The Department for Education is considering investigating a number of schools in Essex for circulating political propaganda to parents and pupils. The schools have been sending out letters making inaccurate and misleading claims about school funding and encouraging parents to question candidates at the General Election. Priti Patel, Conservative Party Parliamentary Candidate for Witham, has received complaints from parents who have felt frightened over the claims. Priti said:
"Schools should stop misleading and scaremongering parents over education funding and policies. The Government has invested record levels of funding in education and a Conservative Government elected on 8 June will put an additional £4 billion into education, invest in the pupil premium to support pupils from low income families and support more apprenticeships and technical education. It is disappointing that opponents of the Government are treating schools like a political football and schools should be focusing on supporting high quality learning instead of circulating propaganda."
"Over the last seven years there have been significant improvements in standards with the numbers of pupils attending good and outstanding primary and secondary schools now at record levels. Here in the Witham constituency I have worked with schools to raise standards, promote literacy through my Get Witham Reading scheme, and have written to schools about school funding to engage with them. Our children deserve the best start in life and our plans to invest in education and raise standards will provide that."