Labour will keep national standards

A reader has pointed out something I missed in Labour’s announcement last week:

“Labour will give schools a choice. We believe that lifting education achievements is best left to the experts in partnership with parents, and our plan allows that to happen.

“But for any school community that genuinely supports „national standards. and believes it provides the best way to get results for their students we will not bully them into submission.

So some schools will use national standards and some will use the standards against the national curriculum. This should ensure it is impossible to get any meaningful data to compare schools with. The union will be happy.