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hypnotist
Joined: 04 Dec 2004
Location: I wish I were a sock
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 Posted: Wed Aug 31, 2005 6:20 pm Post subject: |
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| bigverne wrote: |
| If their level of knowledge and achievement had been raised then yes, it would be a credit to the education system. However, due to grade inflation and the dumbing down of exams, that is often in doubt. |
You're missing my point. I'm not talking about whether it can be compared to the results of kids of previous years. I'm asking if you consider raising the achievement level of one individual child from a G to an F to be a credit or not. It seems that you believe this kid shouldn't be at school at all, and certainly shouldn't be taking exams that give any mark other than 'fail'.
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| Sure, they can, and not only in academic subjects. However, they should not be molly coddled when they fail, even though this dreaded word has now been purged from the education system. Whether you get 80% or 90% of the exam wrong, you have still failed. |
WHY have you failed, exactly?
In my first year university exams the mark for a first was set at under 50% correct. Did this mean the exam was easy? Hell no.
You seem to want to belittle personal achievement if it doesn't reach some arbitrary grade you consider to be 'not failure'. I will never agree with you. Someone has failed themself if they do not achieve what they are capable of achieving. Who are you to say that someone who struggles to write is thus nothing but a failure?
I'm not arguing they should have it hidden from them where they are in the scheme of things. But you seem to want to give up on them, instead of encouraging their development.
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| I'm not sure about 'overwhelmingly', but at least it gives many children from poorer backgrounds the chance of an excellent education. |
So can comprehensive schools. I mean, look at me 
"Two thirds or more of the students in grammar schools are from middle class backgrounds and about two thirds or more of students in secondary schools are from working class backgrounds," said Tony Gallagher, Professor of Education at Queen's University, Belfast. "So to that extent ... the claim or the promise of social mobility from a selective system has been called into question."
Sounds overwhelming to me.
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| What we have now is a system based almost entirely on wealth, and if you are poor and live in an inner city, you are basically shafted. |
The same is true of NI's selective system, though.
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| The grammar school system selected based on wealth to a certain degree, in that middle class parents have the resources to coach their kids to pass the 11+. The system we have now is far more biased towards the wealthy. In fact, a recent report in the Guardian (no less) demonstrated that there was in fact more social mobility in the 1950s, when the grammar system was widespread, than there is now. Yet, some still continue with this failed ideological crusade. |
The loss of social mobility goes far beyond the comprehensive system - in fact it has been blamed on lack of achievement at the primary level, before selection even comes into play, and on the increase in university attendance amongst the lower middle class...
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| They're dismantling the selective system because it works to benefit the middle-class, just as it did when it existed in England. |
So, you admit that it's all about class warfare. The grammar system favours those children whose parents care most about their kids education. Those parents happen to be mostly, but not exclusively, middle class. What exactly do you have against the middle classes? |
Nothing against them (I mean, I am one of them), but I don't like the idea of spending more money on the middle class than on the lower class, and I believe in redistributive government policies.
It's not about class warfare, it's about trying to offer equality of opportunity. And you've hit the nail on the head - the grammar system favours certain parents. What I want is a system that allows all children the same opportunities in life.
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| The only criteria for disbanding grammar schools should be, whether it raises educational standards, but as the proponents of comprehensives admit themselves, it is about ideology. Disgracefully, many of the most ardent anti-grammar campaigners are members of the Labour party who benefited themselves from a grammar education, or those who send their kids to selective or private schools. |
I don't agree with the first part completely. Schools should do more than produce children capable of passing exams. Here are the reasons NI's ministers decided to look at alternatives to the 11+:
# Polarisation of secondary level schools into low and high achieving schools
# Lower attainment for children currently not given access to grammar schools
# Narrowing of the primary school curriculum in years six and seven because of preparation for the 11-plus exam
# Sense of failure and low self-esteem felt by pupils who did not pass 11-plus
Schools serve society, not simply businessmen. But I'll come to that.
Everyone has to work in the system that's currently on offer. I certainly don't believe that someone who went to a grammar school then has no right to campaign for their abolition. Do you believe that a white South African would have no right to campaign against aparteid?
It does grate when they send their kids to private schools though (and Grammar schools that require the 11+, though most don't these days). That IS helping to perpetuate a system they declare should be changed. |
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hypnotist
Joined: 04 Dec 2004
Location: I wish I were a sock
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| Posted: Wed Aug 31, 2005 8:04 pm Post subject: |
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| bigverne wrote: |
| Because these skills are often meaningless and sometimes take the place of real learning. I am talking about highly subjective skills of 'empathy' and 'team work' that are given increasing emphasis over individual academic attainment and facts. |
The business community had been screaming for these things to be taught, and they're universally recognised as being incredibly important in a business environment, particularly in the service industry.
To say they are meaningless is somewhat daft. However you are correct that they are highly subjective, and so not suitable for measurement by examination. Which takes us back to the Thatcherite doctrine of "only things that can be measured are of value".
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| And why do you think "teaching good values and discipline" is different to "focusing on the emotional development"? |
One refers to teaching children respect, honesty, and manners and punishing children when they misbehave. The other seeks to allow children to decide on their own values (called 'values clarification' in educationspeak) and concentrates on children's self esteeem. One system emphasizes the authority of the teacher, the other undermines it. |
Values clarification comes from businessspeak, not educationspeak. And it doesn't refer to them deciding their own values, but rather understanding how the values, needs and desires of others may differ. Emotional development seeks to teach children respect and honesty rather than instruct them in it. Sometimes I think this has better results, but not always, and I don't know where the balance lies - educational psychologists are still debating this as far as I know.
It's rot to say that the latter approach undermines the authority of the teacher. A teacher who allows children no leeway may for a time keep up the illusion of authority but in reality will demand no respect from the children and will not help them achieve their potential. Children are not automatons and the classroom should not attempt to make them so.
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| Perhaps, yet many failed progressive teaching methods persist. To give one example, the phonics based approach to reading is still not used in many schools despite the fact that it is far superior to other methods used. Why? 'Progressive' ideology that shuns the learning of grammar and the sound of words because it inteferes with children's 'creativity'. |
Actually, analytic phonics IS the overwhelmingly used method in the UK - despite synthetic phonics being an arguably more effective method. The whole-language approach is mainly being used to supplement a phonics approach.
In any case, that's not why progressive ideology dislikes phonics. The reason phonics (briefly) fell from grace was because child-centred education postulated that there should be greater emphasis on meaning and purpose in education - that to enable children to more effectively learn, that learning should be put into a context (call that 'encouraging creativity' if you like, but that's missing the point somewhat). The Piagetian theories were encompassed in the Plowden report of 1967.
However the unstructured, whole-language approach rapidly fell from favour, particularly after the William Tyndall affair of 1974. In reality much of the Plowden report was badly implemented or even used to justify practices contrary to its advice. To quote it in an effort to explain what it was all about:
One of the main educational tasks of the primary school is to build on and strengthen children's intrinsic interest in learning and lead them to learn for themselves rather than from fear of disapproval or desire for praise.
Plowden himself, however, has pointed out that the intention was not to damn the traditional methods entirely:
We wrote that we "endorsed the trend towards individual and active learning" ... yet we gave a warning: "we certainly do not deny the value of learning 'by description' or the need for practice of skills and consolidation of knowledge".' And again, 'Teachers must select those of our suggestions which their knowledge and skill enable them to put into practice in the circumstances of their own schools.' (Plowden 1987)
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| The needs now are very different to the needs then |
Not really. What businesses and employers want are people who are numerate and literate to a high degree, have a good grasp of IT and perhaps fluency in a modern language. |
How many of those needs were important to factory owners? Or farmers? Not to mention IT not even existing back then (and I'd like to see IT - and language for that matter - taught well by rote learning!)
Businesses of a few decades ago didn't need people to have a high degree of numeracy and literacy (but rather only rudimentary knowledge), they didn't need them to understand how to face customers, they didn't need them to be skilled in languages... as I said, the needs now are very different to the needs then.
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| Now, students are dropping languages and employers constantly complain of workers who cannot spell or do basic maths. You could have a return to traditional teaching methods and still teach relevant subjects that employers need. This is something that the education system is now failing to do largely because of failed left-wing ideologies and a collapse in discipline (something which is indicative of a general problem in society, although progressive attitudes to teaching have not helped) in the classroom, which severely limits the ability of teachers to teach. Yet, for many in the educational establishment, discipline is a dirty, anachronistic word. |
To blame progressive attitudes to teaching for discipline problems is to ignore the fact that most discipline problems stem from problems outside the home. With the most disruptive classes, teachers often struggle to get ANY teaching done, much less to decide on what teaching method to use. Discipline is neither dirty nor anarchronistic in our schools - where are you getting this stuff?! The rise in exclusions since targets were abolished in 99/00 has been dramatic.
In any case discipline is improving. In 2002-3 Ofsted judged 90% of secondary schools in England to have behaviour which was "good" or better. This was the peak of a steady and consistent rise from 79% in 1996-7. In the end, though, our schools need to decide where they draw the line and give up teaching certain pupils. They clearly could have done this with the class in the original article - instead they've put in place a system to try and influence their behaviour whilst still teaching. Feel free to froth at the mouth all you like, but that's a forward step as far as I'm concerned. I hope it works. |
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bigverne
Joined: 12 May 2004
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| Posted: Thu Sep 01, 2005 12:13 am Post subject: |
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| What I want is a system that allows all children the same opportunities in life. |
That all sounds very nice and rosy, but what it usually means in effect is offering everyone an equally mediocre education, instead of giving the brightest an excellent education and everyone else a very good education. How would getting rid of grammar schools help kids going to comprehensives? They would, of course, still go to the local comprehensives, along with everyone else. This is about the politics of envy and class war, not about improving the education of the very poorest.
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| Sometimes I think this has better results |
Walk around the streets of any major city, or talk to any schoolteachers and see how these methods of teaching students values have had 'better results'. I'm sorry, but that's laughable.
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| A teacher who allows children no leeway may for a time keep up the illusion of authority but in reality will demand no respect from the children and will not help them achieve their potential. |
You can allow children freedom of thought and creativity while still setting strict boundaries regarding behaviour. As the title of this thread demonstrates it is the children who now run the classroom.
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| To blame progressive attitudes to teaching for discipline problems is to ignore the fact that most discipline problems stem from problems outside the home. |
The progressive methods are partly to blame. Mostly to blame is the breakdown of the family and the undermining of marriage, but that's a different debate entirely.
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| Discipline is neither dirty nor anarchronistic in our schools |
To many leftists educationalists it is. The emphasis on children's self esteem, the phasing out of corporal punishment, and the undermining of the authority of teachers, in favour of 'child centred' education can all be blamed on the progressive educational establishment.
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| In 2002-3 Ofsted judged 90% of secondary schools in England to have behaviour which was "good" or better. |
There was a program on TV recently where a teacher went to some of these schools where the behaviour was deemed 'good' by Ofsted. They must have a different definition of good behaviour than the rest of us.
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| but that's a forward step as far as I'm concerned |
The fact that you think allowing children to swear in class is a 'forward step' shows just how low our educational standards have sunk. |
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hypnotist
Joined: 04 Dec 2004
Location: I wish I were a sock
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| Posted: Thu Sep 01, 2005 1:32 am Post subject: |
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| bigverne wrote: |
| That all sounds very nice and rosy, but what it usually means in effect is offering everyone an equally mediocre education, instead of giving the brightest an excellent education and everyone else a very good education. |
Rubbish. The grammar school system doesn't and never has offered everyone else a "very good" education. That's the entire reason we're having this debate. Since the 11+ was abolished many comprehensive schools have improved considerably. Sadly, some haven't. Again - do you know anyone who failed the 11+? Do you know what conditions were like in comps in the 50s and 60s?
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| How would getting rid of grammar schools help kids going to comprehensives? They would, of course, still go to the local comprehensives, along with everyone else. This is about the politics of envy and class war, not about improving the education of the very poorest. |
The comprehensives would get considerably more money. Grammar schools cream money off from the rest of the system. The local comprehensives would suddenly have money to spend on resources, on buildings, and the facilities available to the average child would improve. That's nothing to do with envy or class war, and everything to do with giving all students a good education, not just those lucky / tutored enough to pass the 11+.
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| Sometimes I think this has better results |
Walk around the streets of any major city, or talk to any schoolteachers and see how these methods of teaching students values have had 'better results'. I'm sorry, but that's laughable. |
It's not laughable. If you'd like to go to explain all this to educational psychologists, be my guest.
Odd - first you claim teachers are the socialist scum who impose these horrific values on children, then you tell me that by talking to them I'll hear a solid condemnation of the practice?
How would you tell from walking around the streets of any major city how the students had been taught, exactly?
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| You can allow children freedom of thought and creativity while still setting strict boundaries regarding behaviour. As the title of this thread demonstrates it is the children who now run the classroom. |
The first part, I agree with. But show me a school that doesn't set strict boundaries regarding behaviour. Schools today are required to have anti-bullying policies and to enforce them - show me a school in the 50s that did that! True, the boundaries have moved, but so has the overall level of childhood behaviour. And that has little to do with schools.
The second part is just daft. If children ran the classroom, they wouldn't be limited to swearing five times a lesson. Seriously, what are the alternatives? Taking them out of the lesson? Fine, except then they fall behind in their education even more. Is that what we want?
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| The progressive methods are partly to blame. Mostly to blame is the breakdown of the family and the undermining of marriage, but that's a different debate entirely. |
Given most of them no longer exist in the way practised in the 60s and 70s, but behaviour hasn't significantly improved, I think you'd have a hard time proving they had any significant role in it.
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| Discipline is neither dirty nor anarchronistic in our schools |
To many leftists educationalists it is. The emphasis on children's self esteem, the phasing out of corporal punishment, and the undermining of the authority of teachers, in favour of 'child centred' education can all be blamed on the progressive educational establishment. |
It's the rightists who undermined teachers, as I've already described. Child-centred education has little to do with discipline, though often its use coincided with less strict behavioral enforcement. The emphasis on a child's self-esteem is important. Jings, what kind of teacher doesn't care about it? That doesn't mean protecting them from life, but it does mean not unnecessarily harming that self-esteem.
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| There was a program on TV recently where a teacher went to some of these schools where the behaviour was deemed 'good' by Ofsted. They must have a different definition of good behaviour than the rest of us. |
My comment was simply that it had improved. The inspectors saw behaviour in a couple of specific classes on specific days, too. I didn't see the program so I'll have to leave your rhetoric unanswered.
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| but that's a forward step as far as I'm concerned |
The fact that you think allowing children to swear in class is a 'forward step' shows just how low our educational standards have sunk. |
I think it's better than excluding them from class, which is what would have happened in the past. And if you think children never swore in classrooms in the past, I have to wonder exactly where you went to school... |
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bigverne
Joined: 12 May 2004
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| Posted: Thu Sep 01, 2005 2:12 am Post subject: |
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| The comprehensives would get considerably more money. Grammar schools cream money off from the rest of the system. The local comprehensives would suddenly have money to spend on resources, on buildings, and the facilities available to the average child would improve. |
Do you have any evidence that grammar schools receive 'considerably' more money? Moreover, if spending in grammar and comprehensives was equal, per pupil, would you still be against grammar schools? If it's all about money, then why not just guarantee all state schools, equal funding per pupil?
The problem with abolishing grammars is that it would not get rid of inequality. If anything it would increase it. The rich middle classes would either opt out of the state system or supplement state education with private tuition (as many parents do in Korea). Either way, money would become more, not less important to a good education. Those that would suffer would be children from working class, and lower middle class families who had previously benefited from grammar schools.
Personally, I think parents should be given vouchers to spend on their children's education. At the moment we spend around �7,000 per pupil per year on secondary education. It would not be a perfect system, but at least it would give poor parents (many of them immigrants) to send their children to schools that emphasized discipline and high academic standards, something absent from many comps.
At the moment, the state takes our tax money, decides how to spent it, and basically tells parents what school their child is allowed to go to. It is a fundamentally flawed, and grossly inefficient system. It strangles new ideas, and allows poor teachers and teaching methods to continue.
I think that the Pakistani who runs a corner shop in Brick Lane should have the same opportunity to send his son to a top private or grammar school, rather than be condemned to an inner city comp. The state has a duty to provide a good, basic education up to 16. Everyone should have that provided for them. Apart from that it is up to students, along with guidance from parents and teachers to do the best they can. Inevitably, this will lead to inequalities, within schools and between them. Getting rid of grammar schools would simply punish those parents who think that educating their children is more important than watching Big Brother. |
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hypnotist
Joined: 04 Dec 2004
Location: I wish I were a sock
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| Posted: Thu Sep 01, 2005 5:50 pm Post subject: |
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| bigverne wrote: |
| Do you have any evidence that grammar schools receive 'considerably' more money? |
Received. It is widely known. However, since the funding regimes were (at that time) an LEA-by-LEA matter, there's no central policy I can point you towards. The academic research is out there, but you'll have to do the legwork by yourself to find it. Sorry bout that.
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| Moreover, if spending in grammar and comprehensives was equal, per pupil, would you still be against grammar schools? If it's all about money, then why not just guarantee all state schools, equal funding per pupil? |
Yes. There's plenty of research to suggest the middle class can maintain their advantage by playing the game with respect to intake (see Ball, S. Class Strategies and the Education Market: the middle class and
social advantage. London: RoutledgeFalmer, 2003). Plus such schools will nevertheless cream off good teachers and attract more outside funding - particularly sponsorship, further increasing their advantage. Funding doesn't just come from Government.
Selection hurts all but the most intelligent. That can't be avoided.
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| The problem with abolishing grammars is that it would not get rid of inequality. If anything it would increase it. The rich middle classes would either opt out of the state system or supplement state education with private tuition (as many parents do in Korea). Either way, money would become more, not less important to a good education. Those that would suffer would be children from working class, and lower middle class families who had previously benefited from grammar schools. |
Under the current system, that's more or less what happened. However we're now a very long way from the comprehensive ideal. There's nothing much that can be done about private tuition (and of course it happens at the moment anyway, just not hogwonised). I'm in favour of abolishing private schools, too, particularly having seen first-hand how socially divisive they are.
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| Personally, I think parents should be given vouchers to spend on their children's education. At the moment we spend around ?,000 per pupil per year on secondary education. It would not be a perfect system, but at least it would give poor parents (many of them immigrants) to send their children to schools that emphasized discipline and high academic standards, something absent from many comps. |
It's far from a perfect system. How on earth would it work in practice? The best and most popular schools (not necessarily the same thing) would be extremely oversubscribed, and what's going to get them to choose the poorest pupils? Who probably can't afford the uniform and almost certainly can't afford the travel to get there? Vouchers are simply a way for the middle class to buy their way into private schools. They'd do nothing for the bulk of the pupils, who'd continue to go to even more grossly underfunded comprehensive schools.
Parents shouldn't need choice over school, just as patients shouldn't need choice over hospitals. Now that a very difficult situation to aim for, but I don't believe it's hopelessly impossible.
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| At the moment, the state takes our tax money, decides how to spent it, and basically tells parents what school their child is allowed to go to. It is a fundamentally flawed, and grossly inefficient system. It strangles new ideas, and allows poor teachers and teaching methods to continue. |
Agreed - in an efficient system there would be no need for choice.
It's very hard to get rid of poor teachers from schools. Don't think everyone - from the kids to the heads to the authorities - don't know who they are, though. And that difficulty has nothing whatsoever to do with the current funding system.
There's also far, far more choice than there used to be - particularly during the grammar school regime, where failing the 11+ meant the choice of one secondary modern.
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| I think that the Pakistani who runs a corner shop in Brick Lane should have the same opportunity to send his son to a top private or grammar school, rather than be condemned to an inner city comp. |
And I don't think going to an inner city comp should be a condemnation. You seem happy to continue to send some pupils there whilst making no effort to improve it.
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| The state has a duty to provide a good, basic education up to 16. Everyone should have that provided for them. Apart from that it is up to students, along with guidance from parents and teachers to do the best they can. Inevitably, this will lead to inequalities, within schools and between them. Getting rid of grammar schools would simply punish those parents who think that educating their children is more important than watching Big Brother. |
Education should be pupil-led, not parent-led (or teacher-led for that matter). You want middle class children to have better opportunities than the rest because their parents shout louder. I don't.
Some more for you:
OECD/UNESCO-UIS (2003) Literacy Skills for the World of tomorrow – Further results from PISA 2000 OECD:
Among the ten countries with the most pronounced socio-economic segregation observed in PISA, all carry out selection procedures that channel students into different streams of secondary education��Ch. 7 p220
D. Jesson (2001), "Selective systems of education - blueprint for lower educational standards?"
We have seen that around a quarter of pupils in selective areas go to grammar schools, this means that about one half of the more able pupils in these areas fail to achieve grammar school entry. Instead they go to secondary modern or other non-selective schools. Perhaps one reason for the resulting poor performance of the selective system as a whole derives from the impact on these pupils�� educational progress of being classed as failures at age 11. This feature is, of course, completely absent in non-selective areas.
ibid.
These findings, based as they are, on the outcomes of many thousands of pupils, suggest that claims that ��grammar schools provide excellent performance�� is at best only a half-truth. Noone would wish to deny that grammar schools get ��good results�� for the able pupils they select, but what actually happens in selective areas is that pupils who are not selected go into secondary modern schools, and their GCSE performance actually depresses the communities�� overall performance. That is, selective systems result in lower educational performance.
Answer to PQ, 1/11/00
The proportion of children eligible for free school meals in grammar schools is dramatically less than in their locality.
I could go on, but there's ample evidence out there. |
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Butterfly
Joined: 02 Mar 2003
Location: Kuwait
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| Posted: Thu Sep 01, 2005 5:55 pm Post subject: |
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| Gwangjuboy wrote: |
| I think parents should shoulder some of the responsibility for filling that void too. I have met children on a council estate where I used to live and many of them have had their lives blighted by disruption. Unfortunately, as well as this disruption many of the children lack any intellectual curiosity because their parents (some cases just one) have failed to develop it. I found it quite sad to exchange conversations with them on some intellectually stimulating level only to find a lack of any meaningful reciprocation. (for example, I might ask them about other countries, cities, or animals) |
Right, so right. Good friends of mine who were teachers, left the profession, not because of the children (swearing or not), but because of the abusive, practically illiterate, 'blame culture' parents.
Christ, who'd be a teacher? Whether left or right, the point is that these days, nobody wants to be one.
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| I just want to know how many times a teacher in that school gets to use the F-word at his students before losing his job. |
Once. The parents would be in within the hour threatening to sue the school. It's all wrong. |
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hypnotist
Joined: 04 Dec 2004
Location: I wish I were a sock
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| Posted: Thu Sep 01, 2005 9:42 pm Post subject: |
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| Butterfly wrote: |
Christ, who'd be a teacher?
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My sister. My ex-housemate (very right-wing on everything except education policy...). My uni friend/ex-housemate (lasted a year in the job). My uni friend/climbing buddy (now works for one of the largest and richest Public Schools in England). And they're just the teachers I know around my age group |
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Butterfly
Joined: 02 Mar 2003
Location: Kuwait
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| Posted: Fri Sep 02, 2005 12:35 am Post subject: |
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| hypnotist wrote: |
| Butterfly wrote: |
Christ, who'd be a teacher?
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My sister. My ex-housemate (very right-wing on everything except education policy...). My uni friend/ex-housemate (lasted a year in the job). My uni friend/climbing buddy (now works for one of the largest and richest Public Schools in England). And they're just the teachers I know around my age group |
And society sure better start respecting your family and friends again soon, or nobody will be there to take over from them when they retire. |
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bigverne
Joined: 12 May 2004
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| Posted: Fri Sep 02, 2005 5:02 am Post subject: |
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| I'm in favour of abolishing private schools, too, particularly having seen first-hand how socially divisive they are. |
Please explain what you mean by 'socially divisive'. Private schools provide an excellent education, and would probably be driven out of business if state schools provided discipline, academic excellence and a good all round education. Most people do not want to pay �7,000 a year or more on top of their tax bill. However, the educational establishment and successive government have failed to provide a decent education system.
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| The best and most popular schools (not necessarily the same thing) would be extremely oversubscribed, and what's going to get them to choose the poorest pupils? |
As parents would be given vouchers worth �7,000 or more they would be able to afford a decent range of schools. Obviously, Eton and Harrow would still be the preserve of the very rich, but many private schools would charge those kind of fees. There could be government funded scholarships for poor kids to attend more expensive private schools.
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| They'd do nothing for the bulk of the pupils, who'd continue to go to even more grossly underfunded comprehensive schools. |
Why would they be even more grossly underfunded? There would of course be a safety net that the government provided, but good schools, employing good teachers, would attract pupils. Poor schools would have to change and improve to attract students, which could be done with government grants. Over time the quality of education and teaching would improve as schools would have to compete to attract students. It would also lead to a more diverse school system, catering to the varied abilities of pupils and wishes of parents. A far cry from the monolithic, soviet-esque beast you would seek to impose on people.
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| Parents shouldn't need choice over school |
Of course they do. All children are not the same, and neither are all parents. Parents should be free to choose, within limits, where to send their children. If you want to send your kids to a school with a 'progressive' approach then that would be up to you. Many other parents would prefer there children to be raised in a school with more traditional methods.
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| There's also far, far more choice than there used to be - particularly during the grammar school regime, where failing the 11+ meant the choice of one secondary modern. |
I'm not asking for a return to the grammar system. or the abolition of comprehensives. I am simply against abolishing grammars to achieve some socialist egalitarian goal that would result in no improvement in educational standards.
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| You seem happy to continue to send some pupils there whilst making no effort to improve it. |
I think poor parents should be allowed to choose how to spend their tax money as far as education is concerned. You believe the government should do this. If parents were free to choose, comprehensive schools, and 'progressive' teaching methods would mostly dissapear, as parents would send their kids to other schools.
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| Education should be pupil-led |
What does this actually mean? Parents are, in general, the best judges of their children's well-being, and it is they who should decide how their children are educated. The hallmark of totalitarian societies was the ability of the state to completely control the education of the young, taking away parents' rights to educate their children. 'Pupil-led' education sounds to me like 'state led' education, where educational theorists (many of them very far left wing) decide how and what to teach children.
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| You want middle class children to have better opportunities than the rest because their parents shout louder. I don't. |
No, I want the role of the state in education minimalised. It has been in control for the last 50 or so years, and it has faired quite poorly. I want to give freedom to all parents, to decide how their children are educated. So what if some parents 'shout louder'. That just means they care more about their children's education. Good for them. There are also many poor parents who care deeply about their kids education who are currently failed by the comprehensive system.
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| in an efficient system there would be no need for choice. |
But don't you see that the system is inefficient precisely because it is state controlled and monolithic. It doesn't matter how much money you pump into it, improvements will be negligible as the structure is flawed. The same is true for the NHS, and sooner or later both will need to be radically reformed. It is not a matter of if, but when, and there will be no going back to the monolithic public services that are now creaking into the 21st century. |
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hypnotist
Joined: 04 Dec 2004
Location: I wish I were a sock
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| Posted: Fri Sep 02, 2005 6:41 pm Post subject: |
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| bigverne wrote: |
| Please explain what you mean by 'socially divisive'. |
Erm, they promote divisions in society. What do you think I meant?
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| Private schools provide an excellent education, and would probably be driven out of business if state schools provided discipline, academic excellence and a good all round education. |
Rubbish. Their prestige would keep many of them alive. They're schools for the privileged and rich, and (despite the overall benefits for society if they did so) such parents would not send their children to the state sector if they could help it. And not for education-related reasons, either. Heard of "jobs for the boys?
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| Most people do not want to pay ?,000 a year or more on top of their tax bill. However, the educational establishment and successive government have failed to provide a decent education system. |
Again, rubbish. Our education system is somewhat patchy and certainly underfunded, but it is still able to offer excellent education in places. If tax were higher perhaps we could properly invest in our schools.
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| As parents would be given vouchers worth ?,000 or more they would be able to afford a decent range of schools. |
Where are these schools magically going to appear from? And the cost of the voucher would be a drop in the ocean compared to the fees of most schools, believe me. It would only just have covered the fees my family paid for me during my brief flirtation with the private sector nearly 20 years ago - and I was on a scholarship.
In fact, the Tories have been trying to pretend that "on-the-cheap" private schools would somehow be set up in order to provide for parents who couldn't afford to top-up the vouchers to afford the current private schools, but didn't want to go with the public sector. Given these schools would be less efficient than those in the public sector and so offer less for more, it's hard to see why any parent would choose it.
No, the reason for vouchers in general is so the middle classes can more easily opt out of the state sector. Of course, the Tories have tried to cover this counter-argument by making it against their rules to top-up (though charities could do so, and parents can set up charities...). But without a massive increase in school-building, and a willingness to allow other schools to wither and die (and what of the pupils left behind in them?), the policy is bunk.
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| Obviously, Eton and Harrow would still be the preserve of the very rich, but many private schools would charge those kind of fees. |
Many? That's unproven. There's already a shortage of independent school places. Presumably it's not cost-effective for schools to open to cater to that demand now. What'd change just because the Government is willing to pay less money than they'd get anyway?
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| There could be government funded scholarships for poor kids to attend more expensive private schools. |
Like the Assisted Places scheme. It was excellent for those on it - I knew several. But it cost a huge, huge amount in comparison to the number of pupils it helped, and it was basically taxpayers money supporting independent schools. The money was better spent for the benefit of the many.
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| Why would they be even more grossly underfunded? There would of course be a safety net that the government provided, but good schools, employing good teachers, would attract pupils. |
Where is this safety net going to come from? Just because it costs five grand to send a pupil to school doesn't mean that all that money is spent by the school. It goes to things like school meals, bus services, support services for pupils with SEN (ALWAYS absent in the rhetoric from the right), and so on. Simply put, in order to pay for the vouchers money has to be cut from elsewhere. Hence they'd be grossly underfunded. Unless you're intending to raise taxes?
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| Poor schools would have to change and improve to attract students, which could be done with government grants. |
This already happens to some extent. The implications for a school that fails its OFSTED report are huge, and the entire management team can be replaced at the worst.
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| Over time the quality of education and teaching would improve as schools would have to compete to attract students. It would also lead to a more diverse school system, catering to the varied abilities of pupils and wishes of parents. A far cry from the monolithic, soviet-esque beast you would seek to impose on people. |
Perhaps it's worth pointing out that the Soviet system was extremely good 
I sense you'd like the way they handled dicipline, too...
How are you going to bring down the barriers to entry for opening new schools?
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| Of course they do. All children are not the same, and neither are all parents. Parents should be free to choose, within limits, where to send their children. If you want to send your kids to a school with a 'progressive' approach then that would be up to you. Many other parents would prefer there children to be raised in a school with more traditional methods. |
Many parents don't even know what the difference is, beyond what their newspapers tell them (where did you get your idea that phonics isn't well used in UK schools these days, for example?).
I'm not saying parents shouldn't be able to choose their schools. As you say, some children have different needs. But the point is they shouldn't need to do so, because their local school is failing.
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| I'm not asking for a return to the grammar system. or the abolition of comprehensives. I am simply against abolishing grammars to achieve some socialist egalitarian goal that would result in no improvement in educational standards. |
I agree, but more equal distribution of resources and pupils of all levels is proven to improve standards. See some of the reports I've already posted. There's nothing socialist about that.
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| I think poor parents should be allowed to choose how to spend their tax money as far as education is concerned. You believe the government should do this. If parents were free to choose, comprehensive schools, and 'progressive' teaching methods would mostly dissapear, as parents would send their kids to other schools. |
Firstly I don't agree that progressive teaching methods would mostly disappear, since properly used they increase the happiness of the child at the school and help his learning process. "Traditional" methods of learning have severe drawbacks too, and that's why most schools today use a mixture of the two approaches. But anyway, you've misinterpreted my approach. You're assuming that some schools must fail, and that therefore the state should provide a way to get pupils out of those schools. I'm saying that we should make sure no school does fail. You want choice to enable people to exit the system. I want it merely to improve the system, to the extent that choice becomes more or less unnecessary.
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| Quote: |
| Education should be pupil-led |
What does this actually mean? Parents are, in general, the best judges of their children's well-being, and it is they who should decide how their children are educated. |
For the educated middle-class (like us), this is undoubtedly true. But other posts on this thread as well as your own comments make it obvious that it can't be applied throughout society.
If parents can't or won't decide how their children are educated, their children shouldn't suffer for that. That's my point, and one you're determined to miss because you seem to believe if the parents don't care, the child shouldn't matter.
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| The hallmark of totalitarian societies was the ability of the state to completely control the education of the young, taking away parents' rights to educate their children. 'Pupil-led' education sounds to me like 'state led' education, where educational theorists (many of them very far left wing) decide how and what to teach children. |
Firstly, how many educational theorists do you know of?
Pupil-led education is about making sure every pupil, regardless of family background, has the best possible chance in life. Nothing I've said has remotely suggested parents shouldn't be able to educate their children the way they'd like.
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| No, I want the role of the state in education minimalised. It has been in control for the last 50 or so years, and it has faired quite poorly. I want to give freedom to all parents, to decide how their children are educated. So what if some parents 'shout louder'. That just means they care more about their children's education. Good for them. There are also many poor parents who care deeply about their kids education who are currently failed by the comprehensive system. |
The way to combat that failure is by making their local school(s) of a good quality. Even with a voucher system it's debatable whether they'd be able to afford the other costs of sending their children to some mythical private school. That's what pupil-led education policy is about.
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But don't you see that the system is inefficient precisely because it is state controlled and monolithic. It doesn't matter how much money you pump into it, improvements will be negligible as the structure is flawed. The same is true for the NHS, and sooner or later both will need to be radically reformed. It is not a matter of if, but when, and there will be no going back to the monolithic public services that are now creaking into the 21st century. |
Whenever I hear things like "hard choices" and "state-run is necessarily inefficient" and "the structure is flawed", I always think - there goes any service for the poor. It's a nice Thatcherite view utterly untroubled by reality. Right now, we're having to pump a lot of money in for not much effect seen at point of use, because everything has been so woefully underfunded for so long (not just Thatcher's fault - and that pained me to say...) - those working in the service are slowly noticing the effects the extra money has, however. You're describing exactly the Thatcherite thinking I quoted that lecturer describing - everything has to have a monitary value that only the market can decide. But when it comes to essentials like education and healthcare, the market is purely equipped to handle it. It's like this whole debacle over school dinners. We let the market decide - bingo, turkey twizzlers. If the same thing happens to those deciding the curriculum, we might as well pack up and leave the country now. |
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