Bussing vibrancy to the middle-class English

Posted by Guessedworker on Tuesday, 18 October 2005 23:25.

In my not wholly affectionate paean of two days ago to the people’s Prime Minister, Anthony Lynton Blair, I called attention to his government’s not wholly noble or far-sighted educational policies.

They are, you see, a bit strong on the old social engineering, especially if you happen to be middle-class and would prefer little Twystrum and Tabitha to be schooled with other English children like themselves. It’s so much easier if their new little friends haven’t got to flop down in the direction of Folkestone five times a day or haven’t started thinking about sex yet. But that doesn’t mean that all those other funny little fellas aren’t jolly nice little chaps, too. Oh no, no, no.

And, certainly, it doesn’t mean that the Prime Minister’s courageous policies aren’t slap bang out of the centre of British politics. As we all know, he really, really is a moderate, centre-of-the-road sort of guy. After all, he gets criticised – actually criticised – for gluing himself to the latest focus group findings. I mean , how consensualist is that?

Or this?

Free bus travel for children from council estates will be announced next week as part of the Government’s effort to end the middle class stranglehold on popular schools.

“Choice advisers” will tell parents about schools outside their areas to which they can apply and help them through the admissions process.

Groups of schools will be allowed to test children and put them into ability bands, sharing out the most and least able so that their intakes reflect the profile of the local authority or national area.

Although the “fair banding” system will not be compulsory, the Government will strongly encourage schools to adopt it to end the so-called admission by postcode lottery, which rewards those families that can afford to move closest to schools with the best reputation. Research has shown that schools in middle class areas have a higher proportion of top band children.

… Ruth Kelly, the Education Secretary, told a conference in London yesterday that she was working on “how we can get families living on council estates to exercise their choice in as powerful a way as those from more privileged backgrounds”.

She argues that parental choice has been concentrated in the hands of middle class families. She told the Labour Party conference last month that all parents should be able to choose the school that was right for their child.

“For too long, access to some schools was open only to those who could afford to buy an expensive house next to a good school, while the rest were told to accept what they were given,” she said. “There was nothing fair about that approach.”

No, Miss Kelly there’s nothing fair about your approach. It means forcing your liberal fantasy of a happy-happy world of Allsorts, complete with the liquorice mysteriously bucking the cranial cavity issue, onto real middle-class white children with real, heart-rending costs to them. Not that your heart will rend, of course. Your own children, I understand, will be educated in a nicely insulated Catholic school. Don’t you think you should bus them to Brixton before you bus Brixton to Dulwich?

The Telegraph article continues:-

The proposals form part of Tony Blair’s campaign to increase social mobility and bring fairness to public services. They demonstrate his frustration at his Government’s inability to raise school standards in some of the toughest areas.

Can there be a single MR reader who sees those words, “… his Government’s inability to raise school standards in some of the toughest areas”, and does not wonder how much more evidence of heritable intelligence liberals need before they get the message?

Meanwhile, that progressive fellow, Sir Cyril Taylor, has been at it again.

Middle class parents have nothing to fear, he said, because a greater social mixture of pupils will improve schools and give them more from which to choose. It would end the unfairness of narrow, shrinking catchment areas which deprive parents living just outside of any choice.

Sir Cyril said: “It is not some kind of social diktat or American-style enforced de-segregation but groups of schools working together and children travelling on yellow buses instead of parents having to drive them all over the place, polluting the atmosphere.”
Middle class parents could also benefit from the greater choice and mobility because good schools in poor areas, such as Government’s flagship academies, would be open to them, he said.

So here is the British government’s pet educational advisor answering middle-class dismay with nothing more positive than air pollution and the truly insane suggestion that “Middle class parents could also benefit from the greater choice and mobility because good schools in poor areas, such as Government’s flagship academies, would be open to them.”

I can hear the cries of joy going up in every urban middle-class household. So from what, exactly, does this gris eminence of the educational establishment think these parents have been fleeing in the first place? Quite astonishing. I’ll bet Sir Cyril’s grandchildren are all safely ensconced in nice white schools – and he won’t be pressing too hard for them to be moved, eyes stinging with tearful gratitude, to a government “flagship”.

In my October 16th post I tried to show that to remake society against the laws of nature is always extremist and will always tend to greater extremism as the failures rack up. Tony Blair presents himself with supreme skill as a centrist. But racially socialist government programmes just don’t belong to the centre. They belong to the marxist left. I only wish the Tories had the balls to argue that and make a proper case for the political centre, if that’s what they think they are there for.

It would, though, be a pro-English case.

Tags: Education

Comments:

Posted by Geoff Beck on Wed, 19 Oct 2005 02:24 | #

> Middle class parents have nothing to fear, he said, because a greater social mixture of pupils will improve schools and give them more from which to choose. It would end the unfairness of narrow, shrinking catchment areas which deprive parents living just outside of any choice.

In my parts I’m seeing more and more young Blacks traversing my neigborhood on the miniature bicycles. I think the Mexicans are pushing them out of their traditional homes.

Whites have to be very careful, every neighborhood has a tipping point: once a critical mass of Blacks move in the schools fail, crime rises, and then property values DROP.

One’s investment can be ruined.

The only way to protect one’s home and family is to move into an expensive area with HIGH property taxes. This is the only way.

Posted by Robert on Wed, 19 Oct 2005 02:36 | #

Interesting. This might be the start of something I’ve long-awaited, seemingly in vain: the Great Labour Crack-Up.

In the 1990s Labour realised that, if it wanted to win elections, it had to stop frightening the middle classes. So it ditched a lot of socialist rhetoric and even came-up with a new name to emphasise the change: New Labour. Now, though, it looks like it may be mutating back to Old Labour, or some variant of it. With a substantially-reduced majority in the House of Commons, this is something Tony Blair be unable to avoid.

I was going to say most middle-class parents are obsessed about their childrens’ education. However, for most of them, obsessed does not describe their feelings strongly enough; especially those who have paid a hefy premium for a house in the catchment area of a good school. So proposals for school bussing – despite the governments’ strenuous denial, that is undoubtedly exactly what this policy is – are going to frighten them every bit as much as old-time talk of nationalisation and confiscatory taxation. Come the next election, New Labour may find much of its support has disappeared as a result, especially if, in addition, the economy is in the doldrums and unemployment is rising.

It’s also ironic that New Labour is proposing a policy that, perhaps more than any other, actually entrenched segregation in America’s schools. In the 1960s and 70s, bussing was a major cause of white flight from the cities to the suburbs. In 1974 the courts imposed a desegregation order on Boston’s public (state) schools. In the following year more than a third of the pupils left.

Posted by john fitzgerald on Wed, 19 Oct 2005 02:44 | #

The Tories follow liberal ideology, if they didn’t they wouldn’t know what to think.
The BNP could do with an education spokesmen. Our policies make sense, but need to
have more impact with the middle class.
http://www.bnp.org.uk/candidates2005/manifesto/manf8.htm

Posted by Frick Chember on Wed, 19 Oct 2005 04:12 | #

This is appalling. It is unlikely to help anyone, but almost certainly will damage a few of those who are obliged to make up the numbers at the crumby schools. The social mobilty that Labour ostensibly crave is already in practice; parents tend to move as close to good schools as they can afford.

Posted by Lurker on Wed, 19 Oct 2005 04:26 | #

If Labour were really worried about social mobility they would reinstate the grammar schools. Of course they cant do that it would be elitist.

Posted by Martin Hutchinson on Wed, 19 Oct 2005 14:32 | #

Labour’s toast in 2009; they’d have been near-toast this year if the Tories had the sense to keep IDS. However, if the Tories are crazy enough to elect Cameron, it may well be the LibDems who benefit, with the Tories down to single digits and a 15%-20% vote for the BNP.

Democracy is a pretty inefficient form of government, but the one essential is to keep your side pointed in the right direction, so the good guys benefit from the swing of the pendulum when it happens, and you can then have at least a few years of decent government. Aping the opposition is not only pointless, but it risks decades of exile when the policies that ape the opposition are proved not to work. In any case, moderate policies are almost always disastrous; quite often the extreme in either direction works better than the bureaucrat-fudged compromise.

The GOP are about to discover this after the useless Bush; the next 20 years’ US governments will be isolationist, pro-international bureaucracy, big spending, high tax and hopelessly destructive of the US economy. A sensible party would have learned from the failures of the first Bush, and not promoted another one.

Posted by Phil on Wed, 19 Oct 2005 19:46 | #

When I read posts like these, I feel like moving to Germany, Austria or Switzerland lock, stock and barrel.

But I won’t. Running from problems means the problems chase you where you go. You’ve got to deal with it in the here and now. No choice in the matter.

Posted by Phil on Wed, 19 Oct 2005 19:51 | #

Labour’s toast in 2009

I don’t think anyone can predict that today. Politics can change quite rapidly. Mrs Thatcher looked impregnable in 1987 but was out by 1990.

John Major looked toast in 1992 but survived. Winston Churchill lost in 1945 after five years of the most incredible leadership in the greatest war in history.

So, fingers crossed. It would nice to get rid of Labour for a few years. But I am not getting my hopes up. And the Tories are pretty useless except in patches.

The BNP getting 20 percent at the expense of the Tories would be better than labour losing. It would send the entire establishment into the hissy fit.

Posted by Lukrer on Thu, 20 Oct 2005 03:25 | #

GW, anybody - you might want to look in on this blog:

http://www.livejournal.com/users/mr_chalk/

Posted by Guessedworker on Thu, 20 Oct 2005 11:42 | #

Lurker,

Thanks for the link. That guy is, to all intents and purposes, one of us - even if he doesn’t fully realise it yet. Experience is the hardest but most effective of all teachers.

I especially enjoyed this all too true list of teaching term definitions:-

ADD = Has never been taught to sit still.

ADHD = naughty pupil who’s mother has discovered that she can claim disability allowance for a child with ADHD

Behavioural difficulties = A ****ing nightmare

Challenging pupil = Little shit

College - A place where pupils go to fail exams after they have failed the ones they did at St. Thickchilds.

Coursework = Work that is done by middle class parents.

Depression - (As in Miss Jones is now off with depression)= The doctor won’t sign me off with stress again.

Detention - A chance to annoy the teacher, knowing that they are not being paid for their time

Differentiation = The amusing idea that a teacher has nothing better to do of an evening than dream up six different lessons for the same class

Dyslexic = Useful excuse_easier than remembering spellings. Mother has pestered doctor to diagnose dyslexia.

Exclusion = A few days off to play Grand Theft Auto. Or roam the streets playing it for real.

Ghosts = ex Pupils who are unable to ever truly leave. They must haunt the school grounds forever.

Headteacher = PC word to avoid the sniggers when announcing “I’m the Head Mistress” (Fwoarrr!!!)

Inclusion = A policy of ignoring bad behaviour

Invertebrate - Creature lacking backbone (See S.M.T.)

Learning difficulties. = thick

Learning impaired = ****ing thick

Mixed Ability Teaching - A method of boring the clever pupils whilst baffling the dim ones by having a huge range of abilities not learning together in the same room. See “Setting”

Offensive Behaviour = Calling a black pupil, an Asian or a girl, rude names. If you are white and a boy then tough luck buddy.

Permanent Exclusion_ I’ve never heard this one (see Inclusion) but I believe it means expelled

Setting - The obvious idea that it is easier to teach a class made up of a small range of abilities rather than a large one. Considered un PC for reasons I cannot fathom.

Sick Building Syndrome - I’m not sure what this refers to but our school building looks pretty unwell to me. Posssible staff excuse for non-attendance i.e. “Doctor says I’ve got Sick building syndrome” = “The poor doctor is sick of seeing me”

S.M.T. = Senior Mangement Team. A bunch of incompetant buffoons who would last 5 minutes in the private sector.

Special Needs = Nightmare child

Stress - (As in Miss Jones is off with stress)= A preference to taking extended holidays rather than dealing with everyday problems.

Students = Another PC word for the kids which I find quite strange (Doesn’t student imply something to do with study?)

Study Leave = The practice of wandering round the streets or hanging round school premises causing trouble the week before GCSE’s

University - Not applicable

Waifs = The group of pupils who have stormed out, been thrown out or are simply avoiding lessons. They are drawn together by mysterious forces and sometimes interact with the Ghosts (See above)

Posted by john rackell on Fri, 21 Oct 2005 03:57 | #

No Child Left Behind: =

from a news headline - Stateline.org - titled Students Show Almost No Gains In Reading

In the latest snapshot of how well American schoolchildren are learning, national test results showed a small gain in math proficiency in the past two years but nearly zero improvement in reading scores since 1992 despite more than a decade of focus on boosting student achievement.

No child left behind - Get it!! - If no kids are improving, then no kid is getting left behind. Simplicity itself, a tautology even - all intractable education problems solved.