Question for socialists

[Churchill]

Chocolate or plain?

Plain chocolate.

Thanks.

[Arturo Bassick]

can I have all the chocolate one then please? I am dying for some carbs.....

I think Mich is more worried about the "protein" content.

[pjclarke]

You could triple taxation and throw 10 times the money at state schools as they do now but it wouldn't make a scrap of difference to the education of the children therein - as they say, you can take a horse to water but you can't make it drink. Discipline has been eroded by do gooders to such an extent that it is a distant memory - couple that with being raised by parents who were the first to 'benefit' from more liberal schooling and you are on a hiding to nothing

Interesting opinion. What do you think it is about the children of rich parents that makes them more 'disciplined' than the oiks? Is it not plausible that halving class sizes, valuing teachers (both financially and in terms of status) more highly and furnishing say, one textbook per pupil each might not just drag standards a tad higher?

[LisaContractorUmbrella]

Poor churchy was never exactly officer material, so please don't do the old chocolate kettle trick on him again.

LOL

[LisaContractorUmbrella]

To Brillo, Mich and Churchill - to stop all the arguments you can all have dead fly biscuits now and jolly well like it

[DodgyAgent]

Interesting opinion. What do you think it is about the children of rich parents that makes them more 'disciplined' than the oiks? Is it not plausible that halving class sizes, valuing teachers (both financially and in terms of status) more highly and furnishing say, one textbook per pupil each might not just drag standards a tad higher?

The difference between the rich and the not so rich is that the rich have a choice as to where they send their kids to school - nothing to do with not caring about their kids. if anything the rich care more about the prestige of sending their kids to Eton than they care about the kids themselves.

Reducing class sizes would of course help. Valuing teachers works both ways as argued in the Telegraph:

Everything you need to know about education is summed up in one figure: 17. That’s the number of teachers in England and Wales who have been sacked for incompetence over the past 10 years. Yes, 17 – while 90,000 students left school without basic literacy or numeracy in 2007 alone.
Good teachers deserve respect and a decent salary. Bad teachers don’t. They should know that if they don’t raise their game, they’ll be sacked.
Michael Gove, the bold Education Secretary, thinks one way to make teachers in the state sector more accountable is to allow parents to sit in class as observers. This wouldn’t be a regular feature of school life: look at the disturbance parents cause at school plays, with their cameras and cooings. But when enough parents voice a concern over a teacher, sensible heads know that it is better to give them a peek, and a say, rather than let their complaints fester.
The teachers’ unions, predictably, are in a flap over the plans. I clashed with one union leader on the Jeremy Vine show last Friday. She attacked the idea as “bonkers” and me as a “busybody” who made teachers’ lives miserable.
She saw her members as a defenceless minority; but we parents see them as a powerful influence on our children. My daughter’s success in life depends, in part, on whether a good teacher engages her interest in reading, or a bad one turns her off maths for good.
One of my stepsons had a dire history teacher who thought textbooks boring (handouts are so much easier) and set no homework (too laborious). My stepson spent class time playing Angry Birds on his iPhone while his classmates acted up. I sizzled with frustration because I knew a bad teacher was getting away with it.
Well done, Mr Gove. Angry Birds may be fun, but any teachers who let them colonise their classrooms need to meet some Angry Parents.

[LisaContractorUmbrella]

Interesting opinion. What do you think it is about the children of rich parents that makes them more 'disciplined' than the oiks? Is it not plausible that halving class sizes, valuing teachers (both financially and in terms of status) more highly and furnishing say, one textbook per pupil each might not just drag standards a tad higher?

You can throw whatever money you like at it but it will change nothing. Children who go to private (or public) schools are taught to think as individuals not as part of a collective, achievement is applauded and ambition encouraged - introduce those concepts back to the State sector and you might get somewhere

[d000hg]

Everything you need to know about education is summed up in one figure: 17. That’s the number of teachers in England and Wales who have been sacked for incompetence over the past 10 years. Yes, 17

That is picking statistics to support a pre-formed position. Far more teachers will simply be 'let go' when their 1-term or 1-year contract ends; it's increasingly common schools hire this way.

The arguments being made may be entirely valid - that sacking someone in a permanent position is VERY hard - however we should bear these things in mind rather than quoting sensationalist cherry-picked statistics.

[sasguru]

. Children who go to private (or public) schools are taught to think as individuals not as part of a collective,

What utter tosh. I went to one and the emphasis is very much on the collective. Individualism is definitely frowned upon.

[Mich the Tester]

You can throw whatever money you like at it but it will change nothing. Children who go to private (or public) schools are taught to think as individuals not as part of a collective, achievement is applauded and ambition encouraged - introduce those concepts back to the State sector and you might get somewhere

You are all individuals!

Yes, we are all individuals!