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Source: (consider it) Thread: Educational elitism
no prophet's flag is set so...

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I was listening to CBC Radio One rebroadcast of a BBC piece that sounded like a clear promotion of educational elitism by the government of the UK, where children at about age 11 are examined to get into "grammar schools" (I may have terminology wrong, also heard the term "academies" - I was listening at night when supposed to be sleeping). They also discussed private schools (which are "public schools" I gather in the UK). We'd heard about 11-plus exams many years ago, and the response locally was uniformly negative, with the idea that it was unfair and the inference that it was probably motivated by an offensive idea uncousciously or consciously founded on a form of eugenics and old-world discrimination based on a class structure that we didn't have in Canada.

The local situation for in the Cdn prairie provinces in Canada is that we were settled by people who had nothing or nearly nothing a century ago. Elitism of all kinds has been discouraged, though there is more as you move east. We had the idea person who is wealthy today came from parents or grandparents who had nothing, arrived in poverty, and that low status was the fault of the societies they'd left and clear lack of opportunity. There is no "old money" and people who act elite and "all that" can expect disparagement and disapproval. There are very few privately run schools here, and they mostly offer inferior (IMHO) fundamentalist religious education which is based on ideology not academics. I don't know anyone else who attended private schools. (I attended a boarding school for some of my highschool only because my parents were working overseas; I know no-one else who did, except for we few, and none in my city. Not a soul. It was an inferior Anglican school.)

The two school systems (one is RC and the other for everyone else) must adhere to provincial standards, as administered by rather large school boards which are directly accountable to the province. The curriculum is the same for all. The text books and material is the same. School funding is per student via taxes paid on property and from general provincial tax revenue. Students go to elementary schools from grades 1 to 8, and high schools from grade 9 to 12. There are some streams within the schools for advanced or enriched classes in grade 9-12, which are intended for those who see university in their future. But they are open to anyone. No exams, though some advisement based on academic performance. Those with special needs or who are exceptionally talented are integrated into the comprehensive high schools. So are the French, German, Ukrainian and Cree immersion language schools. There are a few special programs and special schools for those who want to upgrade so as to qualify for university admission, or need to add a class they didn't take for a post-secondary program. I know several people who actually didn't finish high school, upgraded, and then got university degrees or technical diplomas.

The ideology on the prairies has been that education is the key to social and economic mobility, and must be open to everyone. That no-one is better than anyone else. This seems to be eroding with the costs of a university education approaching $6,000 per year for tuition, with probably another $2,000 in additional materials costs (books, lab manuals, library fees). I contrast this to my university education starting 40 years ago where 2/3 of one month's summer work pay paid for a year's tution. It was also possible to pay for children's tuition by delivering wheat if you were a farmer. We have no private universities or technical colleges.

All of this said, what do you see in your world regarding elitism in education? Is education open to all? What are the barriers? Are their political moves afoot to educate the rich differently than the average person? How on earth can it be justified?

[ 13. September 2016, 17:07: Message edited by: no prophet's flag is set so... ]

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Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010  |  IP: Logged
anteater

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noprophet:

I'll take your description of the apparent perfection of the Canadian system as read. As for the UK.

quote:
All of this said, what do you see in your world regarding elitism in education?
There's quite a lot of it. I personally don't see it as a bad thing, per se. Depends on how it is done.
quote:
Is education open to all?
Yes, but for tertiary you mainly have to pay.
quote:
What are the barriers?
Parental support, innate variation of talent, money, shortage of good teachers.
quote:
Are their political moves afoot to educate the rich differently than the average person?
No. But neither are there political moves afoot to prevent this.
quote:
How on earth can it be justified?
Parental freedom to do the best for their kids.

Disclosure: I went to one of the most elite state supported grammar schools in the UK. Didn't get on with it at all. For a while I was quite in favour of comprehensive education, but as is widely reported in the UK, this is just selection by income. Guess what: the best state schools are in the most sought after areas. That's why so many lefties fulminate about selection and send their kids to private schools, if they are MPs for relatively poor areas, at least that what I believe.

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Leorning Cniht
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quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
I was listening to CBC Radio One rebroadcast of a BBC piece that sounded like a clear promotion of educational elitism by the government of the UK, where children at about age 11 are examined to get into "grammar schools" (I may have terminology wrong,

OK, so in the UK:

The fee-paying "public schools" are called "public" because they are open to the children of the public - as opposed to church schools and guild schools, for example. The terminology significantly predates state-funded education.

Grammar schools had their heyday in the post-war years, up to the mid-60s or so. The idea was to separate out those 11-year-olds with the aptitude for academic success and send them to academic grammar schools, with the expectation that they would go on to university and the professions, and send the less academic to "secondary modern" schools, where the expectation was that they would leave school at 16 and enter a trade.

The reality was that primary schools full of children from "nice" areas with educated parents prepared their pupils for the 11+, whereas primary schools in working-class areas expected to funnel their children straight to the local secondary modern, and tended not to offer preparation or encouragement for the 11+.

This is a gross generalization, of course.

So from the mid-60s on, selective schooling tended to fall out of favour and was replaced in most, but not all, of the country by comprehensive schools.

Many parents of children who would qualify for grammar schools (roughly the top 25% of ability) prefer selective education. Their reasons include, but are not limited to, a desire for their children to avoid disruptive classmates, a desire for more rigorous tuition from better teachers, a desire to avoid the children of the unemployed and working classes, and a desire to avoid black and brown people.

Because schools have local catchment areas, living in an area with high property prices can serve as a proxy for most of that, even without officially selective education.

Look at education in the US - almost everyone is educated in the state (public) school system, but there is a considerable difference between the public school that serves a wealthy suburb and the public school that serves a mostly-black inner-city community.

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SvitlanaV2
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The situation in England (let alone the rest of the UK) is complicated, but most would agree that state education, particularly at secondary level, needs to be improved. There have been various different solutions, but the kind of provision available varies from area to area, as does the quality on offer.

The problem is that any choice that a concerned parent might make is potentially controversial. Such parents may educate their own children:

at private/independent schools (which could be selective)

at a selective, state-run grammar schools

at a good state-run comprehensive church school

at a good state-run comprehensive school or various types

at home, if the parents have a particular educational ethos they want to share, or if school is a problem for the child. (Homeschooling here isn't normally a religious decision.)

Each choice could be suggestive of elitism. E.g., a really good state school might be in an expensive, middle class catchment area. Religion is available to everyone in theory, but the best church schools often have a relatively low number of needy children in attendance. Home schooling for academic reasons usually appeals to well-educated parents who can also manage the process financially.

Even the efforts of a middling comprehensive school might be topped up by private tutors, which adds an elitist touch even if the parents feel virtuous.

As for our (often privately educated) politicians, people don't like them promoting one kind of school for the masses while educating their own children in a more prestigious way; OTOH, it's also considered improper for them to sacrifice their children's education for their political principles. So they're damned whatever they choose to do.

However, the basic problem with grammar schools, ISTM, has little to do with the value of grammar schools themselves. It's about what you do with the children who aren't selected to go to them.

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Dafyd
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quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
OK, so in the UK:

The fee-paying "public schools" are called "public" because they are open to the children of the public - as opposed to church schools and guild schools, for example. The terminology significantly predates state-funded education.

Yes. Basically, 'private schools' are schools not run by the state. 'Public schools' are old private schools, and are mostly even posher than the run of the mill private schools.

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mr cheesy
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Further info for those outside of the UK:

Grammars used to be universal. So the top 25% received quote unquote "excellent" education - which often led to university and management jobs, the rest went to "secondary modern" or sometimes "technical" schools. The latter were often seen as the poor alternative.

This policy was abandoned in the 1970s in most parts of the UK, moving to mixed-ability comprehensive schools. Wales and Scotland do not have academic selection in their state funded schools.

Grammar schools survived in a small number of areas, notably Buckinghamshire, Kent, Lincolnshire and the Wirral. These counties are almost complete grammar areas - meaning that there are Grammar places for every child that passes the county-wide academic test at 11.

Elsewhere a few Grammars survived in mixed educational areas; so parents can choose to put their children into a grammar school and take the test, but mixed-ability comprehensive schools also exist and there are not grammar school places for every child that passes the test - which is usually set by the school. Areas with this system include Gloucestershire and Birmingham.

In Northern Ireland, the whole province retained a modified grammar school system, but the pass rate must be much lower, because I read that nearly 50% of all pupils are educated there in a grammar school.

So the debate is about the Tories looking to expand Grammar schools, which up to now have been severely restricted.

And a few other terms which are used:

Academy schools are schools in England which have opted out from local authority control and are funded directly from government. The plus side is that they have more control over budgets and curriculum but the downside is that the local school is taking much more of the various risks. The Blair government saw this as a way to encourage the private sector to invest in education in failing schools, the subsequent Tory governments have been trying to get every school to academy status. Many of the existing grammar schools are also now academies. There are no academies in Wales or Scotland, however some schools in Scotland are called Academies just to be confusing.

Free schools are another bright Tory idea. For them the best possible outcome is when parents have maximum choice of school, so in some areas where there are already sufficient school places, they have allowed groups (often parent led) to set up new schools in competition with the existing provision.

Yes, it is a total frigging mess.

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Eliab
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quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
They also discussed private schools (which are "public schools" I gather in the UK).

Not quite. The things that are called "public schools" in the UK are the older, often more expensive, private schools. There are many other private schools that do not describe themselves thus. Many are in the grammar school tradition, seeing themselves as academically but not socially elitist.

State grammar schools offer an academically selective education to children of parents who might not otherwise be able to afford one. As a parent who can (just about) afford to pay for private schooling, I'm 100% in favour of them. They give people with less money than me the chance to choose the same sort of education for their children that, at the moment, I can only choose by paying for it.

quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
Many parents of children who would qualify for grammar schools (roughly the top 25% of ability) prefer selective education. Their reasons include, but are not limited to, a desire for their children to avoid disruptive classmates, a desire for more rigorous tuition from better teachers, a desire to avoid the children of the unemployed and working classes, and a desire to avoid black and brown people.

From my experience, the "desire for more rigorous tuition from better teachers" tops that list by several orders of magnitude.

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Alan Cresswell

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The main issue with "academic selection" is that although in theory it's just based on academic ability, in practice it reflects wealth. It's a method to allow middle income and above families to get their children into a selective school (which generally will be "flagship" schools for the area, being better funded and resourced than other local state schools), especially those who can't afford private fees. That was illustrated on the news this morning, where a parent was interviewed outside a school where her child was sitting an 11+, paraphrased she said "you need to pay for tutors". Those parents who can pay for tutors can get less gifted kids through the 11+, for poorer families their only chance for getting into a grammar school is if their child is significantly above the academic bar - gifted enough to be noted by teachers and put forward to the 11+.

Of course there are other methods of selection that biases quality education against the poorer families in our nation. The obvious one being the elevation of house prices in the vicinity of what are perceived to be better schools.

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HCH
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Wikipedia has a nice article about British public schools.
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Russ
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Anyone care to define what they think "elitism" is ?

I understand snobbery - looking down on those one classifies as in some way inferior. But that's an attitude of mind. Those who can successfully add 2 + 2 may (or may not) look down on those who cannot perform this feat. But whether they do says nothing at all about the value of being able to add up.

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no prophet's flag is set so...

Proceed to see sea
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quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
The main issue with "academic selection" is that although in theory it's just based on academic ability, in practice it reflects wealth. It's a method to allow middle income and above families to get their children into a selective school (which generally will be "flagship" schools for the area, being better funded and resourced than other local state schools), especially those who can't afford private fees. That was illustrated on the news this morning, where a parent was interviewed outside a school where her child was sitting an 11+, paraphrased she said "you need to pay for tutors". Those parents who can pay for tutors can get less gifted kids through the 11+, for poorer families their only chance for getting into a grammar school is if their child is significantly above the academic bar - gifted enough to be noted by teachers and put forward to the 11+.

Of course there are other methods of selection that biases quality education against the poorer families in our nation. The obvious one being the elevation of house prices in the vicinity of what are perceived to be better schools.

This is a good clarification. Thank-you. Elitism = wealth for the most part.

As for the upstream comment about "perfection" in Canadian schools. Far from it, but wealth does not get you a better education in the Canadian prairies, until you cannot afford post-secondary education.

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lilBuddha
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No prophet,

The egalitarianism you purport of Canada, is it real? The US has that myth, but in reality it is much more class bound than most will admit. It is no accident that the branches of rich family tress are very intertwined. Power flows in narrow streams.

Disdain of educational elitism is the weapon that the powerful, educated American elite use to keep the working classes happy in their ignorance.
Hence Trump.

quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
The main issue with "academic selection" is that although in theory it's just based on academic ability, in practice it reflects wealth.

Yep. If one cares about leveling the playing filed, the less well off need to be given the same advantages as the rich, not merely a false "opportunity".

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Teekeey Misha
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quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
Not quite. The things that are called "public schools" in the UK are the older, often more expensive, private schools. There are many other private schools that do not describe themselves thus.

Still not quite. Technically, a "public school" was an independent school which was a charitable foundation and whose Head was a member of the HMC. A "private" school was any other independent school i.e. a school that was run for profit. Age of the institution, cost etc were of no relevance to whether or not a school was a "public school" or not.

I say "was" because nowadays the term "public schools" is only used by people who don't understand public schools! Both "public" and "private" schools are all lumped together under the catch-all term "independent schools". I cannot think of a single "public school" in the country that still refers to itself as a "public school" and it's almost twenty years since the "Girls Public Day School Trust" dropped "public" from its title.

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Sober Preacher's Kid

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[Snore]

no_prophet has rate her fallen for an old Canadian tale: egalitarian education.

it is neither strictly true, in his sense, nor completely false.

Rev. Egerton Ryerson was (a) the leading Methodist evangelist in Upper Canada and (b) a leading reformer of education.

He explicitly rejected the private/grammar school model and implemented a universal or 'common' school model, which has held sway in Canada ever since.

Of course, when you discuss education in Canada you are really discussing the politics of community identity. Ryerson's vision was more universalist, even American than the perceived class-ridden British model. Ryerson's vision always had an anti-British/anti-Imperialist tinge to it.

Education debates in Canada are never really about the quality of mathematics education, the are really about community identity and its propagation. It's been that way for 200 years.

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Russ
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quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Elitism = wealth for the most part.

So thinking elitism wrong means thinking wealth wrong ?

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lilBuddha
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quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Elitism = wealth for the most part.

So thinking elitism wrong means thinking wealth wrong ?
Really? Well, taking the post seriously, it means assigning a higher value to a person because they are wealthy is wrong.
And, Jesus would say having the goal of acquiring wealth is wrong, so...

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Sioni Sais
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quote:
Originally posted by Russ:
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
Elitism = wealth for the most part.

So thinking elitism wrong means thinking wealth wrong ?
No. Using wealth as a qualification for better education is wrong.

btw, in my experience rather less than 15% of children went to grammars. That was the case in West Wiltshire anyway. Of the year six group I was in (OK, they weren't called year six in 1968/69) 6 of 63 passed. Another fundamental flaw in 11+ is that grammar school places were limited, so as with GCE O levels in years gone by the pass mark moved.

Anyway, the selection method was based on discredited and possibly faked evidence, so it's pretty pointless. Read up on Sir Cyril Burt.

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Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
no prophet's flag is set so...

Proceed to see sea
# 15560

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quote:
Originally posted by Sober Preacher's Kid:
[Snore]

no_prophet has rate her fallen for an old Canadian tale: egalitarian education.

it is neither strictly true, in his sense, nor completely false.

Rev. Egerton Ryerson was (a) the leading Methodist evangelist in Upper Canada and (b) a leading reformer of education.

He explicitly rejected the private/grammar school model and implemented a universal or 'common' school model, which has held sway in Canada ever since.

Ontario isn't the prairies. It is a unique and old part of Canada, which has a good measure of elitism. When I went to grad school, I was exposed to some of this, personally, for the first time 40 years ago. It is rather different out there.

You have fallen for the old tale of what's true in Ontario is also true in the rest of the country methinks.

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Sober Preacher's Kid

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The West doesn't have elites? [Killing me]

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Posts: 7646 | From: Peterborough, Upper Canada | Registered: Jun 2007  |  IP: Logged
no prophet's flag is set so...

Proceed to see sea
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It is a matter of degree. And it is really different than out your way. But this is a tangent.

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orfeo

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We take the most physically talented kids and give them extra training for sports.

I don't see why we shouldn't take the most mentally talented kids and give them extra training for mental skills.

Having said that, I agree with Alan's point that often what we're measuring is wealth. But this is true of sports as well, as a look at an Olympics medal tally will tell you.

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Lamb Chopped
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Well, we've had descriptions of Canadian and UK systems, so we might as well have the third--the U.S.

Here we make the basic assumption that everybody is entitled to a free education up to roughly age 18, which is twelfth grade (senior year in high school). Communities provide a public (local-tax-funded) school to make that happen. Which school you attend depends on your home address. It is usually not possible to switch designated schools except in the case of special schemes like desegregation bussing, magnet schools, and etc.

There are also likely to be private schools which normally charge tuition to parents. Some of these are religious in nature but quite a few are not. Some are set up in accord with particular philosophies of education, such as Montessori, "classical" schools (Latin and the trivium/quadrivium stuff), and various crunchy granola thingies. Each private school sets its own admission standards, although there are some state and federal laws which every school must observe, regardless. (These often have "teeth" added to them by way of threats to cut off funding, grants, whatever if the law is not observed.)

Then there is home schooling, un-schooling (as some call it), and other non-institutional or less-institutional schemes. Every state will have its own regulations for such things. Again, some of the people involved will be doing it for religious reasons, but quite a few will be doing it because of philosophy, desire for better education than is locally available, or special family circumstances. These are of course all up to the families to self-fund.

Returning then to the public schools--the tax-funded, community-supported ones which are free to attend. The biggest problem here is that these are mostly funded with local property taxes. If the school is located in a well-to-do community, then the school has more money available to hire good teachers, build buildings, get equipment, and so on. If not, then not. And state and federal funding do not make up the shortfall. So there is a great contrast between a school like the one my son attends (in a fairly well-off suburb) and the school he would have attended if we were living in our last home (border inner city). In fact, the contrast is so great that it becomes a major driver for families choosing a home to rent or buy. Unless they can easily afford private tuition (heh), they want to know right away how good the local schools are. And that is largely correlated with the wealth (or lack thereof) of the local community.

So you do get a kind of elitism based on wealth, though not intentionally so. But it works out that way. Probably the only way to avoid it would be to make school funding 100% federally handled (or, less effectively, state handled) instead of locally handled. But that's not how things developed historically, and it would be very very difficult to change the model now. Not that we shouldn't try. But can you see wealthy homeowners in Moneybags, MO agreeing to send their taxes to a central place to be divvied up and shared equally with kids in Slumville, MO? Most human beings seem not to be that generous.

There are, of course, any number of schemes for getting what they used to call "underprivileged children" into college or university. But these are usually merit based, at least in part, which means the child will have had to struggle upstream for 12 years to earn a place of this sort. And it's not easy at all to study in a room in the slums which is poorly lit and heated/cooled and shared with five other people, some of whom may be drunk, high, or criminals, or inviting friends in those categories to visit while you're studying. Not to mention issues with hunger and finding sufficient time away from poorly paid work or child-watching.

So yeah, we have elitism. It's very frustrating. And only the most motivated tend to overcome the barriers that are out there. I've tutored a lot of these during the last 30 years, but it still isn't enough.

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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
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Lamb Chopped
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Oh, I should have said--

All of our public high schools are in theory largely the same. I mean, we don't have an academic curriculum for one school and a technical / vocational curriculum for another. That kind of differentiation happens in elective courses (which are not the bulk of what you're taking prior to age 18) or after high school graduation, in adult technical schools.

But in theory, every kid is able to get their four years of English, three (or whatever the state mandates) of history, etc. math, sciences, foreign language... Of course, kids can drop out at age 16 if they choose. And four years of English at school X is not the same quality as four years at inner city school Y, largely for funding reasons. But theoretically the experience is going to broadly similar for everybody still in school prior to age 18.

There are usually different "tracks" as we used to call them--my own school had the AP (Advanced Placement) students, who were expected to go off to top universities; the college prep kids, just under those; the general studies kids, which was ordinary people plus bright students who just couldn't be bothered; and then various special needs groups. We got sorted into tracks based on how we did in the two or three years prior to high school (roughly ages 12 to 14). They would look at course grades, test scores, and special circumstances, like having been placed in gifted enrichment programs, or having attempted high school level math early. And you could switch tracks after you got to high school--I was forcibly switched in my junior year after the Powers That Be saw my PSAT test scores and had a hissy fit that I'd been sliding by in the general population. [Devil] I was one of those who mostly couldn't be bothered. But by and large, if you didn't purposefully make waves, the track you entered with was the one you graduated on--and your high school accomplishments (or lack thereof) affected the colleges*/universities that were willing to take you on.

* Note: "college" in the U.S. does not refer to the same thing it does in the U.K. It is tertiary education that starts at about age 18 or 19 and runs for either two years (community college, associate degree) or four (called simply "college" with no modifier, and ends with a bachelor's degree). "University" is largely synonymous with "college"--the only difference between the two seems to be the question of whether your tertiary school can lay claim to a graduate program (master's level); if so, it can call itself a university. In practice, undergraduate students will still say "I'm in college" regardless of whether the school they're attending calls itself a university or a college. To say "I'm in university" sounds, well, snooty. Which is IMHO why so many small tertiary schools rush to establish master's programs, so they can use the posher name. [Hot and Hormonal]

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Er, this is what I've been up to (book).
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North East Quine

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Scotland has its own educational system; there is no such thing as a "UK system."

All state schools are comprehensive, with the exception of a couple which are specialised e.g. music schools.

There are fee-paying schools in the cities, but there are large areas where there is no alternative to the state comprehensive system. In Aberdeenshire, there are 152 state primaries, 17 state secondary schools, and one private school. Aberdeen City has 48 state primaries, 4 fee paying primaries, 11 1/2 state secondaries, 1/2 a secondary which is a centre of excellence for music, and three fee-paying secondaries.

The vast majority of children in the North East of Scotland, therefore, are in the state comprehensive system.

The state comprehensive system works well, IMO, in rural areas. It has certainly served us well. One of my children is very creative, but not academic. The other is academic. Both have done well from their education.

In the cities, the schools which serve the poorest areas have the poorest educational outcomes. Our children started their education in one such school. When my son started school he was one of five children with a parent who had, or was doing, a PhD, but there were also children in his class who came from chaotic homes, with issues of drug addiction, low level criminality, etc. The school itself was great, with brilliant, dedicated staff, but as each class progressed up, the studenty families moved away until by primary seven there were none. (We moved when our kids were 9 and 7).

I really don't know what would create a level playing field between, say, my daughter (two parents, lots of books at home, both parents taking an active interest) and her classmate C (single mother, working as a hostess at one of the clubs at the harbour, getting home at 3am, and hence not able to get up to provide a proper breakfast for C, who was expected to sort his own breakfast from a packet of biscuits, lots of "uncles", no books at home, mother migrated to more lucrative jobs in Spain each summer, so C had moved home several times by the time he was 7) I heard on the grapevine that C went into care at age 8.

So, to answer the OP:

quote:
All of this said, what do you see in your world regarding elitism in education? Is education open to all? What are the barriers? Are their political moves afoot to educate the rich differently than the average person? How on earth can it be justified?
Education is open to all. The barriers are that some children aren't able to benefit. There are no political moves to educate the rich differently; that would be political suicide in Scotland. Indeed, a fee-paying education is probably a barrier to election as a politician. Even the leader of the Scottish Tories, Ruth Davidson, was state-educated.
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mr cheesy
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quote:
Originally posted by North East Quine:
Education is open to all. The barriers are that some children aren't able to benefit. There are no political moves to educate the rich differently; that would be political suicide in Scotland. Indeed, a fee-paying education is probably a barrier to election as a politician. Even the leader of the Scottish Tories, Ruth Davidson, was state-educated.

It hasn't always been so. Donald Dewer, the first First Minister and architect of devolution, went to Glasgow Academy. Tony Blair went to Fettes College, Michael Gove went to Robert Gordon's. All private schools.

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arse

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Gee D
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quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
We take the most physically talented kids and give them extra training for sports.

I don't see why we shouldn't take the most mentally talented kids and give them extra training for mental skills.

Having said that, I agree with Alan's point that often what we're measuring is wealth. But this is true of sports as well, as a look at an Olympics medal tally will tell you.

To which I would add that the extra sports training is with those of a similarly high level of ability. The public school system NSW went through stages. Most schooling at primary level was on a comprehensive basis, with children attending their local school. There were a few schools which for years 5 and 6 offered selective classes at an advanced level. The state school near us was one such . Streaming occurred at high schools with academic and technical bases. All that changed, with the abolition of selective schools and virtually all secondary schools became comprehensive. Recent years have seen a return to streamed schooling with intense competition to gain entry to a selective school. Of course, there are comprehensive high schools and comprehensive high schools; houses are advertised for sale on the basis that they fall within the catchment area for particular schools.

The private sector has varied patterns. In round terms, the Catholic Church educates a quarter to a third of students. It too provides selective and comprehensive schooling. The Presbyterian Church school I went to was, and still is, comprehensive at both primary and secondary entry. Some others are only selective for high school entry.

I have found advantages in having attended a comprehensive school. In the community at large, you deal with people with a range of abilities physically, intellectually and emotionally. At a comprehensive school you start learning this quite quickly and it becomes natural. Of course at more senior levels, classes were streamed but we met outside class, in cadets and sport, and in general living. There was the inevitable and initial selection that your parents could pay the fees....

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North East Quine

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# 13049

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Originally posted by mr cheesy:

quote:
It hasn't always been so. Donald Dewer, the first First Minister and architect of devolution, went to Glasgow Academy. Tony Blair went to Fettes College, Michael Gove went to Robert Gordon's. All private schools.

I was trying to say that I thought that a fee-paying education was now a barrier to election in Scotland. I think it should be obvious from context that I wasn't referring to elections in England. Neither Tony Blair nor Michael Gove were elected to Scottish seats.

Donald Dewar was elected to Aberdeen South in 1966, as part of Harold Wilson's government, which is going back quite a bit.

[ 14. September 2016, 07:56: Message edited by: North East Quine ]

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mr cheesy
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quote:
Originally posted by North East Quine:
I was trying to say that I thought that a fee-paying education was now a barrier to election in Scotland. I think it should be obvious from context that I wasn't referring to elections in England. Neither Tony Blair nor Michael Gove were elected to Scottish seats.

Donald Dewar was elected to Aberdeen South in 1966, as part of Harold Wilson's government, which is going back quite a bit.

Educational elitism has long roots even in Scotland. According to the Herald MSPs are 5 times more likely to be privately educated than the average Scot and there is much debate about the disparity between rich and poor schools.

I think it is true to say that the elitism isn't at the same level in Scotland as in England, but it is still there.

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arse

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mr cheesy
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I've also heard that although Germany has a system of different types of school based on education attainment, there is much less of a concept of "elitism" because the status of craft and technical jobs are much higher in society.

Anyone know anything about that?

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arse

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North East Quine

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I said that there is a disparity between schools in rich and poor areas in Scotland. I said
quote:
In the cities, the schools which serve the poorest areas have the poorest educational outcomes.
It was one of the points I was attempting to make.
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North East Quine

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Also, you need to unpack the figures re the number of privately-educated MSPs.

Elections to Holyrood aren't "first-past-the-post." There are two votes, one for a constituency candidate and one for a party. Many of the privately-educated MSPs were elected from the list, not as individuals. It would be interesting to calculate how many of those elected to a constituency seat were privately educated.

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Dafyd
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quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
We take the most physically talented kids and give them extra training for sports.

I don't see why we shouldn't take the most mentally talented kids and give them extra training for mental skills.

Except for a very few exceptions, sports are for most people a pastime or an exercise. There are very few people in our society of whom one can say that if their physical talents hadn't been nurtured they would be significantly worse off.
(Things are perhaps slightly different in the States where college sports are a big commercial thing. But even there I would guess it doesn't affect most people.)

Mental talents are used by a lot of people, and the official record of their mental talents determines almost everybody's prospects.

[ 14. September 2016, 08:46: Message edited by: Dafyd ]

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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams

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Boogie

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# 13538

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quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
I've also heard that although Germany has a system of different types of school based on education attainment, there is much less of a concept of "elitism" because the status of craft and technical jobs are much higher in society

Absolutely.

Here everyone can call themselves an engineer. The person who mends our boiler calls himself a 'heating engineer'. Engineer in Germany is a highly prestigious job. Becoming an apprentice is easily as highly regarded as going to university.

Academic competence is also highly prised. Teachers have to have the equivalent of two Masters degrees in different subjects. My son's ex has just begun teaching, she couldn't do the teacher training until she had two Masters degrees. In her case, one in Biology and one in English.

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Boogie

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My son went to a bog standard comprehensive which had just failed its OFSTED.

He was fine. He did well in exams and went to university to study engineering. He came out with two degrees - couldn't get a job.

He went back to college and became an airline pilot.

He's not 30 yet and earning 60+ thousand a year.

The school went to made no difference to his prospects. Money? Oh yes! His pilot training cost us a small fortune.

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Karl: Liberal Backslider
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quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
quote:
Originally posted by no prophet's flag is set so...:
They also discussed private schools (which are "public schools" I gather in the UK).

Not quite. The things that are called "public schools" in the UK are the older, often more expensive, private schools. There are many other private schools that do not describe themselves thus. Many are in the grammar school tradition, seeing themselves as academically but not socially elitist.

State grammar schools offer an academically selective education to children of parents who might not otherwise be able to afford one. As a parent who can (just about) afford to pay for private schooling, I'm 100% in favour of them. They give people with less money than me the chance to choose the same sort of education for their children that, at the moment, I can only choose by paying for it.

Unless your child fails the 11+ in which case you have no such choice.

quote:
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
Many parents of children who would qualify for grammar schools (roughly the top 25% of ability) prefer selective education. Their reasons include, but are not limited to, a desire for their children to avoid disruptive classmates, a desire for more rigorous tuition from better teachers, a desire to avoid the children of the unemployed and working classes, and a desire to avoid black and brown people.

From my experience, the "desire for more rigorous tuition from better teachers" tops that list by several orders of magnitude. [/QB]
Which means that if the aforementioned child fails the 11+ they are denied access to the better teachers because they're all teaching at the grammar schools.

It inevitably means a second-rate option for the majority who are told they're a bunch of thicko failures at 11.

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mr cheesy
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quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Which means that if the aforementioned child fails the 11+ they are denied access to the better teachers because they're all teaching at the grammar schools.

It inevitably means a second-rate option for the majority who are told they're a bunch of thicko failures at 11.

I think it is a mistake to think that grammar school teachers are the best. In fact my recent experience suggests that they're often pretty inadequate, young and liable to leave mid-term.

I also think geography makes a big difference to the quality of teachers, and not all grammars are in prestigious places to live.

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arse

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Sioni Sais
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quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Which means that if the aforementioned child fails the 11+ they are denied access to the better teachers because they're all teaching at the grammar schools.

It inevitably means a second-rate option for the majority who are told they're a bunch of thicko failures at 11.

I think it is a mistake to think that grammar school teachers are the best. In fact my recent experience suggests that they're often pretty inadequate, young and liable to leave mid-term.

I also think geography makes a big difference to the quality of teachers, and not all grammars are in prestigious places to live.

Going back forty plus years the problem with grammar school teachers was that they were old, unwilling to leave at all and unable to adapt to curriculum changes. Then again, that's the kind of "golden age" thing that appeals to some supporters of grammar schools.

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SvitlanaV2
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quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
If the aforementioned child fails the 11+ they are denied access to the better teachers because they're all teaching at the grammar schools.

It inevitably means a second-rate option for the majority who are told they're a bunch of thicko failures at 11.

I don't know if that's what makes the real difference. After all, the teachers have to go through the same training. If it's a matter of academics, there's no guarantee that a teacher with a Masters is inevitably going to provide a comprehensive school with added value that it can use.

It's more a question of the resources the school has, the size of the classes, the kinds of children and parental support the school has to work with.

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leo
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quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
We take the most physically talented kids and give them extra training for sports.

I don't see why we shouldn't take the most mentally talented kids and give them extra training for mental skills.

You can do that within a comp. No need for grammar schools.

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Marvin the Martian

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I think an important driver of academic success at grammar schools is the (relative) lack of disruptive pupils. It doesn't matter how good the teacher is at teaching if they're having to spend half the lesson doing policing, psychiatry or social work instead.

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Marvin the Martian

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quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
So from the mid-60s on, selective schooling tended to fall out of favour and was replaced in most, but not all, of the country by comprehensive schools.

Isn't it odd that at about the same time social mobility in the UK virtually ground to a halt?

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mr cheesy
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quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
[ I think an important driver of academic success at grammar schools is the (relative) lack of disruptive pupils. It doesn't matter how good the teacher is at teaching if they're having to spend half the lesson doing policing, psychiatry or social work instead.

I think for the most part the difference is the engagement of parents in their children's education.

Grammar schoolkids can be disruptive and unruly, but on the whole the knowledge that there will be hell-to-pay both from the school and the parents tends to put a lid on it.

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arse

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Bob Two-Owls
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They won't be proper grammar schools anyway. I'll bet that none of them will have mandatory Latin and Greek lessons. They will just be the same old comprehensives with the riff-raff weeded out.
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Marvin the Martian

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quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
[ I think an important driver of academic success at grammar schools is the (relative) lack of disruptive pupils. It doesn't matter how good the teacher is at teaching if they're having to spend half the lesson doing policing, psychiatry or social work instead.

I think for the most part the difference is the engagement of parents in their children's education.

Grammar schoolkids can be disruptive and unruly, but on the whole the knowledge that there will be hell-to-pay both from the school and the parents tends to put a lid on it.

I made no comment about why kids are disruptive or not. I'm sure the things you mention play a large part in it.

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Hail Gallaxhar

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mr cheesy
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quote:
Originally posted by Bob Two-Owls:
They won't be proper grammar schools anyway. I'll bet that none of them will have mandatory Latin and Greek lessons. They will just be the same old comprehensives with the riff-raff weeded out.

Why? We had to suffer learning things by rote because previous generations believed that classical languages and studies made a "proper" education therefore our children should also have to?

The highest educational percentiles from the full state intake is exactly what a grammar school is.

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arse

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North East Quine

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Originally posted by mr cheesy:

quote:
I think for the most part the difference is the engagement of parents in their children's education.

I agree- I think it makes a huge difference within the comprehensive system. Parental background is another factor; if the parents have been to university, then aiming for university is normal within that family. If the parents have a passion for a particular sport, then the children are likely to be at least proficient. Etc.
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Bob Two-Owls
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quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
I think an important driver of academic success at grammar schools is the (relative) lack of disruptive pupils.

Undeniably true but in my brief experience at the chalkface you can't separate out disruptive pupils by academic ability or affluence, only by actual behaviour. The Tories are forgetting the third tier of the grammar/secondary modern structure - the "approved" school. How long before they rear their ugly heads again?
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mr cheesy
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quote:
Originally posted by Bob Two-Owls:
Undeniably true but in my brief experience at the chalkface you can't separate out disruptive pupils by academic ability or affluence, only by actual behaviour. The Tories are forgetting the third tier of the grammar/secondary modern structure - the "approved" school. How long before they rear their ugly heads again?

No, the third tier were the Technical schools and the 13 plus. We're already getting those coming back.

And approved schools essentially already exist albeit with a more modern approach and different name.

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arse

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Sioni Sais
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quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
[ I think an important driver of academic success at grammar schools is the (relative) lack of disruptive pupils. It doesn't matter how good the teacher is at teaching if they're having to spend half the lesson doing policing, psychiatry or social work instead.

I think for the most part the difference is the engagement of parents in their children's education.

Grammar schoolkids can be disruptive and unruly, but on the whole the knowledge that there will be hell-to-pay both from the school and the parents tends to put a lid on it.

Some parents engage with schools and some don't. The attitude of the school matters and the attitude of the headteacher is paramount. The status or kind of school is secondary.

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Bob Two-Owls
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quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
And approved schools essentially already exist albeit with a more modern approach and different name.

In a lot of LEAs they don't. Behavioural support is now done in-house rather than at dedicated centres. There are certainly no schools geared up to dealing with disruptive students outside of the justice system around here.
Posts: 1262 | Registered: Jul 2005  |  IP: Logged



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