31% of members think RBL is the answer to the shellacking Lab just got?
Jeez. Starmer has his work cut out.
I hope Starmer stands for stamina.
Assuming Starmer wins, what will all the Corbyn fans that joined while he was leader do?
1) Leave and set up new party.
2) Leave and get disinterested in Politics
3) Stay members paying the £4 a month but not do anything for the party.
4) Stay but continually campaign within the party for a return to a Corbyn like leader, in a never-eding civil war.
5) stay and campaign for the party as viscerally as they did before?
Clearly each is an individual and some will try each of the above, but what do we think most will do? given its potentially 100,000 plus people we are talking about it could make a difference to how successful labour are.
Most of the Corbynites I know (like myself) are philosophical about it - we lost, we accept it's time to try someone new, and we hope they won't swing violently right. Unless Starmer goes out of his way to attack them, I think most will stick around and see how it goes. They certainly won't start a new party in any number.
I still cannot quite understand how the Corbynites added anything other than to herald in possibly 10 years of rampant neoliberalism through their pathetic grandiose posturing of nonsense gesture politicking.,..seriously I hope all the Corbynites fuck off and disappear into some swamp somewhere....
Osborne was a neoliberal, Boris is not, even Blair was more neoliberal than Boris
Boris is a rampant neoliberal clothed in a false Keynesian fleece....
One of the great eccentricities of UK politics is how the right wing gloat in bathing in lefty policies (Cameron and civil partnerships), but as soon as a lefty ventures into righty territory (ie Blair with Iraq) they get absolutely fucking hammered....
Gay marriage was a liberal policy not a leftwing one and most of the Tory Party voted for the Iraq War
God, I bloody love Osea island. The silence and darkness is intense. 90 minutes from London.
And the bird life is insistent. When you drive along the Roman causeway at dusk, the white birds flee the car lights, like tiny frightened ghosts. And then the shadows thicken.
OOOOOOhhhhyeah
You hired the whole thing?
In late February I appear to be the only guest here. I am certainly the only person in the nine bedroom “Captain’s House”. There must be other people on the island (a few workers live here full time) but they are invisible.
It is a deliciously eerie feeling.
A bloody good place to ride out COVID-19. Shoot any potentially snotty bastard that ventures on the causeway....
Now there's a novel.
Or maybe an island in Poole Harbour. Or one of the tinier Scilly Isles.
But for full-on Gothic atmospherics, Osea is almost impossible to beat. The Battle of Maldon took place here (and on the neighbouring isle) - the skulls of Saxon warriors sleep beneath the shingle.
The oyster beds are Roman. The villa was used for rehabbing Amy Winehouse. There are five species of owl.
Probably had a Snowy Owl too out there, over the years.
A crazy amphibian soundtrack too, at this time of the year.
There is a hotel in Hodbarrow Bird Reserve right on the edge of the sea. It used to be the HQ of the local mining company. Reputed to be haunted. I stayed there during the Storm Dennis weekend. The only guest. With the wind howling, the rain lashing, the sea stormy etc etc.
And after the storm, the air was so clear, the light limpid and the views out to sea and to the mountains magnificent.
There is something special about the light you get near the sea.
It’s remarkable why this rule is so hard for some motorists to understand.
Who cares? There are more important things in life, yet this seems to wind up the leather glove brigade.
It's a sign that the driver responsible isn't paying enough attention to be safe enough on the road and it's so easy to get right, quite apart from the inherent rudeness of it.
Meh. Much of the time on the M6 changing lanes is a largely pointless exercise.
God, I bloody love Osea island. The silence and darkness is intense. 90 minutes from London.
And the bird life is insistent. When you drive along the Roman causeway at dusk, the white birds flee the car lights, like tiny frightened ghosts. And then the shadows thicken.
OOOOOOhhhhyeah
You hired the whole thing?
In late February I appear to be the only guest here. I am certainly the only person in the nine bedroom “Captain’s House”. There must be other people on the island (a few workers live here full time) but they are invisible.
It is a deliciously eerie feeling.
A bloody good place to ride out COVID-19. Shoot any potentially snotty bastard that ventures on the causeway....
Now there's a novel.
Or maybe an island in Poole Harbour. Or one of the tinier Scilly Isles.
But for full-on Gothic atmospherics, Osea is almost impossible to beat. The Battle of Maldon took place here (and on the neighbouring isle) - the skulls of Saxon warriors sleep beneath the shingle.
The oyster beds are Roman. The villa was used for rehabbing Amy Winehouse. There are five species of owl.
I was liking the idea of the long, long causeway and picking off the occasional wanderer on it, never to discover they were coming to bring news it was safe to go to Asda in Chelmsford again.....
I have no problem with being investigated - as long as I know it’s happening! I am confident I can make my case, but I need the chance to.
Yes, fair enough. But we'll have to hope the new leadership speeds up the process. Surrey SW had 3 members who endorsed a National Health candidate in 2017. They were expelled for opposing the Labour candidate, and it's hard to qrgue with that as the rules are clear. However, they are all good Labour supporters who made a mistake in pursuing tactical voting where it clearly would'nt work (the NHA candidate didn't come close to winning). It has taken 3 years so far to have their appeals examined. Only one of them is still trying, and appears about to get readmitted.
Of course, if they do it too quickly you get bad decisions - anti-semites and loonies readmitted or not expelled, etc. In a way I quite like the idea of farming it out to an independent body, and let them wrestle with it.
Anyway, if you can get your CLP chair to support your application, that might help (though it has had noi perceptible effect in our case).
31% of members think RBL is the answer to the shellacking Lab just got?
Jeez. Starmer has his work cut out.
I hope Starmer stands for stamina.
Assuming Starmer wins, what will all the Corbyn fans that joined while he was leader do?
1) Leave and set up new party.
2) Leave and get disinterested in Politics
3) Stay members paying the £4 a month but not do anything for the party.
4) Stay but continually campaign within the party for a return to a Corbyn like leader, in a never-eding civil war.
5) stay and campaign for the party as viscerally as they did before?
Clearly each is an individual and some will try each of the above, but what do we think most will do? given its potentially 100,000 plus people we are talking about it could make a difference to how successful labour are.
Most of the Corbynites I know (like myself) are philosophical about it - we lost, we accept it's time to try someone new, and we hope they won't swing violently right. Unless Starmer goes out of his way to attack them, I think most will stick around and see how it goes. They certainly won't start a new party in any number.
I still cannot quite understand how the Corbynites added anything other than to herald in possibly 10 years of rampant neoliberalism through their pathetic grandiose posturing of nonsense gesture politicking.,..seriously I hope all the Corbynites fuck off and disappear into some swamp somewhere....
Osborne was a neoliberal, Boris is not, even Blair was more neoliberal than Boris
Boris is a rampant neoliberal clothed in a false Keynesian fleece....
One of the great eccentricities of UK politics is how the right wing gloat in bathing in lefty policies (Cameron and civil partnerships), but as soon as a lefty ventures into righty territory (ie Blair with Iraq) they get absolutely fucking hammered....
There is nothing in any conservative philosophy I've ever heard of which says that the illegal mass killing of brown people is inherently praiseworthy. The proper tory approach to Iraq was: we believe in due process which means we act on Hans blix's findings, irrespective of the desire of the pm to fellate the potus.
God, I bloody love Osea island. The silence and darkness is intense. 90 minutes from London.
And the bird life is insistent. When you drive along the Roman causeway at dusk, the white birds flee the car lights, like tiny frightened ghosts. And then the shadows thicken.
OOOOOOhhhhyeah
You hired the whole thing?
In late February I appear to be the only guest here. I am certainly the only person in the nine bedroom “Captain’s House”. There must be other people on the island (a few workers live here full time) but they are invisible.
It is a deliciously eerie feeling.
A bloody good place to ride out COVID-19. Shoot any potentially snotty bastard that ventures on the causeway....
Now there's a novel.
Or maybe an island in Poole Harbour. Or one of the tinier Scilly Isles.
But for full-on Gothic atmospherics, Osea is almost impossible to beat. The Battle of Maldon took place here (and on the neighbouring isle) - the skulls of Saxon warriors sleep beneath the shingle.
The oyster beds are Roman. The villa was used for rehabbing Amy Winehouse. There are five species of owl.
Probably had a Snowy Owl too out there, over the years.
A crazy amphibian soundtrack too, at this time of the year.
There is a hotel in Hodbarrow Bird Reserve right on the edge of the sea. It used to be the HQ of the local mining company. Reputed to be haunted. I stayed there during the Storm Dennis weekend. The only guest. With the wind howling, the rain lashing, the sea stormy etc etc.
And after the storm, the air was so clear, the light limpid and the views out to sea and to the mountains magnificent.
There is something special about the light you get near the sea.
My bedroom looks out onto the sunrise in winter. It often gives giant slabs of colour, my very own and very temporary Mark Rothko canvas.
Starmer says the last election campaign was terrible by Labour and made Boris look good, says the problems were the leadership, anti Semitism and Brexit
I guess Labour is really happy with upper middle class white men leading the party then.
Why would Labour object to having a leader who has worked his way through the English class system to achieve extraordinary things, helped in large part by a redistributive state that enabled him to fulfil his potential? What Starmer has achieved is everything that Labour should be about.
Bring back Grammars and expand assisted places at Fee paying schools? Sounds good
I can’t argue against grammar schools. I went to one and it was very good for me. The issue is what happens to the 75% or so of kids who don’t get in. There is also a fairness issue. I did not initially get into my school, even though I passed my 11+ and was literally the closest child to it. The second closest applicant didn’t get in either. My Dad fixed lifts, his Dad was a taxi driver. Kids who lived further away, with parents in the professions were accepted, though. We both ended up going because others dropped out and went private instead. That was the 70s, and I doubt things would be as blatant now, but bias is always an issue when there is selection.
The other kids, who don’t get in, go to the kind of schools we have now. Comprehensive school teachers are all supposedly of similar ability, so it shouldn’t make much difference. I’d say the most beneficial effect of a Grammar is to be in an environment where academic ability isn’t seen as something to be ashamed of.
When I was thinking of being a Kipper candidate, my policy suggestion was to turn the school in the worst part of each constituency into a Grammar to put house prices up as well as give poor kids a better chance
...and, when I was Eleven, 100% of the kids in my area didn't get in, because there weren't any to get into. The local comp at the end of my street told my Mum that their aim was to make everyone a 7/10. When she said "What about the 9/10s?" they didn't have an answer, and she had to move heaven and earth to get me into a different comp, three miles away, that had higher expectations
Starmer says the last election campaign was terrible by Labour and made Boris look good, says the problems were the leadership, anti Semitism and Brexit
Good for him then that he stood up to the leadership on anti-semitism and had no hand in Brexit......
Just had a thought, what are the chances of a baby boom because of the virus. If London were to get locked down my partner and I would be stuck in our flat with not a lot else to do.
When Biden wins SC I am expecting the market to go bananananananas
Brokered convention here we come with Hillary Clinton as the one every unites behind.
Not even in jest
She's my only red now, so it's going to happen.
You are going to pay a terrible price in all other aspects of your life for Liverpool winning the League.
Remember that Faustian pact?
It's coming home It's coming home It's coming Football's coming home
Liver bird on a shirt Old big ears still gleaming Thirty years of hurt Never stopped me dreaming
Are you from Liverpool or - like the majority of PB Reds - nothing to do with Merseyside whatsoever?
Close. Other side of the water, was born in Arrowe Park. I'm a Tranmere Rovers and Liverpool fan, all my family back Tranmere and either Liverpool or Everton.
Starmer says the last election campaign was terrible by Labour and made Boris look good, says the problems were the leadership, anti Semitism and Brexit
Good for him then that he stood up to the leadership on anti-semitism and had no hand in Brexit......
Haha yeah! He tried to stop Brexit, and his policy going forward is to retain FOM!! 🙈
He’ll have the new Tories from behind the ‘red wall’ building statues of Maggie
...and, when I was Eleven, 100% of the kids in my area didn't get in, because there weren't any to get into. The local comp at the end of my street told my Mum that their aim was to make everyone a 7/10. When she said "What about the 9/10s?" they didn't have an answer, and she had to move heaven and earth to get me into a different comp, three miles away, that had higher expectations
One of the things I hate about the grammar school discussion is how unanchored it is to facts. Too many people substitute anecdote.
The first question we have to ask ourselves is: what are we looking to maximise? Resources are always finite. And this matters.
Then let's choose a small number of educational authorities, and let's try out two, three, four different systems, and see which meets our goals best. Let's have a clear idea of what we're trying to achieve, and see which systems achieve it.
Now, it may be that grammar schools increase the results of the best, while not causing the results of the rest to fall back. In which case, WHOOO WHOOO, go for it. But it may also be that for every person you raise from an 8/10 to a 9/10 achievement, two others see their results drop from a 5/10 to a 4/10.
The point is, we need to agree first on what our goal is. And then we need to test systems to see which ones achieve that goal.
Arguing over one school system over another on the basis of anecdote is a recipe for poor decision making.
...and, when I was Eleven, 100% of the kids in my area didn't get in, because there weren't any to get into. The local comp at the end of my street told my Mum that their aim was to make everyone a 7/10. When she said "What about the 9/10s?" they didn't have an answer, and she had to move heaven and earth to get me into a different comp, three miles away, that had higher expectations
One of the things I hate about the grammar school discussion is how unanchored it is to facts. Too many people substitute anecdote.
The first question we have to ask ourselves is: what are we looking to maximise? Resources are always finite. And this matters.
Then let's choose a small number of educational authorities, and let's try out two, three, four different systems, and see which meets our goals best. Let's have a clear idea of what we're trying to achieve, and see which systems achieve it.
Now, it may be that grammar schools increase the results of the best, while not causing the results of the rest to fall back. In which case, WHOOO WHOOO, go for it. But it may also be that for every person you raise from an 8/10 to a 9/10 achievement, two others see their results drop from a 5/10 to a 4/10.
The point is, we need to agree first on what our goal is. And then we need to test systems to see which ones achieve that goal.
Arguing over one school system over another on the basis of anecdote is a recipe for poor decision making.
Sensible talk like that, to the tower....if only the whole of politics worked on this basis.
One thing that I think is rather sad is that the government doesn't have the nudge unit anymore. What you describe is exactly what they did for a whole range of public policy initiatives, and one of the best "out there" ideas Cameron went with.
...and, when I was Eleven, 100% of the kids in my area didn't get in, because there weren't any to get into. The local comp at the end of my street told my Mum that their aim was to make everyone a 7/10. When she said "What about the 9/10s?" they didn't have an answer, and she had to move heaven and earth to get me into a different comp, three miles away, that had higher expectations
One of the things I hate about the grammar school discussion is how unanchored it is to facts. Too many people substitute anecdote.
The first question we have to ask ourselves is: what are we looking to maximise? Resources are always finite. And this matters.
Then let's choose a small number of educational authorities, and let's try out two, three, four different systems, and see which meets our goals best. Let's have a clear idea of what we're trying to achieve, and see which systems achieve it.
Now, it may be that grammar schools increase the results of the best, while not causing the results of the rest to fall back. In which case, WHOOO WHOOO, go for it. But it may also be that for every person you raise from an 8/10 to a 9/10 achievement, two others see their results drop from a 5/10 to a 4/10.
The point is, we need to agree first on what our goal is. And then we need to test systems to see which ones achieve that goal.
Arguing over one school system over another on the basis of anecdote is a recipe for poor decision making.
An excellent analysis.
My own anecdotal evidence is I first went to a comprehensive which I loved and later a grammar that I hated. That means nothing in the grand scheme of things.
I do have an issue with a child labelled as a failure from a test they took aged 11. Speak to many who failed the 11 plus and that issue seems to loom large. For some it is a spur to overcome adversity, for others it became a millstone for life. I am not sure a return to the 11 plus is the way forward.
When Biden wins SC I am expecting the market to go bananananananas
Brokered convention here we come with Hillary Clinton as the one every unites behind.
Not even in jest
She's my only red now, so it's going to happen.
You are going to pay a terrible price in all other aspects of your life for Liverpool winning the League.
Remember that Faustian pact?
It's coming home It's coming home It's coming Football's coming home
Liver bird on a shirt Old big ears still gleaming Thirty years of hurt Never stopped me dreaming
Are you from Liverpool or - like the majority of PB Reds - nothing to do with Merseyside whatsoever?
Ah, this nonsense again. I never did get an answer to how close to somewhere one was allowed to be in order to support a particular team, particularly if no local team exists to support. A mile, 5 miles, 10 miles, lord only knows. Apparently the arbitrary nature of support for kicking a ball is the where one finds the difference between those with true nobility of spirit and capricious, mercenary souls, curse them.
...and, when I was Eleven, 100% of the kids in my area didn't get in, because there weren't any to get into. The local comp at the end of my street told my Mum that their aim was to make everyone a 7/10. When she said "What about the 9/10s?" they didn't have an answer, and she had to move heaven and earth to get me into a different comp, three miles away, that had higher expectations
One of the things I hate about the grammar school discussion is how unanchored it is to facts. Too many people substitute anecdote.
The first question we have to ask ourselves is: what are we looking to maximise? Resources are always finite. And this matters.
Then let's choose a small number of educational authorities, and let's try out two, three, four different systems, and see which meets our goals best. Let's have a clear idea of what we're trying to achieve, and see which systems achieve it.
Now, it may be that grammar schools increase the results of the best, while not causing the results of the rest to fall back. In which case, WHOOO WHOOO, go for it. But it may also be that for every person you raise from an 8/10 to a 9/10 achievement, two others see their results drop from a 5/10 to a 4/10.
The point is, we need to agree first on what our goal is. And then we need to test systems to see which ones achieve that goal.
Arguing over one school system over another on the basis of anecdote is a recipe for poor decision making.
Well I don’t have an anecdote really, as I have never had any experience of Grammar schools whatsoever. They just seem like a great idea to me.
Surprised you haven’t come out with one though! First time for everything
...and, when I was Eleven, 100% of the kids in my area didn't get in, because there weren't any to get into. The local comp at the end of my street told my Mum that their aim was to make everyone a 7/10. When she said "What about the 9/10s?" they didn't have an answer, and she had to move heaven and earth to get me into a different comp, three miles away, that had higher expectations
One of the things I hate about the grammar school discussion is how unanchored it is to facts. Too many people substitute anecdote.
The first question we have to ask ourselves is: what are we looking to maximise? Resources are always finite. And this matters.
Then let's choose a small number of educational authorities, and let's try out two, three, four different systems, and see which meets our goals best. Let's have a clear idea of what we're trying to achieve, and see which systems achieve it.
Now, it may be that grammar schools increase the results of the best, while not causing the results of the rest to fall back. In which case, WHOOO WHOOO, go for it. But it may also be that for every person you raise from an 8/10 to a 9/10 achievement, two others see their results drop from a 5/10 to a 4/10.
The point is, we need to agree first on what our goal is. And then we need to test systems to see which ones achieve that goal.
Arguing over one school system over another on the basis of anecdote is a recipe for poor decision making.
I can think of few issues that are as wholly driven by anecdote as this one. In fact, I have a personal story about that very thing, you see...
It’s remarkable why this rule is so hard for some motorists to understand.
Who cares? There are more important things in life, yet this seems to wind up the leather glove brigade.
It's a sign that the driver responsible isn't paying enough attention to be safe enough on the road and it's so easy to get right, quite apart from the inherent rudeness of it.
Meh. Much of the time on the M6 changing lanes is a largely pointless exercise.
If the left lane is occupied you're not hogging the middle lane. If it isn't you should be in it.
...and, when I was Eleven, 100% of the kids in my area didn't get in, because there weren't any to get into. The local comp at the end of my street told my Mum that their aim was to make everyone a 7/10. When she said "What about the 9/10s?" they didn't have an answer, and she had to move heaven and earth to get me into a different comp, three miles away, that had higher expectations
One of the things I hate about the grammar school discussion is how unanchored it is to facts. Too many people substitute anecdote.
The first question we have to ask ourselves is: what are we looking to maximise? Resources are always finite. And this matters.
Then let's choose a small number of educational authorities, and let's try out two, three, four different systems, and see which meets our goals best. Let's have a clear idea of what we're trying to achieve, and see which systems achieve it.
Now, it may be that grammar schools increase the results of the best, while not causing the results of the rest to fall back. In which case, WHOOO WHOOO, go for it. But it may also be that for every person you raise from an 8/10 to a 9/10 achievement, two others see their results drop from a 5/10 to a 4/10.
The point is, we need to agree first on what our goal is. And then we need to test systems to see which ones achieve that goal.
Arguing over one school system over another on the basis of anecdote is a recipe for poor decision making.
Well I don’t have an anecdote really, as I have never had any experience of Grammar schools whatsoever. They just seem like a great idea to me.
Surprised you haven’t come out with one though! First time for everything
My anecdote is that - if I'd still been living in Hampstead - then I'd have put my daughter forward for the Henrietta Barnett exams. (That's the local grammar school.)
Because I think it would have been best for her to go to a selective school.
And, if she got in, I would expect I'd have become a wholehearted fan of grammar schools. If she was rejected, I'd probably argue they were shit, and the resources should be shared around all schools.
When Biden wins SC I am expecting the market to go bananananananas
Brokered convention here we come with Hillary Clinton as the one every unites behind.
Not even in jest
She's my only red now, so it's going to happen.
You are going to pay a terrible price in all other aspects of your life for Liverpool winning the League.
Remember that Faustian pact?
It's coming home It's coming home It's coming Football's coming home
Liver bird on a shirt Old big ears still gleaming Thirty years of hurt Never stopped me dreaming
Are you from Liverpool or - like the majority of PB Reds - nothing to do with Merseyside whatsoever?
Ah, this nonsense again. I never did get an answer to how close to somewhere one was allowed to be in order to support a particular team, particularly if no local team exists to support. A mile, 5 miles, 10 miles, lord only knows. Apparently the arbitrary nature of support for kicking a ball is the where one finds the difference between those with true nobility of spirit and capricious, mercenary souls, curse them.
I live in Los Angeles, therefore I support Los Angeles Football Club.
If I lived in Carson then I expect I would support Carson Los Angeles Galaxy.
Just had a thought, what are the chances of a baby boom because of the virus. If London were to get locked down my partner and I would be stuck in our flat with not a lot else to do.
There is a discernible uptick in the US birthrate traceable to the end of daylight saving time so it would be reasonable to expect it to have an effect.
...and, when I was Eleven, 100% of the kids in my area didn't get in, because there weren't any to get into. The local comp at the end of my street told my Mum that their aim was to make everyone a 7/10. When she said "What about the 9/10s?" they didn't have an answer, and she had to move heaven and earth to get me into a different comp, three miles away, that had higher expectations
One of the things I hate about the grammar school discussion is how unanchored it is to facts. Too many people substitute anecdote.
The first question we have to ask ourselves is: what are we looking to maximise? Resources are always finite. And this matters.
Then let's choose a small number of educational authorities, and let's try out two, three, four different systems, and see which meets our goals best. Let's have a clear idea of what we're trying to achieve, and see which systems achieve it.
Now, it may be that grammar schools increase the results of the best, while not causing the results of the rest to fall back. In which case, WHOOO WHOOO, go for it. But it may also be that for every person you raise from an 8/10 to a 9/10 achievement, two others see their results drop from a 5/10 to a 4/10.
The point is, we need to agree first on what our goal is. And then we need to test systems to see which ones achieve that goal.
Arguing over one school system over another on the basis of anecdote is a recipe for poor decision making.
Well I don’t have an anecdote really, as I have never had any experience of Grammar schools whatsoever. They just seem like a great idea to me.
Surprised you haven’t come out with one though! First time for everything
My anecdote is that - if I'd still been living in Hampstead - then I'd have put my daughter forward for the Henrietta Barnett exams. (That's the local grammar school.)
Because I think it would have been best for her to go to a selective school.
And, if she got in, I would expect I'd have become a wholehearted fan of grammar schools. If she was rejected, I'd probably argue they were shit, and the resources should be shared around all schools.
At least she’d have had the chance to sit the exam
Why should the resources be any different to a comp? Just fewer slow kids taking up the teachers time, less peer pressure to fuck about rather than work I’d say.
...and, when I was Eleven, 100% of the kids in my area didn't get in, because there weren't any to get into. The local comp at the end of my street told my Mum that their aim was to make everyone a 7/10. When she said "What about the 9/10s?" they didn't have an answer, and she had to move heaven and earth to get me into a different comp, three miles away, that had higher expectations
One of the things I hate about the grammar school discussion is how unanchored it is to facts. Too many people substitute anecdote.
The first question we have to ask ourselves is: what are we looking to maximise? Resources are always finite. And this matters.
Then let's choose a small number of educational authorities, and let's try out two, three, four different systems, and see which meets our goals best. Let's have a clear idea of what we're trying to achieve, and see which systems achieve it.
Now, it may be that grammar schools increase the results of the best, while not causing the results of the rest to fall back. In which case, WHOOO WHOOO, go for it. But it may also be that for every person you raise from an 8/10 to a 9/10 achievement, two others see their results drop from a 5/10 to a 4/10.
The point is, we need to agree first on what our goal is. And then we need to test systems to see which ones achieve that goal.
Arguing over one school system over another on the basis of anecdote is a recipe for poor decision making.
Well I don’t have an anecdote really, as I have never had any experience of Grammar schools whatsoever. They just seem like a great idea to me.
Surprised you haven’t come out with one though! First time for everything
My anecdote is that - if I'd still been living in Hampstead - then I'd have put my daughter forward for the Henrietta Barnett exams. (That's the local grammar school.)
Because I think it would have been best for her to go to a selective school.
And, if she got in, I would expect I'd have become a wholehearted fan of grammar schools. If she was rejected, I'd probably argue they were shit, and the resources should be shared around all schools.
At least she’d have had the chance to sit the exam
My point is that we're not just maximising my daughter's academic achievement, we're supposed to be maximising all childrens' outcomes.
If grammar schools can work for the best without resulting in worse outcomes for average students, then we absolutely should have them. On the other hand, if their existence worsens the educational outcomes for a whole swathe of people (and I don't know if it does or doesn't) then it's a much, much harder call. School systems don't just exist for the top 15% of children.
...and, when I was Eleven, 100% of the kids in my area didn't get in, because there weren't any to get into. The local comp at the end of my street told my Mum that their aim was to make everyone a 7/10. When she said "What about the 9/10s?" they didn't have an answer, and she had to move heaven and earth to get me into a different comp, three miles away, that had higher expectations
One of the things I hate about the grammar school discussion is how unanchored it is to facts. Too many people substitute anecdote.
The first question we have to ask ourselves is: what are we looking to maximise? Resources are always finite. And this matters. The point is, we need to agree first on what our goal is. And then we need to test systems to see which ones achieve that goal.
Arguing over one school system over another on the basis of anecdote is a recipe for poor decision making.
Well I don’t have an anecdote really, as I have never had any experience of Grammar schools whatsoever. They just seem like a great idea to me.
Surprised you haven’t come out with one though! First time for everything
My anecdote is that - if I'd still been living in Hampstead - then I'd have put my daughter forward for the Henrietta Barnett exams. (That's the local grammar school.)
Because I think it would have been best for her to go to a selective school.
And, if she got in, I would expect I'd have become a wholehearted fan of grammar schools. If she was rejected, I'd probably argue they were shit, and the resources should be shared around all schools.
At least she’d have had the chance to sit the exam
My point is that we're not just maximising my daughter's academic achievement, we're supposed to be maximising all childrens' outcomes.
If grammar schools can work for the best without resulting in worse outcomes for average students, then we absolutely should have them. On the other hand, if their existence worsens the educational outcomes for a whole swathe of people (and I don't know if it does or doesn't) then it's a much, much harder call. School systems don't just exist for the top 15% of children.
Why should the resources be any different to a comp? Just fewer slow kids taking up the teachers time, less peer pressure to fuck about rather than work I’d say.
Why would it be worse to have clever kids learning together with fewer that need constant attention?
...and, when I was Eleven, 100% of the kids in my area didn't get in, because there weren't any to get into. The local comp at the end of my street told my Mum that their aim was to make everyone a 7/10. When she said "What about the 9/10s?" they didn't have an answer, and she had to move heaven and earth to get me into a different comp, three miles away, that had higher expectations
One of the things I hate about the grammar school discussion is how unanchored it is to facts. Too many people substitute anecdote.
The first question we have to ask ourselves is: what are we looking to maximise? Resources are always finite. And this matters.
Then let's choose a small number of educational authorities, and let's try out two, three, four different systems, and see which meets our goals best. Let's have a clear idea of what we're trying to achieve, and see which systems achieve it.
Now, it may be that grammar schools increase the results of the best, while not causing the results of the rest to fall back. In which case, WHOOO WHOOO, go for it. But it may also be that for every person you raise from an 8/10 to a 9/10 achievement, two others see their results drop from a 5/10 to a 4/10.
The point is, we need to agree first on what our goal is. And then we need to test systems to see which ones achieve that goal.
Arguing over one school system over another on the basis of anecdote is a recipe for poor decision making.
It depends what you mean by grammar schools. Are you talking about the Kent system, where nearly a third of pupils attend grammar schools ? Or elsewhere in the UK, where grammar schools constitute a far smaller percentage in a given local authority ? What alternatives would you provide ? And what would the ‘goal’ be ? We know from the chequered history of target setting how greatly it can distort outcomes....
The other problem with your idea is the sheer length of time it would take to run any meaningful test.
Why should the resources be any different to a comp? Just fewer slow kids taking up the teachers time, less peer pressure to fuck about rather than work I’d say.
Why would it be worse to have clever kids learning together with fewer that need constant attention?
This is not a question of resources, it is a question about whether the next 85% (assuming the top 15% go to grammars) perform as well at Secondary Moderns as they do at Comprehensives.
Because we need to know that, to see if we're maximising the outcome for society as a whole.
Imagine for a second that everyone has an educational achievement score of somewhere between 0 and 100. And the average for the top 15% in a Comprehensive system is 70. Now, if you put these 15% in Grammar schools, what does that change to? Is it 71 or 73 or 75?
Now, let's look at the next 85%. Imagine they average 45 in Comprehensive schools. Do they average 40 or 45 or 50 in Secondary Moderns? Unless you know the answers to these questions, they you don't know if Grammars work. All we're doing is dealing in personal opinion.
You are going to pay a terrible price in all other aspects of your life for Liverpool winning the League.
Remember that Faustian pact?
It's coming home It's coming home It's coming Football's coming home
Liver bird on a shirt Old big ears still gleaming Thirty years of hurt Never stopped me dreaming
Are you from Liverpool or - like the majority of PB Reds - nothing to do with Merseyside whatsoever?
Ah, this nonsense again. I never did get an answer to how close to somewhere one was allowed to be in order to support a particular team, particularly if no local team exists to support. A mile, 5 miles, 10 miles, lord only knows. Apparently the arbitrary nature of support for kicking a ball is the where one finds the difference between those with true nobility of spirit and capricious, mercenary souls, curse them.
Precisely. A lot of people like local teams, or non-local teams, and there's no shame either way. I am from Merseyside but I don't look down my nose upon anyone who isn't.
Plus the reasons people have to support a team that's not local can vary. A lot of the team it can be due to family influences that do trace back to being local. We no longer live in Merseyside but I'm not going to abandon my teams or start supporting a new team every time I move!
My children can support whoever they want to support as they grow up, but she's of an age at the moment where she wants to support "daddies team". She also likes Liverpool because of her Liverpool teddies which I've bought her, she's got 2 (one called Steven, one called Gerrard, my wife chose the teddies names).
Am I somehow a better fan because I am from Mereseyside? Is my daughter somehow a lesser fan if she grows up to support a non-local club that runs in her family and is where her father and his side of the family came from?
Its ridiculous. People shouldn't be judged for who they support. Unless its Manchester United.
...and, when I was Eleven, 100% of the kids in my area didn't get in, because there weren't any to get into. The local comp at the end of my street told my Mum that their aim was to make everyone a 7/10. When she said "What about the 9/10s?" they didn't have an answer, and she had to move heaven and earth to get me into a different comp, three miles away, that had higher expectations
One of the things I hate about the grammar school discussion is how unanchored it is to facts. Too many people substitute anecdote.
The first question we have to ask ourselves is: what are we looking to maximise? Resources are always finite. And this matters.
Then let's choose a small number of educational authorities, and let's try out two, three, four different systems, and see which meets our goals best. Let's have a clear idea of what we're trying to achieve, and see which systems achieve it.
Now, it may be that grammar schools increase the results of the best, while not causing the results of the rest to fall back. In which case, WHOOO WHOOO, go for it. But it may also be that for every person you raise from an 8/10 to a 9/10 achievement, two others see their results drop from a 5/10 to a 4/10.
The point is, we need to agree first on what our goal is. And then we need to test systems to see which ones achieve that goal.
Arguing over one school system over another on the basis of anecdote is a recipe for poor decision making.
It depends what you mean by grammar schools. Are you talking about the Kent system, where nearly a third of pupils attend grammar schools ? Or elsewhere in the UK, where grammar schools constitute a far smaller percentage in a given local authority ? What alternatives would you provide ? And what would the ‘goal’ be ? We know from the chequered history of target setting how greatly it can distort outcomes....
The other problem with your idea is the sheer length of time it would take to run any meaningful test.
We have regular "Key Stage" tests, so it could be found out in a couple of years. Frankly, you're a long time being grown up, so getting the right system matters.
...and, when I was Eleven, 100% of the kids in my area didn't get in, because there weren't any to get into. The local comp at the end of my street told my Mum that their aim was to make everyone a 7/10. When she said "What about the 9/10s?" they didn't have an answer, and she had to move heaven and earth to get me into a different comp, three miles away, that had higher expectations
One of the things I hate about the grammar school discussion is how unanchored it is to facts. Too many people substitute anecdote.
The first question we have to ask ourselves is: what are we looking to maximise? Resources are always finite. And this matters. The point is, we need to agree first on what our goal is. And then we need to test systems to see which ones achieve that goal.
Arguing over one school system over another on the basis of anecdote is a recipe for poor decision making.
Well I don’t have an anecdote really, as I have never had any experience of Grammar schools whatsoever. They just seem like a great idea to me.
Surprised you haven’t come out with one though! First time for everything
My anecdote is that - if I'd still been living in Hampstead - then I'd have put my daughter forward for the Henrietta Barnett exams. (That's the local grammar school.)
Because I think it would have been best for her to go to a selective school.
And, if she got in, I would expect I'd have become a wholehearted fan of grammar schools. If she was rejected, I'd probably argue they were shit, and the resources should be shared around all schools.
At least she’d have had the chance to sit the exam
My point is that we're not just maximising my daughter's academic achievement, we're supposed to be maximising all childrens' outcomes.
If grammar schools can work for the best without resulting in worse outcomes for average students, then we absolutely should have them. On the other hand, if their existence worsens the educational outcomes for a whole swathe of people (and I don't know if it does or doesn't) then it's a much, much harder call. School systems don't just exist for the top 15% of children.
Why should the resources be any different to a comp? Just fewer slow kids taking up the teachers time, less peer pressure to fuck about rather than work I’d say...
In pure cash terms, they shouldn’t be (though that is not always the case).
But grammar schools skew prosperous middle class, so parental resources are almost always significantly greater. And they tend to get the better teachers overall, for obvious reasons.
Why should the resources be any different to a comp? Just fewer slow kids taking up the teachers time, less peer pressure to fuck about rather than work I’d say.
Why would it be worse to have clever kids learning together with fewer that need constant attention?
This is not a question of resources, it is a question about whether the next 85% (assuming the top 15% go to grammars) perform as well at Secondary Moderns as they do at Comprehensives.
Because we need to know that, to see if we're maximising the outcome for society as a whole.
Imagine for a second that everyone has an educational achievement score of somewhere between 0 and 100. And the average for the top 15% in a Comprehensive system is 70. Now, if you put these 15% in Grammar schools, what does that change to? Is it 71 or 73 or 75?
Now, let's look at the next 85%. Imagine they average 45 in Comprehensive schools. Do they average 40 or 45 or 50 in Secondary Moderns? Unless you know the answers to these questions, they you don't know if Grammars work. All we're doing is dealing in personal opinion.
Why would the score for those in the 85% change if the clever kids weren’t there?
...and, when I was Eleven, 100% of the kids in my area didn't get in, because there weren't any to get into. The local comp at the end of my street told my Mum that their aim was to make everyone a 7/10. When she said "What about the 9/10s?" they didn't have an answer, and she had to move heaven and earth to get me into a different comp, three miles away, that had higher expectations
One of the things I hate about the grammar school discussion is how unanchored it is to facts. Too many people substitute anecdote.
The first question we have to ask ourselves is: what are we looking to maximise? Resources are always finite. And this matters.
Then let's choose a small number of educational authorities, and let's try out two, three, four different systems, and see which meets our goals best. Let's have a clear idea of what we're trying to achieve, and see which systems achieve it.
Now, it may be that grammar schools increase the results of the best, while not causing the results of the rest to fall back. In which case, WHOOO WHOOO, go for it. But it may also be that for every person you raise from an 8/10 to a 9/10 achievement, two others see their results drop from a 5/10 to a 4/10.
The point is, we need to agree first on what our goal is. And then we need to test systems to see which ones achieve that goal.
Arguing over one school system over another on the basis of anecdote is a recipe for poor decision making.
It depends what you mean by grammar schools. Are you talking about the Kent system, where nearly a third of pupils attend grammar schools ? Or elsewhere in the UK, where grammar schools constitute a far smaller percentage in a given local authority ? What alternatives would you provide ? And what would the ‘goal’ be ? We know from the chequered history of target setting how greatly it can distort outcomes....
The other problem with your idea is the sheer length of time it would take to run any meaningful test.
We have regular "Key Stage" tests, so it could be found out in a couple of years...
Why should the resources be any different to a comp? Just fewer slow kids taking up the teachers time, less peer pressure to fuck about rather than work I’d say.
Why would it be worse to have clever kids learning together with fewer that need constant attention?
This is not a question of resources, it is a question about whether the next 85% (assuming the top 15% go to grammars) perform as well at Secondary Moderns as they do at Comprehensives.
Because we need to know that, to see if we're maximising the outcome for society as a whole.
Imagine for a second that everyone has an educational achievement score of somewhere between 0 and 100. And the average for the top 15% in a Comprehensive system is 70. Now, if you put these 15% in Grammar schools, what does that change to? Is it 71 or 73 or 75?
Now, let's look at the next 85%. Imagine they average 45 in Comprehensive schools. Do they average 40 or 45 or 50 in Secondary Moderns? Unless you know the answers to these questions, they you don't know if Grammars work. All we're doing is dealing in personal opinion.
Why would the score for those in the 85% go down if the clever kids weren’t there?
Because smart kids often help medium kids understand things better. Because smart kids are often better behaved and help pull the classroom culture towards a more positive direction. Because the 85% feel they have been written off and try less hard as a result. Because the best teachers all go to teach in the grammar schools, leaving the worse teachers for everyone else.
It’s remarkable why this rule is so hard for some motorists to understand.
Who cares? There are more important things in life, yet this seems to wind up the leather glove brigade.
It's a sign that the driver responsible isn't paying enough attention to be safe enough on the road and it's so easy to get right, quite apart from the inherent rudeness of it.
Meh. Much of the time on the M6 changing lanes is a largely pointless exercise.
If the left lane is occupied you're not hogging the middle lane. If it isn't you should be in it.
If you are travelling in the middle lane at the speed limit no-one should be overtaking you and certainly not breaking the law by undertaking you!
Why should the resources be any different to a comp? Just fewer slow kids taking up the teachers time, less peer pressure to fuck about rather than work I’d say.
Why would it be worse to have clever kids learning together with fewer that need constant attention?
This is not a question of resources, it is a question about whether the next 85% (assuming the top 15% go to grammars) perform as well at Secondary Moderns as they do at Comprehensives.
Because we need to know that, to see if we're maximising the outcome for society as a whole.
Imagine for a second that everyone has an educational achievement score of somewhere between 0 and 100. And the average for the top 15% in a Comprehensive system is 70. Now, if you put these 15% in Grammar schools, what does that change to? Is it 71 or 73 or 75?
Now, let's look at the next 85%. Imagine they average 45 in Comprehensive schools. Do they average 40 or 45 or 50 in Secondary Moderns? Unless you know the answers to these questions, they you don't know if Grammars work. All we're doing is dealing in personal opinion.
Why would the score for those in the 85% change if the clever kids weren’t there?
This piece - although annoyingly the charts don't seem to be working - seems to suggest they do meaningfully worse.
@Nigelb gives some good reasons why that might be the case.
...and, when I was Eleven, 100% of the kids in my area didn't get in, because there weren't any to get into. The local comp at the end of my street told my Mum that their aim was to make everyone a 7/10. When she said "What about the 9/10s?" they didn't have an answer, and she had to move heaven and earth to get me into a different comp, three miles away, that had higher expectations
One of the things I hate about the grammar school discussion is how unanchored it is to facts. Too many people substitute anecdote.
The first question we have to ask ourselves is: what are we looking to maximise? Resources are always finite. And this matters.
Then let's choose a small number of educational authorities, and let's try out two, three, four different systems, and see which meets our goals best. Let's have a clear idea of what we're trying to achieve, and see which systems achieve it.
Now, it may be that grammar schools increase the results of the best, while not causing the results of the rest to fall back. In which case, WHOOO WHOOO, go for it. But it may also be that for every person you raise from an 8/10 to a 9/10 achievement, two others see their results drop from a 5/10 to a 4/10.
The point is, we need to agree first on what our goal is. And then we need to test systems to see which ones achieve that goal.
Arguing over one school system over another on the basis of anecdote is a recipe for poor decision making.
It depends what you mean by grammar schools. Are you talking about the Kent system, where nearly a third of pupils attend grammar schools ? Or elsewhere in the UK, where grammar schools constitute a far smaller percentage in a given local authority ? What alternatives would you provide ? And what would the ‘goal’ be ? We know from the chequered history of target setting how greatly it can distort outcomes....
The other problem with your idea is the sheer length of time it would take to run any meaningful test.
We have regular "Key Stage" tests, so it could be found out in a couple of years...
I seriously doubt that.
I may have been optimistic about a couple of years. But even if the experiment takes a decade, it is worth doing. Because policies should be based on evidence.
It’s remarkable why this rule is so hard for some motorists to understand.
Who cares? There are more important things in life, yet this seems to wind up the leather glove brigade.
It's a sign that the driver responsible isn't paying enough attention to be safe enough on the road and it's so easy to get right, quite apart from the inherent rudeness of it.
Meh. Much of the time on the M6 changing lanes is a largely pointless exercise.
If the left lane is occupied you're not hogging the middle lane. If it isn't you should be in it.
If you are travelling in the middle lane at the speed limit no-one should be overtaking you and certainly not breaking the law by undertaking you!
Sometimes safety trumps spreed limits unless you're collecting fines (?)
Why should the resources be any different to a comp? Just fewer slow kids taking up the teachers time, less peer pressure to fuck about rather than work I’d say.
Why would it be worse to have clever kids learning together with fewer that need constant attention?
This is not a question of resources, it is a question about whether the next 85% (assuming the top 15% go to grammars) perform as well at Secondary Moderns as they do at Comprehensives.
Because we need to know that, to see if we're maximising the outcome for society as a whole.
Imagine for a second that everyone has an educational achievement score of somewhere between 0 and 100. And the average for the top 15% in a Comprehensive system is 70. Now, if you put these 15% in Grammar schools, what does that change to? Is it 71 or 73 or 75?
Now, let's look at the next 85%. Imagine they average 45 in Comprehensive schools. Do they average 40 or 45 or 50 in Secondary Moderns? Unless you know the answers to these questions, they you don't know if Grammars work. All we're doing is dealing in personal opinion.
Why would the score for those in the 85% change if the clever kids weren’t there?
This piece - although annoyingly the charts don't seem to be working - seems to suggest they do meaningfully worse.
@Nigelb gives some good reasons why that might be the case.
The charts do work, but you need to click on them.
The key point, to me, is that In "Selectivia" (i.e. grammar school areas) you get more kids getting top marks, but also more kids getting the very bottom marks.
In other words, you've successfully raised the results of the top 15-35% of students, but at the expense of lowering the results of a number of students at the bottom.
Why should the resources be any different to a comp? Just fewer slow kids taking up the teachers time, less peer pressure to fuck about rather than work I’d say.
Why would it be worse to have clever kids learning together with fewer that need constant attention?
This is not a question of resources, it is a question about whether the next 85% (assuming the top 15% go to grammars) perform as well at Secondary Moderns as they do at Comprehensives.
Because we need to know that, to see if we're maximising the outcome for society as a whole.
Imagine for a second that everyone has an educational achievement score of somewhere between 0 and 100. And the average for the top 15% in a Comprehensive system is 70. Now, if you put these 15% in Grammar schools, what does that change to? Is it 71 or 73 or 75?
Now, let's look at the next 85%. Imagine they average 45 in Comprehensive schools. Do they average 40 or 45 or 50 in Secondary Moderns? Unless you know the answers to these questions, they you don't know if Grammars work. All we're doing is dealing in personal opinion.
Why would the score for those in the 85% change if the clever kids weren’t there?
This piece - although annoyingly the charts don't seem to be working - seems to suggest they do meaningfully worse.
@Nigelb gives some good reasons why that might be the case.
It would be better to look at countries where all the kids get the chance to go to one, rather than the distorted view of comparing places where Rich people move to because of the grammar schools with areas were there aren’t any
...and, when I was Eleven, 100% of the kids in my area didn't get in, because there weren't any to get into. The local comp at the end of my street told my Mum that their aim was to make everyone a 7/10. When she said "What about the 9/10s?" they didn't have an answer, and she had to move heaven and earth to get me into a different comp, three miles away, that had higher expectations
One of the things I hate about the grammar school discussion is how unanchored it is to facts. Too many people substitute anecdote.
The first question we have to ask ourselves is: what are we looking to maximise? Resources are always finite. And this matters.
Then let's choose a small number of educational authorities, and let's try out two, three, four different systems, and see which meets our goals best. Let's have a clear idea of what we're trying to achieve, and see which systems achieve it.
Now, it may be that grammar schools increase the results of the best, while not causing the results of the rest to fall back. In which case, WHOOO WHOOO, go for it. But it may also be that for every person you raise from an 8/10 to a 9/10 achievement, two others see their results drop from a 5/10 to a 4/10.
The point is, we need to agree first on what our goal is. And then we need to test systems to see which ones achieve that goal.
Arguing over one school system over another on the basis of anecdote is a recipe for poor decision making.
It depends what you mean by grammar schools. Are you talking about the Kent system, where nearly a third of pupils attend grammar schools ? Or elsewhere in the UK, where grammar schools constitute a far smaller percentage in a given local authority ? What alternatives would you provide ? And what would the ‘goal’ be ? We know from the chequered history of target setting how greatly it can distort outcomes....
The other problem with your idea is the sheer length of time it would take to run any meaningful test.
We have regular "Key Stage" tests, so it could be found out in a couple of years...
I seriously doubt that.
I may have been optimistic about a couple of years. But even if the experiment takes a decade, it is worth doing. Because policies should be based on evidence.
The issue is whether you prioritise equality of opportunity or maximise potential. Difficult.
It’s remarkable why this rule is so hard for some motorists to understand.
Who cares? There are more important things in life, yet this seems to wind up the leather glove brigade.
It's a sign that the driver responsible isn't paying enough attention to be safe enough on the road and it's so easy to get right, quite apart from the inherent rudeness of it.
Meh. Much of the time on the M6 changing lanes is a largely pointless exercise.
If the left lane is occupied you're not hogging the middle lane. If it isn't you should be in it.
If you are travelling in the middle lane at the speed limit no-one should be overtaking you and certainly not breaking the law by undertaking you!
Indeed. Two wrongs don't make a right but if you're doing the speed limit anybody who is overtaking you "isn't paying enough attention to be safe enough on the road" and it is "so easy to get right" the speed limit too. Or are we picking and choosing which road laws we prefer?
Plus one irritant I have is on the M6 there is regular intermittent traffic on the left-hand lane so you end up with brief gaps where yes you could pull in for 30 seconds but then have to pull back out - but if you do pull in then the car behind you speeds up to fill your spot you had so now you can't pull back out anymore.
Arguably travelling in the middle lane is better for the environment in that scenario. I travel on cruise control at the speed limit as its more fuel efficient to travel at a fixed speed than to be constantly revving up then slowing down. If I pull in (knowing I need to pull back out momentarily) and then the car behind me speeds up to take what was my spot in that lane so I can't pull back out, then I invariably need to slow down in order to get back out then re-accelerate back up to my original speed.
Why should the resources be any different to a comp? Just fewer slow kids taking up the teachers time, less peer pressure to fuck about rather than work I’d say.
Why would it be worse to have clever kids learning together with fewer that need constant attention?
This is not a question of resources, it is a question about whether the next 85% (assuming the top 15% go to grammars) perform as well at Secondary Moderns as they do at Comprehensives.
Because we need to know that, to see if we're maximising the outcome for society as a whole.
Imagine for a second that everyone has an educational achievement score of somewhere between 0 and 100. And the average for the top 15% in a Comprehensive system is 70. Now, if you put these 15% in Grammar schools, what does that change to? Is it 71 or 73 or 75?
Now, let's look at the next 85%. Imagine they average 45 in Comprehensive schools. Do they average 40 or 45 or 50 in Secondary Moderns? Unless you know the answers to these questions, they you don't know if Grammars work. All we're doing is dealing in personal opinion.
Why would the score for those in the 85% change if the clever kids weren’t there?
This piece - although annoyingly the charts don't seem to be working - seems to suggest they do meaningfully worse.
@Nigelb gives some good reasons why that might be the case.
It would be better to look at countries where all the kids get the chance to go to one, rather than the distorted view of comparing places where Rich people move to because of the grammar schools with areas were there aren’t any
That wouldn't be a proper test, though, because you need to minimise variables. And grammar schools are just one part of the mix. Other countries might perform better (or worse) because of other parts of their system.
Which is why I'd suggest (a) defining what success is, and (b) choosing two counties with similar demographics, and moving one to a grammar school system.
It’s remarkable why this rule is so hard for some motorists to understand.
Who cares? There are more important things in life, yet this seems to wind up the leather glove brigade.
It's a sign that the driver responsible isn't paying enough attention to be safe enough on the road and it's so easy to get right, quite apart from the inherent rudeness of it.
Meh. Much of the time on the M6 changing lanes is a largely pointless exercise.
If the left lane is occupied you're not hogging the middle lane. If it isn't you should be in it.
If you are travelling in the middle lane at the speed limit no-one should be overtaking you and certainly not breaking the law by undertaking you!
Sometimes safety trumps spreed limits unless you're collecting fines (?)
It's safer not to switch lanes if you don't have to.
The issue is whether you prioritise equality of opportunity or maximise potential. Difficult.
Absolutely right.
But here's the thing. If there was no negative impact on the bottom 85%, then we should absolutely go for it.
On the other hand, if there was a very significant negative impact, then we absolutely shouldn't. We also need to measure how much the improvement is for the 15%. Is it small? In which case why bother? Or is it significant?
We need to test this. Without real data, it's all just worthless opinion.
Why should the resources be any different to a comp? Just fewer slow kids taking up the teachers time, less peer pressure to fuck about rather than work I’d say.
Why would it be worse to have clever kids learning together with fewer that need constant attention?
This is not a question of resources, it is a question about whether the next 85% (assuming the top 15% go to grammars) perform as well at Secondary Moderns as they do at Comprehensives.
Because we need to know that, to see if we're maximising the outcome for society as a whole.
Imagine for a second that everyone has an educational achievement score of somewhere between 0 and 100. And the average for the top 15% in a Comprehensive system is 70. Now, if you put these 15% in Grammar schools, what does that change to? Is it 71 or 73 or 75?
Now, let's look at the next 85%. Imagine they average 45 in Comprehensive schools. Do they average 40 or 45 or 50 in Secondary Moderns? Unless you know the answers to these questions, they you don't know if Grammars work. All we're doing is dealing in personal opinion.
Why would the score for those in the 85% go down if the clever kids weren’t there?
Because smart kids often help medium kids understand things better. Because smart kids are often better behaved and help pull the classroom culture towards a more positive direction. Because the 85% feel they have been written off and try less hard as a result. Because the best teachers all go to teach in the grammar schools, leaving the worse teachers for everyone else.
The stupid, unruly kids drag the smart kids down. The stupid, unruly kids pull the classroom towards chaos. 15% feel they are being ignored while the teachers are not teaching but excercised in crowd control. The teachers are all meant to be of comparable ability in Comps
...and, when I was Eleven, 100% of the kids in my area didn't get in, because there weren't any to get into. The local comp at the end of my street told my Mum that their aim was to make everyone a 7/10. When she said "What about the 9/10s?" they didn't have an answer, and she had to move heaven and earth to get me into a different comp, three miles away, that had higher expectations
Now, it may be that grammar schools increase the results of the best, while not causing the results of the rest to fall back. In which case, WHOOO WHOOO, go for it. But it may also be that for every person you raise from an 8/10 to a 9/10 achievement, two others see their results drop from a 5/10 to a 4/10.
The point is, we need to agree first on what our goal is. And then we need to test systems to see which ones achieve that goal.
Arguing over one school system over another on the basis of anecdote is a recipe for poor decision making.
It depends what you mean by grammar schools. Are you talking about the Kent system, where nearly a third of pupils attend grammar schools ? Or elsewhere in the UK, where grammar schools constitute a far smaller percentage in a given local authority ? What alternatives would you provide ? And what would the ‘goal’ be ? We know from the chequered history of target setting how greatly it can distort outcomes....
The other problem with your idea is the sheer length of time it would take to run any meaningful test.
We have regular "Key Stage" tests, so it could be found out in a couple of years...
I seriously doubt that.
I may have been optimistic about a couple of years. But even if the experiment takes a decade, it is worth doing. Because policies should be based on evidence.
I don’t disagree with the need for evidence based policy, but I think you need to address the rest of my questions. It is really not as simple as a selective system versus a non selective system. You also need to consider (for example) whether the curriculum is fit for purpose, and what the alternatives might be.
And of course the evidence from London is that you can see a very big improvement in outcomes over a decade without any change in the types of schools.
I think it’s a much more slippery problem than you appear to, with a multiplicity of confounding factors.
Why should the resources be any different to a comp? Just fewer slow kids taking up the teachers time, less peer pressure to fuck about rather than work I’d say.
Why would it be worse to have clever kids learning together with fewer that need constant attention?
This is not a question of resources, it is a question about whether the next 85% (assuming the top 15% go to grammars) perform as well at Secondary Moderns as they do at Comprehensives.
Because we need to know that, to see if we're maximising the outcome for society as a whole.
Imagine for a second that everyone has an educational achievement score of somewhere between 0 and 100. And the average for the top 15% in a Comprehensive system is 70. Now, if you put these 15% in Grammar schools, what does that change to? Is it 71 or 73 or 75?
Now, let's look at the next 85%. Imagine they average 45 in Comprehensive schools. Do they average 40 or 45 or 50 in Secondary Moderns? Unless you know the answers to these questions, they you don't know if Grammars work. All we're doing is dealing in personal opinion.
Why would the score for those in the 85% go down if the clever kids weren’t there?
Because smart kids often help medium kids understand things better. Because smart kids are often better behaved and help pull the classroom culture towards a more positive direction. Because the 85% feel they have been written off and try less hard as a result. Because the best teachers all go to teach in the grammar schools, leaving the worse teachers for everyone else.
The stupid, unruly kids drag the smart kids down. The stupid, unruly kids pull the classroom towards chaos. 15% feel they are being ignored while the teachers are not teaching but excercised in crowd control. The teachers are all meant to be of comparable ability in Comps
Unruly kids need to be isolated from others until they learn to behave themselves. One or two little shits should not spoil everyone else's education.
The issue is whether you prioritise equality of opportunity or maximise potential. Difficult.
Absolutely right.
But here's the thing. If there was no negative impact on the bottom 85%, then we should absolutely go for it.
On the other hand, if there was a very significant negative impact, then we absolutely shouldn't. We also need to measure how much the improvement is for the 15%. Is it small? In which case why bother? Or is it significant?
We need to test this. Without real data, it's all just worthless opinion.
The difference is for the top 15% it could make the difference between them becoming a lawyer or a retail middle manager, for the bottom 15% they will still largely be doing unskilled work anyway, if they get a job. For those in the middle it might be more significant if it stops them getting the 5 good GCSEs they need for a middle class job but there is little evidence of that.
Personally I would leave it up to parents, have ballots to open new grammars as well as close them
It’s remarkable why this rule is so hard for some motorists to understand.
Who cares? There are more important things in life, yet this seems to wind up the leather glove brigade.
It's a sign that the driver responsible isn't paying enough attention to be safe enough on the road and it's so easy to get right, quite apart from the inherent rudeness of it.
Meh. Much of the time on the M6 changing lanes is a largely pointless exercise.
If the left lane is occupied you're not hogging the middle lane. If it isn't you should be in it.
If you are travelling in the middle lane at the speed limit no-one should be overtaking you and certainly not breaking the law by undertaking you!
Sometimes safety trumps spreed limits unless you're collecting fines (?)
It's safer not to switch lanes if you don't have to.
That, in my opinion, is a given, but it wasn't my point.
This is terrific presentationally, but it's style over substance in spades.
It is similar to this Reagan ad from 1984 though, all style maybe but it helped win a Reagan landslide against the tax raising, big state Mondale, an optimistic campaign style about how the US is booming Trump is clearly trying to emulate v the leftist Sanders
If it does end up with Sanders vs Trump, I think the big question will be what will the swing states buy as their narrative.
As per the Trump ad, the economy is doing well, its the great American come back...or Bernie's America isn't working, pay rises are virtually non-existent.
Last time Trump managed to win on basically Bernie's shtick of America isn't working, VVVVchina are stealing all the jobs, etc, versus Clinton's we are actually doing fine economically.
Starmer’s support for FOM is certainly a puzzle if he plans on rebuilding the Red Wall.
Is he a died in the wool Europhile that sees FOM as a key policy objective to be achieved for its own sake? Or is he just reflecting the position of voting members and will then quietly tack away from it over the next 3-4 years?
I suggest the answer will define how skilled an operative he is and whether Boris remains imperious for a decade or crashes out of Downing St in 2024 (or earlier).
Starmer’s support for FOM is certainly a puzzle if he plans on rebuilding the Red Wall.
Is he a died in the wool Europhile that sees FOM as a key policy objective to be achieved for its own sake? Or is he just reflecting the position of voting members and will then quietly tack away from it over the next 3-4 years?
I suggest the answer will define how skilled an operative he is and whether Boris remains imperious for a decade or crashes out of Downing St in 2024 (or earlier).
Even for the membership ears, I don't understand why you can't sell a fudge of we are listening to people's concerns on both sides.
...and, when I was Eleven, 100% of the kids in my area didn't get in, because there weren't any to get into. The local comp at the end of my street told my Mum that their aim was to make everyone a 7/10. When she said "What about the 9/10s?" they didn't have an answer, and she had to move heaven and earth to get me into a different comp, three miles away, that had higher expectations
Now, it may be that grammar schools increase the results of the best, while not causing the results of the rest to fall back. In which case, WHOOO WHOOO, go for it. But it may also be that for every person you raise from an 8/10 to a 9/10 achievement, two others see their results drop from a 5/10 to a 4/10.
The point is, we need to agree first on what our goal is. And then we need to test systems to see which ones achieve that goal.
Arguing over one school system over another on the basis of anecdote is a recipe for poor decision making.
It depends what you mean by grammar schools. Are you talking about the Kent system, where nearly a third of pupils attend grammar schools ? Or elsewhere in the UK, where grammar schools constitute a far smaller percentage in a given local authority ? What alternatives would you provide ? And what would the ‘goal’ be ? We know from the chequered history of target setting how greatly it can distort outcomes....
The other problem with your idea is the sheer length of time it would take to run any meaningful test.
We have regular "Key Stage" tests, so it could be found out in a couple of years...
I seriously doubt that.
I may have been optimistic about a couple of years. But even if the experiment takes a decade, it is worth doing. Because policies should be based on evidence.
I don’t disagree with the need for evidence based policy, but I think you need to address the rest of my questions. It is really not as simple as a selective system versus a non selective system. You also need to consider (for example) whether the curriculum is fit for purpose, and what the alternatives might be.
And of course the evidence from London is that you can see a very big improvement in outcomes over a decade without any change in the types of schools.
I think it’s a much more slippery problem than you appear to, with a multiplicity of confounding factors.
Re your penultimate para, if you throw money at something then some benefit will likely accrue, but then everyone else wants you to throw money at their bit. It may have an equal impact, but where's the money coming from? I could go into a loop but .....
Why should the resources be any different to a comp? Just fewer slow kids taking up the teachers time, less peer pressure to fuck about rather than work I’d say.
Why would it be worse to have clever kids learning together with fewer that need constant attention?
This is not a question of resources, it is a question about whether the next 85% (assuming the top 15% go to grammars) perform as well at Secondary Moderns as they do at Comprehensives.
Because we need to know that, to see if we're maximising the outcome for society as a whole.
Imagine for a second that everyone has an educational achievement score of somewhere between 0 and 100. And the average for the top 15% in a Comprehensive system is 70. Now, if you put these 15% in Grammar schools, what does that change to? Is it 71 or 73 or 75?
Now, let's look at the next 85%. Imagine they average 45 in Comprehensive schools. Do they average 40 or 45 or 50 in Secondary Moderns? Unless you know the answers to these questions, they you don't know if Grammars work. All we're doing is dealing in personal opinion.
Why would the score for those in the 85% go down if the clever kids weren’t there?
Because smart kids often help medium kids understand things better. Because smart kids are often better behaved and help pull the classroom culture towards a more positive direction. Because the 85% feel they have been written off and try less hard as a result. Because the best teachers all go to teach in the grammar schools, leaving the worse teachers for everyone else.
The stupid, unruly kids drag the smart kids down. The stupid, unruly kids pull the classroom towards chaos. 15% feel they are being ignored while the teachers are not teaching but excercised in crowd control. The teachers are all meant to be of comparable ability in Comps
Unruly kids need to be isolated from others until they learn to behave themselves. One or two little shits should not spoil everyone else's education.
Starmer’s support for FOM is certainly a puzzle if he plans on rebuilding the Red Wall.
Is he a died in the wool Europhile that sees FOM as a key policy objective to be achieved for its own sake? Or is he just reflecting the position of voting members and will then quietly tack away from it over the next 3-4 years?
I suggest the answer will define how skilled an operative he is and whether Boris remains imperious for a decade or crashes out of Downing St in 2024 (or earlier).
Starmer doesn't intend rebuilding the red wall (certainly not the bits like Grimsby no longer even in the top 100 Labour target seats), he is more focused on winning Tory and LD Remainers in London and the South on a return to the single market ticket
Trump is a cross between George W Bush and Nixon with a shade of LBJ and Pat Buchanan, he does not need to be Reagan to beat Sanders but no harm taking some winning Reagan campaign ads and emulating them
Discussing the potus election without referencing this bug is like talking about the 2019 Uk election without referencing Brexit. But infinitely more depressing
Except even on a 2% death rate, who is elected POTUS and the most powerful man in the world will have a bigger impact on most of the remaining 98% of us than coronavirus, especially as it will probably largely have died out by late Spring and most of those who die will tend to be older and nearer death anyway.
Plus more people will be affected longer term in the UK by Brexit and its consequences than coronavirus
Discussing the potus election without referencing this bug is like talking about the 2019 Uk election without referencing Brexit. But infinitely more depressing
Except even on a 2% death rate, who is elected POTUS and the most powerful man in the world will have a bigger impact on most of the remaining 98% of us than coronavirus, especially as it will probably largely have died out by late Spring and most of those who die will tend to be older and nearer death anyway.
Plus more people will be affected longer term in the UK by Brexit and its consequences than coronavirus
“Chinese officlals have today reported 78,064 infections and 2,715 deaths, mostly in Hubei. But no one trusts the party’s figures. The only certainty about the numbers it releases is that they are the numbers it wants you to believe”
Deaths have been underreported since the start since they haven’t been doing autopsies universally and were often putting down suspicious deaths as something else on the death certificate unless there was a positive test pre death. Of course they were also no doubt massively under reporting the walking well, which might be one reason why Wuhan mortality rates are so much higher (on top of breakdown in local health system).
The rocket from Xi then led to a change in how they were diagnosing patients and the data since then has been quite confusing, with the methodology moving around more than once. While it’s fruitless to look at the exact numbers, what seems clear is they’ve avoided a multi thousand person cluster outside of Hubei. It’s just too difficult to hide.
Singapore and others in SE Asia have also shown it’s possible to get a grip on the spread if you’re smart. My fear however is that social norms in Europe and the UK seem incompatible with the steps taken to control it elsewhere. I’ve been under ordered Self Isolation for days now, even though there is a vanishingly small chance I have covid-19, rather than complications from adult parainfluenza. Hopefully I get sign off to rejoin the human race today.
But people I tell in the UK are shocked I’m not allowed to leave the house - the combination of “I’m so busy I don’t have time to stop”, mixed with that stoic “keep buggering on” mentality could cause rates to be far higher than they need to be in the Uk.
My relaxed attitude thus far Eadric is because I have been in Asia too long and failed to realise that cultural norms in Europe are far less conducive to controlling the spread than even SE Asia, forget authoritarian China. There appears to be two modus operandi in the UK about this: total complacency or outright panic, when whats needed is a calm and sensible middle ground, accept new restrictions and precautions but don’t sweat the end of the world.
My expectation is stocks will get cheaper still before it’s all over. Am preparing to lever the feck out of my personal balance sheet and go in big about a month from now.
Starmer’s support for FOM is certainly a puzzle if he plans on rebuilding the Red Wall.
Is he a died in the wool Europhile that sees FOM as a key policy objective to be achieved for its own sake? Or is he just reflecting the position of voting members and will then quietly tack away from it over the next 3-4 years?
I suggest the answer will define how skilled an operative he is and whether Boris remains imperious for a decade or crashes out of Downing St in 2024 (or earlier).
He's a chameleon and his supporters will eventually realise that that's a lizard
We’ve always said the test of this virus would be what it did in a transparent, advanced country, open with data, that did lots of testing
South Korea is giving us a frightening answer. Our main hope now is that the mortality rate is lower than we expect. Or that Admiral Summertime is steering his navy our way. Time to pray.
Time to pray maybe if it was black death, which had a 40% death rate and even 80% in some villages or even Spanish flu with a 20% death rate. However of those affected by coronavirus 98% will survive. That is no different than the average survival rate for any kind of surgery.
Despite your hysterical overreactions to this slightly more deadly than normal flu outbreak, even Wuhan is starting to get back to normal with patients starting to return home from quarantine
We’ve always said the test of this virus would be what it did in a transparent, advanced country, open with data, that did lots of testing
South Korea is giving us a frightening answer. Our main hope now is that the mortality rate is lower than we expect. Or that Admiral Summertime is steering his navy our way. Time to pray.
The Korea example shows you what happens when cases are not identified early and then insufficient steps taken to control the spread once they are. I was under the impression that most of these new numbers are still the cult members, they’ll take a while to feed through.
Discussing the potus election without referencing this bug is like talking about the 2019 Uk election without referencing Brexit. But infinitely more depressing
Except even on a 2% death rate, who is elected POTUS and the most powerful man in the world will have a bigger impact on most of the remaining 98% of us than coronavirus, especially as it will probably largely have died out by late Spring and most of those who die will tend to be older and nearer death anyway.
Plus more people will be affected longer term in the UK by Brexit and its consequences than coronavirus
We’ve always said the test of this virus would be what it did in a transparent, advanced country, open with data, that did lots of testing
South Korea is giving us a frightening answer. Our main hope now is that the mortality rate is lower than we expect. Or that Admiral Summertime is steering his navy our way. Time to pray.
We’ve always said the test of this virus would be what it did in a transparent, advanced country, open with data, that did lots of testing
South Korea is giving us a frightening answer. Our main hope now is that the mortality rate is lower than we expect. Or that Admiral Summertime is steering his navy our way. Time to pray.
Time to pray maybe if it was black death, which had a 40% death rate and even 80% in some villages or even Spanish flu with a 20% death rate. However of those affected by coronavirus 98% will survive. That is no different than the average survival rate for any kind of surgery.
Despite your hysterical overreactions to this slightly more deadly than normal flu outbreak, even Wuhan is starting to get back to normal with patients starting to return home from quarantine
Discussing the potus election without referencing this bug is like talking about the 2019 Uk election without referencing Brexit. But infinitely more depressing
Except even on a 2% death rate, who is elected POTUS and the most powerful man in the world will have a bigger impact on most of the remaining 98% of us than coronavirus, especially as it will probably largely have died out by late Spring and most of those who die will tend to be older and nearer death anyway.
Plus more people will be affected longer term in the UK by Brexit and its consequences than coronavirus
This is a moronic statement. Sorry.
No. It is a factual statement.
Even ordinary flu has a 0.1% death rate
This is likely TWENTY times more fatal. Plus, this virus hospitalizes 10-20% of its victims, even if they survive. Ordinary flu hospitalizes 1%. So this will just collapse health systems worldwide, if it goes global.
On top of that, the resolved case fatality rate is actually 8%. At the moment. Nearly one in ten.
It’s at the far end of worst case scenario and it means 2.5m dead in the UK
I do not expect it to happen. But the fact we are even discussing it shows the severity of the situation, which you entirely underplay
500,000 people die every year in the UK coronavirus or not and even on the worst case scenario you present again 92% will survive.
Putting people with CV in hospitals is of little use anyway unless they are fully quarantined, otherwise keep them at home
Discussing the potus election without referencing this bug is like talking about the 2019 Uk election without referencing Brexit. But infinitely more depressing
Except even on a 2% death rate, who is elected POTUS and the most powerful man in the world will have a bigger impact on most of the remaining 98% of us than coronavirus, especially as it will probably largely have died out by late Spring and most of those who die will tend to be older and nearer death anyway.
Plus more people will be affected longer term in the UK by Brexit and its consequences than coronavirus
This is a moronic statement. Sorry.
No. It is a factual statement.
Even ordinary flu has a 0.1% death rate
This is likely TWENTY times more fatal. Plus, this virus hospitalizes 10-20% of its victims, even if they survive. Ordinary flu hospitalizes 1%. So this will just collapse health systems worldwide, if it goes global.
On top of that, the resolved case fatality rate is actually 8%. At the moment. Nearly one in ten.
It’s at the far end of worst case scenario and it means 2.5m dead in the UK
I do not expect it to happen. But the fact we are even discussing it shows the severity of the situation, which you entirely underplay
No one's discussing it. You're talking shit and everyone's laughing at you
We’ve always said the test of this virus would be what it did in a transparent, advanced country, open with data, that did lots of testing
South Korea is giving us a frightening answer. Our main hope now is that the mortality rate is lower than we expect. Or that Admiral Summertime is steering his navy our way. Time to pray.
Time to pray maybe if it was black death, which had a 40% death rate and even 80% in some villages or even Spanish flu with a 20% death rate. However of those affected by coronavirus 98% will survive. That is no different than the average survival rate for any kind of surgery.
Despite your hysterical overreactions to this slightly more deadly than normal flu outbreak, even Wuhan is starting to get back to normal with patients starting to return home from quarantine
WE DON’T KNOW THE MORTALITY RATE
It could be anything from 0.5% to a terrifying 15%
We’ve always said the test of this virus would be what it did in a transparent, advanced country, open with data, that did lots of testing
South Korea is giving us a frightening answer. Our main hope now is that the mortality rate is lower than we expect. Or that Admiral Summertime is steering his navy our way. Time to pray.
Time to pray maybe if it was black death, which had a 40% death rate and even 80% in some villages or even Spanish flu with a 20% death rate. However of those affected by coronavirus 98% will survive. That is no different than the average survival rate for any kind of surgery.
Despite your hysterical overreactions to this slightly more deadly than normal flu outbreak, even Wuhan is starting to get back to normal with patients starting to return home from quarantine
WE DON’T KNOW THE MORTALITY RATE
It could be anything from 0.5% to a terrifying 15%
Comments
And after the storm, the air was so clear, the light limpid and the views out to sea and to the mountains magnificent.
There is something special about the light you get near the sea.
Of course, if they do it too quickly you get bad decisions - anti-semites and loonies readmitted or not expelled, etc. In a way I quite like the idea of farming it out to an independent body, and let them wrestle with it.
Anyway, if you can get your CLP chair to support your application, that might help (though it has had noi perceptible effect in our case).
https://www.boschungglobal.com/Inventory/Warbirds/Meesserschmitt/Me-262-A-1a/Currently-not-registered
He’ll have the new Tories from behind the ‘red wall’ building statues of Maggie
The first question we have to ask ourselves is: what are we looking to maximise? Resources are always finite. And this matters.
Then let's choose a small number of educational authorities, and let's try out two, three, four different systems, and see which meets our goals best. Let's have a clear idea of what we're trying to achieve, and see which systems achieve it.
Now, it may be that grammar schools increase the results of the best, while not causing the results of the rest to fall back. In which case, WHOOO WHOOO, go for it. But it may also be that for every person you raise from an 8/10 to a 9/10 achievement, two others see their results drop from a 5/10 to a 4/10.
The point is, we need to agree first on what our goal is. And then we need to test systems to see which ones achieve that goal.
Arguing over one school system over another on the basis of anecdote is a recipe for poor decision making.
Especially as it's actually airworthy.
(Maintenance would be a bitch, mind.)
One thing that I think is rather sad is that the government doesn't have the nudge unit anymore. What you describe is exactly what they did for a whole range of public policy initiatives, and one of the best "out there" ideas Cameron went with.
My own anecdotal evidence is I first went to a comprehensive which I loved and later a grammar that I hated. That means nothing in the grand scheme of things.
I do have an issue with a child labelled as a failure from a test they took aged 11. Speak to many who failed the 11 plus and that issue seems to loom large. For some it is a spur to overcome adversity, for others it became a millstone for life. I am not sure a return to the 11 plus is the way forward.
Prince George is involved.
Surprised you haven’t come out with one though! First time for everything
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6U9T3R3EQg
Because I think it would have been best for her to go to a selective school.
And, if she got in, I would expect I'd have become a wholehearted fan of grammar schools. If she was rejected, I'd probably argue they were shit, and the resources should be shared around all schools.
If I lived in Carson then I expect I would support Carson Los Angeles Galaxy.
Why should the resources be any different to a comp? Just fewer slow kids taking up the teachers time, less peer pressure to fuck about rather than work I’d say.
If grammar schools can work for the best without resulting in worse outcomes for average students, then we absolutely should have them. On the other hand, if their existence worsens the educational outcomes for a whole swathe of people (and I don't know if it does or doesn't) then it's a much, much harder call. School systems don't just exist for the top 15% of children.
Why would it be worse to have clever kids learning together with fewer that need constant attention?
https://www.betfair.com/exchange/plus/politics/market/1.128161111
Are you talking about the Kent system, where nearly a third of pupils attend grammar schools ? Or elsewhere in the UK, where grammar schools constitute a far smaller percentage in a given local authority ?
What alternatives would you provide ?
And what would the ‘goal’ be ? We know from the chequered history of target setting how greatly it can distort outcomes....
The other problem with your idea is the sheer length of time it would take to run any meaningful test.
Because we need to know that, to see if we're maximising the outcome for society as a whole.
Imagine for a second that everyone has an educational achievement score of somewhere between 0 and 100. And the average for the top 15% in a Comprehensive system is 70. Now, if you put these 15% in Grammar schools, what does that change to? Is it 71 or 73 or 75?
Now, let's look at the next 85%. Imagine they average 45 in Comprehensive schools. Do they average 40 or 45 or 50 in Secondary Moderns? Unless you know the answers to these questions, they you don't know if Grammars work. All we're doing is dealing in personal opinion.
Plus the reasons people have to support a team that's not local can vary. A lot of the team it can be due to family influences that do trace back to being local. We no longer live in Merseyside but I'm not going to abandon my teams or start supporting a new team every time I move!
My children can support whoever they want to support as they grow up, but she's of an age at the moment where she wants to support "daddies team". She also
likes Liverpool because of her Liverpool teddies which I've bought her, she's got 2 (one called Steven, one called Gerrard, my wife chose the teddies names).
Am I somehow a better fan because I am from Mereseyside?
Is my daughter somehow a lesser fan if she grows up to support a non-local club that runs in her family and is where her father and his side of the family came from?
Its ridiculous. People shouldn't be judged for who they support. Unless its Manchester United.
But grammar schools skew prosperous middle class, so parental resources are almost always significantly greater. And they tend to get the better teachers overall, for obvious reasons.
@Nigelb gives some good reasons why that might be the case.
The key point, to me, is that In "Selectivia" (i.e. grammar school areas) you get more kids getting top marks, but also more kids getting the very bottom marks.
In other words, you've successfully raised the results of the top 15-35% of students, but at the expense of lowering the results of a number of students at the bottom.
Plus one irritant I have is on the M6 there is regular intermittent traffic on the left-hand lane so you end up with brief gaps where yes you could pull in for 30 seconds but then have to pull back out - but if you do pull in then the car behind you speeds up to fill your spot you had so now you can't pull back out anymore.
Arguably travelling in the middle lane is better for the environment in that scenario. I travel on cruise control at the speed limit as its more fuel efficient to travel at a fixed speed than to be constantly revving up then slowing down. If I pull in (knowing I need to pull back out momentarily) and then the car behind me speeds up to take what was my spot in that lane so I can't pull back out, then I invariably need to slow down in order to get back out then re-accelerate back up to my original speed.
Which is why I'd suggest (a) defining what success is, and (b) choosing two counties with similar demographics, and moving one to a grammar school system.
And then see what happens.
But here's the thing. If there was no negative impact on the bottom 85%, then we should absolutely go for it.
On the other hand, if there was a very significant negative impact, then we absolutely shouldn't. We also need to measure how much the improvement is for the 15%. Is it small? In which case why bother? Or is it significant?
We need to test this. Without real data, it's all just worthless opinion.
The stupid, unruly kids drag the smart kids down. The stupid, unruly kids pull the classroom towards chaos. 15% feel they are being ignored while the teachers are not teaching but excercised in crowd control. The teachers are all meant to be of comparable ability in Comps
You also need to consider (for example) whether the curriculum is fit for purpose, and what the alternatives might be.
And of course the evidence from London is that you can see a very big improvement in outcomes over a decade without any change in the types of schools.
I think it’s a much more slippery problem than you appear to, with a multiplicity of confounding factors.
Personally I would leave it up to parents, have ballots to open new grammars as well as close them
https://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/gla_migrate_files_destination/London Excess Deaths Framework v1.pdf
https://youtu.be/wpJ2j2OcqeY
Trump and Reagan, not so much.
As per the Trump ad, the economy is doing well, its the great American come back...or Bernie's America isn't working, pay rises are virtually non-existent.
Last time Trump managed to win on basically Bernie's shtick of America isn't working, VVVVchina are stealing all the jobs, etc, versus Clinton's we are actually doing fine economically.
Is he a died in the wool Europhile that sees FOM as a key policy objective to be achieved for its own sake? Or is he just reflecting the position of voting members and will then quietly tack away from it over the next 3-4 years?
I suggest the answer will define how skilled an operative he is and whether Boris remains imperious for a decade or crashes out of Downing St in 2024 (or earlier).
Plus more people will be affected longer term in the UK by Brexit and its consequences than coronavirus
Even ordinary flu has a 0.1% death rate
The rocket from Xi then led to a change in how they were diagnosing patients and the data since then has been quite confusing, with the methodology moving around more than once. While it’s fruitless to look at the exact numbers, what seems clear is they’ve avoided a multi thousand person cluster outside of Hubei. It’s just too difficult to hide.
Singapore and others in SE Asia have also shown it’s possible to get a grip on the spread if you’re smart. My fear however is that social norms in Europe and the UK seem incompatible with the steps taken to control it elsewhere. I’ve been under ordered Self Isolation for days now, even though there is a vanishingly small chance I have covid-19, rather than complications from adult parainfluenza. Hopefully I get sign off to rejoin the human race today.
But people I tell in the UK are shocked I’m not allowed to leave the house - the combination of “I’m so busy I don’t have time to stop”, mixed with that stoic “keep buggering on” mentality could cause rates to be far higher than they need to be in the Uk.
My relaxed attitude thus far Eadric is because I have been in Asia too long and failed to realise that cultural norms in Europe are far less conducive to controlling the spread than even SE Asia, forget authoritarian China. There appears to be two modus operandi in the UK about this: total complacency or outright panic, when whats needed is a calm and sensible middle ground, accept new restrictions and precautions but don’t sweat the end of the world.
My expectation is stocks will get cheaper still before it’s all over. Am preparing to lever the feck out of my personal balance sheet and go in big about a month from now.
Despite your hysterical overreactions to this slightly more deadly than normal flu outbreak, even Wuhan is starting to get back to normal with patients starting to return home from quarantine
Putting people with CV in hospitals is of little use anyway unless they are fully quarantined, otherwise keep them at home