School lotteries should be introduced to combat "white flight" from inner-city comprehensives, according to researchers.Hmmm, according to ‘researchers’, eh? Where from?
Local authorities such as Blackburn, Bolton and Oldham should consider using the controversial system to address racial segregation in the classroom, it was suggested.
Another quango, of course: the Institute for Community Cohesion.
Nick Johnson, policy director at the institute, which is part-funded by local authorities and several universities, said: "If you did that in Blackburn or Bolton or Oldham, it would have a dramatic effect on the schools' composition.Yeah, there’s that word ‘if’ again. But it’s just breezed over - of course everybody accepts that all forms of segregation are bad, don’t they? Who could possibly deny it?
Brighton was trying to do it to stop class segregation, and if you accept the argument that all forms of segregation in education are bad, you do need to do something about it."
Even if lots of people do argue that comprehensive schooling (and the practice of mainstreaming children with learning difficulties in particular) hasn’t been a wild success, Nicky isn’t hearing them.
Nicky has an agenda to push:
He added: "'White flight' is certainly happening in specific areas of England. In the case of one school in Blackburn, once the number of non-white pupils got above 60 per cent, white parents started saying they did not want their kids being the odd ones out. You can understand why that happens, but we are not particularly happy that it is happening."Who cares if you’re not happy, Nicky?
Other people’s children aren’t provided to you like chess pieces on a board to shuffle around and make you happy, are they? To arrange so that you have a perfect rainbow of smiling multicultural moppets like a 70s Coke commercial?
They are there to get the best education possible.
And if the immigration policies are making that harder, then of course their parents are going to change schools to improve their children’s chances:
Researchers cited the case of one unnamed school where 85 per cent of pupils were white British at the end of 2005. Over the next six months, pupils from 15 to 20 Somali families were admitted, said the study.How dare they? How very dare they, eh, Nicky?
"Many white parents reacted negatively, arguing that their children were being disadvantaged by large numbers of non-English speakers," it found. "By September 2006, 60 white children had been removed from the school... and the percentage of black and minority ethnic pupils rose to 45 per cent.
Fancy spoiling your dreams of a multicultural paradise by deciding that a school struggling to cope with a huge influx of children with special language needs might not present the best possible opportunity for their own children, and being unwilling to sacrifice their educational future to the cause…
Because who could object to diversity, with its numerous benefits?
The report said that segregation reduced opportunities for young people to mix with their peers from different backgrounds.Oh, yes. Those well known opportunities to be stabbed, raped, robbed and beaten.
If Nicky has children, I wonder where they go to school? And with whom?
You seem a fine figure of a woman.
ReplyDeleteDo you like to gargle?
Julia, there seems to be a self-styled wag doing the rounds of blogs, these days. Very McBride like.
ReplyDeleteAs for the post, remember ethnic cleansing is only applied one way. Whites are an endangered species. Serbs work for me.
Because who could object to diversity, with its numerous benefits?
ReplyDelete"The report said that segregation reduced opportunities for young people to mix with their peers from different backgrounds."
Oh, yes. Those well known opportunities to be stabbed, raped, robbed and beaten.
You're an ugly racist, Julia.
"Julia, there seems to be a self-styled wag doing the rounds of blogs, these days."
ReplyDeleteOh, yes. Seen him (it's got to be a him, hasn't it?) around a few. Harmless, at least...
"You're an ugly racist, Julia."
Ahh, once upon a time, that word held meaning, and was (rightly) a cause for concern if applied to you.
Now? It's just the reflex action of someone who has just had their nose rubbed in an unpalatable fact...
But tell me, Ed, what's your opinion one the rightness or otherwise of deliberately seeking to ensure a racial mix in schools despite the wishes of the people who pay for those schools, and no matter what the cost to those children's education may be as a result?
ReplyDeleteDo you have an opinion on it?
Yes I do. I think it's a good idea. The US did it in the 1960s, and it's helped. And spare me the "wishes of the people who pay for those schools". This is a democracy.
ReplyDeleteIf you have data showing that the children's education is actually being harmed, you will show it, won't you.
Well, yes Ed, it has helped. Helped drive the percentage of white pupils in Boston public schools down from the upper 60s to approaching 10.
ReplyDeleteWith appropriately disastrous declines in the academic achievements of US state schools.
Perhaps those dreadful white parents should be forced back into the city limits at gunpoint?
I'm going to anticipate your next argument. "If those white students had stayed, standards would be higher."
Deconstruct that one for yourself.
"Yes I do. I think it's a good idea."
ReplyDeleteSo, Ed, you believe that other people's children are mere pawns, to be arranged and ordered to suit your dreams of a multicultural paradise, no matter what their own parents may want?
Staybryte has pointed out the consequences of that policy for the US...
"And spare me the "wishes of the people who pay for those schools". This is a democracy."
Really? And do you believe that this plan therefore has the support of a majority of the people in this country? Or just a majority of the people in your own social circle?
Care to put it to the test?
"I'm going to anticipate your next argument. "
ReplyDeleteHe ever really brought anything as strong as an argument to the table.
It's mere wish fulfillment - "This time, it'll work, because I'M running the show..."
And incidentally, while you are pondering all that, Ed, perhaps you'd care to look at some of the schools in inner-London that are majority ethnic and tell me where we should send some of those children, to better obtain that 'diverse mix' you seem to believe to be the elixir of educational achievement.
ReplyDeleteAnd if their parents object to, how best to lecture them on how it's really in society's best interests that they co-opererate...
They don't realise that a lot parents have a choice of where to live and a choice of where to send their children to school.
ReplyDeleteNone of them would want to risk their child's education and future on the whim of some rose-tint spectacled trendy leftie, who probably had his education at grammar or private school.
I wonder where the architects of thios plan will be sending their kids.....
"They don't realise that a lot parents have a choice of where to live and a choice of where to send their children to school. "
ReplyDeleteTheir plan is obviously to remove that choice forthwith, by any means necessary.
But I don't think Ed is coming back to debate the merits of his great plans and shoot down our counter agruments with facts and examples.
Strange, that...
Well Mr and Mrs Nice, at St Thingys in Inner City 1 we are currently at 99% BEM to 1% white European with 1 teacher to 40 pupils; we have been designated a failing academy; our exclusion rates are higher than National average but of course most are successfully challenged so our rsources are tied up supervising pupils who require almost one on one supervision in a separate unit; we have one uniformed constable and 2 PCSO's dedicated to the school and we are officially a crime hotspot for the borough in respect of robbery, assaults and sex offences, we have 4 teachers currently suspended (one being remanded recently for attempted murder when he snapped during a class), another 6 on sick leave and we use most of the supply teachers in the area constantly as we are 4 below our budgeted figure in any case. That said if your son/daughter wants to learn how 'DJ', rap or human beatbox, this school is in the premier league for that as not one pupil has achieved any result over a 'C' in the last 5 years and that was for 'Art'. We've stopped teaching English language and literature as we use this time to teach basic English skills to bith children born in the Uk and recent arrivals from overseas - as neither group can actually speak English other than variations on Jamaican patois, Bangla talk or SMS text speak. Your child will be as safe as a pensioner locked up in their inner city tower block the minute they walk through the knife arches at entrance search points until they leave, well, at any time after registration. Now why wouldn't you want to send your kids here? Hmmmm?
ReplyDelete"...as neither group can actually speak English other than variations on Jamaican patois, Bangla talk or SMS text speak."
ReplyDeleteAt least people have started to highlight this. Particularly it's likely effect on their job prospects.
I'm sure Ed will have something to say about that too.
Ed...? Are you there...?
Ed's comparison with US schools just doesn't cut it. You see, the black children brought into the "white" schools could actually read, write and speak English.
ReplyDeleteIn our schools, many of the non-indigenous children do not have any English at all.
And before you have a hissy fit and label me as a colonial racist, here's your refund - the exit door's that way.
"This is a democracy" (Ed).
ReplyDeleteSo you want to use state power to take children from one school and force them to attend another, based on nothing but leftist ideology.
Some democracy. Perhaps you meant 'democracy' in the "German Democratic Republic" sense of 'democracy'.
Anyway, I can't imagine how it happened, but this policy won't be forced on schools in Notting Hill and Islington, but on schools comfortably far away from the liberati 'oop north'.
"..on schools comfortably far away from the liberati 'oop north'..."
ReplyDeleteWeeeeellll, maybe not.
It's possible that that may be judged 'discriminatory' under Harriet's cracking new idea.. ;)
Wow, this really is a right-wing echo-chamber, with not a soul or citation of actual evidence between you.
ReplyDeleteEnjoy.
Actually, there's plenty. Anecdotal and verifiable. YOU were challenged to bring yours.
ReplyDeleteYou didn't. You opted, instead, to run away, screaming 'OMG! Right wing!'.
I guess we can conclude something from that. Can't we?
I'll bet a pound to a barrel of pigshit that Ed either does not have children of school going age, or lives in a inner city and his kids go to a private school.
ReplyDeleteThe rest of us, lumbered with Labour's botched social, one-size fits all comprehensive education experiment, have to live with the realities of sub-standard schools.