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[johnny9fingers]

I used to be very left wing.
Even in my most radical days, the one point of variance I had with my fellow travellers was education. In England (not Britain as a whole) state schools are now judged to be amongst the worst in the developed world. However the 'Public' Schools (read private and very exclusive) of England are reckoned on, in the same piece of analysis, as being the best in the world. This has been obvious to anyone since the 'dissolution' of the Grammar Schools.
Traditionally, the cleverest schools in England have included:
Winchester; Westminster; St Paul's (both boys and girls); North London Collegiate; Cheltenham Ladies College etc.
This set intersects with but does not map perfectly upon the 'best schools', a list of which would include schools that are not as academically orientated.
Grammar Schools, until their abolition, gave the best chance of social mobility that England had seen since Agincourt (This day shall gentle your condition). From the postwar period until the 70's the Oxford and Cambridge intake consisted of more Grammar School pupils than alumni of the great (or even minor) Public Schools. There are still a few Grammar Schools left, but they are, as folk point out, selective. Selection is regarded as a bad thing. Yet the few good state schools in England are oversubscribed to such an extent that house prices in the catchment areas for such schools have in some cases a 30% premium. This is in the English housing market, which is madness anyway. This means that parents who can afford to live in the catchment areas of good schools will claim those places, which is a selection by income. Grammar Schools selected by ability, which to me seems fairer.
However, there aren't a lot of Grammar Schools in London.
Given all this I can understand anyone of any political hue sending their children to a 'Public' School, should they be able to afford it.
The equivalent sort of secondary education to the one I had (with a recognisable curriculum) now costs £25,000 pounds a year. There have been numerous years when I haven't earned that in total. I despaired of ever educating potential children, which is probably the reason I didn't have any.
If I had a disabled child or an educationally challenged child, of course, if I could afford it, I would attempt to give them the best possible education in the circumstances.
Now I must admit something. I don't like Ruth Kelly. I don't like what she stands for. I don't like her links with Opus Dei. I don't like the fact that she has acquiesced to, abetted,  and been an apologist for, the war in Iraq (which in my eyes makes her a war criminal of a kind).
But I do like the fact she's doing the best for her son, and as she seems to need defending on this (and possibly only this) I find myself, surprised maybe, but nevertheless coming to her defense.
Or am I just showing prejudices typical of my caste and culture.

Comments

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Actually, if I'm absolutely honest, an education like mine could be (sort of) had as a day-pupil for about £16,000 pa.
The Grammar Schools were abolished (mainly - some areas fought to keep them) because they were regarded as being elitist at a time when elitism was, politically speaking, out of fashion. The fact that they had been destroying the Public Schools, because most middle-class parents would have opted for a local Grammar School, for which they would not have to pay fees (merely taxes), rather than a Boarding School which cost money already taxed. The Great Public Schools like Eton and Winchester never had to bother competing with the Grammars - they were and are oversubscribed by a factor of *mumble*, but the Grammars had Minor (and Middling) Public Schools on the run.
All sharing out is about resources, as I'm sure you know.
At the end of the fifties, the tripartite state system of Grammars, Technical Schools, and Secondary Modern Schools, supposedly catered for all the needs of the young in need of education. However, selection happened at the age of eleven in the Eleven-Plus exam, which seperated the academically inclined from the others. On average Grammar schools took the top 20% of the children who sat the 11+. The next 20% or so went to the Technical Schools. The rest went to the Secondary Modern.
Some parents rather thought that their little Johnny should have gone to the local Grammar School, even though little Johnny wasn't academically inclined.
Comprehensive Schools were meant to solve this problem; effectively by attempting to give every child the chance of a Grammar School education.
The thing is that a Grammar School took (from taxes) three-quarters of the costs of a day pupil at a Public School (ie if £16,000 now the equivalent would be £12,000). The bean-counters in the Treasury thought they could get away with funding Comprehensives like Secondary Moderns... I don't need to tell you how it's gone from there, you're a bright lad. The current spend per head is about £4,000 max, rising only for special needs. That's one-quarter of the per head cost of a Public School day-pupil.
Its not strange then, that we've just lived through the greatest period of exam inflation in English history, and employers are complaining that people are leaving school without the basic skills of being able to read or write or do arithmatic.
My Brother was a teacher (of science) in the state sector. He hated it so much he finally threw in the towel and asked for his papers. He left at Christmas after 18 years on and off (he took time out to travel), and he says these days it's much more like being a prison warder than a teacher.
Things will change, no doubt.
What is still heartening is that if you have enough money, you can still get a really good education. I suppose it's an incentive to join in the materialist frenzy and compete.
My own preference would be a proper education for all, along the lines of the Great Public Schools, but then we'd have no-one to sweep the streets, m'dear, and that simply wouldn't do. (And also, we couldn't afford it.)
Compulsory Latin for all - no reason why I should have been in the last generation to suffer it - if it made me unhappy it can jolly well make other children unhappy too.
But later on, it rather helped, and did contribute significantly to the happiest period of my life to date.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

As for the 'Chav' thing: I don't especially like it, because it seems brutish and lowest common denominator, but it's a perfectly acceptable expression of a certain sort of culture, as long as the levels of casual violence are kept to those participating, and don't involve random folk.
I found 'Bling' vulgar, but I'm essentially full of upper-middle-class intellectual good-taste prejudice. Your real Aristo quite likes bling, actually.
Probably the wrong person to ask.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Just another factor. The polarisation of English culture has been a disaster. I straddle caste, but nevertheless am uncomfortable amongst the uneducated. In my youth, I lived in politically driven squats and housing co-ops, and I suppose I was a token posh-kid, but I never felt the degree of separation I do now from underclass culture. I have little in common with it, alas, so retreat to my books.
However, other factors which must be taken into account are: the change in leisure habits - all we had was music, books, and TV. Kids get repetitive strain injuries from hours spent gaming, where I would have been getting eyestrain reading.
I also think the drug 'culture' has something to do with it. I'm not against people taking drugs, in fact I have been known to do so myself (music industry - 27 years therein - it's in the small print), but I think it can change cultures, especially when combined with a lunatic policy of prohibition. Effectively criminalising whole sections of the underclass means that law and order will always have a more difficult task - because they are the 'enemy'.
Divorce/separation is another factor - many young men don't have a proper relationship with their fathers - no role model if you like. They don't grow up emulating the behaviour of someone who has the care and love to want to set a good and proper example.
Taxes are another problem.
Objectively, from the point of veiw of the country, we should tax the very rich slightly more. The gulf between the very rich and the very poor is such that it is an invitation to trouble of either an individual or collective nature. Especially as the very rich no longer have the sense of being tied to the destiny of the country - the things taken for granted by my father - duty, honour, service, are no longer as important as the bank balance and the new nanny and the skiing trip.
The decline of education is another contributing factor, but there are so many.
A culture in decline m'dear but not terminal yet, thank god.
Thing is, when the climate change thing really hits I think the Brits are going to deal with it with phlegm and stoicism, and then they'll pull together. We're only really any good when we're right in the thick of it, before that we're a bit... (seeks acceptable euphemism) self effacing, and are more interested in fighting among ourselves or drinking ourselves stupid or sleeping with the neighbour's wife. Not that I'm criticising, mind you (two out of three ain't bad, and I'm rubbish at fighting).

[vlion.livejournal.com]

Frankly, I'm a despicable elitist about schooling. Depressingly so, as a matter of fact. And the general trend in US schools to cater to the lowest common moron and football teams, yeah...irritates me. Makes me want to send kids to a private school when/if I have them. I was homeschooled, and it really brings home to me the fact that the public school system is kinda crappy here.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

I think that's a fault with the Anglo-Saxon minimal taxation mentality. Good Schools cost money - admittedly not quite as much as weapon systems, but money nevertheless. Alas, College Football teams are (as I understand it) part of the binding force of American culture, I think they'll always win in funding battles with libraries, dammit. I can understand the dissatisfaction with such a system. Don't worry about feeling elitist on this point. Get a good well paid job and put your kids through the best school you can, even if it means you have to scrimp on your own pleasures. Alternatively, don't have kids and enjoy your loneliness. I don't mind paying taxes to educate kids as much as I object to paying taxes to develop weapons systems to target the kids that haven't been educated: which is why I started out a Marxist, I guess.

[vlion.livejournal.com]

I'm very much against larger taxes. I have a strong belief that NGOs should take over much of the welfare work: the Red Cross, churches, trade associations, etc. The government, at least in my opinion, should be doing things directly related to the law and relations with other countries, and little more. However, the world is what it is, and the governmetn drives what goes on. I don't object to government needing more money to get more services- it's a basic economic truth.

Football itself is an extremely strong force in USA culture. I...am not a sports fan in many regards, so I don't exactly understand it. But football is a metric against which institutions are measured unless they are peerless. Only the best US schools academically are "let off" from the pressure of sports: Stanford, MIT, Caltech, and so forth. In many high schools, football is King and God, and the other sports are Prince and Angels.

I'm not going to bother sending my kids to a crappy school.

Regarding Weapons versus Education. Blah. War is a difficult subject, and will always exist, because of human nature. But, well, we can try to avoid it until is needed, yes? And then we try and assure ourselves that the "good side" is well-armed enough to win, yes? And now I must go to my job.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Wasn't thinking about war, I was thinking about the amount of research that goes into weaponry/gear used in civil disturbance, and police roles. I'm not certain, but I would imagine there's less crime in better educated communities. That's where I reckon the cost-benefit analysis would be best employed. If tax paying for good education reduces crime rates (so the savings are then on police, prisons, judicial process etc) and if the savings prove to be greater up to an optimum point...
I'd like to see the best value possible for my taxes, in conjunction with the point in the graph where there's minimal possible disturbance, if you see what I mean.
I'm sort of with you on taxes, it's just I'd like to factor in savings from other areas, if it can be done.

[vlion.livejournal.com]

Thats a slant I hadn't heard before on the issue. However, moving down that path as a devil's advocate, I wonder: what's the average detection rate of white-collar crime in a white-collar community? Obviously a murder on the street is not going to be common there, but, perhaps, some slimy work on the stock market is more common?

re war research. It's a double-bladed sword. A lot of the $$ that comes from military work goes to fund graduate students in their study here. So without that money, they wouldn't even be able to go to school- unless we isntituded a replacement. And military research drives interesting innovation to deal with the chaotic nature of the situation.
The industrial/military complex drives both good and bad in the world.

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

I would imagine white collar crime requires a white collar police force, which would cost more. But hopefully (that awful word) a better educated society would be more productive and efficient. Swings and roundabouts, and even if my 'policy' was better, by the time the politicians and bureaucrats got hold of it, messed with it, and implemented it, it would be changed to the point of unrecognisability. My opinion is that for the time being, solutions have to be simple enough for simple people (like politicians) to understand. But I can hope (and wish for better).
The MI complex does employ lots of folk.
Redeploy to the space industry - sooner or later we've got to get off this ball of mud and out there.
If you'll excuse the split infinitive, I'd like to see our chaps 'going boldly', if you see what I mean (& wouldn't object to doing that myself).

[johnny9fingers.livejournal.com]

Not a split infinitive, evidently my subconscious wouldn't let me write it properly. Boldly go. Bugger.