In Education questions the other week Michael Gove gave one answer in which he said it was both very important that parents retained the right to remove their child from sex and relationships education and at the same time that all pupils had access to high quality sex and relationships education.

Mr Gove could either be confused about the contradiction here or he could be regurgitating meaningless platitudes to try to project a nice cosy image whilst he bulldozes through a radical re-structuring of the state education system which even the Conservative Chair of the Education Select Committee does not think is getting adequate parliamentary scrutiny.

I think it is concerning that this isn’t being debated properly. Indefensible.

However I think it’s about time we had a big shake-up of the state school system, as it’s been failing students for decades. I’m not entirely sure if making them operationally independent (whilst still fully state-funded, in the case of Academies, and part-funded by non-state groups in the case of Free Schools) is the solution – but it certainly does put the onus on parents to actually give a fuck about their kids’ education, as opposed to just shuffling them off to the nearest crappy comprehensive.

So this is a big massive experiment – I say why not. If it all goes tits-up, which it probably will do, we can vote Labour in again and go back to the old system.

Also: I know traditionally many secularists thought that the Lib Dems had the strongest record on opposing faith schools, but the absence of Lib Dem criticism of this aspect of the Academies Bill was very noticeable in last night’s debate. Whither principles?

By contrast, Labour’s Barry Sheerman and Tom Blenkinsop both expressed concern that a proliferation of faith schools under the academies programme would undermine social cohesion and lead to schools being allowed to teach creationism and other nonsense.

With reference to Steiner Waldorf education, the VC of Stockholm University closed the Steiner teacher training course back in 2008 stating:

“Some of the content is not only scientifically untenable, it is simply untrue”.

http://bit.ly/ccQT9Y

I will support anything which holds out the prospect of improved literacy and numeracy.
Let’s see if this experiment works.
I’m sure the students will be perfectly capable of assessing the “Atlantis” theory for themselves.
I went to a CofE primary and I managed to resist the indoctrination, such as it was.

Instead of complaining about what other people want to do in their schools, why don’t humanists and secularists get stuck in and offer what they feel is the best form of education to families. If their scheme is better than what faith groups offer, it will be those schools that succeed and flourish.

@Blanco

Is risking children’s education with religious nutjobbery a valid gamble to take? What about the young lives blighted by indoctrination? (Yes I am aware that New Labour were in favour of faith schooling, no I don’t agree).

@cjcjc

Does C of E even count as a proper religion anymore? Seems more like an exercise in jam-making to me (or the Tory party at prayer as someone said). Everytime I question a C of E-er about Christian mumbo-jumbo (virgin birth, wine = blood, etc) they always look very embarrassed about the whole thing.

@Nick

Yeah, because the past 18 months or so have proved that markets provide the best outcomes all the time and that gamble is worth taking with education [/rolleyes]

One way to stop the divisions and ignorance that runs through our society would be to stop molly-coddling faith schools and pump more money into a secular education. On this, at least, France has the right idea.

Oh and any religious types reading: Can your God create a stone too heavy for Him to carry? Just askin’…

The point that Nick – and the lib cons – miss is that the point of schools is not simply to appeal to parents. Schools play an important role for the societies that they shape – and it is important that society is able to decide what kind of schools it want.

“They are therefore removed from the moderating influence of the state and local community.”

I disagree that the influence of the state is “moderating” and anyway the whole point of the reform is to get the state out of the classroom. It makes little sense in our vibrant, diverse and modern society to have a remote buracracy running eductation.

It depends what you mean by “the local community” – if you mean local government then again, that is point of the reform getting local bureaucrats out of the classroom, if you mean parents then they will have more involvment, and schools will be accountable to them, which is as it should be.

“If their scheme is better than what faith groups offer, it will be those schools that succeed and flourish.”

Just as those restaurants that offer fresh healthy food succesfully flourished against the junk served in Mcdonalds and Burger King.

The point that I think the current government is missing, when it proposes all these reforms, is that schools are supposed to be for the benefit of the children, not the parents.

“As the Government isn’t prepared to ensure that creationism will not be taught in these new schools, it is hardly surprising that it has no plans to guarantee objective, non-judgmental teaching on sex and relationships”.

I agree that creationism shouldn’t be “taught” as a subject because it’s not “a fact” (it’s not a subject, it’s a religious beleif) but who exactly can guarantee “objective, non-judgmental teaching on sex and relationships”. All teaching is value laden, what you probably mean by “objective” is approved by a quango, which is about as far from objective as you get.

@ 11 And who better to judge whats best for children than their parents ?

“And who better to judge whats best for children than their parents ?”

An expert in education and child psychology, perhaps? Giving birth to or fathering a child doesn’t make you an expert in childrearing.

“If their scheme is better than what faith groups offer, it will be those schools that succeed and flourish.”

Just as those restaurants that offer fresh healthy food succesfully flourished against the junk served in Mcdonalds and Burger King.

But the point of schools is (or should be) to educate, not to make money. Children who eat healthy food every day will probably be better of than those who dine at Maccy D’s five days a week, just as kids that go to school with a sensibly designed curriculum will probably receive a better education than those who go to one that wastes school time teaching some creation myth or other as fact.

@Matt,

One does not necessarily follow from the other. Do parents have the right to force their children into a particular religious worldview? Or, more pressingly, do parents have the right to deny their children access to certain aspects of education (evolution being the most obvious one) just because they, themselves, disagree with it?

Education has gone wrong in many ways – I think we should be teaching children to think critically rather than recite facts – but these proposed reforms, in my view, will make these problems worse, not better, by allowing the ideological convictions of various interest groups to interrupt the education of our children.

Can I just probe the the ‘anti-faith schools’ attitude that many seem to have on here (and I know that this piece is from the BHA, so there is an agenda from the writer’s perspective).

According to the BHA’s website, 35.6% of primary schools are ‘faith-based’, with a figure of 17.5% for secondary schools. So around a third of kids today are being educated by religious types. So are we saying that they’re all being pumped full of bile and dogma – ‘cos that doesn’t ring true to me. I don’t doubt that a vanishingly small minority do promote their religious beliefs inappropriately and are a bit dodgy on creation/ evolution, but anecdotally the fact that parents seem to want to push their kids into the schools would suggest that it’s not widespread.

For the record, I’m a cowardly agnostic and would probably prefer to send my kids (if/ when I have them) to a non-faith based school, but would definitely tolerate the odd hymn-based assembly and slightly odd RE teacher if the school was better than a ‘secular’ alternative.

Quick disclaimer – I think that the government’s education plans in general are ace, and I know that almost all of you don’t, so don’t want to debate that. That said, they are being rushed through – a regular bugbear with the last govt – so that is a very legitimate grievance.

“According to the BHA’s website, 35.6% of primary schools are ‘faith-based’, with a figure of 17.5% for secondary schools. So around a third of kids today are being educated by religious types. So are we saying that they’re all being pumped full of bile and dogma – ‘cos that doesn’t ring true to me. I don’t doubt that a vanishingly small minority do promote their religious beliefs inappropriately and are a bit dodgy on creation/ evolution, but anecdotally the fact that parents seem to want to push their kids into the schools would suggest that it’s not widespread.”

I went to a perfectly normal set of schools that were Christian in the usual half-arsed kind of way, and I still remember my anger at realizing I’d been fed all that nonsense as fact.

I agree that the number of seriously problematic schools in this respect is probably small, but that doesn’t mean we should be allowing the indoctrination and waste of educational time and resources suffered by the kids who go to them, especially as these kids are almost by definition going to get pretty much the same stuff at home.

I also reject on principal the idea of telling a kid, in an educational environment, that Jesus died to save us or Allah is the one true god in a way that implies that it’s as factual as saying that chemicals tend to solidify when they get cold enough, or that the Battle of Hastings was in 1066.

I’m glad there are going to be more faith schools. We shouldn’t listen to these nutjobs from the Rationalist Association or the Humanist Society or whatever. They’re all cranks like that Nicholas Walter, who used to write letters to the Times every week. The modern day equivalents of Madame Blavatsky and her baboon.

I think it’s a form of child abuse to neglect the moral and spiritual development of children. And though experts and child psychologists can offer advice, in the end it is the parents’ responsibility to make decisions. They shouldn’t outsource them.

For years it has been the case that Catholic, C of E and Jewish schools have outperformed the non-denom schools. So, the higher proportion of schools that are run in this way, the higher will be standards overall.

I worry though about Islamic schools. It seems a lot of those involved in Muslim education come from the Hizb ut Tahrir end of the spectrum. Someone will have to keep an eye on that. I’m sure Ed Husain, Douglas Murray and their friends could give Ofsted a few pointers.

I was brought up in a working-class Irish family where the twin pillars were the Church and the Labour party. Often it was hard to tell the difference between the two: the Knights of St Columba chose the council candidates and even arranged union branch nominations for would-be MPs. Everyone went to Catholic schools and then went on to run Catholic voluntary organizations. Cameron might think he’s inventing the big society, but as John Cruddas can tell him, Catholic communities across Britain have been doing all this for years. And faith schools are at the heart of it.

@ 16 “One does not necessarily follow from the other. Do parents have the right to force their children into a particular religious worldview? Or, more pressingly, do parents have the right to deny their children access to certain aspects of education (evolution being the most obvious one) just because they, themselves, disagree with it?”

Almost by definition parents “indocrinate” their children, it’s impossible for them not to because most indocrination is covert and parents spend a lot of time with their children and are, in the early years at least, a source of authorirty. This is nothing new in that, nor is it confined to the religious sphere. I mean do meat eaters “force” their kids to eat meat and deny them acess to the vegetarian worldview ? Where exactly do you stop with that line of reasoning ?

In my expeerience this argument is always a precursor made by people trying to justify state intervention in education and the family, as though the state is somehow a benevolent force and is by default giving “the correct” (generally meaning a non-judgemental, 1960s form of liberalism with a sprinkling of po-mo marxism and cultural relativism) worldview . Obviously parents have faults, but so will whoever educates them, and given that I take responsibility for my children and trust myself to bring them up, I prefer them to be indocrinated with my faults, rather than the states, or “societys’”. .

To be fair though, it’s completely up to the Governors of the school in consultation with the Head. Some local authorities charge a ridiculous amount (average 15% of budget) for services such as procurement, payroll, ed psyches etc. Now, whilst some schools may get a good deal out of the authority in certain circumstances, the vast majority have been shafted by the inefficient bureauocracy that is inherent in LA’s. Plus, Govey’s hope that they’ll get registered by September is increasingly looking like gibberish as Heads, pupils, Governors, staff are all gonna be on jollies in a minute.

I quite like the policy really, as someone mentioned above, if it improves the disasterous academic stats that have been declining for a significant number of years then all power to their elbow. The rise & strength of faith based schools has always been polemic; the Cantle report into Bradford stuff highlighted parallel lives & stuff with reference to such institutions. I’m in a bit of a quandrary really as i’m all for parents & kiddies being taught whatever the chuff they’re happy with but does liberty give rise to divergence?

The plans give rise to the academies lasting for a minimum of 7 years and then they can revert back to type. LA’s need a shake up (especially with procurement as Heads can just phone up Bob the Builder and save vast amounts of cash) and it seems to offer some corrolory with the NHS reforms, however, this bill seems a lot more plausible, sensible, rigourous & workable than the dog’s breakfast Lansley’s vomitted up.

#14: “An expert in education and child psychology, perhaps? Giving birth to or fathering a child doesn’t make you an expert in childrearing.”

Of course, an expert in those subjects would start by telling you that different children learn in different ways and at different paces, and would advise that for best results you start by finding out what is best for them as an individual, a topic which the parents are far more likely to know about simply through experience.

I’m not saying that national education policy should be set solely by parents, but I think in general they are competent to set individual education policies.

“, just as kids that go to school with a sensibly designed curriculum will probably receive a better education than those who go to one that wastes school time teaching some creation myth or other as fact.”

I think you misunderstood my sarcasmm, i agree with you.

Religious organisations already have massive wealth and infrastructure necessary to take advantage of these reforms. they already have the means to cover start up costs, marketing etc. There are no secular organisations that do so. So – in a hypothetical education market based entirely on “libertarian” voucher principles*, it is entirely predictable that religious organisations will succesfully take over existing schools and establish new ones and obtain a high market share quickly. This will create barriers to entry for new organisations, meaning that secular education will achieve the same level of market share as hippie organic cafes do in the food industry. Or to put it another way with the food analogy, michellan starred education for the few whose parents have the wealth and knowledge to obtain such education, and mcdonalds style education for the rest.

*actually the libertarian approach to education policy is logically to leave it to the market entirely, and leave it to individuals or families whether or not to buy the products offered. that actual libertarians argue for vouchers funded by the state suggests that even they are aware of the flaws of this approach.

@Matt,

I take your point that the state “indoctrinating” one’s children may well be no better than a parent “indoctrinating” their children. But a standardised state education may at least give the child some contrast to the values that they are exposed to at home. By effectively giving parents the power to bring their child’s education more into line with their own beliefs you run the risk of denying the child meaningful access to any other worldviews, ever, thus somewhat stunting the potential for the child to gain the sort of critical thinking skills I was referring to in my last post.

I wouldn’t dispute the right of parents to bring their children up according to whatever values they see fit, but I do see the benefit of allowing schools to provide a slightly different worldview, rather than one solely dictated by the parents.

@ 14 “And who better to judge whats best for children than their parents ?”

“An expert in education and child psychology, perhaps? Giving birth to or fathering a child doesn’t make you an expert in childrearing”.

Buy why do you need to be an expert in something (parenthood) which is an innate ability ? People do seem to have managed to bring up kids for quite a long time without the help of “experts”.
I’m not saying they have no role, but it’s absurd to expect parents to abdicate all responsibility for their kids to experts – who let’s face will only have a relationship with them for a tiny part of their lives, will only ever see them in one context, and will never have an emotional investment in them. Anyway, the idea that the average state school teacher is an expert in anything is laughable.

@19

Your argument boils down to “faith schools are good as long as it’s my faith they’re teaching”.

I personally see filling children’s minds with mumbo-jumbo divisive bullshit about a genocidal homophobic sexist sky-fairy (all faiths) being the creator of the universe as a form of child abuse. Implying that atheists can’t have a moral grounding is frankly bollocks.

@ 24 “I wouldn’t dispute the right of parents to bring their children up according to whatever values they see fit, but I do see the benefit of allowing schools to provide a slightly different worldview, rather than one solely dictated by the parents.”

Absolutely, challenging your parents worldview is an essential part of growing up, the problems starts because most people hold their worldviews very ridgidly and don’t want anyone, let alone their own kids, challenging them.
What’s amusing me at the moment is my 9 year old doing “the environemnt” at school, which involves nagging us about the recycling but doesn’t seem to involve turning the tv off when not watching, walking, rather being driven, to activities, or not visiting mcdonalds now and again.

@ 26 But there is no such thing as an “objective” education , it is by definition value laden, an atheist education can no more lay claim to objectivity than a religious one. And as someone said upthread, going to a faith school does not guarantee producing “a beleiver”, this is because we are not blank slates…………….

@ 23 But surely there are loads of rich atheists prepared to put their money where their ideological mouths are ? Theres nothing stopping them from setting up schools. Starbucks started as hippie organic cafe (maybe not organic but you take the point)

@Gould
“For years it has been the case that Catholic, C of E and Jewish schools have outperformed the non-denom schools. So, the higher proportion of schools that are run in this way, the higher will be standards overall.”

The reason that faith schools do better than their nearby non-faith competitors is because the faith schools – through selective admissions – get the children of parents who care about their education. The non-faith school gets the rest – including some very difficult pupils. This then becomes a vicious circle as the next generation of concerned parents go to church to select the faith school.

I know: I am doing this.

@28

All my argument, in a nutshell, is that religious education should be done outside of state schooling. Basically in the home/church/mosque/synagogue – not school.

I’ve no problem with teaching kids about different faiths as understanding is the key to tolerance. But I find schools with an overtly religious agenda (and I know there aren’t that many at the moment, the point is there will be more due to this rushed legislation by the ConDems) rather at odds with what society should aim to be.

In Northern Ireland, for instance, how many Protestants and Catholics are schooled together? Genuine question btw: but I’m betting in the recent past the answer was “fuck all”. Division = ignorance = fear = hatred = violence.

@ 30

because the faith schools – through selective admissions – get the children of parents who care about their education.

Primary schools aren’t selective. Neither are most faith secondaries. Most Catholic secondaries are full of pupils that attended feeder Catholic primaries.

I’m a governor of a fairly typical Catholic primary which has a far higher percentage of pupils with English as a second language than local non-denoms, about the same free school meals, more SEN, and stratospherically higher SATS.

Yes, maybe (and it’s a big maybe) there’s a sense in which these parents care more about education – but heck, Indian families value education too.

In any case, that’s the sort of inequality we shouldn’t be trying to iron out. What do you propose: sending in council workers to tell parents not to care so much about their kids? Force feed them sugar and chuck out the Omega 3? And tear up any books found in their homes?

If, as you seem to imply, the cultural milieu of faith-based communities is conducive to better teaching & learning – then let’s have more of it!

“there is no public appetite for more religious academies”

Then they will fail and the problem as you see it will not exist. Unless of course you mean that no views other than those accepted by the majority should be taught but you wouldn’t be saying that would you?

“there are loads of rich atheists prepared to put their money where their ideological mouths are ?”

Probably enough to finance some start ups, and they’ll exist as a niche market in the big cities. But that won’t be enough to prevent the majority getting fast food education.

“Of course, an expert in those subjects would start by telling you that different children learn in different ways and at different paces, and would advise that for best results you start by finding out what is best for them as an individual, a topic which the parents are far more likely to know about simply through experience.

I’m not saying that national education policy should be set solely by parents, but I think in general they are competent to set individual education policies.”

Some of them are, some of them aren’t, are therein lies the problem. I feel parents are more likely to be reliable in terms of how to teach their child than what to teach them. For example, some kids may genuinely benefit from being shouted at when they act up, others might do better under a more permissive approach. I guess it depends what you mean by “individual education policies”.

“I think you misunderstood my sarcasmm, i agree with you. ”

Nah, I got that. It’s just when I’m in rant mode it can sound like hostility when it’s not. Sorry.

“Religious organisations already have massive wealth and infrastructure necessary to take advantage of these reforms. they already have the means to cover start up costs, marketing etc. There are no secular organisations that do so. So – in a hypothetical education market based entirely on “libertarian” voucher principles*, it is entirely predictable that religious organisations will succesfully take over existing schools and establish new ones and obtain a high market share quickly. This will create barriers to entry for new organisations, meaning that secular education will achieve the same level of market share as hippie organic cafes do in the food industry. Or to put it another way with the food analogy, michellan starred education for the few whose parents have the wealth and knowledge to obtain such education, and mcdonalds style education for the rest.”

I share your concerns to an extent (adding through gritted teeth that the system does currently seem to be set up in a way that means we’re forced to rely on religious schools), but I’m not so sure about barriers to entry in the state sector. State schools don’t compete with each other in that sense.

“Buy why do you need to be an expert in something (parenthood) which is an innate ability ? People do seem to have managed to bring up kids for quite a long time without the help of “experts”.”

Through most of human history, they’ve raised undereducated, superstitious and aggressive human beings, for the most part. That’s not all (or even mainly) down to child-raising, but I’d be wary of invoking the wonderful past to back your argument up. Yes, people can raise their kids on their own. With expert help, they can do it better,

“I’m not saying they have no role, but it’s absurd to expect parents to abdicate all responsibility for their kids to experts – who let’s face will only have a relationship with them for a tiny part of their lives, will only ever see them in one context, and will never have an emotional investment in them. Anyway, the idea that the average state school teacher is an expert in anything is laughable.”

You’re misunderstanding me on two central concepts.

1) When I say ‘experts’, I mean experts in education behaviour, child pychology, and all the other areas of specialisation that helps in setting policies for schools and the national curriculum. Teachers don’t set policy.

2) I am by no means saying parents should abdicate all responsibility or rights. I’m not the Khmer Rouge. Parents should go on raising their kids how they want to, as they always have, and the state should carry on intervening in certain areas, as it always (at least recently) has. In this case, I’d say that there are certain things kids have to right to learn during state-mandated educational time and certain things that they have the right not to be lied to about in an institution that they’re supposed to trust for its access to facts.

What I’m really advocating is a law that says a) schools can’t lie to children (unless using the accepted educational technique where you oversimplifiy or analogise complex subjects to help kids understand them), and b) parents do not have the right to pull kids out of classes simply because they object to what’s being taught. That’s pretty much it.

@ 31 “In Northern Ireland, for instance, how many Protestants and Catholics are schooled together? Genuine question btw: but I’m betting in the recent past the answer was “fuck all”. Division = ignorance = fear = hatred = violence.”

Thats a very simplistic analysis – the problems of NI are obviously going to affect eductaion, but there are many excellent educational establishements that are (or began as) reflective of faith based selection (Oxford and Cambridge universities spring to mind). The notion that we all have to be the same otherwise we’ll start chucking petrol bombs at each other is ludicrous.

@ 37 “What I’m really advocating is a law that says a) schools can’t lie to children ”

But what is “a lie” and who decides ? This goes back to my oft repeated point, there is no such thing as objectivity because what is neutral is relative to your own perspective.

Obviously it would be wrong to teach kids that 2+2 = 5 but unless you want an education that consists entirely of rote learning facts (even then which facts, and who choses) it’s impossible to be “objective”.

@ 37 “Through most of human history, they’ve raised undereducated, superstitious and aggressive human beings, for the most part. That’s not all (or even mainly) down to child-raising, but I’d be wary of invoking the wonderful past to back your argument up. Yes, people can raise their kids on their own. With expert help, they can do it better”,

So since experts became involved with child development (lets assume that starts with Piaget, late 19th C) education has only produced rational and pacifist adults ? ? How do you explain the 20th C then ?

“Better” than who, and by what measure ? Despite the multi million pound “parenting” industry that has grown up over the past 20 odd years, there has been no measurable improvement in childrens behavioural or educational outcomes. By some measures they are actually going backwards.

The nurture myth bites again………….

“parents do not have the right to pull kids out of classes simply because they object to what’s being taught. That’s pretty much it.”

So, for example, muslim parents should not be allowed to take their children out of history lessons which cover the holocaust ?

(grabs coat and calls taxi)

Matt @41,

Certainly not IMO. Has this ever happened?

#35: “how to teach their child than what to teach them”

I’m not sure there’s a clean separation between the two, though. If you start with a list of things that you think a child should learn (a very long list in the case of the national curriculum) then that limits your choices of “how” quite a lot. If you start with a method, then that may limit what you can practically teach.

@ 41 – Depends on what you read/beleive. I was picking up chaise’s point that children should be forced to attend all classes, presumably irrespective of culture/belief/ethnicity.

‘@ 41 – Depends on what you read/beleive. I was picking up chaise’s point that children should be forced to attend all classes, presumably irrespective of culture/belief/ethnicity.’

Schools should be secular – or at least ‘faith blind’. The curriculum should be in no way tailored to respect religious sensibilities. I wouldn’t go the French route and ban religious trinkets, head scarves or whatever though.

“But what is “a lie” and who decides ? This goes back to my oft repeated point, there is no such thing as objectivity because what is neutral is relative to your own perspective.

Obviously it would be wrong to teach kids that 2+2 = 5 but unless you want an education that consists entirely of rote learning facts (even then which facts, and who choses) it’s impossible to be “objective”.”

I agree that true objectivity is probably unobtainable, but you could use the general test that nothing could be presented as a fact if there were no evidence for it, or if the evidence was against it. You’d probably be at the mercy of the current scientific consensus, but better that than learning whatever some proselytiser wants you to believe.

@ 45 I understand your point, and it’s a good one, but I think the implementation is a lot more problematic than you imagine, and I’m not convinced that it would necessarily lead to better outcomes. People might respond by simply withdrawing their kids from education altogether, and ultimately parents will argue that they, through taxation ,are paying for their kids education and should therefore have a big (perhaps the biggest) say in how it is delivered.

“So since experts became involved with child development (lets assume that starts with Piaget, late 19th C) education has only produced rational and pacifist adults ? ? How do you explain the 20th C then ?

“Better” than who, and by what measure ? Despite the multi million pound “parenting” industry that has grown up over the past 20 odd years, there has been no measurable improvement in childrens behavioural or educational outcomes. By some measures they are actually going backwards.

The nurture myth bites again”

Nature/nurture: it’s a bit of both, varying wildly depending on which indicator you’re using. Intelligence is mainly nature, barring a bang to the head as a baby. Knowledge, obviously, is mainly nurture.

The 20th century has been a lot more rational than most if not all that proceeded it. People look for answers in fact rather than fiction. I’d call that progress. As for the parenting industry: again, I said ‘experts’, not ‘chancers who come up with whatever theory most interests or scares people into buying their books’.

“So, for example, muslim parents should not be allowed to take their children out of history lessons which cover the holocaust ? ”

Damn straight.

“I’m not sure there’s a clean separation between the two, though. If you start with a list of things that you think a child should learn (a very long list in the case of the national curriculum) then that limits your choices of “how” quite a lot. If you start with a method, then that may limit what you can practically teach.”

True, and any school is going to have to average out the methods anyway so it can teach 30 kids at once. I guess I’m saying the parents get upbringing, the experts get mandatory education.

“I understand your point, and it’s a good one, but I think the implementation is a lot more problematic than you imagine, and I’m not convinced that it would necessarily lead to better outcomes. People might respond by simply withdrawing their kids from education altogether, and ultimately parents will argue that they, through taxation ,are paying for their kids education and should therefore have a big (perhaps the biggest) say in how it is delivered.”

While the implementation in principle would be fairly simply, from a practical angle I agree it’s a nightmare, mainly for the reasons you list above (plus the fact that we’re reliant on faith schools, financially speaking). I’m way out into the realm of the ideal ATM.

Perhaps it’s something to work towards? Fight the obvious battles – Creationism, sex education, holocaust denial (this happen often?) – and over the longer term work towards a more (voluntarily) secular society and try to wean the education system off of religious funding.

[39] ” 2+2 = 4? Sometimes, Matt. Sometimes they are five. Sometimes they are three. Sometimes they are all of them at once. You must try harder. It is not easy to become sane.”

@7 – of course He can. And He can lift it too.

Free schools and academies strike me as a complete waste of time – I’d much rather the money was put towards making the local comprehensives better (and stripping them of their lingering religious obligations). Still, I saw this coming months ago, so I’m reasonably well prepared.

The very first scientology-funded school in the country is going to get mobbed.

The BHA is concerned about the Academies Bill being rushed through the commons and the possibility that it will strengthen the hand of faith schools when it comes to discriminating against students on grounds of belief.

As a fellow non believer I share their concerns and so should anyone who cares about fairness in education.

The new academies will cherry pick the most promising students, leaving everyone else, particularly people from poor backgrounds who are most likely to present challenging behaviour, to be taught in under funded schools run by the local authority.

The bill is being rushed through parliament because Michael Gove knows that it will do serious harm in the lone term. That, I’d suggest was why the debate on it began while the media were distracted by Mr Cameron making his latest ‘I’d like to teach the world to sing’ speech about the ‘big society.’

An interesting thread.

There seems to be a lot of folk uncomfortable with extra school freedoms that would also allow religious groups to have greater influence.

But no one is denying that the only hard evidence we have of faith schools: that a good percentage of existing state schools with a religious connection (church schools) have a great track record: and don’t seem to be indoctrinating anybody.

So the discomfort could maybe come from folks having greater concern over Steiner or Islamic schools than christian ones? Maybe.

But then there’s fears expressed, like Adam’s

The new academies will cherry pick the most promising students

Which seems contradictory – surely the non-christian-but-other-religion schools won’t find it easy to attract the best pupils – but will just attract pupils from their own demographic and not wider?

Is ultimately the discomfort down to the clash of two core ideals for many folks on LC: that
* letting people do as they wish is good + liberal
* all religions are equally bad and people are to be discouraged away from them

Is it time for more compare and contrast: what exactly do we fear from Steiner, or Scientologist or Islamic schools – versus historic Christian school evidence?

Mr S Pills phrase:

Does C of E even count as a proper religion anymore?

seems to suggest that abit of double-think redefinition is a price worth paying to hang onto the shibboleth that all religions are wrong!

Whilst accepting that church schools fit our liberal values on the whole better than some/most other faith schools? :<)

Just asking.

Now if the UK government was spending money like the Dutch government paying $1M towards a Mosques near Ground Zero..

Well, no one on LC would have any problems criticising that – that fits the mainstream LC view that governments should not promote religion – so the thread would be short and unanimous.

Hummm..seems our liberal values would therefore put us on the same hymn sheet as Dutch politician Gert Wilders:

http://www.nisnews.nl/public/210710_2.htm

@53

If He can lift it then He has failed to achieve what the challenge I have set out for Him

@Just Visiting (how I wish your pseudonym were true)

I was being disingenous with my C of E comment – in my ideal world no school, primary or secondary, would be religiously backed. You also conveniantly missed out the other part of what I was saying, insofar as people who claim to be C of E often do not follow any tenents of the Christian faith (to the exent of not going to Church except for weddings and funerals).

In case I am not being clear: all faith schools are on principle wrong.

As for your Gert Wilders comment – even a broken clock tells the right time twice a day.

So where have all the liberals gone? Surely freedom of choice involves freedom to choose which school your children attend. Those who are atheist can reject the faith schools and those who wish for their children to pursue a particular faith can choose the appropriate school.
Indoctrination can occur in non-faith schools too, think about the soviet system.
MM parents tend to socialize their children into the prevailing culture/social values, why would you raise your children to be ill-prepared to act appropriately in the social sphere?

@58

How is it “liberal” to want the State to back religious quackery education?

One of the things nobody seems to mention when high-handedly discussing abolishing faith schools is that in many (probably most) cases the land and buildings that house faith schools actually belong to the Churches, not to the state. It would swallow a huge chunk of the education budget to ‘nationalize’ them. The other point is that faith schools provide education on the cheap to the State. The Catholic Church, for instance, contributes 10% of all capital spending on Catholic schools…. money the taxpayer would otherwise have to find. People sometimes put it as if the taxpayer was subsidizing religious education. In fact, the churches are subsidizing the state education sector.

58
For the same reason as expecting the state to back the wearing of religious symbolism.

@61

Big difference: one is an overt support (ie – the state materially and morally backing a religious agenda) the other is tolerance (ie – allowing people to wear what the fuck they like).

62
I get the feeling that most so-called liberals on this site are only committed to freedom if it suits their own views. It’s really about what we can concretely do rather than the ideological impetus behind it. Why should it matter to a parent whether or not you or anyone else tolerates their choice?

57 – incorrect. He has fulfilled both of your mutually exclusive demands at the same time. It’s not His fault that your puny system of logic can’t comprehend what He did.

(As far as arguments go, that makes perfect sense if you happen to believe in an omniscient, omnipresent god not bound by the laws of the universe. Obviously, I don’t).

That there are already lots of religious schools around (albeit bound by the national curriculum with a few exceptions, as I understand it) doesn’t really forgive the creation of more. Especially not more, with less oversight.

I don’t think the V Reg Vardy schools should exist, and I don’t think islamic or jewish or scientologist schools should exist either.

Well. Correct that – I don’t think they should be encouraged by the state.

@63

Nuh-uh.

Liberal – letting people wear clothes.
Not liberal – banning certain clothes of particular religions.

Liberal – keeping the state out of religion.
Not liberal – giving moral and material support to religious schools.

Easy-peasy.

———————–
However (and off-topic): I disagree with probably a lot of liberals re:education as in my ideal world I’d see private education abolished (or, state spending at least equal to the top private schools (£25K per pupil at Eton I think?)). You could argue that’s it’s posh parents choice to spend their riches on education; my counter argument is you don’t have a choice if you’re poor. But that’s for a different thread, probably…

Planeshift @23:

Or to put it another way with the food analogy, michellan starred education for the few whose parents have the wealth and knowledge to obtain such education, and mcdonalds style education for the rest.

o_0

That’s a pretty exact description of secondary education in the UK right now, and for the past 100 years or so. The difference between the indepedent and state sectors, described in perfect tabloid language: sir, you have perpetrated a soundbite

Now, being slightly more serious; this is not in any way an accident.

I’m not talking about conspiracy theories but basic reality. In the Victorian era it was entirely deliberate that education for the deserving poor (heh) should be tailored for a purpose; being better urban employees of nascent industrial corporatism. There was no suggestion that this was a bad aim for elementary education, and I can but argue that at the time it wasn’t. It fitted people for the life statistically most likely to be ahead of them.

Since WWII this self-regulating process remains apparent in our national education system. Public funded education has shifted from being designed to put people in factories to being designed to put people in shops to being designed to put people in office cubicles. Since the abolition of the polytechnic institutions by John Major, it has quite clearly been designed to put people in call centres and behind MacDonalds counters, as far as I can tell.

What’s changed is that we no longer consider the arrogance of that approach appropriate to modern Britain. We now have this bizarre liberal idea that actually, education should fit every child for the highest possible achievement that child can attain, regardless of class or background. And that’s a whole different ball game from ensuring that on average, people leaving school know what type of cog they are when they’re installed. We want education to fit people to make choices; our education system is designed to teach people to take orders.

This is a fundamental failure on the part of government to understand the difference between 20th and 21st century business requirements (i.e. the impact of the Internet) That bizarre liberal idea is now an economic necessity for a post-industrial Britain. Industry will never again employ 80% of the country; most people will have to work in an environment where the only person making money is the business owner, and will therefore start owning businesses as well as working for them.

Our education system should be training people in deductive and inductive reasoning, research skills including I.T., and should be supported by a contextual education in linguistic, philosphical, social and historical skills. The result would be people as suited to the economy of 21st century Britain as the Comprehensive-trained cubicle workers of the 90s were to their context. It isn’t, however, what we’re doing.

What we’re doing is continuing to be paternalistic; as long as our kids get the first class education (in the independent sector) that Britain is famous for, we can let the government train their kids to be call centre drones and fast food employees.

It’s a way of perpetuating the class system. It has always been a way of perpetuating the class system. The only difference is that at some point we stopped admitting it.

@64

Ha and indeed lol; Wittgenstein wept!

@32
“If, as you seem to imply, the cultural milieu of faith-based communities is conducive to better teaching & learning – then let’s have more of it!”

I was implying nothing of the sort: it’s the selection of pupils based on parental behaviour that gets fewer “difficult” pupils making teaching and learning better. It has nothing to do with religion. At the church I attend, none of the parents attending that I know are actually religious: they are trying to avoid the sink-school down the road.

@60
” It would swallow a huge chunk of the education budget to ‘nationalize’ them [faith schools]. The other point is that faith schools provide education on the cheap to the State. The Catholic Church, for instance, contributes 10% of all capital spending on Catholic schools”

10% Of capital costs and 0% of the running costs is, I believe, typical. Sounds like a good deal for the churches. For that they get to control aspects of the curriculum and discriminate in employment and admissions. Sounds like the state is subsidising the Church’s position, not the other way around.

I don’t see why in abolishing faith schools anything should be owed to the churches.

Mr S. Pill

I personally see filling children’s minds with mumbo-jumbo divisive bullshit about a genocidal homophobic sexist sky-fairy..

Why do atheists/secularists always describe religious practice in terms that are more than a thousand years out of date? It’s a bit like characterizing science as alchemy or warfare in terms of siege-engines.

When do you think the Catholic Church, for instance, stopped insisting on a literal interpretation of the Book of Genesis?

{Hint: Origen wrote: Who is foolish enough to believe that, like a human gardener, God planted a garden in Eden in the East and placed in it a tree of life, visible and physical, so that by biting into its fruit one would obtain life? And that by eating from another tree, one would come to know good and evil? … I cannot imagine that anyone will doubt that these details point symbolically to spiritual meanings, by using an historical narrative which did not literally happen. Origen lived from 185 – 254 AD}

@ 68

You haven’t explained where the state would find that extra 10% of capital costs. As for what would be owed to the Churches: unless you intend to abolish the principle of private property, in many cases the land the schools are on belongs to the Churches and would need to be purchased from them.

65
As a socialist first and a liberal second, it’s always a great source of amusement when I see so-called liberals/libertines attempt to re-write liberalism in order to suit their own views. The example given is negative freedom versus positive freedom, the state already intervenes in education by legally forcing children to be educated, and the monarch, who is also the defender of the faith, is the head of state.
Yes I do agree with you about private schooling and it is often (not always) the more affluent/educated parents who are more involved with ensuring their children get a good education. But if poverty were eradicated and the sheer effort of surviving was removed, I believe most parents would be interested in their children’s education.

@69
“You haven’t explained where the state would find that extra 10% of capital costs. As for what would be owed to the Churches: unless you intend to abolish the principle of private property, in many cases the land the schools are on belongs to the Churches and would need to be purchased from them.”

The argument is one of principle: religious proselytising should not be subsidised by the state. If the BNP were running state schools in their own buildings and providing some of the capital costs I’d want it stopped even if money had to be paid to them.

Your argument is a practical one that it would cost to abolish faith schools. Maybe so. There are ways to raise money. Scrap the “free schools” experiment; remove the tax exempt status of public schools. Would this be enough? I don’t know and it is not the point.

Scrap the “free schools” experiment…. Would this be enough?

The free schools are supposed to be revenue neutral, so no savings there.

Get real: there are close on 7,000 faith schools in England alone. Some of those in London and other big cities occupy sites worth tens of millions.

The argument is one of principle: religious proselytising should not be subsidized by the state

In what sense can you argue it is “subsidized” by the state when the state pays LESS to faith schools than to secular schools?

In what sense can you describe maths or English lessons or PE and the rest of it as “religious proselytising” ?

I guess you could call RE lessons “proseletysing” (though strictly speaking there is no need to proseletyse in a school where you would be quite literally preaching to the converted). But secular schools have RE too – and the differences in content would not be so great that you could realistically point to hours of time that could conceivably be classed as “subsidized” even without taking into account the historic 15%, now 10% differences in capital spending.

To return to my original point: politicians these days are wracking their brains and spending huge sums of public money to stimulate and develop the idea of communities. So why wreck natural, organic communities that already exist and thrive and which have churches and faith schools at their heart?

@72
“In what sense can you argue it is “subsidized” by the state when the state pays LESS to faith schools than to secular schools?

This is how I see it. Church sets up school, charges fees or spends its own money to run it. Not subsidised.

Church sets up school. All running costs and 90% of capital costs paid by the state. Subsidised.

“To return to my original point: politicians these days are wracking their brains and spending huge sums of public money to stimulate and develop the idea of communities. So why wreck natural, organic communities that already exist and thrive and which have churches and faith schools at their heart?”

I have nothing against faith groups and communities, I just don’t see why the state should subsidise their schools.

Politicians are also always keen to promote “community cohesion”: faith schools do very little to address that and may indeed harm it.

@ 66 “We now have this bizarre liberal idea that actually, education should fit every child for the highest possible achievement that child can attain, regardless of class or background”.

I don’t think anyone disagrees with that priciple, but the debate about how to acheive it always comes back to the fundamental issue of individual variability. Our entire state education system is based on the premise of “equal ability”, and given that individual ability varies widely in the real world, the state will never be able to tailor education to acheive the best outcome for all children. The best thye acheive is to get everyone to an acceptable, and by definition arbitrary, standard.

“We want education to fit people to make choices; our education system is designed to teach people to take orders.”

But everyone cannot be a chief – you will always need indians (albeit more skilled ones). This logic leads to the waste of resources that produces 50% of the workforce as graduates when probably only 30% actually need to be.

“Our education system should be training people in deductive and inductive reasoning, research skills including I.T.”

They already do. Kids now think that cutting & pasting a wikipedia page equals the aquistion of knowledge.

I think your entire premise is wrong, technology doesn’t make any difference to
the nature of knowledge, induction and deductive reasoning skills have been taught for centuries. First verballym then with books, an dnow with computers, it’s just the next phase on the technological continnum. The internet might affect the research method in practical terms, but thats all, it doesn’t change the nature of knowledge in any meaningfull way.
Remember, the internet itself was invented in the1970s by people educated in the 1950s, according to you their education didn’t prepare then for the age they themselves created.

@ 73

Church sets up school. All running costs and 90% of capital costs paid by the state. Subsidised.

To put it bluntly: Catholic parents pay taxes. Why shouldn’t, therefore, Catholic schools receive the benefit of those taxes?

Also you’re leaving out a pretty big historical factor. The Churches, remember, were running schools long before the State decided to involve itself in education. When the State opted to make free schooling a right for all it meant a right for all. It would have been very wrong of the State then, as it would be very wrong of the State now, to discriminate against faith groups in the provision of free education. The Churches and the state were essentially partners in bringing in free education for all.

I have nothing against faith groups and communities, I just don’t see why the state should subsidise their schools.

Why should Catholic or C of E taxpayers be forced to subsidise secular schools?

Your idea of subsidy is arsy versy. Since faith groups provide land and capital funding for their schools they are indirectly subsidising all the rest. No one is subsidizing faith schools – they are paid for by the taxes paid by their adherents.

Besides, many schools are already independent charitable foundations and many more will be once Gove’s bill has effect this September. Discriminating between one charitable trust that has a secular ethos and another that has a faith ethos would be outrageous. And probably against human rights law.

AtheistinChurch

….and you argued earlier:

it’s the selection of pupils based on parental behaviour that gets fewer “difficult” pupils making teaching and learning better.

While it is true that parents who go to church regularly are unlikely to be shooting up heroin the rest of the time, it is also true that every faith school I’ve been involved with also gives first priority for admissions to children in care. That way they get to deal with at least their fair share of “difficult” pupils, as you put it.

What’s more, faith schools in the inner cities tend to be much more socially balanced. Catholic schools, in particular, tend to have kept middle class parents in the maintained system and s so have a mix of professionals, white working class, ethnic minority, special needs, children in care etc.

By contrast, secular schools (especially primaries) reflect only the social and economic circumstances of their immediate catchment area – with “good” schools in leafy suburbs and “sink” schools in areas with lots of social housing.

@76
“To put it bluntly: Catholic parents pay taxes. Why shouldn’t, therefore, Catholic schools receive the benefit of those taxes?”

Try re-writing that sentence with the word Catholic crossed out and the word Tory or Labour or White or Black substituted.

Lots of people pay taxes. People with different backgrounds and beliefs. Why is it that only the religious (and only some religions at that) get subsidies for “their” schools.

I put “their” in inverted commas as they are really all our schools – paid for out of general taxation.

“Why should Catholic or C of E taxpayers be forced to subsidise secular schools?”

Strictly speaking there are no secular schools in this country: The Law requires “a daily collective act of worship wholly or mainly Christian in character” in all state schools.

But that is beside the point. CofE taxpayers pay for essential services like policing, health, education. We don’t have “Catholic police forces” or “doctors for Jews only”: we have these services for all citizens regardless of belief. That is secularism.

We should have schools available to all with fair admissions policies. If parents think it is important they can send their children to Sunday School, Madrassas, or whatever, in their own time.

@77
“While it is true that parents who go to church regularly are unlikely to be shooting up heroin the rest of the time, it is also true that every faith school I’ve been involved with also gives first priority for admissions to children in care. That way they get to deal with at least their fair share of “difficult” pupils, as you put it.”

I think that is the law for all schools admissions policies – faith schools are not being generous in this regard. “Looked after” children are not the sole (or even the main) cause of problem pupils.

“What’s more, faith schools in the inner cities tend to be much more socially balanced. Catholic schools, in particular, tend to have kept middle class parents in the maintained system and s so have a mix of professionals, white working class, ethnic minority, special needs, children in care etc.”

That maybe true for some schools, but it is not what the research says. There’s a good summary here: http://www.accordcoalition.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/Databank-of-Independent-Evidence-on-Faith-Schools-updated-May-2010.pdf

To quote Dr Rebecca Allen:
“if we take a community school and a voluntary-aided religious school, both
located in a neighbourhood with exactly the same levels of deprivation, the community school is likely to have about 50% more free school meal children than the voluntary-aided school.”

Not cream-skimming at all, then.

@74
“This logic leads to the waste of resources that produces 50% of the workforce as graduates when probably only 30% actually need to be.”

You can look up the actual proportion of the population with a degree, Matt, rather than making it up. You can even calculate it yourself, using Nomis.

Hilariously, the *actual* proportion of the population with a degree as of the end of 2008 (the last time the measures were taken) was, er, 29%. So, in other words

a) you don’t know what you’re talking about. At all.
b) by what passes for your logic, Labour therefore got their policies spot on, except you only said what you said because you don’t know what you’re talking about

@75
“Kids now think that cutting & pasting a wikipedia page equals the aquistion of knowledge. ”

Yes, they should, instead, just make things up. You’re a superb role model.

Lets see, the people who want to run the country send their kids to places like Eton. Hardly faith schools.

Aren’t they the example our schools should be trying to copy?

@ 79 AtheistinChurch

Not cream-skimming at all, then.

Hardly any, I’d say. The national figures are entitled to FSM: 19%; faith-schools FSM, 14%.

Mitigating the 5% discrepancy are an observed tendency among certain groups within faith schools (Polish, Portuguese within Catholic schools) not to claim FSM even when entitled for pride/dignity reasons or a preference for turning to extended family/faith community for assistance rather than the state. Also, the figures include Jewish faith schools and there are very few (if any) pupils at Jewish schools claiming benefits that would entitle them to FSM. Lastly, though 5% seems significant, in terms of a primary school reception intake it amounts to perhaps two pupils.

Rebecca Allen’s allegations of ‘cream skimming’ are based on the idea that faith schools are attracting what she calls “more able” pupils. Though how a non-selective primary can know they are “more able” at nursery age, I dunno.

Matt @ 75:

Nonsense; the people who created internetworking technology were from a) the US and b) the elite schools and universities which equate in British terms to Eton and Cambridge. Which have, as you say, for centuries delivered highly-educated alumni.
If you’re thinking of Tim Berners-Lee, he was schooled at Emmanuel.

I was talking about the public education system, and what it is geared towards. The nature of education in the 1960s for most people who were in school (until 12, then later until 16) was geared towards facility with mental arithmetic, good and legible handwriting at speed, and so on and further. I’m not talking about the kind of person who did A-levels in the 1960s, which was a fairly small percentage of the population; I’m talking about what we trained the rest for. That equipped people for working the shop counter, the factory floor and the back office.

Schools have been run by governments to create useful resources for business, for years.

There has always been a difference between schools which are set up to engineer highest achievement and the schools that the children of poor people go to. Those at the top deliver more or less the education level that I was arguing should be the basic acceptable standard. But most of the schools in the country do not, largely for financial reasons.

What those schools do provide is an education that fits people for basic non-skilled employment involving computer office applications and internet usage, plus a socialisation towards violent abuse from peers and vindictive, arbitrary treatment by superiors. That sounds more or less exactly like when I worked tech support.

And yes, of course I’m describing a particularly unfortunate kind of school to make my point. You were describing the kind of education a very good school provides as if it were the norm.

Yurrzemi

Have you seen Eton’s chapel? I read somewhere they have four full time C of E chaplains on the staff.

Ken MacKenzie:

You can look up the actual proportion of the population with a degree,

While support is appreciated, being fair to Matt he did say workforce. The population includes those under 18 and over 60; if the percentage of the whole population which has a degree is 29%, and given how much of the population is over 60 and how few of that generation had degrees, then the implication is that for those between 20 and 60 the percentage with degrees would be considerably higher than 29%, possibly as much as 50%.

Be interesting to know, but I have to go move barrels downstairs so shall have to leave the discussion to others for a while.

AtheistinChurch

I’ve just found some figures from the House of Commons Library which nail the FSM/achievement issue at secondaries:

13.2 per cent of pupils at state secondary schools “with no religious character” were eligible for free school meals, the equivalent figure for Roman Catholic faith schools was 12.1 per cent. This is a much smaller difference than that between the rate of A* to C grades in five or more GCSEs; at the schools of “no religious character” those grades were attained by 64.5 per cent of pupils; at the maintained Roman Catholic faith schools, 72.8 per cent of pupils achieved that performance.

@84

C of E is hardly even a religion any more, more like a preference for tea and crumpets.

In the form found in such places as Eton its forms one of the older pillars of the Establishment. Its hardly comparable with schools teaching fundamentalist madness such as Intelligent Design or excluding modern science and liberal thinking for the Koran.

@84 again.

Anyway, true to Liberal Conspiracy, you score a trivial point and ignore my main argument.

@83: “Nonsense; the people who created internetworking technology were from a) the US and b) the elite schools and universities which equate in British terms to Eton and Cambridge. Which have, as you say, for centuries delivered highly-educated alumni. If you’re thinking of Tim Berners-Lee, he was schooled at Emmanuel.”

Which happens to be my old school as well – btw the spelling is: Emanuel. And he graduated from Oxford, not Cambridge.

But what you’ve missed out is that Nobel laureate Sir Peter Mansfield FRS, emeritus professor of physics at Nottingham Uni, failed his 11+ and left school at 15 to become an apprentice bookbinder. He made it to London university through night school.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Mansfield

Btw two maintained boys schools within walking distance of where I sit, score better average A-level results than Eton.

Clearly Sir Peter Mansfield wasn’t born with innate intelligence, he just had to work at it.

BobB @89:

… Ok, lets do this. Eton and Cambridge were chosen not because of their relevance to Tim Berners-Lee but because they have existed for centuries, thus fitting the point I was responding to.

I apologise for mis-spelling the school as if it were the college; my mistake.

However, comma; outlying anecdotes do not an analysis of public education make. Some clever people went to crap schools, this says not one damn thing about the systematic configuration of public education to indoctrinate the children of the poor with skills and attitudes that ensure they keep working for other people instead of for themselves. Thanks for playing, goodbye now.

@ 80 – Firstly, if you bothered to read it properly (assuming you can) I said % of “the workforce”, not “the population”, a subtle but significant difference

Secondly – the 50% is the well known and entirely arbitrary target set by the last government for graduates as a % of schoolleavers

Thirdly – you are an illiterate pratt and a crap role model.

@ 83 “Nonsense; the people who created internetworking technology were from a) the US and b) the elite schools and universities which equate in British terms to Eton and Cambridge. Which have, as you say, for centuries delivered highly-educated alumni.
If you’re thinking of Tim Berners-Lee, he was schooled at Emmanuel”.

I though the point you were making was that education must constantly change in order to be geared towards “modern” business needs. In the 1950s, no one had heard of the internet, so there was no need for computer sceintists and no education for them, at any educational establushment, elite or not.
And yet people educated in that decade went on to invent the internet . How did they do that, if as you cliam, to be effective, education must be culturally specific (i.e must reflect “modern times”)

@ 80 “@75 Kids now think that cutting & pasting a wikipedia page equals the aquistion of knowledge. ”

“Yes, they should, instead, just make things up. You’re a superb role model”

There’s a difference between made up factoids and wikipedia ??? Everything on the internet is “a fact” ???

@ 83 “There has always been a difference between schools which are set up to engineer highest achievement and the schools that the children of poor people go to.”

Agreed

“Those at the top deliver more or less the education level that I was arguing should be the basic acceptable standard”.

Agreed, but rather than trying to emulate excellence, the educational establishment tries to tear it down with cries of “elitism”.

“But most of the schools in the country do not, largely for financial reasons.”

No, for ideological reasons. The reason state schools under acheive is that they treat everyone as being equally able – a bizzare notion that is not seriously entertained in any other sphere of life – and what this means in practice is a plodding mediocrity for all but the very bright, who will excell anywhere.
The average and above average suffer in order for the below average to be brought up to their fullest potential. It’s like forcing Man Utd to field two players from Acrington Stanley every week. By definition it can never raise standards for the majority.

The problem is that comprehensives are not comprehensive. When one looks at education there is massive difference in ability . 20% of British children leave school being unable to read yet others obtaining scholarships to Winchester are quite capable of taking French, Latin and Greek by the time they are 9 years old. For some children the GSCEs are too academic, for others they have no relevance to their lives and they wish to leave school and start work; others find it too easy. Some children are brilliant classical musicians in the making yet the school provides little or no music while others would benefit from competitive sport. Some children need no encouragement to read while others have dyslexia and hate reading, yet have superb spatial awareness, making them the potential architects.

Part of the problem is the lack of discipline and the lack of confidence of teachers that their job is to teach children. A headmaster said that if 25% of class and 25% of a school are troublemakers, then one is not involved in education but riot control. Unless reform schools are brought back to take violent and disruptive children; discipline and order brought back to comprehensives schools, the introduction of sythetic phonics, setting according to subject; then I cannot see comprehensives competing against public, grammar and faith schools. It is the style of teaching in so many schools which is producing so many children lacking in the basic numeracy and literacy skills, especially for skilled employment, which is making faith schools attractive to so many parents. What the education establishment ignores is that many middle class parents have professional qualifications and are responsible fo employing staff. If the parents consider that children from a certain school lack basic numeracy, literacy and the correct attitude to work, they are unlikely to send their children to that establishment.

Someone said that sucess is “1% inspiration and 99% perspiration”. Much of the success in GSCEs and A levels is due to self discipline. Perhaps one reason why faith schools do better is that all faiths expect a certain level of self -discipline from their adherents. If one reads about the charity “Kids Company ” many of the children have parents who lack the self dicipline to clothe, provide nutritious meals, wash, make sure their children go to bed at a reasonable time and to read to them.

” I went to a CofE primary and I managed to resist the indoctrination, such as it was.”
I don’t know you sound like that Derek Nimmo character in all gas and gaiters.

I have no problem with faith schools.
I can’t wait for the Reverend Moon’s primary, Osama middle and the Opus Dei upper to open up.

Personally I fuckin hate religious types (especially catholics, Cromwell had the right idea with those bastards). They are mainly right wing bigots (matt, gould etc) .
Teach your Latin and creationism. Install hatred for other religious creeds and the wicked secular world.
Catholic Matt is perfect example of the Jesuit “Give me the child”. His views will become common place. Hatred for other religious groups, the left, the poor and homosexuals.
You will be happy to meet only your own religious community and pour scorn on the rest of us. Happy to hide the touching up of school children as long as the priest undergoes confession

So have your own school and then secularists can get rid of the boring core subject of RE .
Also it will stop religious right nut jobs comimng into complain about the teaching of Darwin and sexual reproduction.

“So this is a big massive experiment – I say why not. If it all goes tits-up, which it probably will do, we can vote Labour in again and go back to the old system.”

Was it not Labour who brought in academies. They were aimed at failing inner city schools not suburban outstanding schools.

Sorry “coming”

96
Although your post acknowledges that there are other factors. not just the schools themselves, as being responsible for the poor level of achievment shown by, mainly, working-class boys, your idea for the return of reform schools is, imo, tantamount to moving the deckchairs on the Titanic.
I was brought-up in the 50s and know of several local ‘bad’ boys who were sent to reform school and who went on to achieve good jobs. And that is the reason, there were well-paid jobs available and, more to the point, optimism for the future. Even after the many poor teachers around, from the 60s onwards, children performed as expected. and for those who did not achieve, they were still able to find work.
Without wanting to sound like a ‘pop sociologist’, unless the most important environment is changed, types of school, curriculum. or selection processes will not make any difference.

“Was it not Labour who brought in academies?”

True – but the inspiration came from the notion of the City Technology Colleges inherited from Mrs T’s government:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_Technology_College

96. Steve b. Many teachers lack the ability to deal with large violent and disruptive pupils many of whom need the skills of social workers, psychiatrists and educatonal psychologists. It is the the continuous low level and occasional high level disruption in some schools which makes attainment of high academic standards so very difficult. Having schools with the specialists staff to help emotionally damaged pupils with the option to return to mainstream schools. It is the violence inflicted by bullies on weaker children who wish to study, which does so much damage and contributes to low academic standards .

97. Rhys Williams. It was the Quakers and Non- Conformists who set up their schools( they were unable to attend the Anglican grammar and public schools ) from the end of th 17 C century who provided a modern curriculum( as opposed to Latin and Greek) in maths, modern languages, book keeping and trade skills who educated many of the people who went on to create the Industrial Revolution.

Rhys Waliams

I fuckin hate religious types (especially catholics, Cromwell had the right idea with those bastards). They are mainly right wing bigots (matt, gould etc) .

As someone who joined the Labour Party at 16, had a brief Militant Tendency phase and then worked for a Campaign group MP, I find it a novel experience to be called ‘a right-wing bigot’.

Maybe you should check out your sentence above and reflect on what it would say about you if you made a couple of small amendments on the following lines -

I fuckin hate religious types (especially jews, Hitler had the right idea with those bastards).

or

I fuckin hate religious types (especially Muslims, Nick Griffin has the right idea with those bastards).

Now that would be right-wing bigotry. And your own statement? Identical in kind.

101
There has always been bullying at schools at least now we are seeing some semblance of bullying awareness, when I was at school it was totally ignored.
Of course our kids are suffering from psychological damage, that’s because of the environment they live in and the sheer hopelessness of their existence. You cannot counsel children from those environments and then expect them to function at the same level as children from widely different environments. This is just ‘pop’ psychology and a half-baked idea, let’s spend our resources on counselling rather than doing something concrete to eradicate the problem in the first place.
Believe me, I remember disruptive children when I went to school, this is not new, what is new (for many children) is a dismal future with no hope.

It was a joke Gould, my mother was catholic.
Although I don’t believe the Labour party spiel. Tory party at 16 more likely.

Rhys Williams. It was the Quakers and Non- Conformists who set up their schools( they were unable to attend the Anglican grammar and public schools ) from the end of th 17 C century who provided a modern curriculum( as opposed to Latin and Greek) in maths, modern languages, book keeping and trade skills who educated many of the people who went on to create the Industrial Revolution.

Good for them Charlieboy, I have always admired the Quakers for their pacifism and beliefs in social justice but the world has changed and now the religious types feel under threat, so give them their schools but let us secularists have our schools.
If you want to send your kids to a school with medieval values and superstitions, them send your brood to those schools.

Rhys

It was a joke Gould, my mother was catholic.

As an onlooker – your comment had none of the attributes of a joke.

As evidenced by you then adding:

Although I don’t believe the Labour party spiel. Tory party at 16 more likely.

Gould has rightly called you out on your bigotry.
An apology is in order.

I apologize

Just for clarification
Teachers who apply to faith schools do have to be of thet religion or at least believe in the almighty.
Teachers who apply to a secular school can be of any religion.
Fair ?

Gould has rightly called you out on your bigotry.

Brilliant a bigoted right winger playing the holier than thou card

@ 101 “Many teachers lack the ability to deal with large violent and disruptive pupils”

Do they ? Or do they just lack the authority to deal with it, and the school the authority to exculde them. Schools aren’t even allowed to give detentions now without 48 hrs written notice to parents. I’m not saying they don’t need some guidance but the first priority should be safeguarding the safety of staff and pupils and then protecting the educational opportunities of the other students.

@ 99 “I was brought-up in the 50s and know of several local ‘bad’ boys who were sent to reform school and who went on to achieve good jobs”

Proving, surely, that reform schools worked ?

@ 97 “Catholic Matt is perfect example of the Jesuit “Give me the child”. His views will become common place. Hatred for other religious groups, the left, the poor and homosexuals.”

Er, are you talking about me ??

Even if you aren’t why hasn’t that been modded, it clearly breaches the guidelines.

Rhys 108

> Gould has rightly called you out on your bigotry.

Brilliant a bigoted right winger playing the holier than thou card

No. Either what you wrote at 104 is bigotted or it is not.
Irrespective of whichever people that call you out.

And it is.