods, moving to the right, the richest. The height of the line shows how well pupils from that background did on average in english, maths, and their three best other gcses. What it shows is that the poorest children, at the left, averaged around a d, and the very richest averaged around a b. That is a two grade gap. Closing that gap has been a focus of policy for years, but this government wants more worrying about what it calls ordinary working families. That is to say not the poorest. You might think that targeting particular pupils like like poor children like we do here, that it would have a negative effect on others, but thats not what weve seen. It benefits everybody in the class. We have seen that from our work. And if you look at the schools with the best results, they are doing well for the poor children, the rich children, and those in the middle. Weve 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. Its quite hard to watch. 20. Still, its 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 the circumstance and the politicians here, there is actually an urban borough with serious social problems. Happily westminster has 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 that we used earlier. Poor westminster kids beat poor Isle Of Wight students by an average of two grades. They get bs and cs here. Here they beat the average of all children. Geography is hard its much more difficult to get teachers to move to the Isle Of Wight compared with london. Academy chains also struggle where local authority struggled before them. We also know that areas with Grammar Schools dont do any better than other places. Westminsters poor children get higher grades than selective kents non poor children. Theres also a basic economics problem. In short, its running out of money. There are two issues affecting funding. Schools are partway through making their first real cut since the 1990s. It will fall by about 8 in real terms. 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. Of course there are winners and losers. But in this case the losers are effectively losing twice. Firstly from the National Average cuts and second any losses from the new structure format. The government has coped just about thus far with a baby boom, but that wave is about to hit secondary, so keep an eye on it. Theres also a teacher shortage, so all in all keeping the show on the will be very hard. Well, david laws was a former lib dem Schools Minister in the coalition government, and is now the Executive Chairman of the Education Policy institute. Drjo saxton is a free School Founder and ceo of turner schools, an Academy Trust which was set up to serve coastal communities in east kent. They will open one of the new free schools which was approved by the government today. How hard was it to get approval . Was itjust 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 theyre 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. The problem 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 the other recent expansion of free schools and academies hasnt had the same effect. So making sure the headteacher is good, and the school knows what it is doing, basically . Thats right. We already have a School System that has quite a lot of autonomy. Giving more autonomy to those who already have that freedom doesnt make a difference. What makes a difference is if School Governors and leaders can get good headteacher and teaching staff, get the basics. Structural reform doesnt always deliver that. 0n Grammar Schools it is more difficult for the government, the evidence, Grammar Schools redistribute educational opportunities, they dont raise overall attainment. Do you agree with the basic contention that it is about how well run the schools are, rather than calling them academies and doing this and that . The Academies Bill recognise that changing School Structures means improving the system. My Free School Group in folkestone, weve had five applications on spec 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 exactly what i am trying to do in kent. We have a tight geographic 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. There are issues about the organisation and david you think the organising is not the thing, it is the leadership. I dont 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. 0k, Grammar Schools. The evidence that they dont work, that they are two points. First, virtually no poor children get into Grammar Schools, so they are a bad vehicle for social mobility. Thats because most of the big disadvantages for Young Children the other thing we found, looking at the departments information and looking at Grammar Schooland non Grammar School areas, it is true that Grammar Schools have a small beneficial impact for the pupils who get in