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tneva82 wrote:

 Whirlwind wrote:
So I see Empress May is trying to revive her wet dream idea of Grammar Schools again...

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/grammar-schools-theresa-may_uk_5af4a800e4b032b10bf8ce7d?utm_hp_ref=uk-homepage

Despite the majority of state schools crying out for more money she is allocating £50m to a tiny fraction of Grammar schools that predominantly benefit middle and high earners as shown in all the scientific reports. That's also despite the idea being widely panned at the last election.

Definitely hearing what the people want on this one. To be honest the most foul and noxious solids that come out of my ass have better political skills than Empress May.

Okay out of curiosity what are the grammar schoolsakd why you are against them? I presume they aren't grammar schools as in linquistic term so what?

They require that primary school children sit an exam to determine their educational achievement thus far. If they are sufficiently academically inclined then they maybe selected to attend grammar school, whilst the rest attend the normal secondary education available in the area.

Which sort of sounds fine until you factor in that whilst it is intended to provide enhanced academic attainment and opportunity for working class children who may not otherwise get that opportunity, what happens in practice is that the areas surrounding grammar schools become highly desirable to middle class parents unable or unwilling to pay for private schooling, moving into catchment areas and spending their resources on preparing their offspring to ensure they get offered a place to the detriment of local working class children.

It also creates a system where late bloomers are ruled out of having this opportunity by dint of the fact that they have matured later, or may even be a whole year younger than other classmates.

It was a hated system in the past as many adults felt that they had failed at life when they had only just reached double digits. It's very divisive, but understandably it's a favoured policy amongst many conservatives as it appeals to their worldview.

A grammar school is basically a school that is just for smart kids - it's similar to a German Gymnasium.

I passed a test and got in to a grammar school.

Let that be a lesson.

I think the problem is not necessarily with the Grammar Schools, but with the lack of respect for vocational training in the UK. The UK is much more classist than other European countries and there is little respect for vocational pathways. My wife works as a software engineer, and some of her most senior experts come from a vocational pathway that does not involve going to university.

Wealthier parents coach their children and get them tutors even in primary schools. It’s possible to coach for IQ tests. This is why those going from privileged backgrounds have greater opportunity to get through the hoops for the best schools and universities. It’s not right that schools that specifically select for the privileged are taking funding from the same pot that all the other schools in a local authority, it widens the gap between those of different backgrounds.

Free schools are often set up by the worst sort of NIMBY snobby parents that want special treatment for their children and keeping undesirable ones away from them, but don’t want to pay private schooling fees, so they start a free school using local authority money. Setting up these new schools up bleeds money from others in the area. Then you get situations where a selective school becomes a middle class enclave while others in the area can’t afford reading books or to repair leaking classrooms.

Further, free schools don’t play by the same rules as other state schools when it comes to staff contracts. They’re the ones that make the greatest demands on staff, they don’t follow national pay scales, but senior staff have huge salaries, and the unions have very little presence. All these things suit conservatives down to the ground, staff worked harder for less with eroded employment rights.

All the worst horror stories I’ve heard in teaching come from free schools and large chain academies. Their staff turnover rates say it all. Be very wary of the agendas behind those setting up and enabling the funding of free schools and chain academies with respect to the health of our education system.

Uppity students threaten Brexit.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/may/12/one-million-students-call-vote-brexit-deal

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Uppity students threaten Brexit.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/may/12/one-million-students-call-vote-brexit-deal

“Overall, 53% of the country supports the public having a vote on any final deal that the government agrees with the EU, compared to just 31% who oppose.”

Surely that’s an absolute mandate to have a public vote? The will of the public must be obeyed...

Oh look, another Home Office immigration abuse scandal that has unjustly spoilt a bunch of peoples' lives and has had to be reversed and compensation paid.

All for the sake of hitting a made up immigration quota.

tneva82 wrote:

Okay out of curiosity what are the grammar schoolsakd why you are against them? I presume they aren't grammar schools as in linquistic term so what?

As people have already alluded to it is a process where children are selected on their ability and then directed to different schools. The ones that pass a test are sent to Grammar schools, the ones that don't are sent to non-Grammar schools.

This test is undertaken at 11. Which is the first failing of the system. Children develop at different rates both physically and mentally. If you look at a child's football game the good players are generally there because they are stronger/faster because of earlier growth spurts which gives them an intrinsic advantage. Most people would laugh you off the field if you said footballing ability at 11 implies world class ability when they are 21. The same should go for determining mental aptitude.

Prior to 11 you are much more susceptible to the support of your parents. Middle/upper classes tend to be able to provide better support to their children through better education materials and so forth. People on lower incomes with parents that might be working almost all working hours possible just to make ends meet will not be able to provide both the mental/social/material support to their children. Therefore children from less well off bakgrounds tend to do less well (and really before 11 a child is almost fully dependent on the parents). As such Grammer schools tend to benefit middle/upper clases vastly more than the poorest. May keeps talking about Meritocracy but that only works when you give everyone the same chance. Otherwise it is just an 'excuse' to keep those at the top in the top positions.

In the UK primary school allocation is heavily influenced by distance to the school. There is distinctive price increases on properties close to 'good' primary schools. As such generally only the middle/upper class can live in areas where very good schools exist. As such the children in these schools get a beneift and a better chance of getting into a Grammar school. Not only this but as most are effectively privately run academies those in wealthier areas can ask for parents to contribute more to activities which generates an educational benefit to the children. This then links into better performance and higher chances of getting into Grammars.

The Grammars will tend to attract better teachers, pay more and so forth. Hence once in a Grammar school this compounds the benefit. Those that has laread ybeen mentioned bloom late will have no opportunity to exploit those circumstances. A case in point would be Einstein - his talents were not recognised until mid/end teens. However in a UK proposed Grammar school system he would almsot certianly have been thrown on the bonfire.

So what Grammars end up doing is reinforcing a class based system. The top universities will end up prioritising students from Grammars. In effect a childs life choice will be very heavily dependent on *one* result when they were 11. It massively disadvantgaes thoses from poor backgrounds and hence also ethnic minorities.

Of course this is the Tory party and the cynic in me would suggest that they do not want a highly educated workforce. They want a small number of 'elites' running the country and businesses and maintaining the status quo whilst the workers stay as the workers and never have the knolwedge to know just how much they are being exploited.





Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Kilkrazy wrote:


Oh look, another Home Office immigration abuse scandal that has unjustly spoilt a bunch of peoples' lives and has had to be reversed and compensation paid.

All for the sake of hitting a made up immigration quota.

The UK government had been warned what they were doing was illegal on this before. I am both ashamed and embarrassed by the UK government actions at the moment.

 Kilkrazy wrote:


Oh look, another Home Office immigration abuse scandal that has unjustly spoilt a bunch of peoples' lives and has had to be reversed and compensation paid.

All for the sake of hitting a made up immigration quota.

Again resulting from May’s time at the home office. How long can she keep dodging this?

I think May will continue as long as the Conservative Party can't see any possible alternative leaders other than Boris or Rees-Mogg.

Howard: I used to work in an Academy chain. There'll be a slew of corruption scandals in a couple of years and everyone will be shocked, shocked! That this could happen. Academies were a New Labour invention taken to extremes by the Cameronite Tories, and so the entire political and media establishment will have egg on their face over it but will pretend like nothing happened.

UK to host a summit to convince the Balkan states to join the EU.

I can't tell what's real anymore.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-uk-summit-why-join-eu-balkans-serbia-albania-berlin-process-a8347111.html?utm_campaign=Echobox&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Twitter#link_time=1526215806

'Class A drugs' found at Home Office headquarters

No hang on, it's the Foreign Office who would be in charge of these Balkan meetings.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-44087735

So the NHS is “extorting” low drug prices from US companies, and Donald Trump wants it to stop. Our trade deal is sounding better and better ...

 Kilkrazy wrote:
'Class A drugs' found at Home Office headquarters

No hang on, it's the Foreign Office who would be in charge of these Balkan meetings.

Well, the Home Office doing Crystal Meth would explain a lot...

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
'Class A drugs' found at Home Office headquarters

No hang on, it's the Foreign Office who would be in charge of these Balkan meetings.

Well, the Home Office doing Crystal Meth would explain a lot...

What's more interesting is their choice of drug. Meth is not that common here in the UK, compared to the more traditional fare like cannabis, ecstasy, cocaine and heroin.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

What's more interesting is their choice of drug. Meth is not that common here in the UK, compared to the more traditional fare like cannabis, ecstasy, cocaine and heroin.

Maybe now that there's no trade, they have to turn to home made drugs?

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-44087735

So the NHS is “extorting” low drug prices from US companies, and Donald Trump wants it to stop. Our trade deal is sounding better and better ...

Obviously foreigners are the problem, not a shonky domestic health care system. It's also why Iphones and gas are expensive too, bloody foreigners.

What a fething cretin.

Another Home Office immigration based screw up.

TL/DR: People who have been human trafficked into the UK, forced into slavery and abused by their "owners", are being arrested by the police in order to deport them.


And look! Another one!

TL/DR: Well over 100,000 Londoners, technically foreign citizens despite having been born and brought up in the UK, are vulnerable to all sorts of aggro when they hit 18 if they can't find the wads of cash needed to get themselves naturalised.

The Home Office is evil.

Nah, just grossly incompetent.

I don't believe that. The mistakes are too consistently in one direction to suggest incompetence.

 Future War Cultist wrote:
Nah, just grossly incompetent.

One or two stories like this could be passed off as incompetence. When you have this many, it starts to become clear it is not due to incompetence but due to policy.

It clearly is due to policy. No-one can argue against that.

The Conservatives announced a policy of getting net immigration down to 100,000 in their manifesto for the 2010 election. The promise was repeated for the 2015 election and 2017 election manifestos.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Future War Cultist wrote:
Nah, just grossly incompetent.

One or two stories like this could be passed off as incompetence. When you have this many, it starts to become clear it is not due to incompetence but due to policy.

It also fits nicely with the "hostile" policy towards migrants. It'd be hard to argue it wasn't deliberate and systematic.

They set impossible goals and are going for the easy targets (those that are supposed to be here apart from a technicality [usually because of a government screw up], but are registered and not hiding, instead of the undocumented ones that require some effort to find).

So I guess you could argue it's incompetent in that the politicans made impossible claims and the home office staff are doing a terrible job of trying to satisfy the claims instead of telling the politicians to gak off and stop interfering with stuff they don't understand.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Uppity students threaten Brexit.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/may/12/one-million-students-call-vote-brexit-deal

I wonder how many of them would have actually bothered to vote if they had the opportunity - seems a lot of the younger generation didn't bother the first time and then screamed that it was the old people's fault.

I think there is more to it than "didn't bother". It's also to do with the need to register to vote and students generally having more uprooted less settled lives, not being aware of what they need to do and so on. The oldies have the advantage of experience there. It's unfair to characterise all students as lazy bums (even though some are I'm sure). If we really wanted to solve this problem we would automatically register everyone when they turn 18.

A sizeable portion of current students probably weren't eligible to vote due to being too young at the time either.

 Mr Morden wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Uppity students threaten Brexit.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/may/12/one-million-students-call-vote-brexit-deal

I wonder how many of them would have actually bothered to vote if they had the opportunity - seems a lot of the younger generation didn't bother the first time and then screamed that it was the old people's fault.

64% of 18-24 year olds voted at the referendum.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/09/young-people-referendum-turnout-brexit-twice-as-high

More interesting and detailed stats here...

https://www.ipsos.com/ipsos-mori/en-uk/how-britain-voted-2016-eu-referendum