In the news

Em, you know trickle down economy? Tax breaks for rich means they spend stuff on us?

Oh wait "hard measures, difficult decisions, british grit"?

Blitz spirit!

All this Grammar school talk got me wondering what my old Grammar in Aylesbury is up to these days, and it seems the 1980's school trips to Lloret de Mar for a weekend have now been upgraded to "cultural exchange visits to Malawi".

Sounds mighty accessible to me!

And let's face it, you were never going to be the kid in the green t-shirt

To be fair, the grammar school up the road from where I work is struggling so much with recent funding cuts they've been asking parents who can afford it to subsidise them £500/year for textbooks etc.

The state sector as a whole, selective or not, is collapsing, and soon the only non-independent schools who can afford to pay staff, run trips, buy books etc will be free schools and academy chains. Which will then be a 'success story' for the rest of the schools to emulate.

Teaching will be a job done in six-month stints by management consultants reluctantly doing corporate social responsibility, apart from in the North and in deprived coastal towns where it will be an unaffordable luxury in our bafflingly stuttering post-Brexit economy.

This is no fun without someone trying to defend it.

My experience of Tories (as opposed to Conservatives) is that most a) disagree with any of the left's economic arguments point blank, and b) dislike large government on principle - a consequence is cutting spending.

Conservatives IME have the sort of confused relationship with the State that Labour has with socialism.

Who are you really and when were you there? (Graham Shortt, Ridley, 1992 to 1998)

I left in 1988

Just googled my old grammar (Norn Iron, where selective education never died) - the 24-hr coach trip to Lille has been replaced with Bangladesh and Malawi. 'Children in the Lower Sixth have been gaining work experience in dentistry and medicine...' Dafuq have the Malawians done to deserve a bunch of privileged Irish kids wrenching their teeth out?

The state sector as a whole, selective or not, is collapsing

It's being underfunded by the Government whilst they cynically deflect attention by blaming "education tourists" (i.e. more of them foreign types, stirring more xenophobia) for coming over here and getting their children educated in the state system for free.

To be fair, the grammar school up the road from where I work is struggling so much with recent funding cuts they've been asking parents who can afford it to subsidise them £500/year for textbooks etc.

At the (single form entry, i.e. 210 pupil) primary school where my daughter goes the parents already raise about £50k a year to do a variety of things (buy some new stuff that would otherwise be unaffordable to the school, but also to cover shortfalls and replace old/worn items such as carpets and books).

The upcoming funding cuts are especially deep in London because they know that the parents are more likely to be able to fund the shortfall.

the school i went to is now required to admit black kids. crazy times.

I can understand "small government" to an extent, but do they really think everybody can homeschool their kids?

Ultimately education is an investment on society that returns if you do it well. It most come with a view that some of us [so yeah 70% of the UK then...] don't deserve investment and we are write-offs?

What's interesting is that the welfare state has its roots (arguably) in the (poor) physical condition of the men presenting themselves at recruiting stations at the time of the Boer war (this is not related to Greenhell), i.e. ensuring that the nation is (in general) healthy is a purely pragmatic political stance to take, based on the understanding that if society as a whole meets a general level of (in this case) physical ability then that same society benefits.

That the society in question should invest in itself in order to (attempt) to guarantee said level of ability is, now, condemned as the most ridiculous type of loony-left socialism, but that doesn't stop it from being a good idea.

What this means is that the small-state idealogues are promulgating a political reality that enfeebles the society of which they are members, Brexit is a great example of this type of idiocy- I've still to hear a single reason from someone who voted Brexit for said vote that suvives even casual scrutiny.

Bah.

And let's face it, you were never going to be the kid in the green t-shirt

that is a decent british christian child who thanks to his parents work ethic and can-do attitude is being fast tracked to heaven through rapture+ which is now available exclusively for households earning in excess of £200k pa.

What a load of bullshit.

If anything shows us that selective education / private education is a failure it's the almost comically under-qualified (in every sense) people we now have running the country who were specifically groomed for such a purpose.

Grammar school for the disabled on the other hand...

@Dammit @hugo7 @WillMelling

I was surprised to find 'ordinary working families' is defined:

The government defines "ordinary working families" as those that are not eligible for pupil premium [free school meals/in care] but have below average incomes

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-39590198

Again. Pure conjecture.

Did you go to a private school, Skinny?

Or should I say, Lord Skinston of Cycling Manor.

You feel they're doing a good job?

Their establishment of education isn't a factor on whether I think they're doing a good job.
I don't agree with grammar schools.

Yes. A private boarding school. And then a state run 6th form.

I remember when I went to university meeting public-school people for the first time. It was a bit like meeting an astronaut, or a mass murderer, you knew they existed but had never encountered one. I don't think I'd met anyone who could even reliably be described as middle-class before university. Even though I went to a grammar school where, as late as 1977, some of the teachers wore a gown and mortar board when the mood took them.
One of my brothers also went to the grammar, the other two didn't, they were hived off to the 'seccy modern'. Those two have done much better in life. All of which goes to prove nothing much.