Join the Labour Party and save your country!

bobmcstuff

Also FWIW I have never voted Labour or any of the other more left wing parties... I just don't agree with grammar schools...

tangled_metal

bobmcstuff wrote:

Also FWIW I have never voted Labour or any of the other more left wing parties... I just don't agree with grammar schools...

Same here. Tory blue right through! Just look at my pre-grammar school posts, I'm almost always agreeing with Stevo. Can't get more Tory, right wing than that!

I just disagree with GS system being the right way to get the educated adult, capable of contributing towards the economy, out of the child. It's not about throwing money at education just spending what they get well. IMHO The grammar school, free schools and academies are wasting money that could be put towards correcting a generation of mistakes and missed opportunities.

Lookyhere

Stevo 666 wrote:

Questions for you are how much more do you want to spend, on what and how would you fund it?

you have to decide what you want, UK sport is a great example, John Major allowed lottery funding, UK Sport decided what they wanted and how to get there and it has clearly worked, we ve gone from being a nobody to a sporting power house!

for education, you might start with max class sizes, teachers qualified to teach the subject at the correct level and to work toward coming mid table in OECD league instead of bottom, ultimate goal top 5 in next 10 years say.

funding? scrape HS plans or how about trident?

bompington

Lookyhere wrote:

for education, you might start with max class sizes, teachers qualified to teach the subject at the correct level

Counterintuitive as it may seem, class size has been shown by umpteen research studies to make no difference to attainment. And any qualified teacher is qualified to teach at all levels in their subject(s).

The causes and cures of poor education are complex: and mostly, IMO, lie outside school - it's more to do with wider culture than what happens in school. Which is why the huge majority of kids' results can safely be predicted from their social class (mother's educational attainment is pretty well correlated). The countries that outrank us in all the educational league tables do so because of the commitment of families to education, not some superior system or higher spending.

The best research into what actually works in schools (Hattie) shows that the most effective thing is (drumroll).... good teachers. So perhaps all this money needs to be spent on us then.

bobmcstuff

bompington wrote:

Lookyhere wrote:

for education, you might start with max class sizes, teachers qualified to teach the subject at the correct level

Counterintuitive as it may seem, class size has been shown by umpteen research studies to make no difference to attainment. And any qualified teacher is qualified to teach at all levels in their subject(s).

The best research into what actually works in schools (Hattie) shows that the most effective thing is (drumroll).... good teachers. So perhaps all this money needs to be spent on us then.

AIUI, isn't a lot of the problem that there just aren't enough qualified teachers in a lot of subjects?

As I mentioned before my girlfriend works for Teach First (whose mission is to get good teachers into poorly performing schools, which apparently has had a demonstrable positive effect). She's been chewing my ear off about educational inequality since she started (she's super keen...), and I'm pretty sure one of the things she's said is that many primary schools have no teachers with any science or maths beyond GCSE level.

Unsurprisingly, primary teachers are disproportionately humanities graduates, and also female which isn't an issue in itself, but in some circumstances a good male teacher could be the only positive male role model in a kid's life. Apparently they really struggle to get men to teach primary.

Stevo_666

bompington wrote:

The countries that outrank us in all the educational league tables do so because of the commitment of families to education, not some superior system or higher spending.

Some people on here need to let this sink in.

Stevo_666

bobmcstuff wrote:

Stevo 666 wrote:

Since when has the cost been an issue for lefties? After all, its other people's money

Some "lefties" do pay taxes, you know.

Very true, although the average leftie almost certainly pays less tax than a an average Tory voter, given the breakdown of party support by socioeconomic group. It follows from this that a larger proportion of Labour voters are net recipients from the state. Hence you are far more likely to get lefties clamouring for more spending on any given problem, as they are far less likely to be shouldering any tax increased tax bill needed to fund any increased spending.

If it was their money they might take a different view.

mamba80

Stevo 666 wrote:

bompington wrote:

The countries that outrank us in all the educational league tables do so because of the commitment of families to education, not some superior system or higher spending.

Some people on here need to let this sink in.

Why is that? is it because other countries have invested more into education over time? so the kids they produced decades ago are now parents and have better parenting skills/education, able to support their children far better than our lot.

education is a long term investment.

not sure when the tories are spending 100's of billions on Trident and HS2 that you think only lefties can waste money

ballysmate

mamba80 wrote:

Stevo 666 wrote:

bompington wrote:

The countries that outrank us in all the educational league tables do so because of the commitment of families to education, not some superior system or higher spending.

Some people on here need to let this sink in.

Why is that? is it because other countries have invested more into education over time? so the kids they produced decades ago are now parents and have better parenting skills/education, able to support their children far better than our lot.

education is a long term investment.

not sure when the tories are spending 100's of billions on Trident and HS2 that you think only lefties can waste money

As TM said earlier, we used to have a better attitude towards education. My parents had low levels of education, as did much of their generation. They certainly weren't given parenting lessons. But they certainly wanted to improve the lot of their children.
Contrast that with the current generation who expect something for nothing and as TM and you suggest, even want the state to parent their offspring.

As I have said before, yes to Trident. No to HS2.

bobmcstuff

Stevo 666 wrote:

bobmcstuff wrote:

Stevo 666 wrote:

Since when has the cost been an issue for lefties? After all, its other people's money

Some "lefties" do pay taxes, you know.

Very true, although the average leftie almost certainly pays less tax than a an average Tory voter, given the breakdown of party support by socioeconomic group. It follows from this that a larger proportion of Labour voters are net recipients from the state. Hence you are far more likely to get lefties clamouring for more spending on any given problem, as they are far less likely to be shouldering any tax increased tax bill needed to fund any increased spending.

If it was their money they might take a different view.

Yes it is obvious that labour voters are less well off on average, can't disagree with that. But I know plenty of more well off Labour supporters as well, so it's not as simple as you are making out (you seem to be keen on making things black and white). Some rich or better off people might possibly take a different opinion to yourself, and be happy to pay more tax if it is being used to do something worthwhile...

London's elected a Labour mayor and they have the highest average wages in the country.

ballysmate

Or people who are not well off expect their hard earned tax pounds to be spent carefully.
The Arsene Wenger principle of spending Arsenal's money as if it were his own.

bobmcstuff

Stevo 666 wrote:

Grammars are a reform that so many parents want. How do you know better than all these people who want more grammars?

Suspect many parents want it because they labouring are under the impression that their child is special or clever and will easily get into one... I bet there aren't many who are desperate to get their kids into a new secondary modern.

Pross

He's been made to look a right prat by Virgin Trains. I used to think that whilst I didn't like his politics I thought he was a rare politician with integrity. Now he looks as likely to fake something to suit his case as Blair.

ballysmate

The tw@t is hopeless and unelectable. Lefties would try to claim the high ground though by maintaining that he was a man of principle. You couldn't make it up! But wait... he has!

Stevo_666

Pross wrote:

He's been made to look a right prat by Virgin Trains. I used to think that whilst I didn't like his politics I thought he was a rare politician with integrity. Now he looks as likely to fake something to suit his case as Blair.

What a naughty leftie fibber
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/08/23/revealed-jeremy-corbyn-had-a-seat-during-train-journey-he-claime/
If you're going to try a bare faced lie, best make sure you can't be discredited by CCTV footage. Did he get lessons from Ryan Lochte?

Stevo_666

Ballysmate wrote:

The tw@t is hopeless and unelectable. Lefties would try to claim the high ground though by maintaining that he was a man of principle. You couldn't make it up! But wait... he has!

On that note, my ballot 'papers' have arrived for the Labour leadership election. As Owen Smith said, Labour are standing on the edge of a precipice. Should I give them a little push by voting for Jezza?

Stevo_666

mamba80 wrote:

Stevo 666 wrote:

bompington wrote:

The countries that outrank us in all the educational league tables do so because of the commitment of families to education, not some superior system or higher spending.

Some people on here need to let this sink in.

Why is that? is it because other countries have invested more into education over time? so the kids they produced decades ago are now parents and have better parenting skills/education, able to support their children far better than our lot.

education is a long term investment.

not sure when the tories are spending 100's of billions on Trident and HS2 that you think only lefties can waste money

Because you are banging on about how we need to spend more and here is an experienced teacher telling you that spending is not the real issue.

I'm not aware of schools on the continent teaching parenting skills so not sure how you come to that conclusion.

It's more about parental attitudes and IMO if there is one thing that has caused a problem there it is the leftie nanny state approach that has led many to abdicate their parental responsibilities because they think the state will do it all for them. A problem caused by lefties that ironically lefties are now clamouring to be fixed by more spending :roll:

ballysmate

Stevo 666 wrote:

Ballysmate wrote:

The tw@t is hopeless and unelectable. Lefties would try to claim the high ground though by maintaining that he was a man of principle. You couldn't make it up! But wait... he has!

On that note, my ballot 'papers' have arrived for the Labour leadership election. As Owen Smith said, Labour are standing on the edge of a precipice. Should I give them a little push by voting for Jezza?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBSxAAJ_2SI

mamba80

Stevo 666 wrote:

mamba80 wrote:

Stevo 666 wrote:

bompington wrote:

The countries that outrank us in all the educational league tables do so because of the commitment of families to education, not some superior system or higher spending.

Some people on here need to let this sink in.

Why is that? is it because other countries have invested more into education over time? so the kids they produced decades ago are now parents and have better parenting skills/education, able to support their children far better than our lot.

education is a long term investment.

not sure when the tories are spending 100's of billions on Trident and HS2 that you think only lefties can waste money

I'm not aware of schools on the continent teaching parenting skills so not sure how you come to that conclusion

you are a card arent you? comprehension not your strong point, so i ll spell out what i said........

Because our competitors have invested more over time, they have a generation of parents with better education and hence better parenting skills, the 2 as said before go hand in hand, so they dont need parenting classes, we obviously do.

the Tories have been in power for the majority of the time since the war, so they are mainly responsible for these issues, they never wanted universal education in the first place, so why would they invest in it?

ballysmate

Because our competitors have invested more over time, they have a generation of parents with better education and hence better parenting skills, the 2 as said before go hand in hand, so they dont need parenting classes, we obviously do.

One of the few things TM and I agreed on was that there used to be a better attitude towards education in this country a few generations ago Not by the state but by people.
We now live in a country where kids are in education for longer than ever, everyone seems to leave school with at least a handful of GCSEs and half go to uni but parenting skills are deteriorating.
I think you are perhaps putting the cart before the horse. Perhaps we should look at the something for nothing society that we have created and the spoon fed culture which seems prevalent.
It is not down to the state to provide parenting or even parenting lessons. People have to take responsibility for that themselves.

Jez mon

Stevo 666 wrote:

It's more about parental attitudes and IMO if there is one thing that has caused a problem there it is the leftie nanny state approach that has led many to abdicate their parental responsibilities because they think the state will do it all for them. A problem caused by lefties that ironically lefties are now clamouring to be fixed by more spending :roll:

And yet since WW2 the tories have been in power for the majority of the time when compared to labour...

So maybe the problem is entirely more complex than that.

bobmcstuff

Ballysmate wrote:

Because our competitors have invested more over time, they have a generation of parents with better education and hence better parenting skills, the 2 as said before go hand in hand, so they dont need parenting classes, we obviously do.

One of the few things TM and I agreed on was that there used to be a better attitude towards education in this country a few generations ago Not by the state but by people.
We now live in a country where kids are in education for longer than ever, everyone seems to leave school with at least a handful of GCSEs and half go to uni but parenting skills are deteriorating.
I think you are perhaps putting the cart before the horse. Perhaps we should look at the something for nothing society that we have created and the spoon fed culture which seems prevalent.
It is not down to the state to provide parenting or even parenting lessons. People have to take responsibility for that themselves.

It's possibly the ones that don't get a handful of GCSEs that are the issue here, no?

I agree that people need to take responsibility for their kids education and so on, and that the state shouldn't be providing parenting lessons. But I think there's underlying reasons why people don't do this, connected to a lack of social mobility (perceived or otherwise) which should be addressed. I don't believe that many people actually want to spend their life earning cr@p wages, on benefits or engaged in petty crime - I think that happens because they don't see an alternative.

drlodge

Ballysmate wrote:

Perhaps we should look at the something for nothing society that we have created and the spoon fed culture which seems prevalent.
It is not down to the state to provide parenting or even parenting lessons. People have to take responsibility for that themselves.

Took the words out of my mouth.

People (parents especially) need to take responsibility for their actions. You have kids - you have a responsibility to feed, clothe, teach, finance and bring them up properly. This is not the state's responsibility. The state should provide a "safety net".

Also good comment about the one thing that brings better education - better teachers. I've always wondered what the issue is with performance related pay. First performance needs to be defined (measure kids somehow on relevant factors when they enter the school, and when they leave, measure the improvement). I also don't get all the different types of schools when, if the one big factor is the quality of teaching, how an "academy" school can be so much better.

I do have an issue with grammar schools - they are selecting the top children and giving them an opportunity to do better than they otherwise would. To me this seems to be prioritising the top x% of kids, and therefore is diverting money that could be spent on giving the bottom y% of kids further opportunities. We need to have a sensible debate about the kids we want to prioritise - the top x%, the bottom y%, or all kids equally. Streaming in state schools seems to be a better option.

mrfpb

drlodge wrote:

I do have an issue with grammar schools - they are selecting the top children and giving them an opportunity to do better than they otherwise would. To me this seems to be prioritising the top x% of kids, and therefore is diverting money that could be spent on giving the bottom y% of kids further opportunities. We need to have a sensible debate about the kids we want to prioritise - the top x%, the bottom y%, or all kids equally. Streaming in state schools seems to be a better option.

I would argue that far more gets spent on SEN children than gifted and talented children. I have both in my family, as one child has dsycalculia - a blindness to numbers, and was not able to learn her times tables before secondary school. On the other hand my son just got an A* and a 99% score for Maths A-level. My daughter is the one who gets resources spent on her, as the target for GCSE maths is one that the school funding depends on. My son got some help at primary as the headmaster was into maths and had an advanced maths group, but at secondary the focus is on the 5 GCSE's at C or above, anything else is a bonus.

If we want to develop the intelligence based economy, for example cybber security or advances in aerodynamics, that some people on this forum love so much, we need to nurture the gifted and talented.

We have proved that spending money improves performance at the Olympics, we can apply the same principles to engineering and technology.

ballysmate

But I think there's underlying reasons why people don't do this, connected to a lack of social mobility (perceived or otherwise) which should be addressed. I don't believe that many people actually want to spend their life earning cr@p wages, on benefits or engaged in petty crime - I think that happens because they don't see an alternative.

We seem to accept that previous generations placed more emphasis on education, but those generations had even less social mobility than we have now. Were wages not crap and housing not poor in the 50s, 60s and 70s? Social mobility? Kids left school at 14, then 15 to work in factories or down the pit in my family's case.
I am sure that you are not equating low earning with poor parenting skills. I can't see how sending kids to school in nappies, unable to talk or use cutlery can be linked to low social mobility either.
Previous generations who were not 'upwardly mobile' managed to toilet train their kids didn't they?

bobmcstuff

drlodge wrote:

Also good comment about the one thing that brings better education - better teachers. I've always wondered what the issue is with performance related pay. First performance needs to be defined (measure kids somehow on relevant factors when they enter the school, and when they leave, measure the improvement). I also don't get all the different types of schools when, if the one big factor is the quality of teaching, how an "academy" school can be so much better.

My mum is a teaching assistant (who would have been a teacher, and a very good one at that, had she not failed her 11+ ) in English.

Apparently the focus has changed/is changing from overall achievement (i.e., % of passes and A* to C grades) to improvement - so teachers are targeted to get the maximum improvement in performance over the time. This is fine in principle except now the "holy grail" is a smart immigrant kid with poor English skills - as this drags down their achievement in their other subjects. If you can get their English to "click" then they can suddenly score a massive improvement in test results. Not a bad thing for those kids but it doesn't necessarily help the others.

The old system resulted in a lot of focus on "borderline" kids - i.e., the ones who were close to the pass/fail boundary or the C/D boundary and meant that the smarter ones who were guaranteed a C or above didn't get the same attention and nor did the really stupid ones.

drlodge wrote:

I do have an issue with grammar schools - they are selecting the top children and giving them an opportunity to do better than they otherwise would. To me this seems to be prioritising the top x% of kids, and therefore is diverting money that could be spent on giving the bottom y% of kids further opportunities. We need to have a sensible debate about the kids we want to prioritise - the top x%, the bottom y%, or all kids equally. Streaming in state schools seems to be a better option.

My views exactly.

bobmcstuff

Ballysmate wrote:

But I think there's underlying reasons why people don't do this, connected to a lack of social mobility (perceived or otherwise) which should be addressed. I don't believe that many people actually want to spend their life earning cr@p wages, on benefits or engaged in petty crime - I think that happens because they don't see an alternative.

We seem to accept that previous generations placed more emphasis on education, but those generations had even less social mobility than we have now. Were wages not crap and housing not poor in the 50s, 60s and 70s? Social mobility? Kids left school at 14, then 15 to work in factories or down the pit in my family's case.
I am sure that you are not equating low earning with poor parenting skills. I can't see how sending kids to school in nappies, unable to talk or use cutlery can be linked to low social mobility either.
Previous generations who were not 'upwardly mobile' managed to toilet train their kids didn't they?

Yeah, and I'm not too sure what to do about that, except that I really don't think we should just forget about them. After all it isn't their fault their parents have made terrible choices.

I hope those kids are in the minority anyway (I guess it depends which newspaper you read...).

bompington

If you're a politician, what gets you the best return?

It's usually setting a target (x% to get y qualifications) somewhere around the middle and then prioritising the effort on getting all those just below the target to just above it. It's certainly the way the educational system works around here.
It can be argued that this is a good way to spend your money and effort - the bell curve means that you are at least targeting the biggest proportion this way - but it does mean that those who are cruising along fine can be safely ignored, with no real incentive for either the pupils or teachers to stretch them further.

This comes down to a fairly fundamental question - what is education for? Ironically, it's not just the evil boo hiss tories who think of it in individualistic terms - the lefties also focus on "how is educational system x fair or unfair to each individual?" rather than considering how the whole country gains from having well-educated people. The politics of envy and zero-sum economics rear their ugly heads here - the idea that if some do better, others must necessarily do worse. There is nothing inevitable about that - grammar schools are only iniquitous if they separate the elite, who get all the money and resources, from the rest, who get slums. Supposing you funded non-grammar schools better, gave teachers bonuses for working in them, and used them for what they were originally intended for, trade and vocational education? It could actually work.

The solutions are not easy or obvious, but it is clear that this country needs better education for the elite for the benefit of all - and better education for all, right down to the lowest achievers, for the benefit of all. I've seen with my own (bleary) eyes the students in a Kenyan school getting up before 5am to do their homework, and then staying at their desks till 10pm. Every day. They do it because they believe it's the way to a better future: where is that culture in this country?

Anyway, that's used up pretty much all my non-contact time for today, so I suppose I'd better go and teach some kids now.

Stevo_666

mamba80 wrote:

Stevo 666 wrote:

mamba80 wrote:

Stevo 666 wrote:

bompington wrote:

The countries that outrank us in all the educational league tables do so because of the commitment of families to education, not some superior system or higher spending.

Some people on here need to let this sink in.

Why is that? is it because other countries have invested more into education over time? so the kids they produced decades ago are now parents and have better parenting skills/education, able to support their children far better than our lot.

education is a long term investment.

not sure when the tories are spending 100's of billions on Trident and HS2 that you think only lefties can waste money

I'm not aware of schools on the continent teaching parenting skills so not sure how you come to that conclusion

you are a card arent you? comprehension not your strong point, so i ll spell out what i said........

Because our competitors have invested more over time, they have a generation of parents with better education and hence better parenting skills, the 2 as said before go hand in hand, so they dont need parenting classes, we obviously do.

the Tories have been in power for the majority of the time since the war, so they are mainly responsible for these issues, they never wanted universal education in the first place, so why would they invest in it?

Even though you were told that investment is not the issue.

Labour have been in for around 30 years post war, which is long enough for their nanny state policies to do some material damage.

On spending, time for another round or two of leftie mythbusters I think Education spend as a % of GDP by country: I think you'll find we are higher than quite a few countries, such as Germany. Netherlands, Spain, Austria, Switzerland, Canada. I could go on...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_spending_on_education_(%25_of_GDP)

Jez mon

Interesting list, numbers on it are around 10 years out of date, though.

If labour have been in power for ~30 years post war, then that has surely given the tories ~40 years to remedy the supposed evils of the labour govt.

The "nanny state" argument is persuasive though. Although it does sound like something that would come out of the mouth of someone who exclusively reads the telegraph ;-)