Abolish the Department for Education, close every state school in the country, and give every parent the money in school vouchers.
The free market will sort it out, and we'll finally have a truly world class school education system.
Every child will be educated brilliantly.
Abolish the target of 50% of school kids going to university, remove university status from most of the former polys.
Abolish fees for those that study degrees in the most important subjects, such as STEM, medicine, engineering, computing based degrees, history, and law degrees.
I am quite happy to serve as Education Secretary.
Happier than the rest of us, perhaps.
A bit like Michael Gove.
I'd make sure every child was educated. The best teachers would command salaries that would be at the top end of society.
I realise I was lucky that my uni fees were paid for, I want to go back to that.
TSE for EdSec 7 years ago.
(So my extremely high pay under that system would also be reflected in my pension.)
To my surprise, I'm with TSE here. Pay teachers much more. And thereby make it more competitive to get into. Some teachers - like my daughter's young, enthusiastic year 3 teacher - are worth much more. Some - like my daughter's occasionally adequate year 4 teacher - aren't. I can't see any way of getting more of the former and fewer od the latter without paying them more.
While pay matters, I don't think it the decisive reason that so many teachers do not stick to the profession*. Other elements might well matter more, particularly a supportive culture of respect for teachers from parents and from the hierarchy of education and government. That is not so easy to address.
* I am sure that we all agree that poor teachers who are not improving should move on, I suspect that the good ones are as likely to quit. That sort of reflective self doubt in a professional is both a key to being an inspiring teacher, but also to that crisis of faith.
All the best doctors that I know came close to dropping out. Indeed one of my colleagues is quite a competent roofer, having done that for a year before his mates on the site persuaded him back into medicine.
I have friends in the UK who are teachers, friends in the UK who gave up teaching, and friends in Germany who are teachers, including my girlfriend.
All of the UK teachers I know who gave up, did so because of the crazy out of hours workload not because of the pay. Comparing the working conditions between the two countries I see two differences. Thie biggest difference is that homework is not marked by the teachers in Germany. Exams are marked by teachers, but not the standard homework.
The other difference is the teachers in Germany are there to help the pupils learn as much as possible. They are not there to maximise the exam results. The difference might seem subtle to some outside of education, but the effect this has on job satisfaction is considerable. Once the job satisfaction gets wringed out of you that's when you leave the profession.
Germany is still largely selective, with gymnasiums in most states the equivalent of our grammar schools
For a start none of the teachers I know in Germany are in Gymnasien, but secondly what has this at all got to do with what I wrote?
Good for you, that does not change my point at all.
It is a big difference as Germany is full of academically selective state schools as we used to have 50 years ago
I disagree with you.
Fifty years ago we had a tier of usually great grammar school, and then a tier of pretty awful secondary moderns that offered little to no sensible vocational training. Secondary moderns were starved of money, and did a terrible job of producing the people the economy needed.
The very fact that today the discussions are all about the grammar element demonstrates how f*cked up this is. We don't fail the top 10% of kids. They go to University and do very well. We fail the next 90%.
If we want to return to selective education, I sincerely hope that the effort will be spent on making the schools for the 90% as good as possible, not on saving middle class parents from having to spend on school fees.
Agreed. But I’d add that such a simple bifurcated structure (the technical schools barely got started) is way too rigid. As in politics, pluralism is a desirable thing.
The way we have things arranged is that the most socially advantaged pupils have the most school resource invested in them. It ought to be the opposite.
I don't pretend to have all the answers but this to me is the heart of the matter.
Since the introduction of pupil premium, that’s not entirely true - and grammar schools are generally not better funded than the rest of the state sector (though the Kent system, which contains most of the UK’s grammars is pretty awful).
And one of the biggest educational differentiators is preschool parental attention and engagement.
Yes, the PP was an excellent policy.
But the funding per pupil in private schools is triple that in state schools and half of everyone who can afford the fees choose that route. Therefore the school resource devoted to the most affluent and advantaged is disproportionately high.
And I know that's right, what you say about the early years, before ANY school is relevant. This is correlated to class and money, I would venture, but is far from determined by those things.
Who gives a damn how high it is, it is not tax payer money and each that goes private leaves state school pupils with a bigger slice of funding. Once again parents make a damn sight more difference if you have scummy parents who don't give a toss then it will affect you far more than which school you go to.
Stop trying to force everyone to level down to sink schools which is where your theories lead.
On the contrary. I favour raising funding per pupil very significantly and all children being educated to a similar and high standard.
I wish to get away from the whole concept of Good Schools. The very ubiquity of the term implies that we must have Bad ones.
Do we talk relentlessly about Good Hospitals? About Good Police Stations? No.
Your point about parents is a great one but it does not mean that schools are unimportant. They are important. Very.
There are definitely good hospitals and bad hospitals. I know a few nurses at my local one and they all say the same. If you are ill try and get into a different hospital.
Is there nothing you don't want to throw more money at? What tax rate are you planning on charging? 100%? Actually that probably wouldn't be enough for all the things you are wanting cash spent on.
State schools that are failing are not failing because they have bad teachers or less funding than other better schools. They are failing because of the type of pupil they are full of. I know I went to one.
But we don't routinely talk about "good hospitals" as if it's an expected and accepted part of life that some are much better than others. Because it isn't expected and accepted. This is my point.
I don't recall proposing any big spending other than this - more on schools. And I believe in sound money so it must come from taxation or from cuts elsewhere. There is scope. If there isn't, it will have to wait.
OK, so some schools struggle because their intake is full of kids who don't want to be there. I know this. So what? Why does it follow from this that we should take the most advantaged kids and advantage them some more through our schools system? I do not see the logic there.
There are hospitals rated outstanding, requires improvement and inadequate by the CQC just as there are schools given those ratings by OFSTED
Sure. But we don't accept it as being fine and dandy.
Everyone seems to accept it's just inevitable that the children of the affluent will go to better schools than the rest.
I don't.
Don't be daft no one accepts it I certainly don't however my solution is pull those schools up whereas yours is get rid of the better schools. The only way to do that however is to address the parenting of those kids, something you outright refuse to do or so you said yesterday.
Addressing the parenting is a MASSIVE task for government. Interested to hear how it might be achieved.
In 2001 I read a provocative piece by Roy Hattersley in the Guardian, decrying Blair's notions of "meritocracy" and "social mobility" as fundamentally at odds with Hattersley's preferred ideal of equality. Not all PBers have value systems aligned with his (!), but I reckon most would concede his case has a compelling internal logic. I meet many progressive types - often high-flying graduates from middle-class but non-"posh" stock - who are firm believers that your life course should be set by how well you do in exams you take at 21. Excellent grades at uni, especially a "world-class" one (yes, the kind of person awfully keen to say how their alma mater fared on the latest meaningless set of "global rankings") prove you're one of the "talented" few, so should get onto a top graduate career programme and be running the country (or at least a significant component of its public services or commercial economy) in a few decades. I'm not sure why that's massively preferable to selecting life courses by virtue of an exam taken at 11. There's still a lot of maturing to do at 21 and performing well at exams or coursework in an educational institution is not the same thing as managing complex organisational changes.
Scrapping private schools seems mostly about changing who gets the spoils, and trying to ensure a greater proportion of wealth and power head to a particular group of "successful" people based on their "raw ability" (quotation marks advisedly, as even its proponents prefer to leave it largely undefined, and whether it be luckily inherited genes or parental attitude or socio-economic conditions, one's educational achievements never reflect solely upon the individual - but I digress), essentially their good fortune to have talent/skill that's highly valued at this time, and to decorrelate from their parents' wealth. I can see why it might be attractive but if that's your game it seems a superficial one. You just end up replacing one lot of people lording it over us, with another.
If your fundamental issue is disgruntlement at Britain's deep inequalities and strongly hierarchical society, then changing who ascends the pinnacle is attacking the wrong problem. You need to challenge much more. How do we flatten social structures? Why should "high flyers" who went to a "top university" clamber so much smoother up the greasy pole? Why is there a greasy pole at all, or even the notion that the "higher" the "better"? (And even tougher questions, reflecting biological and economic realities: how do we do this while recognising some people genuinely do have different skills to others, including scare skills which certain organisations might find highly value-adding? How do we reward "effort" and its close but not identical cousin entrepreneurship? I enjoyed A People's Tragedy by Orlando Figes - great lockdown reading! - as a glimpse of how hard it is even in a radical, revolutionary environment to enact a rethinking of social and economic structures.)
Anybody stuck for lockdown reading I really do recommend A People's Tragedy but what with it being 20+ years old now I don't know whether any more interesting material has left the Russian archives and whether chunks of it therefore deserve a rewrite - would be interesting to get the views of one of PB's resident historians!
In 2001 I read a provocative piece by Roy Hattersley in the Guardian, decrying Blair's notions of "meritocracy" and "social mobility" as fundamentally at odds with Hattersley's preferred ideal of equality. Not all PBers have value systems aligned with his (!), but I reckon most would concede his case has a compelling internal logic. I meet many progressive types - often high-flying graduates from middle-class but non-"posh" stock - who are firm believers that your life course should be set by how well you do in exams you take at 21. Excellent grades at uni, especially a "world-class" one (yes, the kind of person awfully keen to say how their alma mater fared on the latest meaningless set of "global rankings") prove you're one of the "talented" few, so should get onto a top graduate career programme and be running the country (or at least a significant component of its public services or commercial economy) in a few decades. I'm not sure why that's massively preferable to selecting life courses by virtue of an exam taken at 11. There's still a lot of maturing to do at 21 and performing well at exams or coursework in an educational institution is not the same thing as managing complex organisational changes.
Scrapping private schools seems mostly about changing who gets the spoils, and trying to ensure a greater proportion of wealth and power head to a particular group of "successful" people based on their "raw ability" (quotation marks advisedly, as even its proponents prefer to leave it largely undefined, and whether it be luckily inherited genes or parental attitude or socio-economic conditions, one's educational achievements never reflect solely upon the individual - but I digress), essentially their good fortune to have talent/skill that's highly valued at this time, and to decorrelate from their parents' wealth. I can see why it might be attractive but if that's your game it seems a superficial one. You just end up replacing one lot of people lording it over us, with another.
If your fundamental issue is disgruntlement at Britain's deep inequalities and strongly hierarchical society, then changing who ascends the pinnacle is attacking the wrong problem. You need to challenge much more. How do we flatten social structures? Why should "high flyers" who went to a "top university" clamber so much smoother up the greasy pole? Why is there a greasy pole at all, or even the notion that the "higher" the "better"? (And even tougher questions, reflecting biological and economic realities: how do we do this while recognising some people genuinely do have different skills to others, including scare skills which certain organisations might find highly value-adding? How do we reward "effort" and its close but not identical cousin entrepreneurship? I enjoyed A People's Tragedy by Orlando Figes - great lockdown reading! - as a glimpse of how hard it is even in a radical, revolutionary environment to enact a rethinking of social and economic structures.)
I think most people whether left or right would agree
We want all children to attain the highest educational standard they are capable of We want all health outcomes the best they can be etc....down the list
What we mostly differ on his how to get there and what the limitations are as to what we can do
Where I think we do however differ on is when we get to
We want society to be fairer
This is one of those words that I think means different things to different people.
One of the things I am most critical of the lefties like Kinablu for however is they come up with solutions that sound good in theory but they then assume it will work just like that in practise which it generally won't because the thing they fail to take into account is human nature.
I don't have a problem particulary with Kinablu's general aspirations for a more equal society, I am positive he means it. The trouble is people have said that over and over throughout history and when they rally behind someone saying it and get them into power it turns out always so far that now they have power the person they rallied behind isn't so interested in an equal society just replacing one set of elites with his or her cronies.
No indeed. Egalitarianism is not the same as meritocracy. Meritocracy is IMO quite an unpleasant concept unless you define merit very broadly to encompass non marketable qualities such as honesty and kindness.
In 2001 I read a provocative piece by Roy Hattersley in the Guardian, decrying Blair's notions of "meritocracy" and "social mobility" as fundamentally at odds with Hattersley's preferred ideal of equality. Not all PBers have value systems aligned with his (!), but I reckon most would concede his case has a compelling internal logic. I meet many progressive types - often high-flying graduates from middle-class but non-"posh" stock - who are firm believers that your life course should be set by how well you do in exams you take at 21. Excellent grades at uni, especially a "world-class" one (yes, the kind of person awfully keen to say how their alma mater fared on the latest meaningless set of "global rankings") prove you're one of the "talented" few, so should get onto a top graduate career programme and be running the country (or at least a significant component of its public services or commercial economy) in a few decades. I'm not sure why that's massively preferable to selecting life courses by virtue of an exam taken at 11. There's still a lot of maturing to do at 21 and performing well at exams or coursework in an educational institution is not the same thing as managing complex organisational changes.
Scrapping private schools seems mostly about changing who gets the spoils, and trying to ensure a greater proportion of wealth and power head to a particular group of "successful" people based on their "raw ability" (quotation marks advisedly, as even its proponents prefer to leave it largely undefined, and whether it be luckily inherited genes or parental attitude or socio-economic conditions, one's educational achievements never reflect solely upon the individual - but I digress), essentially their good fortune to have talent/skill that's highly valued at this time, and to decorrelate from their parents' wealth. I can see why it might be attractive but if that's your game it seems a superficial one. You just end up replacing one lot of people lording it over us, with another.
If your fundamental issue is disgruntlement at Britain's deep inequalities and strongly hierarchical society, then changing who ascends the pinnacle is attacking the wrong problem. You need to challenge much more. How do we flatten social structures? Why should "high flyers" who went to a "top university" clamber so much smoother up the greasy pole? Why is there a greasy pole at all, or even the notion that the "higher" the "better"? (And even tougher questions, reflecting biological and economic realities: how do we do this while recognising some people genuinely do have different skills to others, including scare skills which certain organisations might find highly value-adding? How do we reward "effort" and its close but not identical cousin entrepreneurship? I enjoyed A People's Tragedy by Orlando Figes - great lockdown reading! - as a glimpse of how hard it is even in a radical, revolutionary environment to enact a rethinking of social and economic structures.)
The problem is that - as your terminology explains - flattening social structures actually means pulling (or perhaps more accurately squashing) everyone down towards the level of the most disadvantaged. Those who advocate equality in this way pretend that it means raising up the most disadvantaged to the levels of the advantaged but there is no evidence that that is what actually happens. It becomes an exercise in envy.
In 2001 I read a provocative piece by Roy Hattersley in the Guardian, decrying Blair's notions of "meritocracy" and "social mobility" as fundamentally at odds with Hattersley's preferred ideal of equality. Not all PBers have value systems aligned with his (!), but I reckon most would concede his case has a compelling internal logic. I meet many progressive types - often high-flying graduates from middle-class but non-"posh" stock - who are firm believers that your life course should be set by how well you do in exams you take at 21. Excellent grades at uni, especially a "world-class" one (yes, the kind of person awfully keen to say how their alma mater fared on the latest meaningless set of "global rankings") prove you're one of the "talented" few, so should get onto a top graduate career programme and be running the country (or at least a significant component of its public services or commercial economy) in a few decades. I'm not sure why that's massively preferable to selecting life courses by virtue of an exam taken at 11. There's still a lot of maturing to do at 21 and performing well at exams or coursework in an educational institution is not the same thing as managing complex organisational changes.
Scrapping private schools seems mostly about changing who gets the spoils, and trying to ensure a greater proportion of wealth and power head to a particular group of "successful" people based on their "raw ability" (quotation marks advisedly, as even its proponents prefer to leave it largely undefined, and whether it be luckily inherited genes or parental attitude or socio-economic conditions, one's educational achievements never reflect solely upon the individual - but I digress), essentially their good fortune to have talent/skill that's highly valued at this time, and to decorrelate from their parents' wealth. I can see why it might be attractive but if that's your game it seems a superficial one. You just end up replacing one lot of people lording it over us, with another.
If your fundamental issue is disgruntlement at Britain's deep inequalities and strongly hierarchical society, then changing who ascends the pinnacle is attacking the wrong problem. You need to challenge much more. How do we flatten social structures? Why should "high flyers" who went to a "top university" clamber so much smoother up the greasy pole? Why is there a greasy pole at all, or even the notion that the "higher" the "better"? (And even tougher questions, reflecting biological and economic realities: how do we do this while recognising some people genuinely do have different skills to others, including scare skills which certain organisations might find highly value-adding? How do we reward "effort" and its close but not identical cousin entrepreneurship? I enjoyed A People's Tragedy by Orlando Figes - great lockdown reading! - as a glimpse of how hard it is even in a radical, revolutionary environment to enact a rethinking of social and economic structures.)
The problem is that - as your terminology explains - flattening social structures actually means pulling (or perhaps more accurately squashing) everyone down towards the level of the most disadvantaged. Those who advocate equality in this way pretend that it means raising up the most disadvantaged to the levels of the advantaged but there is no evidence that that is what actually happens. It becomes an exercise in envy.
But when you point out that this is what history shows us they say "Ah but this time it will be different"
No indeed. Egalitarianism is not the same as meritocracy. Meritocracy is IMO quite an unpleasant concept unless you define merit very broadly to encompass non marketable qualities such as honesty and kindness.
No, enforced egalitarianism is basically communism just with a fancy name
In 2001 I read a provocative piece by Roy Hattersley in the Guardian, decrying Blair's notions of "meritocracy" and "social mobility" as fundamentally at odds with Hattersley's preferred ideal of equality. Not all PBers have value systems aligned with his (!), but I reckon most would concede his case has a compelling internal logic. I meet many progressive types - often high-flying graduates from middle-class but non-"posh" stock - who are firm believers that your life course should be set by how well you do in exams you take at 21. Excellent grades at uni, especially a "world-class" one (yes, the kind of person awfully keen to say how their alma mater fared on the latest meaningless set of "global rankings") prove you're one of the "talented" few, so should get onto a top graduate career programme and be running the country (or at least a significant component of its public services or commercial economy) in a few decades. I'm not sure why that's massively preferable to selecting life courses by virtue of an exam taken at 11. There's still a lot of maturing to do at 21 and performing well at exams or coursework in an educational institution is not the same thing as managing complex organisational changes.
Scrapping private schools seems mostly about changing who gets the spoils, and trying to ensure a greater proportion of wealth and power head to a particular group of "successful" people based on their "raw ability" (quotation marks advisedly, as even its proponents prefer to leave it largely undefined, and whether it be luckily inherited genes or parental attitude or socio-economic conditions, one's educational achievements never reflect solely upon the individual - but I digress), essentially their good fortune to have talent/skill that's highly valued at this time, and to decorrelate from their parents' wealth. I can see why it might be attractive but if that's your game it seems a superficial one. You just end up replacing one lot of people lording it over us, with another.
If your fundamental issue is disgruntlement at Britain's deep inequalities and strongly hierarchical society, then changing who ascends the pinnacle is attacking the wrong problem. You need to challenge much more. How do we flatten social structures? Why should "high flyers" who went to a "top university" clamber so much smoother up the greasy pole? Why is there a greasy pole at all, or even the notion that the "higher" the "better"? (And even tougher questions, reflecting biological and economic realities: how do we do this while recognising some people genuinely do have different skills to others, including scare skills which certain organisations might find highly value-adding? How do we reward "effort" and its close but not identical cousin entrepreneurship? I enjoyed A People's Tragedy by Orlando Figes - great lockdown reading! - as a glimpse of how hard it is even in a radical, revolutionary environment to enact a rethinking of social and economic structures.)
I think most people whether left or right would agree
We want all children to attain the highest educational standard they are capable of We want all health outcomes the best they can be etc....down the list
What we mostly differ on his how to get there and what the limitations are as to what we can do
Where I think we do however differ on is when we get to
We want society to be fairer
This is one of those words that I think means different things to different people.
One of the things I am most critical of the lefties like Kinablu for however is they come up with solutions that sound good in theory but they then assume it will work just like that in practise which it generally won't because the thing they fail to take into account is human nature.
I don't have a problem particulary with Kinablu's general aspirations for a more equal society, I am positive he means it. The trouble is people have said that over and over throughout history and when they rally behind someone saying it and get them into power it turns out always so far that now they have power the person they rallied behind isn't so interested in an equal society just replacing one set of elites with his or her cronies.
Equality is a notion you can argue about forever. You can say, OK, we need equality of income, but because people have different abilities and different needs, they have different expenses, so they end up with different wealth. And if people have different wealth, to maintain that they have different expenses, so they need different income. Equality is just something you can argue about infinitely. People good at arguing can make bank from people who want equality.
If feminists had focused on equality as their main goal, they'd never have got anywhere. It's because they focused on something practical, female suffrage, and stayed focused on it from the mid-19th century until the late 1920's, that they got anywhere. And with this practicality out of the way, they were able to get all kinds of equality almost as a side-effect of political representation.
I think it's better, particularly if you want to be a radical movement, to focus on single points of leverage rather than things like equality which are broad and ultimately ethereal.
In 2001 I read a provocative piece by Roy Hattersley in the Guardian, decrying Blair's notions of "meritocracy" and "social mobility" as fundamentally at odds with Hattersley's preferred ideal of equality. Not all PBers have value systems aligned with his (!), but I reckon most would concede his case has a compelling internal logic. I meet many progressive types - often high-flying graduates from middle-class but non-"posh" stock - who are firm believers that your life course should be set by how well you do in exams you take at 21. Excellent grades at uni, especially a "world-class" one (yes, the kind of person awfully keen to say how their alma mater fared on the latest meaningless set of "global rankings") prove you're one of the "talented" few, so should get onto a top graduate career programme and be running the country (or at least a significant component of its public services or commercial economy) in a few decades. I'm not sure why that's massively preferable to selecting life courses by virtue of an exam taken at 11. There's still a lot of maturing to do at 21 and performing well at exams or coursework in an educational institution is not the same thing as managing complex organisational changes.
Scrapping private schools seems mostly about changing who gets the spoils, and trying to ensure a greater proportion of wealth and power head to a particular group of "successful" people based on their "raw ability" (quotation marks advisedly, as even its proponents prefer to leave it largely undefined, and whether it be luckily inherited genes or parental attitude or socio-economic conditions, one's educational achievements never reflect solely upon the individual - but I digress), essentially their good fortune to have talent/skill that's highly valued at this time, and to decorrelate from their parents' wealth. I can see why it might be attractive but if that's your game it seems a superficial one. You just end up replacing one lot of people lording it over us, with another.
If your fundamental issue is disgruntlement at Britain's deep inequalities and strongly hierarchical society, then changing who ascends the pinnacle is attacking the wrong problem. You need to challenge much more. How do we flatten social structures? Why should "high flyers" who went to a "top university" clamber so much smoother up the greasy pole? Why is there a greasy pole at all, or even the notion that the "higher" the "better"? (And even tougher questions, reflecting biological and economic realities: how do we do this while recognising some people genuinely do have different skills to others, including scare skills which certain organisations might find highly value-adding? How do we reward "effort" and its close but not identical cousin entrepreneurship? I enjoyed A People's Tragedy by Orlando Figes - great lockdown reading! - as a glimpse of how hard it is even in a radical, revolutionary environment to enact a rethinking of social and economic structures.)
I think most people whether left or right would agree
We want all children to attain the highest educational standard they are capable of We want all health outcomes the best they can be etc....down the list
What we mostly differ on his how to get there and what the limitations are as to what we can do
Where I think we do however differ on is when we get to
We want society to be fairer
This is one of those words that I think means different things to different people.
One of the things I am most critical of the lefties like Kinablu for however is they come up with solutions that sound good in theory but they then assume it will work just like that in practise which it generally won't because the thing they fail to take into account is human nature.
I don't have a problem particulary with Kinablu's general aspirations for a more equal society, I am positive he means it. The trouble is people have said that over and over throughout history and when they rally behind someone saying it and get them into power it turns out always so far that now they have power the person they rallied behind isn't so interested in an equal society just replacing one set of elites with his or her cronies.
Equality is a notion you can argue about forever. You can say, OK, we need equality of income, but because people have different abilities and different needs, they have different expenses, so they end up with different wealth. And if people have different wealth, to maintain that they have different expenses, so they need different income. Equality is just something you can argue about infinitely. People good at arguing can make bank from people who want equality.
If feminists had focused on equality as their main goal, they'd never have got anywhere. It's because they focused on something practical, female suffrage, and stayed focused on it from the mid-19th century until the late 1920's, that they got anywhere. And with this practicality out of the way, they were able to get all kinds of equality almost as a side-effect of political representation.
I think it's better, particularly if you want to be a radical movement, to focus on single points of leverage rather than things like equality which are broad and ultimately ethereal.
Equality of income is definitely something that should not be pursued. I get paid well a lot more than a shelf stacker. However with that pay goes high stress, unpaid overtime, 24/7 support one week in 4. Pay me the same as a shelf stacker and I will be ok then I will go stack shelves and get rid of all the annoyances
From an egalitarian point of view, it would have made more sense to abolish private schools and keep the grammar schools, rather than the other way round.
From an egalitarian point of view, it would have made more sense to abolish private schools and keep the grammar schools, rather than the other way round.
We would be better having three different types of school
Highly academic Mixed academic and vocational vocational
vocational teaches skills such as plumbing, electrician, brick laying etc. I would also make the split from 14 and the child can choose to move to a different type at 15 as some will think they want one but don't like it.
Don't gate it by exam merely let the child choose which they wish to goto at 14. The last two should also cover such things as how to run a small business
From an egalitarian point of view, it would have made more sense to abolish private schools and keep the grammar schools, rather than the other way round.
Or just not have schooling at all, since some schools are always going to be better than others.
From an egalitarian point of view, it would have made more sense to abolish private schools and keep the grammar schools, rather than the other way round.
Or just not have schooling at all, since some schools are always going to be better than others.
The Khmer Rouge solution.
And not have banks because they are sometimes robbed.
From an egalitarian point of view, it would have made more sense to abolish private schools and keep the grammar schools, rather than the other way round.
Or just not have schooling at all, since some schools are always going to be better than others.
The Khmer Rouge solution.
And not have banks because they are sometimes robbed.
The last few years they’ve been more robbers than robbed.
In 2001 I read a provocative piece by Roy Hattersley in the Guardian, decrying Blair's notions of "meritocracy" and "social mobility" as fundamentally at odds with Hattersley's preferred ideal of equality. Not all PBers have value systems aligned with his (!), but I reckon most would concede his case has a compelling internal logic. I meet many progressive types - often high-flying graduates from middle-class but non-"posh" stock - who are firm believers that your life course should be set by how well you do in exams you take at 21. Excellent grades at uni, especially a "world-class" one (yes, the kind of person awfully keen to say how their alma mater fared on the latest meaningless set of "global rankings") prove you're one of the "talented" few, so should get onto a top graduate career programme and be running the country (or at least a significant component of its public services or commercial economy) in a few decades. I'm not sure why that's massively preferable to selecting life courses by virtue of an exam taken at 11. There's still a lot of maturing to do at 21 and performing well at exams or coursework in an educational institution is not the same thing as managing complex organisational changes.
Scrapping private schools seems mostly about changing who gets the spoils, and trying to ensure a greater proportion of wealth and power head to a particular group of "successful" people based on their "raw ability" (quotation marks advisedly, as even its proponents prefer to leave it largely undefined, and whether it be luckily inherited genes or parental attitude or socio-economic conditions, one's educational achievements never reflect solely upon the individual - but I digress), essentially their good fortune to have talent/skill that's highly valued at this time, and to decorrelate from their parents' wealth. I can see why it might be attractive but if that's your game it seems a superficial one. You just end up replacing one lot of people lording it over us, with another.
If your fundamental issue is disgruntlement at Britain's deep inequalities and strongly hierarchical society, then changing who ascends the pinnacle is attacking the wrong problem. You need to challenge much more. How do we flatten social structures? Why should "high flyers" who went to a "top university" clamber so much smoother up the greasy pole? Why is there a greasy pole at all, or even the notion that the "higher" the "better"? (And even tougher questions, reflecting biological and economic realities: how do we do this while recognising some people genuinely do have different skills to others, including scare skills which certain organisations might find highly value-adding? How do we reward "effort" and its close but not identical cousin entrepreneurship? I enjoyed A People's Tragedy by Orlando Figes - great lockdown reading! - as a glimpse of how hard it is even in a radical, revolutionary environment to enact a rethinking of social and economic structures.)
I think most people whether left or right would agree
We want all children to attain the highest educational standard they are capable of We want all health outcomes the best they can be etc....down the list
What we mostly differ on his how to get there and what the limitations are as to what we can do
Where I think we do however differ on is when we get to
We want society to be fairer
This is one of those words that I think means different things to different people.
One of the things I am most critical of the lefties like Kinablu for however is they come up with solutions that sound good in theory but they then assume it will work just like that in practise which it generally won't because the thing they fail to take into account is human nature.
I don't have a problem particulary with Kinablu's general aspirations for a more equal society, I am positive he means it. The trouble is people have said that over and over throughout history and when they rally behind someone saying it and get them into power it turns out always so far that now they have power the person they rallied behind isn't so interested in an equal society just replacing one set of elites with his or her cronies.
Equality is a notion you can argue about forever. You can say, OK, we need equality of income, but because people have different abilities and different needs, they have different expenses, so they end up with different wealth. And if people have different wealth, to maintain that they have different expenses, so they need different income. Equality is just something you can argue about infinitely. People good at arguing can make bank from people who want equality.
If feminists had focused on equality as their main goal, they'd never have got anywhere. It's because they focused on something practical, female suffrage, and stayed focused on it from the mid-19th century until the late 1920's, that they got anywhere. And with this practicality out of the way, they were able to get all kinds of equality almost as a side-effect of political representation.
I think it's better, particularly if you want to be a radical movement, to focus on single points of leverage rather than things like equality which are broad and ultimately ethereal.
An excellent point. What focus of leverage would you suggest ?
From an egalitarian point of view, it would have made more sense to abolish private schools and keep the grammar schools, rather than the other way round.
I just don't think it makes sense to abolish independent schools; attacks on independent schools are a political fetish that needs to be buried.
I have a family member who ended up having to go to an independent school, due (1) to a learning type disability and (2) because the state school could not deal with bullying, with all the corollories of loss of nice holidays for the family etc.
And yet there seem to be people arguing here yesterday that she should be discriminated against for Higher Education entrance as a result.
Abolish the Department for Education, close every state school in the country, and give every parent the money in school vouchers.
The free market will sort it out, and we'll finally have a truly world class school education system.
Every child will be educated brilliantly.
Abolish the target of 50% of school kids going to university, remove university status from most of the former polys.
Abolish fees for those that study degrees in the most important subjects, such as STEM, medicine, engineering, computing based degrees, history, and law degrees.
I am quite happy to serve as Education Secretary.
Happier than the rest of us, perhaps.
A bit like Michael Gove.
I'd make sure every child was educated. The best teachers would command salaries that would be at the top end of society.
I realise I was lucky that my uni fees were paid for, I want to go back to that.
TSE for EdSec 7 years ago.
(So my extremely high pay under that system would also be reflected in my pension.)
To my surprise, I'm with TSE here. Pay teachers much more. And thereby make it more competitive to get into. Some teachers - like my daughter's young, enthusiastic year 3 teacher - are worth much more. Some - like my daughter's occasionally adequate year 4 teacher - aren't. I can't see any way of getting more of the former and fewer od the latter without paying them more.
While pay matters, I don't think it the decisive reason that so many teachers do not stick to the profession*. Other elements might well matter more, particularly a supportive culture of respect for teachers from parents and from the hierarchy of education and government. That is not so easy to address.
* I am sure that we all agree that poor teachers who are not improving should move on, I suspect that the good ones are as likely to quit. That sort of reflective self doubt in a professional is both a key to being an inspiring teacher, but also to that crisis of faith.
All the best doctors that I know came close to dropping out. Indeed one of my colleagues is quite a competent roofer, having done that for a year before his mates on the site persuaded him back into medicine.
I have friends in the UK who are teachers, friends in the UK who gave up teaching, and friends in Germany who are teachers, including my girlfriend.
All of the UK teachers I know who gave up, did so because of the crazy out of hours workload not because of the pay. Comparing the working conditions between the two countries I see two differences. Thie biggest difference is that homework is not marked by the teachers in Germany. Exams are marked by teachers, but not the standard homework.
The other difference is the teachers in Germany are there to help the pupils learn as much as possible. They are not there to maximise the exam results. The difference might seem subtle to some outside of education, but the effect this has on job satisfaction is considerable. Once the job satisfaction gets wringed out of you that's when you leave the profession.
Germany is still largely selective, with gymnasiums in most states the equivalent of our grammar schools
For a start none of the teachers I know in Germany are in Gymnasien, but secondly what has this at all got to do with what I wrote?
Good for you, that does not change my point at all.
It is a big difference as Germany is full of academically selective state schools as we used to have 50 years ago
I disagree with you.
Fifty years ago we had a tier of usually great grammar school, and then a tier of pretty awful secondary moderns that offered little to no sensible vocational training. Secondary moderns were starved of money, and did a terrible job of producing the people the economy needed.
The very fact that today the discussions are all about the grammar element demonstrates how f*cked up this is. We don't fail the top 10% of kids. They go to University and do very well. We fail the next 90%.
If we want to return to selective education, I sincerely hope that the effort will be spent on making the schools for the 90% as good as possible, not on saving middle class parents from having to spend on school fees.
Agreed. But I’d add that such a simple bifurcated structure (the technical schools barely got started) is way too rigid. As in politics, pluralism is a desirable thing.
The way we have things arranged is that the most socially advantaged pupils have the most school resource invested in them. It ought to be the opposite.
I don't pretend to have all the answers but this to me is the heart of the matter.
Since the introduction of pupil premium, that’s not entirely true - and grammar schools are generally not better funded than the rest of the state sector (though the Kent system, which contains most of the UK’s grammars is pretty awful).
And one of the biggest educational differentiators is preschool parental attention and engagement.
Yes, the PP was an excellent policy.
But the funding per pupil in private schools is triple that in state schools and half of everyone who can afford the fees choose that route. Therefore the school resource devoted to the most affluent and advantaged is disproportionately high.
And I know that's right, what you say about the early years, before ANY school is relevant. This is correlated to class and money, I would venture, but is far from determined by those things.
Who gives a damn how high it is, it is not tax payer money and each that goes private leaves state school pupils with a bigger slice of funding. Once again parents make a damn sight more difference if you have scummy parents who don't give a toss then it will affect you far more than which school you go to.
Stop trying to force everyone to level down to sink schools which is where your theories lead.
On the contrary. I favour raising funding per pupil very significantly and all children being educated to a similar and high standard.
I wish to get away from the whole concept of Good Schools. The very ubiquity of the term implies that we must have Bad ones.
Do we talk relentlessly about Good Hospitals? About Good Police Stations? No.
Your point about parents is a great one but it does not mean that schools are unimportant. They are important. Very.
There are definitely good hospitals and bad hospitals. I know a few nurses at my local one and they all say the same. If you are ill try and get into a different hospital.
Is there nothing you don't want to throw more money at? What tax rate are you planning on charging? 100%? Actually that probably wouldn't be enough for all the things you are wanting cash spent on.
State schools that are failing are not failing because they have bad teachers or less funding than other better schools. They are failing because of the type of pupil they are full of. I know I went to one.
But we don't routinely talk about "good hospitals" as if it's an expected and accepted part of life that some are much better than others. Because it isn't expected and accepted. This is my point.
I don't recall proposing any big spending other than this - more on schools. And I believe in sound money so it must come from taxation or from cuts elsewhere. There is scope. If there isn't, it will have to wait.
OK, so some schools struggle because their intake is full of kids who don't want to be there. I know this. So what? Why does it follow from this that we should take the most advantaged kids and advantage them some more through our schools system? I do not see the logic there.
There are hospitals rated outstanding, requires improvement and inadequate by the CQC just as there are schools given those ratings by OFSTED
Sure. But we don't accept it as being fine and dandy.
Everyone seems to accept it's just inevitable that the children of the affluent will go to better schools than the rest.
I don't.
Don't be daft no one accepts it I certainly don't however my solution is pull those schools up whereas yours is get rid of the better schools. The only way to do that however is to address the parenting of those kids, something you outright refuse to do or so you said yesterday.
Addressing the parenting is a MASSIVE task for government. Interested to hear how it might be achieved.
It is a hard question. But talk to any primary school teacher in a deprived area, and you’ll recognise it as a key question.
From an egalitarian point of view, it would have made more sense to abolish private schools and keep the grammar schools, rather than the other way round.
I just don't think it makes sense to abolish independent schools; attacks on independent schools are a political fetish that needs to be buried.
I have a family member who ended up having to go to an independent school, due (1) to a learning type disability and (2) because the state school could not deal with bullying, with all the corollories of loss of nice holidays for the family etc.
And yet there seem to be people arguing here yesterday that she should be discriminated against for Higher Education entrance as a result.
Bizarre.
If we made policies on the basis of individual examples of those who would be adversely affected by their roll-out, we would not have many policies. Many thousands were harmed by the bedroom tax, universal credit has harmed many thousands more. They still went shead.
On topic - Trump is genuinely unhinged. Leaving this crisis, I hope we have as clear a view of his administration as we do of the Chinese one. Neither can be remotely trusted.
Mr. Observer, abolishing private schools fails on the generalities as well as the specifics.
Increasing the burden on state schools with more pupils with no increase in income does nothing good. Eliminating good schools and putting more pressure on state schools is tomfoolery of the highest order, sacrificing practical success on the altar of political ideology.
I would keep private schools and abolish grammars.
Private schools: why do we always have to stick our envious little noses into other people's wallets and tell them how they are permitted to spend their own money? If they wish to use their hard-earned cash that way what the bloody hell has that got to do with anyone else? Tsk.
Grammar schools: nasty little brain-in-a-vat segregationalist quasi-apartheid hotbeds which sow deep division into societies and all based on a completely outdated totally spurious 1950's view of what makes for intelligence. A view that post-lockdown bears absolutely no relation to the world.
Every single student in the country should do drama. Especially the brains-in-a-vat.
Many thousands were harmed by the bedroom tax, universal credit has harmed many thousands more. They still went ahead.
Both these examples are top down spending of tax payers money. As was pointed out, everyone has the right to a spare bedroom, what you do not have is the right to demand others pay for it.
Mr. Observer, abolishing private schools fails on the generalities as well as the specifics.
Increasing the burden on state schools with more pupils with no increase in income does nothing good. Eliminating good schools and putting more pressure on state schools is tomfoolery of the highest order, sacrificing practical success on the altar of political ideology.
I am not advocating the abolishment of private schools. I don’t think they should get tax breaks, though.
Related to the Wuhan-Flu issue; Tim Harford has a great article in the FT on why we fail to prepare for disasters.
Google: "tim harford disasters"
A fantastic article.
What if we’re thinking about this the wrong way? What if instead of seeing Sars as the warning for Covid-19, we should see Covid-19 itself as the warning?
Private education is not just about schools. You lot are behind the times. Between here and the chippy are three converted shops offering private tuition out of school hours. I do not know if or how they are regulated but they certainly are busy, and common.
Many thousands were harmed by the bedroom tax, universal credit has harmed many thousands more. They still went ahead.
Both these examples are top down spending of tax payers money. As was pointed out, everyone has the right to a spare bedroom, what you do not have is the right to demand others pay for it.
In the same way, everyone has the right to educate their children privately, but what you do not have the right to demand is that others subsidise this.
I would keep private schools and abolish grammars.
Private schools: why do we always have to stick our envious little noses into other people's wallets and tell them how they are permitted to spend their own money? If they wish to use their hard-earned cash that way what the bloody hell has that got to do with anyone else? Tsk.
Grammar schools: nasty little brain-in-a-vat segregationalist quasi-apartheid hotbeds which sow deep division into societies and all based on a completely outdated totally spurious 1950's view of what makes for intelligence. A view that post-lockdown bears absolutely no relation to the world.
Every single student in the country should do drama. Especially the brains-in-a-vat.
I would keep private schools and abolish grammars.
Private schools: why do we always have to stick our envious little noses into other people's wallets and tell them how they are permitted to spend their own money? If they wish to use their hard-earned cash that way what the bloody hell has that got to do with anyone else? Tsk.
Grammar schools: nasty little brain-in-a-vat segregationalist quasi-apartheid hotbeds which sow deep division into societies and all based on a completely outdated totally spurious 1950's view of what makes for intelligence. A view that post-lockdown bears absolutely no relation to the world.
Every single student in the country should do drama. Especially the brains-in-a-vat.
Do you think comps should stream and set?
Yes. Definitely: absolutely essential. And integrate too for some activities. Equally essential.
Drama is brilliant for integration and team building and for the genuinely non-corporeal it lends itself to all kinds of add-ons like lighting, design, textiles, technology.
I would keep private schools and abolish grammars.
Private schools: why do we always have to stick our envious little noses into other people's wallets and tell them how they are permitted to spend their own money? If they wish to use their hard-earned cash that way what the bloody hell has that got to do with anyone else? Tsk.
Grammar schools: nasty little brain-in-a-vat segregationalist quasi-apartheid hotbeds which sow deep division into societies and all based on a completely outdated totally spurious 1950's view of what makes for intelligence. A view that post-lockdown bears absolutely no relation to the world.
Every single student in the country should do drama. Especially the brains-in-a-vat.
In the same way, everyone has the right to educate their children privately, but what you do not have the right to demand is that others subsidise this.
I see your point, but if you are talking about charitable status, education seems to me a reasonable subject for charity.
Related to the Wuhan-Flu issue; Tim Harford has a great article in the FT on why we fail to prepare for disasters.
Google: "tim harford disasters"
A fantastic article.
What if we’re thinking about this the wrong way? What if instead of seeing Sars as the warning for Covid-19, we should see Covid-19 itself as the warning?
Next time, will we be better prepared?
QTWTAIN
On recent form, Boris and Dominic Cummings will use this as an opportunity to take direct control of Health.
Every single student in the country should do drama. Especially the brains-in-a-vat.
I think every single student in the country should do engineering and statistics. Especially the arty types.
Do you see the problem?
Nope. See my reply below. Drama is the one activity everyone participates in as team-builders from on-stage to lighting to direction to costumes to technology. It's the only subject that is integrally integrational.
It's fascinating how having a child changes you. You automatically think (long term) about doing everything possible to give them the best possible start and advantages in life. I can only surmise this must be an evolutionary thing. Because it's so visceral within you.
In our case buying a family house near good schools was a key objective (which we achieved) and we are also investing and saving as much as we can (at the expense of pleasures and treats for ourselves) to also give us private education options as well.
I think that's perfectly natural and unobjectionable, and I'd expect anyone else to do the same.
I would keep private schools and abolish grammars.
Private schools: why do we always have to stick our envious little noses into other people's wallets and tell them how they are permitted to spend their own money? If they wish to use their hard-earned cash that way what the bloody hell has that got to do with anyone else? Tsk.
Grammar schools: nasty little brain-in-a-vat segregationalist quasi-apartheid hotbeds which sow deep division into societies and all based on a completely outdated totally spurious 1950's view of what makes for intelligence. A view that post-lockdown bears absolutely no relation to the world.
Every single student in the country should do drama. Especially the brains-in-a-vat.
Do you think comps should stream and set?
My kids were all streamed at their comprehensive.
I was streamed in Year 7 (presumably as they think it's nice for the kids to go round the big school together to begin with) and setted in Years 8-11.
A source had told the Guardian: “The new guidance will say ‘this is what you do if you don’t have any gowns’. Wear an apron instead – that will be the new policy for the foreseeable future, though the medical organisations will go mad about that.”
Yeah the government's popularity is going to take a hit.
This is universal credit all over again. You think the government will take a hit, but most people won't notice.
No this is the dementia tax. It feels like that anyway.
The policy where the government were going to "steal your house"?
It's like sending soldiers into battle with a pocket knife. The first nurse to die because of the revised guidelines is going to be on the front page of The Sun and all over social media.
There is a shortage of PPE.
Would you rather they didn’t treat the patients?
That’s rather beside the point, isn’t it ? As Max and Foxy acknowledge, most medics will risk there own safety when push comes to shove. The question is whether government inadequacies are continuing to force them to do so.
On this general subject, it would be interesting to know how many countries which are struggling with the coronavirus are doing as badly or worse than the NHS with respect to PPE.
Take this recent report - from Japan, which is richer and has a very much smaller outbreak to contend with than the UK:
"The Japanese city of Osaka has issued an urgent plea for citizens to donate plastic raincoats to hospitals running short of protective gear for staff treating coronavirus patients, with some doctors resorting to wearing garbage bags.
...
"Desperately trying to bridge the gap in supplies of protective gowns for its hospitals, a notice on the Osaka city web site said any color and style of raincoat was acceptable, including ponchos, as long as they were meant for adults.
"Ichiro Matsui, Osaka’s mayor, told a gathering in the city on Tuesday that medical facilities were running dangerously short of all sorts of protective gear."
It doesn't help the workers in the hospitals who aren't getting the supplies they need in the quantities they need, of course - and after this is all over there will probably be considerable pressure to establish a domestic industry for making medical kit, and an agency to manage and stockpile the stuff - but perhaps the Government has a point when it protests that the whole world is after PPE at the moment and it's bound to be a bit of a challenge to get hold of enough of it?
We've had 8 weeks to get manufacturing in place. Why was there not a call to industry made in early Feb to get manufacturing lined up?
You are being hysterical.
I don't think so, they have had good time to ensure companies were up and running and churning out what is needed. They are likely trying to work out how to give the contracts to their pals, aka ventilators to JCB and Dyson that never appeared, and they are making a hash of it. They could not run a piss up in a brewery.
In the same way, everyone has the right to educate their children privately, but what you do not have the right to demand is that others subsidise this.
I see your point, but if you are talking about charitable status, education seems to me a reasonable subject for charity.
In principle, yes. But I am not sure that we should be giving tax breaks to institutions that exclude on the basis of being able to pay.
Since grammar schools were abolished the percentage of top jobs going to the wealthiest (who tend to go to private schools) has increased. Whether that's just a random correlation is another question of course.
Indeed from 1945 to 1964 we had 5 PMs, 3 went to Eton, one to Harrow and one to Haileybury.
From 1964 to 1997 we also had 5 PMs all of whom went to state schools, 4 of them grammar schools.
From 1997 to now we have again had 5 PMs, 2 of whom went to Eton, one of whom went to Fettes and another of whom, May was at least partly privately educated.
These private schools have a lot to answer for, churning out useless arseholes.
Nope. See my reply below. Drama is the one activity everyone participates in as team-builders from on-stage to lighting to direction to costumes to technology. It's the only subject that is integrally integrational.
You could build a kit car. While the engineers work on the oily bits, the arts dept could design the paintwork and seat fabric.
My serious point: I think children in schools could do with less instruction on what they HAVE to do, and more choice as to what they want to do.
On topic - Trump is genuinely unhinged. Leaving this crisis, I hope we have as clear a view of his administration as we do of the Chinese one. Neither can be remotely trusted.
I agree with all that but I honestly think it would be better if he won a second term because there's no way he will go quietly if he does lose and the damage to the republic could be irreparable. If he wins he can descend into senescence and run Don Jr or Jared or Melania's vaginoplasty guy in 2024 and lose.
From an egalitarian point of view, it would have made more sense to abolish private schools and keep the grammar schools, rather than the other way round.
Or just not have schooling at all, since some schools are always going to be better than others.
The Khmer Rouge solution.
And not have banks because they are sometimes robbed.
The last few years they’ve been more robbers than robbed.
Comments
But TBC. I'm bushed.
Anybody stuck for lockdown reading I really do recommend A People's Tragedy but what with it being 20+ years old now I don't know whether any more interesting material has left the Russian archives and whether chunks of it therefore deserve a rewrite - would be interesting to get the views of one of PB's resident historians!
We want all children to attain the highest educational standard they are capable of
We want all health outcomes the best they can be
etc....down the list
What we mostly differ on his how to get there and what the limitations are as to what we can do
Where I think we do however differ on is when we get to
We want society to be fairer
This is one of those words that I think means different things to different people.
One of the things I am most critical of the lefties like Kinablu for however is they come up with solutions that sound good in theory but they then assume it will work just like that in practise which it generally won't because the thing they fail to take into account is human nature.
I don't have a problem particulary with Kinablu's general aspirations for a more equal society, I am positive he means it. The trouble is people have said that over and over throughout history and when they rally behind someone saying it and get them into power it turns out always so far that now they have power the person they rallied behind isn't so interested in an equal society just replacing one set of elites with his or her cronies.
If feminists had focused on equality as their main goal, they'd never have got anywhere. It's because they focused on something practical, female suffrage, and stayed focused on it from the mid-19th century until the late 1920's, that they got anywhere. And with this practicality out of the way, they were able to get all kinds of equality almost as a side-effect of political representation.
I think it's better, particularly if you want to be a radical movement, to focus on single points of leverage rather than things like equality which are broad and ultimately ethereal.
I get paid well a lot more than a shelf stacker. However with that pay goes high stress, unpaid overtime, 24/7 support one week in 4. Pay me the same as a shelf stacker and I will be ok then I will go stack shelves and get rid of all the annoyances
Highly academic
Mixed academic and vocational
vocational
vocational teaches skills such as plumbing, electrician, brick laying etc. I would also make the split from 14 and the child can choose to move to a different type at 15 as some will think they want one but don't like it.
Don't gate it by exam merely let the child choose which they wish to goto at 14.
The last two should also cover such things as how to run a small business
All should teach civics
The Khmer Rouge solution.
(and housing, and trains and...)
Google: "tim harford disasters"
What focus of leverage would you suggest ?
I have a family member who ended up having to go to an independent school, due (1) to a learning type disability and (2) because the state school could not deal with bullying, with all the corollories of loss of nice holidays for the family etc.
And yet there seem to be people arguing here yesterday that she should be discriminated against for Higher Education entrance as a result.
Bizarre.
But talk to any primary school teacher in a deprived area, and you’ll recognise it as a key question.
Mr. Observer, abolishing private schools fails on the generalities as well as the specifics.
Increasing the burden on state schools with more pupils with no increase in income does nothing good. Eliminating good schools and putting more pressure on state schools is tomfoolery of the highest order, sacrificing practical success on the altar of political ideology.
Private schools: why do we always have to stick our envious little noses into other people's wallets and tell them how they are permitted to spend their own money? If they wish to use their hard-earned cash that way what the bloody hell has that got to do with anyone else? Tsk.
Grammar schools: nasty little brain-in-a-vat segregationalist quasi-apartheid hotbeds which sow deep division into societies and all based on a completely outdated totally spurious 1950's view of what makes for intelligence. A view that post-lockdown bears absolutely no relation to the world.
Every single student in the country should do drama. Especially the brains-in-a-vat.
In the case of private schools, this is the freedom of the individual to spend their money on educating their children. Both these examples are top down spending of tax payers money. As was pointed out, everyone has the right to a spare bedroom, what you do not have is the right to demand others pay for it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY
What if we’re thinking about this the wrong way? What if instead of seeing Sars as the warning for Covid-19, we should see Covid-19 itself as the warning?
Next time, will we be better prepared?
QTWTAIN
Do you see the problem?
Drama is brilliant for integration and team building and for the genuinely non-corporeal it lends itself to all kinds of add-ons like lighting, design, textiles, technology.
Watch the Ken Robinson video.
Would you support abolishing tax breaks for religion?
[As an aside, you seem to describe a tax break as a subsidy. It isn't, because no money moves from the taxpayer to said organisation].
It's fascinating how having a child changes you. You automatically think (long term) about doing everything possible to give them the best possible start and advantages in life. I can only surmise this must be an evolutionary thing. Because it's so visceral within you.
In our case buying a family house near good schools was a key objective (which we achieved) and we are also investing and saving as much as we can (at the expense of pleasures and treats for ourselves) to also give us private education options as well.
I think that's perfectly natural and unobjectionable, and I'd expect anyone else to do the same.
There were 38 of us in my Year 11 maths class.
My serious point: I think children in schools could do with less instruction on what they HAVE to do, and more choice as to what they want to do.
Private schools reduce demand on the state sector whilst those who use them still fund state schools. Religions do not confer such benefits.
Still, interesting to hear your view on such matters.