It takes a nation of millions to hold us back

[doodab]

I am saying that it would be a start to remove employment protection from teachers so that they could be sacked if they were sh*t . I am also saying that the empowering of the consumer by issuing education vouchers should be looked into. I like the academy system whereby private sector schools are running public sector schools.

You can sack all the tulip teachers you like, you won't be able to replace them with better ones because the money isn't there to attract them. The private sector steals 1000 of the best (at least you would hope they are the best) teachers from the state system every year.

Independent School Teaching Staff to Pupil Ratio - ISC

Unless you create excess capacity in the school system vouchers will not work because they will get spent in exactly the same place they are spent now because there is nowhere else for people to move their children to. This is nothing more than a renaming of the existing parental choice mechanism that doesn't work very well in a lot of cases.

[d000hg]

I don't think raising basic teacher salaries is really the solution - they're hardly luxurious but they are pretty solid especially after a few years. Up north, £25-30k is seen as quite a decent salary.

[DodgyAgent]

Accept what exactly DA? Your argument that state education is inherently a bad thing just doesn't hold up. If you're going to rail about our education standards, you need to remove the anti-left-wing component of your arguments and focus on the facts in an apolitical way.

The reason why I bring the left wing into the equation is because it is people of left wing political power who have created and sustained the appalling education system. It is people who are "left wing" who argue against any form of change other than "throwing money at the problem". My point - being apolitical- is that it does'nt matter which end of the spectrum of politics it comes from the system should be made to work and that we as taxpayers are entitled to expect all state schools to perform according to standards set by the very best of them. Whether we like it or not the best schools are the private and grammar schools supported by the Tory right.

The challenge is to make these standards of education available to everyone. The reasons why these "tory" institutions work so well is because they are driven by the consumer in the case of private schools and selection in the case of grammar schools based on intellect. So if someone were to create a better system for all they would look at examples of "what works" and try and apply them to institutions that fail. Selection by the supplier is not healthy so by making more schools a lot better the power of selection would shift to the consumer.

Unfortunately the people who control the public education system prefer to bring the standards of the best schools down to those of the lowest performers. It is hardly surprising that kids cannot do maths when people like doodab refuse to challenge a system that clearly fails.

The education system was devised and is maintained from a politcal perspective.

[Doggy Styles]

I'd be interested what your view of the paralympics is then.

I live not far from Stoke Mandeville, birthplace of the paralympics. But they aren't held there.

[DodgyAgent]

You can sack all the tulip teachers you like, you won't be able to replace them with better ones because the money isn't there to attract them. The private sector steals 1000 of the best (at least you would hope they are the best) teachers from the state system every year.

Independent School Teaching Staff to Pupil Ratio - ISC

Unless you create excess capacity in the school system vouchers will not work because they will get spent in exactly the same place they are spent now because there is nowhere else for people to move their children to. This is nothing more than a renaming of the existing parental choice mechanism that doesn't work very well in a lot of cases.

The use of the word "steal" betrays your political bias. We no longer live in a communist regime. Most teachers who fail probably do so because they are managed badly so simply sacking them is not the answer. The facility to sack them however needs to be there to remove complacency from the supplier.
Again your negativity is precisely the attitude of the left who want to resist any change. Why not increase the number of schools, it is happening anyway with academies - we have after all a surplus of supermarkets to shop from why not schools also? look at how superbly customer focussed Tesco, Asda, Morrisons and Sainsburys are run. Look at how brilliantly their supply chains work.

[doodab]

The reason why I bring the left wing into the equation is because it is people of left wing political power who have created and sustained the appalling education system. It is people who are "left wing" who argue against any form of change other than "throwing money at the problem". My point - being apolitical- is that it does'nt matter which end of the spectrum of politics it comes from the system should be made to work and that we as taxpayers are entitled to expect all state schools to perform according to standards set by the very best of them.

Unfortunately the people who control the public education system prefer to bring the standards of the best schools down to those of the lowest performers. It is hardly surprising that kids cannot do maths when people like doodab refuse to challenge a system that clearly fails.

Dear Thicky,

The point, which I have to conclude you are simply incapable of grasping, is that your endless ranting along the lines of "everything has to be the very best or it's a disaster" helps nobody and has no place in an intelligent debate. There is no mechanism to raise the general level of a population up to the "standards of the very best of them", because the standards, in the sense they are defined here, simply don't work like that. If you want exams to distinguish between the best and worst pupils, and you wish to decrease the variance in the performance of individual schools based on measuring exam performance, then you are going to see some schools do worse when others do better, simply because of how better and worse is measured. You cannot have every school achieving a 100% pass rate in every exam unless every exam has a 100% pass rate.

The simple fact is, I can see that what you are demanding is impossible. I can prove, mathematically, that it's impossible. Alas, it appears that trying to persuade someone as stupid as you that this is the case is also impossible. Hence, I'm not going to bother discussing this with you any more as you are simply too stupid for it to be anything other than practice for when my 5 year old asks for help with his homework. I will however reserve the right to question your thicky rantings if you decide to rant about something else.

[Doggy Styles]

Dear Thicky,

The point, which I have to conclude you are simply incapable of grasping, is that your endless ranting along the lines of "everything has to be the very best or it's a disaster" helps nobody and has no place in an intelligent debate. There is no mechanism to raise the general level of a population up to the "standards of the very best of them", because the standards, in the sense they are defined here, simply don't work like that. If you want exams to distinguish between the best and worst pupils, and you wish to decrease the variance in the performance of individual schools based on measuring exam performance, then you are going to see some schools do worse when others do better, simply because of how better and worse is measured. You cannot have every school achieving a 100% pass rate in every exam unless every exam has a 100% pass rate.

The simple fact is, I can see that what you are demanding is impossible. I can prove, mathematically, that it's impossible. Alas, it appears that trying to persuade someone as stupid as you that this is the case is also impossible. Hence, I'm not going to bother discussing this with you any more as you are simply too stupid for it to be anything other than practice for when my 5 year old asks for help with his homework. I will however reserve the right to question your thicky rantings if you decide to rant about something else.

Which therefore begs the question: Why should anyone moan about school standards if what they are today is inevitable?

[Arturo Bassick]

Dear Thicky,

The point, which I have to conclude you are simply incapable of grasping, is that your endless ranting along the lines of "everything has to be the very best or it's a disaster" helps nobody and has no place in an intelligent debate. There is no mechanism to raise the general level of a population up to the "standards of the very best of them", because the standards, in the sense they are defined here, simply don't work like that. If you want exams to distinguish between the best and worst pupils, and you wish to decrease the variance in the performance of individual schools based on measuring exam performance, then you are going to see some schools do worse when others do better, simply because of how better and worse is measured. You cannot have every school achieving a 100% pass rate in every exam unless every exam has a 100% pass rate.

The simple fact is, I can see that what you are demanding is impossible. I can prove, mathematically, that it's impossible. Alas, it appears that trying to persuade someone as stupid as you that this is the case is also impossible. Hence, I'm not going to bother discussing this with you any more as you are simply too stupid for it to be anything other than practice for when my 5 year old asks for help with his homework. I will however reserve the right to question your thicky rantings if you decide to rant about something else.

I think you are missing DAs point (though I might be too).

He is not suggesting that 100% should pass the exams, but he is suggesting that the education provided enables 100% of those capable of doing so to do so.
Whether you like it or not, there is clear evidence that a a number of state schools fall well behind the teaching standards of other state schools and the private sector.
The nation as a whole and parents in particular have every right to expect that all children will be educated to the best standards to allow them to reach the heights they are capable of.

[doodab]

Which therefore begs the question: Why should anyone moan about school standards if what they are today is inevitable?

I've never said therr isn't room for improvement in education. Simply that there is a lot more room for improvement in dodgy's thought processes.

[DodgyAgent]

I think you are missing DAs point (though I might be too).

He is not suggesting that 100% should pass the exams, but he is suggesting that the education provided enables 100% of those capable of doing so to do so.
Whether you like it or not, there is clear evidence that a a number of state schools fall well behind the teaching standards of other state schools and the private sector.
The nation as a whole and parents in particular have every right to expect that all children will be educated to the best standards to allow them to reach the heights they are capable of.

Better explained than I managed AB