Because, lazy and unpleasant ad hominems aside, he’s put together a professional team and has a coherent and practical business plan. The steering committee consists of teachers, former headmasters, professionals and parents.

If you’re going to ban journalists from playing any role in society, you’ll have a long hit list.

He repeatedly said he has nothing to do with the decision by the Tories in Hammersmith & Fulham council to force out the residents of Palingswick House, currently occupied by more than 20 charities (the Big Society in action). But he did.

Not according to the same Guardian article you link to:

This article was amended on 18 January 2011. A inaccurate headline that suggested the West London free school was responsible for the expulsion of voluntary organisations from within Palingswick House has been changed.

This, of course, is the same Toby Young who wrote an article entitled “It isn’t easy being a self-publicist”…

Haha!

It isn’t easy being a self-publicist”…

Yes it is.

Why, then, did Young pay £1.3m for a house in a “cesspool”?

I wasn’t aware that Toby Young was going to be a teacher, or set the curriculum or force parents to send kids to his school.

The “untested experiment” is designed to give parents control as opposed to the Unions, LEAs or Toby Young himself.

I’m not sure that attacking Young is the way forward. you can’t make him look any more stupid than he already does himself.

Focusing on the clearly discriminatory plans for a school in Wandsworth – and the implications of this for the policy in general – is much more the way to go. why should those proposing it arbitrarily cut out the poorest school as a feeder – and expect public money as a result?

“How can anyone trust their children’s future to a man that can’t control himself, that essentially holds contempt for the normal people of the areas that he claims to want to serve?”

Well, we’ll find out, won’t we? If he is so awful I doubt many parents will risk it.

“And how on Earth can the government let someone who describes himself as a lying, sleazy self-publicist, run a school?”

Because they are not (all) humourless literalists?

well he can do what he wants, where he wants and with whom he wants, but god, he really gets my goat, seriously he does. I don’t think the way forward is to attack him, but still its fun to have a go though.

Julian Assange has been accussed of serious sex offences. But that doesn’t detract from his contribution to free speech.

Ad hominems rarely reach the point.

You could say the same about my friend “Bob the Marxist” but he runs a very good college.

Agree that ‘ad hominems’ are counter-productive, but wouldn’t ‘fit and proper’ be a good test for the state sector? We could insist on Heads and Governors who have no conflicts of interest, no membership of political parties, religious beliefs or membership of idealogically-based unions… And guess what, we’d have no Heads or Governors at all.

“It isn’t easy being a self-publicist”…

Just ask Sunny.

As for Toby Young;

I understand there are about 1600 interested applicants to his new school. Which, I might add, he won’t be running directly. He’s setting up a school within guidelines which will be run by proffesional teachers.

The NUT seem to dislike the idea so much as it takes the control they exert away from them. I guess also given how well academies have turned out (a Blair/Adonis idea, remember) it makes the socialist education by state diktat model look pretty stupid.

I do find the idea that what started off life as a Labour idea, one of the few that brought truly good results, is now attacked by the socialist left. Is it jsut because the coalitiion is in power? Policy of jealousy, or protecting their own self interest? Or is it just plain old hypocrisy.

it’s not obvious that having the “right sort of person” run a school is a terribly sensible way of looking at things, but accepting that is it, the relevant question is: which system is better at putting the right sort of person in charge of schools, the existing state system or a free school system?

I’m friends with lots of teachers: some of them have bad things to say about the head teachers / board of governors chosen by the existing system.

please stop writing “untested experiment” i.e. “experimental experiment”

a bit of experimentation within limits would be no bad thing imho

also focusing on the stupidity of many of the core ideas behind young’s free school – e.g. compulsory latin, which might be a good idea but for which there is no stated reason – is a decent plan.

there’s something ugly about this post.

I’m not fan of Toby Youngs, but I imagine many of us have friends and acquaintances with pasts that tabloids would have a field day with, should they be shot to fame. I mean people who have taken drugs, perhaps enjoyed unconventional sexual lifestyles, whatever.

This post seems to suggest that any such people should be barred from having any sort of leading role in their community. That doesn’t seem very consistent with what I regard as core left wing values.

“And how on Earth can the government let someone who is himself a lying, sleazy self-publicist, run a school?”

It’s not nice to describe Michael Gove that way. Nor Ed Balls, even if true.

The state school system is itself an experiment, fiddled with by every new government. It is not neutral, apolitical, ideology-free. Some parents and children are happy to go along with that, dont question that ideology or broadly agree with it. Some parents and children feel they dont have any choice but to go along with it, and so the parents register their children and try to make them go along to school. And some (large and increasing number of) children rebel and truant, resulting in criminalisation of their parents, fines, etc.

Some parents and children look for alternatives that suit them better. These include private schools, religious schools, schools that follow alternative methods of teaching, schools for kids with special educational needs, home educating, private tuition, flexi-schooling, and free schools.

There appear to be some people who will attack any alternative to state schooling. They need to go back to the beginning and examine the ideology and the history behind that schooling before they start throwing stones at anyone else. They need to acknowledge that too many kids are completely failed by state schooling, meaning we should be examining alternatives – both within and without those institutions – as a matter of urgency, not blindly defending them as the only good option.

I dont care who runs a school as long as their main goal is to offer a safe, confidence-building educational experience for the kids who go there. That is more than many state schools offer. Bitching about different ideologies is irrelevant hypocrisy when state schooling is so weighed under by the ideologies of the various politicians, quangos, unions, heads, teachers involved in every one.

Toby Young is a bit of a knob but seriously, has this author met many heads and teachers? I dont think any other profession has as many stubborn and obsessive neurotics.

Off topic……. Tim must be crying into his freedom fries this morning. Oh dear another nail in the coffin for the so called libertarians. It would seem Ayn Rand was a welfare scrounger………

“Critics of Social Security and Medicare frequently invoke the words and ideals of author and philosopher Ayn Rand, one of the fiercest critics of federal insurance programs. But a little-known fact is that Ayn Rand herself collected Social Security. She may also have received Medicare benefits.
An interview recently surfaced that was conducted in 1998 by the Ayn Rand Institute with a social worker who says she helped Rand and her husband, Frank O’Connor, sign up for Social Security and Medicare in 1974.
Federal records obtained through a Freedom of Information act request confirm the Social Security benefits.”

And before the usual suspects say “ she paid in” remember the Ayn mantra…….

Ayn Rand “There can be no compromise on basic principles. There can be no compromise on moral issues. There can be no compromise on matters of knowledge, of truth, of rational conviction.”

HA HA HA

Discuss the issues by all means but this is just a sleazy hatchet job.

Can Do Better

The OP I meant.

Not Sally’s sleazy hatchet job!!!!!!

Ah, Toby Young. The sort of self-pitying bellend that if you saw him on fire in the street, you’d attempt to save his life by dousing the flames with your own shit. The sort of man whose own kids every night beg to an imaginary God to strike down their embarrasment of a father and replace him with someone more worthwhile, like Peter Mandelson, or Eric Pickles. Fuck it. If he’s going to be physically working in this school, I’d give it a matter of days till a pupil burns it down out of abject shame.

“Off topic……. Tim must be crying into his freedom fries this morning. Oh dear another nail in the coffin for the so called libertarians. It would seem Ayn Rand was a welfare scrounger………”

That is indeed very funny: but why you think it might upset me I’ve no idea. I’ve always thought that Rand was a nutjob (what is this antipathy to altruism for God’s Sake?) and a bad writer to boot.

still staying off topic, aint Rand an Objectivist…not that I know what the hell it means, just picked it up from playing Bio-Shock.

On topic

I always thought of Toby Young being a proto-Nathan? Weather or not that means he should be involved in running a school is another issue, but I used to know some teachers and headmasters who where right proper c**** too, and it isn‘t as if Toby himself will be giving lessons.

The sort of man whose own kids every night beg to an imaginary God to strike down their embarrasment of a father and replace him with someone more worthwhile, like Peter Mandelson, or Eric Pickles.

Classy. What an attractive personality you must have.

Classy. What an attractive personality you must have.

I am available for children’s parties. Including yours. And Toby Young’s.

16

“I dont care who runs a school as long as their main goal is to offer a safe, confidence-building educational experience for the kids who go there. ”

I do care. So do many, many others. I’d be none too keen on any number of organisations or groups I can think of getting within a mile of educating children.

The fact that some random interest group with a particular axe to grind might be able to provide the things you mention does not in itself make it a great idea to have Easy Schools(c), Intelligent Design Inc. Academy, The Hight School of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (no doubt the wearing of Full Pirate Regalia would be encouraged).

No, state school provision isn’t perfect, and we all know there is room for improvement, just as there is with the NHS. The case against state schools and for the kinds of alternatives frequently posited by those with an ideological axe to grind isn’t any more convincing than the case for deconstructing the NHS or the welfare state.

Most of the people attacking the alternatives to state school provision aren’t doing it because they are knee jerk lefty liberals, or educators with a vested interest; they are doing it because they find the alternatives unconvincing.

@galen10 Why can’t you just let the parents decide? Who appointed you their moral and educational guardian?

@20

Ah, Toby Young. The sort of self-pitying bellend that if you saw him on fire in the street, you’d attempt to save his life by dousing the flames with your own shit. The sort of man whose own kids every night beg to an imaginary God to strike down their embarrasment of a father and replace him with someone more worthwhile, like Peter Mandelson, or Eric Pickles. Fuck it. If he’s going to be physically working in this school, I’d give it a matter of days till a pupil burns it down out of abject shame.

Yes this.

a school for the children of holocuast deniers perhaps. Thank Amando.

@ 26 Stuart

“Why can’t you just let the parents decide? Who appointed you their moral and educational guardian?”

Well, who appointed parents as moral and educational guardians? Does managing to have offspring make you instantly right about everything?

We already prevent parents from harming their children in some ways by law (it’s illegal to beat your children, for example). I don’t see why this can’t be extended to less extreme issues, such as making sure parents don’t screw up their kids’ education by sacrificing knowledge for indoctrination.

I’ve been quite sure what to make of the fact that the worthless Toby Young happens to be the son of the very much non-worthless Michael Young.

Well, who appointed parents as moral and educational guardians?

What, of their own children? Who the hell do you think should be a child’s moral and educational guardian? Michael Gove?

30 – yeah, one of them devoted an inordinate amount of time and energy to setting up an educational institution free at the point of sue, open for all to join, without academic selection and deliberately designed to challenge the public school hegemony. And the other one set up the Open University.

@Chaise Guevara

Just for the record, please don’t come anywhere near my kids.
They are free and critical-thinkers and they take responsibility for their thoughts, words and deeds. Life is rarely as simple ‘right and wrong’ but sadly you seem to think that it is… and that you (and the State) define what is right, and what is wrong.

32 – I’d correct the typo, but I quite like the idea of something being ‘free at the point of sue’

The point of free schools is that if the place turns out to be rubbish parents can move their kids elsewhere.

I’m sure that some of the new schools will turn out to be even worse than those run by the ideologues in the town halls of the rotten boroughs. The point is that parents will not be stuck with them.

31 Tim J

That made me laugh out loud

36 – Just think, this time last year it would have been Ed Balls!

37

Some choice… I’m honestly hard put to say which one I dislike more!

“I do find the idea that what started off life as a Labour idea, one of the few that brought truly good results, is now attacked by the socialist left.”

Except it’s not a continuation of the Labour idea, it’s a reversal of it. Labour’s academies were a way of turning around struggling schools in poor areas with extra money, new staff, etc. The new academies are a way of taking schools that are already doing well (largely because they have a more privileged intake) and giving them more money at the expense of poorer schools in the area. “Free Schools” take this to the next level, with the Wandsworth one as a prime example, spending millions of pounds setting up a new school with a catchment area calculated to ensure a privileged intake.

“some random interest group with a particular axe to grind”

like every new incarnation of the DfE/DSCF?
like every quango/charity involved in forming/reforming state education?
like every individual schools set of teachers and their head?

For some kids the state school system is the perpetrator or the enabler of their abuse. The number of kids this applies to is large enough that alternatives have to be sought.

I will not send my children to a state school while I am able to make any choice not to. I am on a very low income but this is my biggest priority while my children are young. I am a lifelong atheist, politically at this point im probably best described as a leftie skeptic who asks a lot of questions and is more interested in evolution of the species than any pseudo-revolution looking to change the people in power without fundamentally examining and changing the system, and im also a working class mum and part time student. I shy away a lot from naming the state school system as abusive because I dont want to hurt the feelings of the people who use it, I know most of them dont have a choice or dont realise they have a choice. But I know a lot of adults who are damaged by their time in school, and I know kids who are being damaged by it regardless of how much their parents support them or struggle to improve their kids lot within it.

The discussion about free schools or any other alternative education is impossible to have if people are not going to be honest about state schooling. It is like a bloody cult – no amount of evidence of the damage it is causing is good enough. It is scary how its defenders deny the reality, or downplay it – “No, state school provision isn’t perfect, and we all know there is room for improvement” but… You can keep having the same conversation forever while some kids are literally doomed to the system, and yet others manage to find escape routes thanks to small groups of committed parents. Or you can accept the reality and support any alternative which, as I said before, offers a safe, confidence-building educational experience for the kids who go there.

Yes its an experiment. So is every single incarnation of state schooling. New Labours version has failed. It will continue to cause damage for us all because nearly an entire generation of children were put through that experiment, developed exactly by “some random interest group with a particular axe to grind.”

For what its worth, I think every persons – adult or child -education SHOULD be experimental, but that each individual should be in charge of their own educational experiment, following their own interests. Experiments embarked on with genuine interest and enthusiasm are good positive things.

The education experiment becomes negative when its done with dodgy motives and forced on the unwilling. Take a good look at the state schooling system and see it for what it is – teaching conformity, numbing minds, draining confidence, stealing time.

“how on Earth can the government let someone who describes himself as a lying, sleazy self-publicist, run a school?”

Having just read all the links used to support this claim, I must conclude that the author of this piece has had a humour bypass, because it is evident that Young is being ironic and sending himself up! Whether I agree or disagree with someone’s politics, I do find I warm to them if they don’t take themselves too seriously and have the ability to laugh at themselves.

This article is a missed opportunity to set out the – yes, ideological – case against free schools and for the status quo.

More generally, I often wonder why the left, which is generally happy with experiments in most areas of social life, suddenly comes over so conservative and reactionary when experiments are proposed in education provision. The left destroyed rather than reform the grammar/secondary modern system; and it now stubbornly refuses to reform the failing system it established – a system that lets down the working class people the left believes it represents.

“The case against state schools and for the kinds of alternatives frequently posited by those with an ideological axe to grind isn’t any more convincing than the case for deconstructing the NHS or the welfare state.”

Plenty of those in favour of state schooling and opposed to free schools have an ideological axe to grind. I get the impression that the Left dislikes free schools because they might operate in a way and/or teach what lefties don’t personally approve of. They should look at it another way – what’s to stop lefties setting up free schools that are atheist, progressive or whatever?

Instead of Left and Right fighting over control of the state system and how to teach or indoctrinate children, let them set up their own schools and see which ones parents favour.

“Is Toby Young the right person to run a school”?

Well, not if his knowledge of Latin is anything to go by. The USP of Young’s school will be the teaching of Latin. At a presentation at the Lyric Theatre in Hammersmith, Young and the man that he has appointed as headmaster used the phrase “Nullis Secundis” as their motto. The problem with this slogan is that it is nonsense. The phrase should be “Nulli Secundus”. You can read more on the Local Schools Network blog
http://www.localschoolsnetwork.org.uk/2010/12/the-west-london-free-school/

The wife of current councillor and Daily Mail journalist, Harry Phibbs is on the steering committee
http://buddyhell.wordpress.com/2010/12/21/whos-behind-the-west-london-free-school/

43 – The school motto is going to be sapere aude – and has been since the idea was first floated I believe. ‘Dare to be wise’ for those of you who didn’t benefit from a classical education (such as Toby Young himself).

Latin school mottos are usually pretty lame though. The best school mottos are in English.

We already prevent parents from harming their children in some ways by law (it’s illegal to beat your children, for example). I don’t see why this can’t be extended to less extreme issues…

I suppose it makes sense now that all Britain’s industries have withered away and its finance sector is micromanaged by government bureaucrats, the Left must direct its authoritarian mania for nationalization towards human “resources”, ie. children. The fact that the last government to do so was led by Lenin and Stalin shouldn’t make us any less optimistic as to the outcome of this line of thinking.

I wish Toby Young and the team establishing this free school every success. I do not hope that it fails, because I do not wish any child to attend a failing school. The free school reforms are not ones that inspire or convince me. Fight for a better education system, but don’t glory if some children suffer a bad education.

Whatever selection rules the team creating this free school put in place (eg attempts to circumvent restrictions on cherry picking), many of the pupils will display challenging behaviour. Children from middle class families with pushy parents can be as shitty to teach as any others. So Toby Young and his mates are in for a few lessons themselves, which is not a bad thing.

@42

“Instead of Left and Right fighting over control of the state system and how to teach or indoctrinate children, let them set up their own schools and see which ones parents favour.”

A very good point.

The left, I think, are being hoist on their own petard. If you support the concept of a state-controlled virtual monopoly, then you must accept the risk that such power will be taken over by your ideological enemies.

Even if it were true that free schools are an ‘untested experiment’ (it’s not, they’ve been tested and have proved successful in Sweden and the US) they would surely still be preferable to the long tested and found wanting system that we currently have.

Why is the failed ideological experiment that is comprehensive education to be preferred to an untested ideological experiment? One gets the feeling its the ideology you oppose, not the fact its untested.

I’d rather have Toby Young and a group of parents that recognise the flaws of comprehensive education as it currently is, running a school, than the bizarre statist status quo defenders like Galen10 and Chaise Guevara (the same person, quite obviously) run a school. Can you imagine the classes they’d teach? “How to smear your opponents”, “Misleading blog titles”, “Ad hominems 101″, etc etc

Does comprehensive education as it currently is, “work”?

We had 13 years to try out things your way, Galen Guevara. It failed. Attainment and income inequality are wider now than in 1997. Why not try another approach? Why pretend everything is fine and dandy and in need of no changes (or lying to yourself that simply throwing more money at the system or building shiny new buildings will make any difference), just because it’s your class enemies the Tories and the Liberals who are trying the new approach?

Watch “Waiting For Superman” – or better yet, get out of your Trot bedsits in Stoke Newington and actually go down to one of the bad comprehensives and see what life is like in the classroom, rather than pretending everything works when you know it doesn’t. Mossbourne Academy, which is run free from interference by the Labour loons in your local council (who are of course furious at their own impotence and have set their NUT attack dogs on Mossbourne), is doing much better than the vast majority of comprehensives. Get some real world experience, get out of the leftie politics 1980s timewarp bubble you’re locked in, and find out why it is that people with actual experience, and who are being honest with themselves, want the system to change.

@ 44 Tim J
You are probably thinking of “Manners makyth man” but I still reckon that my school motto “Veritas in Virtute” was better than nearly all of the “English” mottos that I have seen

:@ 50 The two Eds
We knew the “comprehensive” education system was inferior to the tripartite system long ago.
Chaise Guevara could probably sue for libel for suggesting he is the same as galen 10.
I don’t particularly like Guido Fawkes but he does have the occasional bright spot such as Margaret Thatcher saying “my sort of people needed the Grammar schools in order to be able to compete with those from privileged backgrounds like Shirley Williams and Anthony Wedgwood Benn”. So if you want to maintain class privilege and reduce social mobility, vote Labour and abolish the last few Grammar schools – if you want advancement on merit (social mobility) and the fading away of the class system, vote Conservative.
The whole of my family was educated on scholarships

Well the Grammar school system bloody well should have produced results. It stole 60-70% of the total education budget, and only had 25% of the kids to educate. Oh, and of course they were the brightest. (or had been specially coached how to pass the exam.)

Shit, you would have to be retarded not to make that work for the ones that passed the 11 plus.

@ Sally
If you make up your own numbers by completely ignoring reality you can claim whatever you like. With your standards of accuracy I could claim that I beat Seb Coe

Well if you think tories will end the class system then you know jack shit.

@anyone except sally who is in complete disregard of reality
Can anyone tell me the relevance of sally’s reply to my post? Really?

Read what you wrote at 52

“So if you want to maintain class privilege and reduce social mobility, vote Labour and abolish the last few Grammar schools – if you want advancement on merit (social mobility) and the fading away of the class system, vote Conservative.”

Do keep up.

“The whole of my family was educated on scholarships”

The worst kind of scrounger. welfare for private schools. But I’m sure your corporate elders are very pleased with your obedience, and no doubt you will make an excellent butler serving your corporate masters.

@ 57
Idiot
11+ was not a scholarship to a private school, nor was my mother’s state scholarship, nor my father’s college scholarship, nor mine, nor my sister’s scholarship to Columbia
Now, may I suggest that you apologise

If this community had a decent moderator, I should not be required to suffer the offensive postings by “sally”

@59 Sally does get modded from time to time when she oversteps the mark. Also re: “suffer the offensive postings”, this is a blog called “Liberal Conspiracy” if you’re expecting heavy censorship in the comments you’re likely to be disappointed. We do like a bit of free speech around here, even if some do get a bit Dave Spart from time to time.

Now let us look at scholarships to public schools – none of them are funded by the taxpayer so if that makes them “the worst kind of scrounger” according to sally then who does she think that they are scrounging from?. Almost all of them were created before free universal education to provide a decent education for bright boys from poor families – is this why sally hates them? Prior to the industrial revolution, most manual jobs required hard physical labour and were undertaken by men. Only the rich educated their daughters

@ 60 Cylux
Thanks, but I think sally has overstepped the mark several times.
FYI I have never scrounged, I have no corporate masters, and if a guy had been that rude 50 years ago I could (and should) have asked him to step outside. Regrettably some women expect the deference formerly given to their sex without the constraints that they used to observe.
I don’t expect heavy censorship, it’s just that I prefer honesty.

John77 – sally is best ignored, she has been trolling here for years.

@62 Solve verbal disputes with recourse to violence? Wanting “asking someone to step outside” to be accetable discourse once again?
What a fantastic example of Internet based tosspot you are sir.

I’ve been down the pub tonight and I didn’t see anything like Cylux vs John77.

John 77: When UK people on the internet talk about a strong talking, others assume that means a duffing up. A bit of aggro and a painful walk in the morning by the victim. So we do not use those words or imply them. You do not need to apologise to Sally but you need to make it clear that no physical threat was intended. It was just hyperbole.

Cylux: Mellow down a bit.

Oh give over John77. sally isn’t trolling, your the one trolling. sally is a BLOODY lefty, and this is a Liberal site. From what I have read from your comments you seem quite conservative or centre right perhaps, whilst most people coming here might not agree with her, I reckon they ain’t to keen on you either. Tory trolls piss me off.

@Cylux Sally gets away with calling everyone neo-Nazis but never gets modded because (as commenters like Galen10, Chaise Guevara, Cherub and Tim Hardy AKA Counterpower have said) she actually says what the dominant bully boy club here at LibCon think but are too afraid to put in such blunt terms. Sunny occasionally admits to wanting to “destroy the Right” (which in itself sounds a bit right-wing, to want to “obliterate” one’s opponents, bit Sarah Palin-esque there!).

Orwell, whose corpse Sally likes to drag up from time to time to call the Tories/anyone who opposes Labour “brownshirts”, said this about the kind of language Sally employs:

“You cannot speak any of the necessary dialects, and when you make a stupid remark its stupidity will be obvious, even to yourself. Political language — and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists — is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. One cannot change this all in a moment, but one can at least change one’s own habits, and from time to time one can even, if one jeers loudly enough, send some worn-out and useless phrase — some jackboot, Achilles’ heel, hotbed, melting pot, acid test, veritable inferno, or other lump of verbal refuse — into the dustbin, where it belongs.”

You hear that, Sally/Christine Blower of the NUT (btw how’s that six-figure salary and benefits package coming along?) – Orwell himself thought people like you belong in the dustbin. The next time you use “jackboots”, as you love to, consider that.

@66 Doogie Howser! I had no idea lefties would stoop so low as to impersonate child actors.

You prove my point: Sally’s level of abuse, swearing and ad hominem trolling is acceptable because she’s left-wing. She speaks for all of you, in terms you would use if you weren’t afraid to put your real names to them. She is a useful idiot for the left, spouting the abuse you all have in your minds and only let out when the mask slips.

Similarly, if someone makes a comment that is mentally on the same low, low level as Sally, but from a right-wing point of view, it is suddenly unacceptable.

@65 You did notice that John77 was a touch of a misogynistic thug, yes? Anyone who blats on that women’s equality hasn’t resulted it in being acceptable for men to beat up women should raise a red flag for you all.

@44

“Nullis Secundis” was used for their presentation at the Lyric Theatre as the link tells us. In fact, here’s the quote in full

“However, that the Lyric presentation included the byline “Nulli Secundis” bemused me because it is incorrect Latin and meaningless except to those who know Latin well enough to correct it for themselves. The expression is “Nulli Secundus” or even more properly “Nulli Secundus / Nulli Secunda” and means “second to none” – with the -us ending denoting masculine and the -a ending denoting feminine”.

Cylux is either demonstrating his ignorance or deliberately lying. Firstly, the normal (almost universal) response to “step outside and say that” was for the offensive individual to back down (with pressure from his friends if he was too drunk to think straight) often accompanied by an apology/retraction, which is what I wanted/deserve from sally. Secondly it was never addressed to females.

Can everyone calm down a bit and have a cup of tea or something? It seems that on the internet normal rules of debate no longer apply and people on both sides of the political divide are guilty of that in this thread in particular. I’m guilty myself of over-stepping the mark (and have been modded for that reason) on occasion but please, remember these are fellow human beings you are conversing with and don’t assume that everyone’s motives are purely antagonistic.

@71

Regrettably some women expect the deference formerly given to their sex without the constraints that they used to observe.

Never addressed to females eh?

@14. Luis Enrique: Fair enough but part of the criticism in the post has to do with how Mr Young indulges in ad hominem attacks himself. His critics, according to him, are all SWP/Hard left? I find this unlikely.

But you’re right that which system is best is the issue. Have to say, I’m still unclear about how these are going to work. If a school is over-subscribed, how do they ration the places?

Here at least using the price-mechanism or academic selection makes some kind of sense – but Mr Young says neither of these are going to be used. So some other means will have to be used? What is this likely to be? The alternative would be to allow the schools to expand indefinitely. This doesn’t strike me as being a very practical idea. Apart from anything else, one of the things that makes a lot of schools horrible places that are difficult to run, in my experience, is that they are just too damn big.

Also struck – not for the first time – how London-based these conversations are. What is school choice going to look like in Ayrshire?

40 anonyperson

I’m not sure where to begin with your post really,as although it is obviously written with real feeling, I’m not sure what your specific issues with state education are. Perhaps you personally have had bad experiences, so your negative view may be understandable, even if it is hardly representative of the generality of experience for most “ordinary” parents who share my view, and do not want the type of changes being posited to come to fruition.

No “generalised” mass system will be suitable for every child, whether because they have special needs, behavioural or emotional problems or need remedial help. that doesn’t mean that the correct response is to throw the baby out with the bath water.

You say: “You can keep having the same conversation forever while some kids are literally doomed to the system, and yet others manage to find escape routes thanks to small groups of committed parents.”

As though kids were never doomed by the grammar school system? Or in the 80 before New Labour under Thatcher’s government?

Anyone on here will tell you my views on the nauseating New Labour project, but your post seems a little muddled about what it is exactly you feel they failed to do, or indeed perpetuated? For all their faults, they did do some good things. My daughter’s High School was more or less rebuilt; she had a great education in a state school, was happy, fulfilled, got good grades, and gained a place at Cambridge.

That kind of experience ought to be the norm; the plans you and people like you promote are not going to achieve that though are they? They are going to haul us back to the bad old days of a 2 tier education system, entrench division and social inequality, and allow the rich off the hook by destroying one of basic legs of the communitarian basis of comprehensive education.

Too many people like you have been distracted by the bright, shiny promise held out by a bunch of right wing spivs and ideologues bent on destroying the welfare state. By all means, if you feel that strongly go off and pay to educate your kids privately….but don;t expect the rest of us to applaud the actions of the right’s “useful idiots” who are helping destroy the current system.

@73
Of course never
I have heard a few times of some young woman’s boyfriend being challenged to a fight over an offensive remark she made

Why do I get the impression that if John77 moved in next door to me, my flowers would die?

@75

Galen Guevara, you really didn’t read the post @40 did you?

Someone even tries to point out how bad the system currently is, and all you can do is say “I’m alright Jack” and start scaremongering about “going back to the bad old days” – the bad old days being when poor kids actually had a chance of competing with private school educated toffs.

You are Labour’s useless idiot.

Read this: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jan/29/teachers-paperwork

Even if the current system were working (and I am not going there at the moment), only the most conservative (in the small ‘c’ sense) would refuse to try out alternatives.

If you believe the current system is great, we should be trying something out to make it greater. If it is currently poor, then I want a lot of small scale experiments to find better alternatives. Independently of ideology, the consensus seems to be that the system ain’t perfect (both sides admit it although from different places). A clear argument in favour of experimenting. The Education Dept. should be doing it. Pilot programmes all over the place. Not just tinkering, bold stuff.

The experiments must make sense (it would be an experiment to shoot kids who get less than 5 out of 10 but I think we can all see (hopefully) why that shouldn’t happen).

Independently of (or at least leaving to one side) ideology, the Free School project makes a realistic and sufficient argument for a trial from an educational point of view.

From what I have read it seems that Toby Young is going to be personally responsible for teaching every subject. I suspect that even he would admit that that is beyond his capabilities. He is promoting (promoting: not owning, not running, not teaching) an alternative (that clearly has an ideological side) but it is not the worst idea to experiment with.

If it works (and it might, partially, totally…), we need to analyse and find out the elements that make it work and if they are transferable, by scaling up the experiment and replicating it.. If it doesn’t work, abandon it (but also analyse why it hasn’t worked). Is it really so frightening? Comprehensives were an experiment. There was a time when the concept of state schooling was an experiment. (Still not going there).

That is how we have achieved progress in every field. The alternative. Stick with what you’ve got. Somehow, and seen from afar, (my kids are nowhere near the UK system) I feel that vested interest groups are hiding behind ideology to ensure continuity of the status quo, afraid of positive results from experiments they feel they should abhor purely on ‘principle’.

Over thirty years employing British graduates overseas has clearly demonstrated that either my organisation is getting worse at people selection or the quality of basic education (to graduate level) has dropped. Not just the literacy, numeracy thing but all the soft skills preparing you for life (supposedly currently promoted) too. Inability to accepted criticism, inabiity to present a logical argument, total lack of awareness of one’s own short-comings and how to remedy them, inability to work in a team, unawareness of how my poor work affects the situation of everybody in the company and the poor users of our services. Total lack of simple life skills. Years ago, my personnel manager complained of having to bottom-wipe arrogant but useless graduates.

I don’t know, but from what I see at the exit end I am not impressed. If you are happy with what you see, fine. If not (and nobdy here is saying that everything is hunky-dory), try something else. Try not to be frightened (unless you believe that the the worst thing that can happen is for an experiment to be successful)

@ 77 Cheesy Monkey
Probably because the “student protestors” trashed Milbank Tower instead of No 30 next door which houses the Conservative Party HQ and you fear someone would tell them where I lived…

78 2 Ed’s

Leaving aside your tiresome schoolboy affectation of lumping Chaise Guevara and I together (for what reason I’m not quite sure…. given your critical powers perhaps we should be charitable and assume you are dyslexic rather than just another obscurantist Tory troll…but there again, if the cap fits….?)….

I did indeed read through the somewhat muddled, train of thought musings @ post 40, hoping they might have point. that would also be why I quoted from them directly… but don’t let that get in the way of your ignorant dismissal.

I wasn’t saying “I’m all right jack”, I was comparing my family’s particular experience with the anecdotal experience detailed in post 40. as I was careful to point out, neither I, or anyone else pretends the current system is perfect, but neither will many people recognise the nightmarish farrago painted by opponents of the current system.

Of course in the bad old days, only “some” kids got the chance to compete with the toffs… often the ones who were quite happy to pull the ladder up after them, and leave the others to rot in an under funded, second rate system. Why is that do you think?

79 Bilbao; yeah… constant revolution….that’s really what we need. It’s worked so well over the past 30 years in education and the NHS. Oh wait………

As for your experience of graduates, it differs from mine, but then as you say HR people years ago just complained about different things. Some graduates probably aren’t that great… but there are a hell of a lot more of them given that vastly more people go to university now than 30 years ago. Many graduates now are streets ahead in terms of ability from those I remember when leaving Uni in the 80′s, both in terms of academic and social skills, and in terms of life experience.

There is much to be proud of in our current set up, which many people seem to forget. I, and many others aren’t opposed to any change, or opposing change for the sake of it. We are opposed to fracturing the current system into a myriad of different competing and often mutually exclusive models.

@ Tim J

“What, of their own children? Who the hell do you think should be a child’s moral and educational guardian? Michael Gove?”

Ok, good point scarily made.

But my point is that the act of having children does not automatically make you a responsible and sensible adult. I don’t need to list well-known examples of very bad parenting, because they tend to end up on the front page and stay there for weeks.

Yes, parents can generally bring up their children the way they want, but society imposes sensible limits. We can’t prevent children from being harmed by the anti-education attitude of their mum and dad – not without the cure being a lot worse than the disease – but we can and do prevent parents from deciding that school is a waste of time and telling their kids not to attend it at all. Most people have no problem with this. Perhaps you do, I don’t know.

I’m not saying that Michael Gove should be allowed to write the exact blueprint of every child’s upbringing, I’m saying that there are certain things that we legally ban people from doing in the name of child-raising. Perhaps making their kids attend a school designed principally to indoctrinate them into a religious or political point of view should be one of them.

Suggesting that either we give parents free rein or put the government in charge of every detail is a false dichotomy. I’m saying we should allow parents something close to full autonomy, but step in when it goes to far – which is what we do already.

@ 33 Stuart

“Just for the record, please don’t come anywhere near my kids.
They are free and critical-thinkers and they take responsibility for their thoughts, words and deeds. Life is rarely as simple ‘right and wrong’ but sadly you seem to think that it is… and that you (and the State) define what is right, and what is wrong.”

Charmed. See my response to Tim J above.

Two other things: firstly, your children may well have grown up well because you happen to be a good parent, but you can’t judge everyone by your own standards.

Secondly: do you disagree with laws against people beating (not smacking, but beating) their kids? Because that’s what you’d have to defend if you really thought that the state should play no role at all in what is and isn’t permissible in child-raising. If you don’t agree with these laws (and I doubt that you do), then I’m really not sure why you’re so offended by my suggestion that there’s such a thing as harmful parenting.

@ 49 The Two Eds

“I’d rather have Toby Young and a group of parents that recognise the flaws of comprehensive education as it currently is, running a school, than the bizarre statist status quo defenders like Galen10 and Chaise Guevara (the same person, quite obviously) run a school. Can you imagine the classes they’d teach? “How to smear your opponents”, “Misleading blog titles”, “Ad hominems 101?, etc etc”

Sigh. Not the same person. Could you perhaps point me towards the ad homs, smears and (this is a very strange one, given that I’m not the OP) misleading blog posts I’m committed in this thread?

I don’t want to run a school. I just want limits on what they can teach. I don’t want schools run by maniacs with lessons like “Why Jews are evil” or “Captitalism: the source of all the evil in the world”. If you think this opinion of mine is so vile that it warrants ad hom attacks and smears of your own (I’m not offended that you’re pretending I’m Galen, but it’s obviously an attempt to undermine what we’re both saying by baselessly accusing us of duplicity) then that’s your own problem. Look at the hyprocrisy of your own post and attend the beam in your eye.

*83

Bugger, misphrase:

“If you don’t agree with these laws (and I doubt that you do), then I’m really not sure why you’re so offended by my suggestion that there’s such a thing as harmful parenting.”

If you don’t *disagree* with those laws, I meant. I’m not trying to suggest you’re in favour of parental brutality.

“We can’t prevent children from being harmed by the anti-education attitude of their mum and dad – not without the cure being a lot worse than the disease”

The thing is, those people organising free schools, or home educating, or engaging in any of the other alternatives to state education, on the whole are very pro-education – that is why they (we) turn away from state schooling. That is the first and main reason, all others follow later. We choose not to use state schools, we choose to look for alternatives, because we believe that education should not be constrained by party politics, constant examinations, testing, a ‘national curriculum’, etc. We think that all these things demean the meaning of education and cheat our children. We dont just send our kids along to conform to what a bunch of bureaucrats have decided is good for their future employment prospects and the countrys future labour needs (neither of which is predictable anyway!)

” – but we can and do prevent parents from deciding that school is a waste of time and telling their kids not to attend it at all.”

And here is the problem. Somehow in your head education = school. You need to get past that. Its like thinking sex = porn, music = x factor, or cinema = michael bay.

Its really insulting that you class people who are willing to dedicate their time and energy to opening up childrens access to education as ‘anti education’ just because theyve given up trying to reform state schooling and are building elsewhere.

If people want to reform state schooling, good for them, its just that I think its unreformable – it is too bogged down with bad history, dumbass, illogical, or disturbing motives, too easy for politicians and other powerful people to manipulate. Even if it could be done it would take a dedicated majority of the teaching and administrative staff within schools, and they are mostly way too busy covering their own backs. And it would take generations, and im not willing to give up on my kids now in the vague hope that in fifty years things might have improved a bit.

86 anonyperson

Just because you strongly believe the litany of things you assert are wrong with state education in your first paragraph, doesn’t mean you are right. A tiny minority of people have home educated their children for a long time, possibly for very good reasons in their individual cases, but that hardly makes their experience something than can or should be generally applied. I’m sure most children educated in this way do well if they have parents with the knowledge, time and resources to do this; others however may not be so lucky, and may even be left feeling that they missed out in a social sense.

It seems many of your objections to the way the state system are every bit as much based in your a priori ideological and educational views as those who prefer the state system.

We’re not insulting people like you; we’re pointing out that there are consequences attendant on following your path, even if they are unintended. Your last paragraph frankly sounds like the fervid imaginings of some tin-hat wearing conspiracy theorist. I don’t recognise your description of education in this country at all, and can only assume that it arises from some anecdotal personal experience which, however painful or intense, doesn’t make your generalised rant a sensible guide to policy.

@50 2 Heads

Obviously in your case 2 Heads aren’t better than one, because the voices in your head make clear thinking difficult. To take your ridiculous ad homs in the order they appear:

1. “We had 13 years to try out things your way, Galen Guevara. It failed. Attainment and income inequality are wider now than in 1997. Why not try another approach? Why pretend everything is fine and dandy and in need of no changes (or lying to yourself that simply throwing more money at the system or building shiny new buildings will make any difference), just because it’s your class enemies the Tories and the Liberals who are trying the new approach?”

The current system wasn’t invented in the past 13 years, it goes back somewhat longer yes? Attainment and income inequality being wider are not things that can be directly laid at the door of this (or any alternative) education system. Introducing the reforms you want would not automatically ameliorate these.

New building aren’t everything, but they are a lot better than expecting children to learn in buildings which are falling down. I’m quite aware that throwing money at a problem isn’t ideal…but it beats starving the system of any investment as happened so often before under governments of both political hues.

Finally, I don’t regard people with different views as class enemies, nor am I stuck in the 1970′s as you seem to be. It was the nauseating New Labour party which promoted barmy faith schools, academies and laterally free schools remember?

I’m not, and never have been, a Labour supporter. I have a nuanced enough view of the world to know that people of all political persuasions and none stand on both sides of this debate. I realise that nuance (or indeed coherence) don’t seem to be part of your repetoire.

2. ” [Blather, blather, blather, ad hom, ad hom.... finally getting to the point] ….Get some real world experience, get out of the leftie politics 1980s timewarp bubble you’re locked in, and find out why it is that people with actual experience, and who are being honest with themselves, want the system to change.”

Again with the lazy assumption that I “must” be a Trot, and all the other old politics stylee insults you can dredge up from what passes for your intellect. I have plenty of experience of the education system, including teaching in it, to know that you will always get a small minority amongst parents who actually crave for the good old days of grammar schools, and want Johnny protecting from the oiks.

They don’t much care about the rest, nor do they care whether their kid is actually bright enough… because surely it’s self evident that they are decent sorts, and they are owed something? Either that or they are mono-maniacal weirdos who would do anything as long as they can teach creationism or some other nutty belief they adhere to.

Course such people want the system to change…just don’t pretend that most of them are doing it for any other reason than social climbing; they don’t want to promote equality of opportunity or equal access, because if they get their way, they’ll be alright Jack.

@ 86

“And here is the problem. Somehow in your head education = school. You need to get past that. Its like thinking sex = porn, music = x factor, or cinema = michael bay.

Its really insulting that you class people who are willing to dedicate their time and energy to opening up childrens access to education as ‘anti education’ just because theyve given up trying to reform state schooling and are building elsewhere. ”

At what point did I say that people who want to reform schools, state or otherwise, are anti-education? That would be the opposite of logical. Of course I don’t think people who commit to home schooling or running their own school are against learning. You’re making up something I didn’t actually say simply so you can take offence.

@ 88 Galen

BTW, kudos for putting up with Stuart and Heads for so long. I’m actually impressed that someone can be so obsessive and inherently unpleasant that my one comment (not all parents are perfect) is enough to justify assuming I’m some kind of Stalinist, hypocritically ad homming me, and arguing with me even when I haven’t said anything by pretending that you and I are the same person. I can see you’ve been getting the same treatment.

LC has its rows, but normally people manage to be a bit less immature and malicious than this.

@ 90

Thanks. I don’t generally go in for feeding trolls…but something about their smug wrong-headedness made me bite this time

Still..you are probably only reinforcing the narrative that you and I are in fact the same person, which given the fact we have sometimes publically disagreed on this site is quite an achievement no?

@ 91 Galen

Yeah, that did occur to me, but if a troll wants to make up stupid accusations then he’s going to make up stupid accusations. Nothing you or I can do about it either way. The Two Eds seems to be arguing with some hallucinated opponent who he’s decided is you and me, regardless of anything we’ve actually said.

Want to know something hilarious? At comment 9 in the Aaron Porter thread, he’s shouting at me (and you, of course) that he’s won an argument against us about the subject in hand. I didn’t actually comment in that thread until post twenty-something…