Fiona Millar on the Tory plan to
remove education from the one size fits all model of mediocrity destroy education:
It must be nice to have £200,000 of public money to play with. This is the generous contribution that the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead is making to the development of a new grammar school in its area.
Hurrah!
Several more prospective grammar school plans have since emerged, convenient maybe for someone with a new-found ambition to be leader of the Conservative party but deeply disturbing to the rest of us.
Ah, that ‘Guardian’ Royal We again. I’m not ‘disturbed’.
Grammar schools are socially divisive and anti-aspiration.
*Yawns*
They don’t, and never have, done much for the majority of poor children.
Tell that to my mother, who passed her scholarship & went to a grammar, consequently being better equipped and educated than most of today’s modern offerings.
Even the government’s favourite thinktank, Policy Exchange, agrees and recently highlighted evidence showing that any benefit to children attending grammar schools is outweighed by the impact on those left behind.
What impact?
It is a dangerous moment, which is why a legal challenge to the Kent decision is now being seriously considered by the campaigning group Comprehensive Future (of which I am a member). We believe the new school, which this project clearly is, contravenes the last government’s own Academies Act, which states that any new academy must be an all-ability school.
Ah, of course. The ‘Guardian’s’ slide into becoming merely a piece of agitprop rather than a newspaper continues…
Why are lefties always trying to interfere with other peopl's chiLdren? Are they closet paedophiles?
ReplyDeleteGrammar schools and assisted University places combined were the biggest engine of social mobility the UK has ever seen. That socialists decry it is a profound betrayal of the people they are supposed to represent.
ReplyDeleteBunny
ReplyDeleteOne of the issues is that Secondary Moderns concentrated on producing skilled men, which is another way to social mobility, trade training, ONC, then HNC and professional qualifications. I've worked with plenty of ex-Secondary Modern pupils in very senior positions in the construction and engineering industries.
The biggest brake on social mobility was getting rid of grammar schools and then cutting the relationship of secondary moderns with industry and work.
I always thought that one of the big issues with secondary moderns was teachers, who were asked 'aren't you good enough to work in a grammar school?'
Okay, we have issues here in the US with this also.
ReplyDelete"Even the government’s favourite thinktank, Policy Exchange, agrees and recently highlighted evidence showing that any benefit to children attending grammar schools is outweighed by the impact on those left behind"
Roughly translated, this means that since stupid people can not benefit from more education, and a certain subset of the population views advanced education as "racist" (meaning that they want the degree without actually having to do the work)and to not include both sets, race hustlers and stupid people, would be discriminatory, we will blather about how they are left behind, and hold down, through lower standards, those who have the intellect and/or desire to achieve more. My only question about this line of thinking is, do you really want a doctor or lawyer who was "average" on a playing field that was leveled to include these people?
Fiona Millar's partner is one Alastair Campbell. That makes her judgement and standards - to my mind at least - highly suspect.
ReplyDelete"Why are lefties always trying to interfere with other peopl's chiLdren?"
ReplyDeleteBecause, like the Jesuits, they realise the value of early indoctrination.
" That socialists decry it is a profound betrayal of the people they are supposed to represent."
They represent themselves and their own interests. That's all they ever have represented.
"...who were asked 'aren't you good enough to work in a grammar school?'"
And so often, the answer was 'Well, no, actually!'
"My only question about this line of thinking is, do you really want a doctor or lawyer who was "average" on a playing field that was leveled to include these people?"
Given they won't have to rely on such 'doctors', I suspect the answer is 'Yes'.