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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Educational elitism
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
But, we've already established that, in England at least, many "comprehensive" schools are not fully comprehensive - the overlapping catchments are part of that.
Certainly not according to your definition
Also according to this definition:
"Comprehensive schools admit pupils without reference to ability or aptitude and cater for all the children in a neighbourhood"
Which is not that dissimilar to the OED definition I used.
quote:
but I doubt any would be anywhere outside of a Scottish island.[/qb
Quite possibly.
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[qb]Of course, competition was a deliberate policy in England and resisted in Scotland.
And, I think Scotland was right. I fail to see what benefit competition brings to education. The competition of sitting GCSE, A level and equivalent exams - the competition with oneself to do the best you can - seems more than enough.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
And, I think Scotland was right. I fail to see what benefit competition brings to education. The competition of sitting GCSE, A level and equivalent exams - the competition with oneself to do the best you can - seems more than enough.
Easy to say from a good catchment of a Scottish school. If I lived in the catchment of a bad school, I'd rather be in England than Scotland.
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arse
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
I fail to see what benefit competition brings to education. The competition of sitting GCSE, A level and equivalent exams - the competition with oneself to do the best you can - seems more than enough.
I always found it useful to have coaevals of similar ability to test myself against. Certainly we were trying to do the best we could against ourselves, but other people provide a useful benchmark. If you got a bad score on an exam, was it just because you prepared poorly, or was the exam also unusually difficult?
When runners are trying to break speed records, they have other runners to pace them - they don't just show up at an empty track with a stopwatch.
quote:
Originally posted by Marama:
But why is anyone, no matter how bright, taking 14 GCSEs? In the 1960s I went to a British grammar school, and no-one did more than 8 O levels - there was no point in doing more, for progression to A levels and university.
I have 10, I think - but it has nothing at all to do with how many I needed to progress to A-levels and university. There was space in the timetable for that many subjects, and there were at least that many things that were interesting to study. I'd have taken a couple more if there was time, but there wasn't - 10 was a full schedule.
I do know a few people with large numbers, but they seem to get there with a certain amount of double-counting, plus a couple of noddy subjects that don't require much work. And there were always a few native speakers of Mandarin or Spanish or something who took the GCSE in that language to bulk out their score.
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
A school where a very large percentage of the brightest have been removed and where the remaining bright-but-poor students are not fully catered for is a true secondary modern.
There is an obvious difference.
I feel this highlights a dilemma for the arguments in favour of selective schools, which is what proportion of the pupils in the area should be in selective schools?
If selective schools are only taking a small number, so that they don't affect the distribution of abilities in the comprehensive schools, then you're not going to be offering a selective place to everyone who wants one. The number of people who suffer refusal will be high compared to the number of people who benefit.
On the other hand, if selective schools should take a large proportion of the children then that will definitely have a knock-on effect on the other schools in the area: it will be hard for them to be comprehensive if the selective schools are taking everybody who might qualify. It also defeats the point of selective schools if they take a large number of people, since they have to lower the selection standard to let more people in.
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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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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
None of those comps are in Gloucester where the main concentration of Grammars are. Your point is unequivocally debunked.
The top comprehensive school is in Cheltenham, which also happens to have the top performing grammar in Gloucestershire and sometimes the country.
Once again, you just don't know what you are talking about.
Funny how you should (a) not want to talk about what's happening in Glouscester, with its 4 Grammars, and (b) mention the top comp in a different town, but not the one that appears in the bottom 5 from the same town.
But you didn't. Why not?
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Forward the New Republic
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North East Quine
Curious beastie
# 13049
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Posted
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
As a result, poor kids in many parts of Scotland have got no chance at getting a better education.
Poor kids with a family background in which education isn't a priority (or is a lower priority than health issues, addiction issues etc) have got little chance. But I suspect they wouldn't have much chance in England either.
I doubt there are many comprehensives in Scotland which don't send at least a couple of kids to University each year. It should be possible for a bright pupil. One of Aberdeen's sink comps sent a girl to Oxford; but it was no co-incidence that her parents were Prof and Dr X.
It is harder for a bright pupil in a poor comp; in the first and second year classes can be disrupted by anti-social classmates. That eases off a bit from third year on, when kids make subject choices and start to split up. I'm not minimising how bad a sink comp can be. But the kids who are stuffed by the system in Scotland would be stuffed by the system in England, too.
[ 20. September 2016, 17:33: Message edited by: North East Quine ]
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
And, I think Scotland was right. I fail to see what benefit competition brings to education. The competition of sitting GCSE, A level and equivalent exams - the competition with oneself to do the best you can - seems more than enough.
Easy to say from a good catchment of a Scottish school. If I lived in the catchment of a bad school, I'd rather be in England than Scotland.
Though, you don't know which school catchment I'm in - or, more importantly my children are in. Shall I say it isn't the school at the top of the league tables.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by North East Quine:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
As a result, poor kids in many parts of Scotland have got no chance at getting a better education.
Poor kids with a family background in which education isn't a priority (or is a lower priority than health issues, addiction issues etc) have got little chance. But I suspect they wouldn't have much chance in England either.
They would also be unlikely to do well in a "good" school in Scotland either. But, I suspect they'll do much better in a school where there are also bright, motivated children to set an example than a school where all the bright, motivated children have been bussed off to a grammar school.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Funny how you should (a) not want to talk about what's happening in Glouscester, with its 4 Grammars, and (b) mention the top comp in a different town, but not the one that appears in the bottom 5 from the same town.
But you didn't. Why not?
Because the grammar schools in Gloucester have pupils from a twenty mile radius whereas most of the grammar school children in Cheltenham come from Cheltenham. The demographics of the two places are also quite different.
And, as you have zero local knowledge you'd have no idea about the complexities and the demographics, the different communities that people migrate between.
But no, you just want to take two data points that you know nothing about about talk about them in isolation. Funnily enough, I'm done talking with you.
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arse
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
I feel this highlights a dilemma for the arguments in favour of selective schools, which is what proportion of the pupils in the area should be in selective schools?
If selective schools are only taking a small number, so that they don't affect the distribution of abilities in the comprehensive schools, then you're not going to be offering a selective place to everyone who wants one. The number of people who suffer refusal will be high compared to the number of people who benefit.
On the other hand, if selective schools should take a large proportion of the children then that will definitely have a knock-on effect on the other schools in the area: it will be hard for them to be comprehensive if the selective schools are taking everybody who might qualify. It also defeats the point of selective schools if they take a large number of people, since they have to lower the selection standard to let more people in.
Not really, there is a tipping point at which a certain percentage of students in grammars significantly impacts on all the other schools. I think the evidence is that taking out 30% of the brightest students is well beyond that point whereas 15% or less (and not taking out all of th brightest) has an effect which is far less than other effects like geography on the other schools.
I think the evidence from Northern Ireland tends to suggest that having a much wider intake - approaching 50% - in the grammar schools tends to have a larger overall impact even though students are accepted into the province's grammars who would not get into an English grammar.
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arse
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
I feel this highlights a dilemma for the arguments in favour of selective schools, which is what proportion of the pupils in the area should be in selective schools?
Not really, there is a tipping point at which a certain percentage of students in grammars significantly impacts on all the other schools. I think the evidence is that taking out 30% of the brightest students is well beyond that point whereas 15% or less (and not taking out all of th brightest) has an effect which is far less than other effects like geography on the other schools.
That gets you off one horn of the dilemma, but it then gets you onto the other horn: You're running a grammar school system for the benefit of a fairly small number of students. If grammar schools are beneficial you're not extending the benefits very widely, and you're more likely to exclude children who would benefit but whose home backgrounds aren't favourable to the selection process.
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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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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
I still don't see what's so fantastic about having all the kids in a neighbourhood in the same school.
There are some practical issues. For a start, (by definition) if all the kids are from the immediate neighbourhood then they don't have so far to travel. That means, not many parents needing to drive the kids to school (good for the environment) - though in rural areas that will be different.
I don't view travelling to school as a problem in itself. OK, I hate that so many parents drive their kids there, but there are also buses and trains. And travelling on their own to school by bus or train gives kids a bit of extra age-appropriate independence that can only stand them in good stead for adult life.
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All the children from the same family will go to the same school (at least once they've all moved up from primary to secondary) so no problems with trying to send children in different directions.
I'll grant you that that can be an issue, but there are ways round it. In Birmingham I believe they have a lower pass mark for kids who already have siblings at the grammar.
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With everyone in one school, it's easier to stagger holiday times (within constraints of external exams) so that different areas take their breaks at different times (easing the pressure on parents to take kids on holiday outside term time because the school holiday premiums would be reduced).
This could happen now with the various LEAs, but doesn't.
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But, I think one of the biggest advantages is social. It means children will go up to secondary school with their primary class, so retaining their friendships as well as making new friends. Children on the same street will be at the same school, also good for forming and maintaining friendships.
This is where I really disagree with you, because what you're saying is it's better for kids to only socialise with the kids that are like them rather than with kids from other social backgrounds. So if you're from a poor, white area you will only know other poor, white kids. If you're from a middle-class Pakistani area you will only know other middle-class Pakistani kids. The only thing that's good for is fostering tribalism, racism and insularity.
Personally, I think it's a benefit to both society as a whole and the kids concerned if they get to socialise with kids from all ethnicities and social backgrounds - to see that those kids are really just the same as them.
It's also good for the kids because it means they learn how to make new friends rather than just sticking to the ones they already have. It gives them the opportunity to experience new ways of doing things rather than thinking the way their area does them is the only way there is. Imagine a kid who hates football, but all the other kids in his area love it. How good will it be for that kid to find out that there are other kids who agree with him, and he's not weird.
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Because of overlapping catchments, I went to a different school than everyone in my primary school (at least, for that year) and none of the other children at my school lived on the same road as me - and virtually none in the same estate (the nearest friends from school to me were all on the other side of a dual carriageway which didn't have a pedestrian crossing - hardly the safest option for going to see friends).
I was in the same situation, right down to the dual carriageway. Can't say I ever thought it was a problem.
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There is also the scope for positive role models. If the boy next door, going to the same school, managed to get good grades and a university place then that sends a "it's possible for me to" message. That doesn't work if he went to a grammar school, you get the "I'm not at the good school, what hope is there for me?" type message.
I fail to see how the situation would be significantly different with setting. You still get the "I'm not in the top set, what hope is there for me?" message.
And, of course, there's also the possibility that instead of the good students dragging the bad ones up the bad ones might drag the good ones down. We're talking about teenagers here - with very few exceptions, academic excellence is a long way down the list of things that demographic admires and fitting in with their peers is everything.
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Hail Gallaxhar
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
I sort of agree with some of what you're saying here. As I've previously said, I grew up in a rural area served by just one comp, so pretty much everybody in the rural/commuting village area went to the one school - when I started that was 5 classes per year up to 16 - about 750 pupils, on the site of an old secondary modern.
So I knew a lot of my intake but, weird kid that I was, I would have preferred to avoid most of them. The registration groups were entirely mixed, but setting was from the first half-term. And that meant, for the most part, I didn't see the people I went to school (on the bus, 16 mile round trip) and ended up with as you say, 'people like me'. And it was the only place I really did (until I discovered Dungeons and Dragons).
Yes, there's always the danger of grades being dragged down - but, both anecdotally and professionally, I've read and heard plenty of evidence that the reverse is actually true. Whether or not it's the example set by the children, or that the teachers enjoy their jobs more because they get to teach brighter kids, it's difficult to say.
So I've not really any problem with bussing (I went to six form college in another town, with a train journey between), I agree with mixing kids of different backgrounds (and despite the huge catchment of my comp, we were extraordinarily monocultural). But I don't think any of that is solved by Grammars.
Certainly, bussing kids from 'poor' areas into schools with a ABC1 catchment has merit. The middle classes would squeal like stuck pigs though.
[ 21. September 2016, 10:46: Message edited by: Doc Tor ]
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Forward the New Republic
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
I agree with mixing kids of different backgrounds (and despite the huge catchment of my comp, we were extraordinarily monocultural). But I don't think any of that is solved by Grammars.
It was/is in Birmingham. The grammars were by far the most ethnically and socially diverse schools in the city, precisely because they were the only schools whose catchment area was the entire city.
quote:
Certainly, bussing kids from 'poor' areas into schools with a ABC1 catchment has merit. The middle classes would squeal like stuck pigs though.
How would you choose which ones to send? And how would you choose which kids from the ABC1 catchment to send to the schools in the 'poor' areas in return?
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Hail Gallaxhar
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
When I was a child my family lived in a "middle class" area adjacent to a large London Council Estate. When it was time for my older sister to go to school (we're thinking 1950s here) my egalitarian mother felt that it was right to send her to the local primary school. As most of the kids on our road were privately educated, she was the only one there from her particular social background and got bullied. It wasn't long before the Headteacher approached my parents and suggested that they find another school for her, as she didn't "fit in".
I am not using this as an argument against comprehensive or "neighbourhood" education, which I believe in. But it does show the difficulty that can arise when catchment area boundaries mean that a small number of children from one culture end up going to a school where the prevailing culture is hugely different. Things perhaps work best where the catchment area contains families with a wide diversity of social backgrounds, which is what we experienced when our own son was growing up.
[ 21. September 2016, 11:00: Message edited by: Baptist Trainfan ]
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
I agree with mixing kids of different backgrounds (and despite the huge catchment of my comp, we were extraordinarily monocultural). But I don't think any of that is solved by Grammars.
It was/is in Birmingham. The grammars were by far the most ethnically and socially diverse schools in the city, precisely because they were the only schools whose catchment area was the entire city.
No, it was fixed by having schools with a catchment area going across an entire city. The solution to that particular problem is to have all schools with much larger catchment areas, not just some selective ones.
quote:
quote:
Certainly, bussing kids from 'poor' areas into schools with a ABC1 catchment has merit. The middle classes would squeal like stuck pigs though.
How would you choose which ones to send? And how would you choose which kids from the ABC1 catchment to send to the schools in the 'poor' areas in return?
In the US, where this is a live issue, it's done by lottery.
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Forward the New Republic
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by North East Quine:
Poor kids with a family background in which education isn't a priority (or is a lower priority than health issues, addiction issues etc) have got little chance. But I suspect they wouldn't have much chance in England either.
I doubt there are many comprehensives in Scotland which don't send at least a couple of kids to University each year.
Not only in England and Scotland - no matter where, if there's no support at home, even the brightest has little chance.
[inserted UBB code to identify quoted section]
[ 21. September 2016, 11:43: Message edited by: Alan Cresswell ]
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
But, I think one of the biggest advantages is social. It means children will go up to secondary school with their primary class, so retaining their friendships as well as making new friends. Children on the same street will be at the same school, also good for forming and maintaining friendships.
This is where I really disagree with you, because what you're saying is it's better for kids to only socialise with the kids that are like them rather than with kids from other social backgrounds. So if you're from a poor, white area you will only know other poor, white kids. If you're from a middle-class Pakistani area you will only know other middle-class Pakistani kids. The only thing that's good for is fostering tribalism, racism and insularity.
I would note that I consider large mono-cultural areas to be an issue generally, of which the problem you identified with schools is a part. It also extends to leafy suburbs of mono-cultural middle class, white folk. Although, I doubt there are very many areas as large as a comprehensive school catchment that actually are that mono-cultural (though, it's possible the subgroup of people who have school-age children may be less diverse than the overall population).
Larger catchments would help, but unless you start closing some schools and significantly expanding others that would mean overlapping catchments which may not make things better - if you're a family recently moved from Pakistan and you have a choice of three schools, one of which already has a majority of pupils who's parents or grandparents have moved from Pakistan, which would you choose? Besides that's also not the "all children from an area go to the local school" which was what I was originally giving the advantages (IMO) of.
As I've said before, education is part of a larger social issue and isn't going to be addressed in isolation from other aspects of the issue. Areas of cities that have become mono-cultural, or nearly so, are not ideal. But, how to encourage people to live in more diverse neighbourhoods is not an easy thing.
quote:
quote:
There is also the scope for positive role models. If the boy next door, going to the same school, managed to get good grades and a university place then that sends a "it's possible for me to" message. That doesn't work if he went to a grammar school, you get the "I'm not at the good school, what hope is there for me?" type message.
I fail to see how the situation would be significantly different with setting. You still get the "I'm not in the top set, what hope is there for me?" message.
Except that moving up a set is a lot more achievable than changing school. And, you may not be top set for maths but could be for English and history, or woodwork and technical drawing.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
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Pottage
Shipmate
# 9529
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
I agree with mixing kids of different backgrounds (and despite the huge catchment of my comp, we were extraordinarily monocultural). But I don't think any of that is solved by Grammars.
It was/is in Birmingham. The grammars were by far the most ethnically and socially diverse schools in the city, precisely because they were the only schools whose catchment area was the entire city.
No, it was fixed by having schools with a catchment area going across an entire city. The solution to that particular problem is to have all schools with much larger catchment areas, not just some selective ones.
Birmingham's grammars are still the most ethnically and socially diverse secondary schools in the city. But in principle those, like my children (now both at uni), who go to Birmingham's comprehensives could apply to any school in the city. There are about 8 Grammar schools which select by exam, some faith schools like Al-Hijrah for which my daughters might also not have met the entrance criteria, but certainly at least 50-60 others they could have applied to.
In practice though, those with a good reputation are over-subscribed and so they have to select by some criteria. Most usually that is a formula based on proximity, tempered by special arrangements for people who already have siblings in the school and so forth. The net effect of course is that - wherever you live in the city - you can always get a place in comprehensives that have a poor reputation, or are perhaps new and unproven, but if you want a place in a comprehensive with a good reputation you need to live in their vicinity.
Posts: 701 | From: middle England | Registered: May 2005
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
In the US, where this is a live issue, it's done by lottery.
That sounds like the worst of both worlds.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Although, I doubt there are very many areas as large as a comprehensive school catchment that actually are that mono-cultural.
Unless Birmingham has an unusually high density of secondary schools, such areas are commonplace.
quote:
As I've said before, education is part of a larger social issue and isn't going to be addressed in isolation from other aspects of the issue. Areas of cities that have become mono-cultural, or nearly so, are not ideal. But, how to encourage people to live in more diverse neighbourhoods is not an easy thing.
One way might be to get them to mix more while they're still young and forming opinions. Like, say, at school.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
In the US, where this is a live issue, it's done by lottery.
That sounds like the worst of both worlds.
Yes, and no.
But for those decrying the ability of parents to essentially price poorer families out of a good school's catchment, it's a solution that works.
But I made this concession on page 2, and I stand by it: quote:
The only possible way I'd support new Grammars would be if they were only for children attracting the pupil premium.
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Forward the New Republic
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Pottage
Shipmate
# 9529
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
But I made this concession on page 2, and I stand by it: quote:
The only possible way I'd support new Grammars would be if they were only for children attracting the pupil premium.
Do you mean that (low or no) parental income would be the ONLY entrance criterion, or that children would have to have demonstrated an academic aptitude as well before being admitted to a school with a specifically academic focus?
I assume the latter, but wouldn't those children be better served by schools which have a good mix of children from different backgrounds as well as their own, perhaps with your social engineering aims met by imposing a minimum "pupil premium" quota on these schools? At least one of the grammar schools in our area imposes such a quota on themselves voluntarily, although I believe they have struggled to meet it.
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Pottage:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
But I made this concession on page 2, and I stand by it: quote:
The only possible way I'd support new Grammars would be if they were only for children attracting the pupil premium.
Do you mean that (low or no) parental income would be the ONLY entrance criterion, or that children would have to have demonstrated an academic aptitude as well before being admitted to a school with a specifically academic focus?
When I read the comment back on p2, I assumed Doc Tor was responding to the suggestion that grammar schools provide the best means to help academically able but socially deprived children achieve academic success. If that's true, then the suggestion to limit intake to those children makes sense.
Academically able, socially advantaged children are very likely to have supporting parents with the ability to help their children (even if that's just a house big enough for all their children to have a quite place to study) and are likely to be in an area with a good local school. Grammar school would, at best, let them get a few extra grades - but, they would have got good grades in any decent school, so would not really benefit from those couple of grade points.
Academically able, socially disadvantaged children are less likely to have parents able to help their education (eg: because they didn't have a good education themselves, they work for peanuts all hours, etc), more likely to live in a small flat or house without space for a quiet place to study, the local school not being very good, etc. Grammar schools have the potential to lift these children to much greater academic success, to achieve grades sufficient for a place at university, or into a good job or training scheme, a level of success that they would have struggled to achieve otherwise.
Therefore, in "bang for buck" terms the biggest gains in overall academic ability and social mobility are gained by offering grammar school places only to the academically gifted, socially disadvantaged children.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
What Alan said.
I'm so middle class, I shit Radio 4. But if you think Grammars are a good idea to increase social mobility, banning the middle classes from them is the only way to achieve it through this method.
Otherwise, it'll simply soak up the middle class kids (as has been shown, over and over again). Middle class kids getting middle class jobs isn't social mobility.
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Forward the New Republic
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Pottage
Shipmate
# 9529
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Posted
Those are fair points. But the parents of the able children in the (socially disadvantaged) primary school that I am involved with don't want their children to go to one of Birmingham's handful of grammar schools just so that they will finish up with a fine crop of exam results. The local comprehensive to which our school is a feeder is itself rated Outstanding across the board; the children in its higher sets reliably get good grades. Our ambitious parents also want their children to have friends who are not immigrants, and for their children to fit more comfortably than they do into middle class British society.
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
That's all good news.
Just that if we're going to have to have Grammar schools, make them about the poor, not the rich.
[ 21. September 2016, 18:08: Message edited by: Doc Tor ]
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Forward the New Republic
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Pottage
Shipmate
# 9529
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
That's all good news.
Just that if we're going to have to have Grammar schools, make them about the poor, not the rich.
Yes, but the people you would presumably like to help with these good intentions would not want you to make them SOLELY about the poor. If you did that you would remove a significant part of the perceived benefit as far as they are concerned.
Grammar schools are, of course, rarely about the rich at all. Their offspring go to different schools altogether. They tend to be about the middle class, and those who are not but who would like their children to be middle class.
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Pottage:
Yes, but the people you would presumably like to help with these good intentions would not want you to make them SOLELY about the poor. If you did that you would remove a significant part of the perceived benefit as far as they are concerned.
I'm sure they wouldn't. But they already have their reward.
I'm middle class. I and my kids are doing just fine.
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Forward the New Republic
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Pottage
Shipmate
# 9529
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Posted
Me too. But then I went to a grammar school, and in consequence was the first in my family to go to university.
Posts: 701 | From: middle England | Registered: May 2005
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
That honour went to my dad's younger brother. Neither of my parents went, but both me and my brother did (we went to the same comp), and up until recently we battled it out for letters after our names. He now has 4 degrees (two Bachelors, a Masters and most recently a PhD) while I have just the two (BSc and PhD), but also have literary and science prizes.
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Forward the New Republic
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Leorning Cniht
Shipmate
# 17564
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
I'm sure they wouldn't. But they already have their reward.
I'm middle class. I and my kids are doing just fine.
I thought Pottage's point was that his poor immigrant families want to send their smart kids to a school where they can mix with nice middle-class white kids, and so learn to fit in to nice middle-class white society. If you sent them to a grammar school for poor kids, they'd get the good education, but they wouldn't get to mix with the nice middle-class white kids.
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
If you sent them to a grammar school for poor kids, they'd get the good education, but they wouldn't get to mix with the nice middle-class white kids.
Okay, so how about we reserve a small proportion of the spaces for middle-class kids? 3%? - which according to the Sutton Trust in 2013 was the proportion of kids on free school meals in the existing Grammars.
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Forward the New Republic
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Pottage
Shipmate
# 9529
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
I'm sure they wouldn't. But they already have their reward.
I'm middle class. I and my kids are doing just fine.
I thought Pottage's point was that his poor immigrant families want to send their smart kids to a school where they can mix with nice middle-class white kids, and so learn to fit in to nice middle-class white society. If you sent them to a grammar school for poor kids, they'd get the good education, but they wouldn't get to mix with the nice middle-class white kids.
Yes, exactly this. That is the reason why aspirational parents in the distinctly underprivileged primary school I am associated with want their children to go to one of the grammar schools if they can. The local comprehensive is first rate, and their academically able children would have an expectation of good academic results there, but that isn't the only element of social mobility. They don't have any letters after their names at all, but neither do they have any ideological baggage that prevents them from recognising this.
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
But, haven't we been told that academically successful comprehensives attract middle-class parents into the area? If that's true then children from poor families in that catchment will be mixing with middle class children, who's parents deliberately chose to buy a house in the catchment of that school. They wouldn't need to attend a grammar school for that.
Or is this "middle class people move to the catchments of good schools" another myth?
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
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Pottage
Shipmate
# 9529
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
But, haven't we been told that academically successful comprehensives attract middle-class parents into the area? If that's true then children from poor families in that catchment will be mixing with middle class children, who's parents deliberately chose to buy a house in the catchment of that school. They wouldn't need to attend a grammar school for that.
Or is this "middle class people move to the catchments of good schools" another myth?
It's not a myth in my case. Back in the 1970s (on my then primary head teacher's advice) my parents moved to Cheshire so I could take the 11+ and go to a grammar school because all the comprehensives where we lived at the time were poor. Fast forward to 2003, and my wife and I moved about 2km across north Birmingham when my youngest was aged 9 so as to be solidly close to what was then the best performing comprehensive in our part of Birmingham. The houses where I live still command a premium for this very reason, although less now than then because some other comprehensives in the area have improved in the last few years.
Moving to my leafy suburb is not an option of any of the families whose children go to the primary school where I am a governor. But getting their children into one of the city grammar schools might be.
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Pottage:
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
But, haven't we been told that academically successful comprehensives attract middle-class parents into the area? If that's true then children from poor families in that catchment will be mixing with middle class children, who's parents deliberately chose to buy a house in the catchment of that school. They wouldn't need to attend a grammar school for that.
Or is this "middle class people move to the catchments of good schools" another myth?
It's not a myth in my case. Back in the 1970s (on my then primary head teacher's advice) my parents moved to Cheshire so I could take the 11+ and go to a grammar school because all the comprehensives where we lived at the time were poor. Fast forward to 2003, and my wife and I moved about 2km across north Birmingham when my youngest was aged 9 so as to be solidly close to what was then the best performing comprehensive in our part of Birmingham. The houses where I live still command a premium for this very reason, although less now than then because some other comprehensives in the area have improved in the last few years.
Moving to my leafy suburb is not an option of any of the families whose children go to the primary school where I am a governor. But getting their children into one of the city grammar schools might be.
But, that didn't seem to be what you were saying:
quote:
Originally posted by Pottage:
quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:
I thought Pottage's point was that his poor immigrant families want to send their smart kids to a school where they can mix with nice middle-class white kids, and so learn to fit in to nice middle-class white society. If you sent them to a grammar school for poor kids, they'd get the good education, but they wouldn't get to mix with the nice middle-class white kids.
Yes, exactly this. That is the reason why aspirational parents in the distinctly underprivileged primary school I am associated with want their children to go to one of the grammar schools if they can. The local comprehensive is first rate, and their academically able children would have an expectation of good academic results there, but that isn't the only element of social mobility. [/QB]
To summarise what I thought you were saying:
1. Aspirational parents at underprivileged primary school want to send their children to a school with both academic quality and a mix of middle-class children. Both being needed for social mobility
2. The local comprehensive has good academic results, and therefore meets the first requirement for these parents
3. But, they still prefer the grammar school so their children can mix with middle-class children
4. Therefore, I conclude that the local comprehensive does not have a significant number of middle-class children
5. Therefore, academically successful schools do not always attract middle-class families into the catchment
Where has my line of reasoning broken down?
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Pottage
Shipmate
# 9529
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Posted
I didn't mean to be obscure Alan. I'll elaborate a bit.
Yes, parents will game whatever system there is if they can. I did. Birmingham has few grammar schools and getting into them is tough. One of my girls wanted to take the entrance exam so we helped her with the practice papers and so on but she wasn't successful. The other didn't want to take the entrance exam. My fall back plan was easy. We already lived in a reasonably affluent suburb because we are middle class and fairly comfortably off, and all we had to do was look at the admission criteria for the most attractive of the local comprehensive schools (which was then and still is excellent) and move close enough to that to be certain of getting in. It increased our mortgage considerably, but we could afford it.
In poorer areas the local schools may be good, bad or indifferent, but moving around is seldom an option for the people in those areas. As it happens the secondary school closest to the primary school I am connected with is a good one (although a few years ago that wasn't the case). It represents a good option for the people who live there, but it isn't so good that middle class families are clamouring to move to the area in droves to take advantage of it. (My fellow governors won't let me walk to the station from school after dark - "what, a white guy, in a suit, are you crazy!") So the parents at our school are still motivated to try to get their children into a grammar school if they can.
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
But if you think Grammars are a good idea to increase social mobility, banning the middle classes from them is the only way to achieve it through this method.
Social mobility is about enabling people to achieve their potential regardless of their background, not just randomly throwing everyone from one group into another one. So yes, the poor kids with good potential should go to grammars - but so should the middle class kids with good potential.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
But if you think Grammars are a good idea to increase social mobility, banning the middle classes from them is the only way to achieve it through this method.
Social mobility is about enabling people to achieve their potential regardless of their background
No. Really it's not. You're thinking of an egalitarian meritocracy.
quote:
Social mobility is the movement of individuals, families, households, or other categories of people within or between social strata in a society. It is a change in social status relative to others' social location within a given society.
Source: wiki
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
Social mobility is about enabling people to achieve their potential regardless of their background
No. Really it's not. You're thinking of an egalitarian meritocracy.
quote:
Social mobility is the movement of individuals, families, households, or other categories of people within or between social strata in a society. It is a change in social status relative to others' social location within a given society.
Source: wiki
OK, so if we're being pedantic social mobility is just that people move between social strata, and says nothing about why or how they do so.
So yes, OK, if you're going to insist on using the absolutely technically correct terms then I'm talking about egalitarian meritocracy. But I think everyone else knows damn well that I was addressing the why and how questions when I was talking about social mobility.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
So yes, OK, if you're going to insist on using the absolutely technically correct terms then I'm talking about egalitarian meritocracy. But I think everyone else knows damn well that I was addressing the why and how questions when I was talking about social mobility.
But in the past, you've talked about the importance of handing down accumulated wealth to your children, and the importance of being able to use your current situation to better your children's position in the here-and-now.
Both of those will have to go in a meritocracy. As will all private schools, private tutoring, and any notion of hereditary privilege. I don't think you're actually arguing for a meritocracy. I think you're arguing for your own middle class privilege to be preserved.
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Forward the New Republic
Posts: 9131 | From: Ultima Thule | Registered: Jul 2005
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
But in the past, you've talked about the importance of handing down accumulated wealth to your children, and the importance of being able to use your current situation to better your children's position in the here-and-now.
Yes. And the more people get good jobs and earn good money thanks to grammar schooling, the more people will be able to do that.
quote:
Both of those will have to go in a meritocracy. As will all private schools, private tutoring, and any notion of hereditary privilege. I don't think you're actually arguing for a meritocracy. I think you're arguing for your own middle class privilege to be preserved.
I'm arguing for people being able to become better off. I don't believe that requires an equal number of people to become worse off.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
And the more people get good jobs and earn good money thanks to grammar schooling, the more people will be able to do that.
You realise that's a complete non-sequitur, right? A very great many people are able to get good jobs and earn good money without Grammars, and it's got nothing to do with inherited wealth.
quote:
I'm arguing for people being able to become better off. I don't believe that requires an equal number of people to become worse off.
It's all relative. The poor we will always have with us, yes? Given that there were poor people in the past, and poor people in the present, I think we can probably assume there'll be poor people in the future.
And if you believe in a meritocracy, you rise to your level regardless of your parents' wealth and background. I'd like the inequality of wealth between poor and rich to be reduced, and I'd also like the rich to lose the plutocracy that drives the inequality.
As I said back on page 2,
quote:
Social mobility is only meaningful when the son of a barrister gives me a quote for painting the outside of my house.
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Forward the New Republic
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Helen-Eva
Shipmate
# 15025
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Posted
I haven't read this whole thread - it's too long - so apologies if someone has said this already.
In my mind, the purpose of grammar schools is to enable children whose parents can't afford public schools to get into the professions and stop them being dominated by posh boys. It's about balance of benefit to me. Comprehensives may be best for the majority, but they also pull towards the middle. The brightest kids will do fine in them but nowadays fine is not enough. You don't get into Oxbridge with fine. Somewhere the bright state school kids need the opportunity to excel and be the top 1% which will then enable them to get into the most selective places and professions so that we don't end up with a situation (as is now perceived to be the case in the UK) where the only way to get to the top is with a public school background. Unfortunately getting to the top includes being able to act middle class (try being a common barrister) so you need to pick up those manners somewhere. A country needs a mechanism that enables those with modest or no means but a lot of brains to get to the very top. A society with no-one from a non-rich background in the positions of influence is not a good thing. I'm not saying this requirement for class for success is how society should be - I'm saying it's how it is.
And I'm aware that in enabling a small quantity of middle-middle and working class kids to get to the top you're probably slightly disadvantaging a large number of middle-middle and working class kids. But I think the balance of advantage works out.
If you're interested in my background I went to both a comprehensive and a grammar school and my parents could not have afforded to pay school fees. I ended up in a grammar school catchment as a result of my parents splitting up.
[Edited to make myself clearer. Hopefully.]
[ 22. September 2016, 14:33: Message edited by: Helen-Eva ]
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I thought the radio 3 announcer said "Weber" but it turned out to be Webern. Story of my life.
Posts: 637 | From: London, hopefully in a theatre or concert hall, more likely at work | Registered: Aug 2009
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
I feel this highlights a dilemma for the arguments in favour of selective schools, which is what proportion of the pupils in the area should be in selective schools?
That's a dilemma for a compulsory, two-tier system.
There's an easy answer for someone advocating grammar schools as one choice amongst many. That is, take the number of pupils whose families would like them educated at a school specifically teaching to their ability level, and try to make that many places available at appropriately selective schools.
The private sector is, for obvious reasons, highly sensitive to customer demand, and what happens there is you get one (maybe two, especially if they are each single-sex) very highly selective and strongly academic school in any given area, to which only the very brightest are going to get places, and several more schools that are almost as good academically, but collectively let more in. Then there are other selective schools which are considerably easier to get into, but still with enough demand for their places to require an entrance exam. These often stress more than merely academic advantages - sport, great pastoral care, learning support, music, technology, facility for boarding ... (and, quite possibly, because it's not a factor for me, tradition and social status) that make them a positive choice not just a fallback option after the very top tier school.
That is, when you empower families to make a meaningful choice, and give schools the resources and incentive to fulfil those demands, what you get are schools catering for different needs, desires and abilities, and you increase enormously the chances of finding a school at which your child in particular can thrive.
Can the state sector hope to offer anything like that? I'd like it to, and I can see no reason why that should necessarily be impossible.
Obviously I'm speaking from London, where there are likely to be several dozen schools plausibly within commuting distance of a secondary school pupil, so offering variety is easier here than it might be. There are going to be practical difficulties, but it seems to me that allowing families to choose between two or more good schools ought to be the aim in most places.
What seems to be Alan's ideal world of everyone in one area going to one school, whatever its merits, whatever their preferences and characters, and having no choice in the matter, is something that holds no attraction for me whatsoever.
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
A very great many people are able to get good jobs and earn good money without Grammars, and it's got nothing to do with inherited wealth.
No, none of this has to do with inherited wealth. I don't even know why you brought it up. You seem to be constantly shifting from one issue to another in the hopes that you'll find something somewhere that will enable you to declare my argument invalid, rather than arguing against it directly.
quote:
quote:
I'm arguing for people being able to become better off. I don't believe that requires an equal number of people to become worse off.
It's all relative. The poor we will always have with us, yes? Given that there were poor people in the past, and poor people in the present, I think we can probably assume there'll be poor people in the future.
I genuinely believe it depends on how you define "poor". If you define it in concrete terms - housing, food, etc - then there's no reason why poverty can't be eradicated in this country. But if you define it relative to the rest of the country, then obviously there will always be a top 10% and a bottom 10%.
The people we've been talking about as "poor" on this thread live lives that are in many ways better than those lived by the royalty of a few hundred years or so ago. Does that not count for anything?
quote:
And if you believe in a meritocracy, you rise to your level regardless of your parents' wealth and background. I'd like the inequality of wealth between poor and rich to be reduced, and I'd also like the rich to lose the plutocracy that drives the inequality.
As I said back on page 2,
quote:
Social mobility is only meaningful when the son of a barrister gives me a quote for painting the outside of my house.
And as I said in reply,
quote:
People moving up in the world only matters to you if other people are moving down? I find that quite sad.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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Jane R
Shipmate
# 331
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Posted
Marvin: quote:
I'm arguing for people being able to become better off. I don't believe that requires an equal number of people to become worse off.
Ah, optimism! But that's not how the system we've got actually works, you know.
You are correct that in many ways all people nowadays are better off than our ancestors were, simply because of technological advances. However, if you need a car to get a job and can't afford one it is not much consolation to be told that three hundred years ago cars had not been invented and nobody had one. Three hundred years ago, most people lived within walking distance of their work or worked from home.
The Poverty Website's comments on relative and absolute poverty may be relevant here
[ 22. September 2016, 15:24: Message edited by: Jane R ]
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chris stiles
Shipmate
# 12641
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
quote:
Both of those will have to go in a meritocracy. As will all private schools, private tutoring, and any notion of hereditary privilege. I don't think you're actually arguing for a meritocracy. I think you're arguing for your own middle class privilege to be preserved.
I'm arguing for people being able to become better off. I don't believe that requires an equal number of people to become worse off.
Well, if you believe in inherited privilege then by definition you do not believe in an 'egalitarian meritocracy'. The effect of inherited privilege is the perpetuation of relative social status across generations. That is very far from meritocratic.
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Doc Tor
Deepest Red
# 9748
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Marvin the Martian:
No, none of this has to do with inherited wealth. I don't even know why you brought it up.
Because you've previously brought it up, and then suddenly you declare
quote:
Social mobility is about enabling people to achieve their potential regardless of their background
This isn't difficult to understand. If you genuinely want to 'enable people to achieve their potential regardless of their background', you have to realise that it undercuts every single thing you've ever said about you helping your children and getting to the point where they inherit your wealth.
The two are literally incompatible.
In the context of Grammar schools, where just 3% of kids on free school meals get in (in the areas that have them), who do you think makes up the remaining 97%? Do you honestly think that only 3% of the poorest kids are worthy of entering a Grammar school?
Because if your intention is for 'people to achieve their potential regardless of their background', then it's patently obvious that Grammar schools, as they are currently run, fail utterly. They don't even get out of the starting gate.
quote:
The people we've been talking about as "poor" on this thread live lives that are in many ways better than those lived by the royalty of a few hundred years or so ago. Does that not count for anything?
It counts for an awful lot. And a lot of the reasons why are because the British Left have dragged concessions, one at a time, from the ruling classes. Who are now trying to drag them back. It was always thus.
quote:
And as I said in reply,
quote:
People moving up in the world only matters to you if other people are moving down? I find that quite sad.
You know that trickle down theory doesn't work in practice, yes? That a rising tide doesn't lift all boats, and in reality, people do drown.
I know you know what a meritocracy is. I know you know what you're thinking about isn't one. Assuming that we'll need our houses painting, then why not the son of a barrister, as opposed to the son of barrista? We can't all have middle class jobs.
I was thinking about this exchange earlier, and I looked up the biography of the Duke of Westminster. He graduated from the same university I did my PhD at. He got the same undergraduate degree level I did (2:1). He did some jobs.
In an actual meritocratic society, as opposed to the one we have, he wouldn't now be sitting on billions in cash and property. Because his potential simply doesn't justify that. I have a great deal of difficultly in believe anyone's potential would. And again, if you believed in a meritocracy, your children would sink or swim entirely under their own steam.
But I don't think you believe that, and quote:
constantly shifting from one issue to another in the hopes that you'll find something somewhere that will enable you to declare my argument invalid, rather than arguing against it directly
applies to you, not me.
Social mobility is not what you say it is, and meritocracy is something that's fine for other people, but not for you and yours.
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Forward the New Republic
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