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UK General Election 2017 |OT2| No Government is better than a bad Government

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What?

Am I just confused as to what a grammar school is?

I assume it's in reference to paying a tutor to coach exam technique but that's a one off investment and a drop in the ocean compared to prep/public school fees.

Yeah, and as Bo-Locks said - (great name btw) - they're often in middle class areas. Geographically, logistically, historically, they're not usually a benefit to working class kids. It's just not the way they've been geared in the past so I understand the opposition and scepticism and tend to agree with it. Where there are grammar schools, the pool of eligible children is often larger than the number of places available, making selection - or missing out on selection - potentially all the more arbitrary and cruel.

I have a problem with the age - and stage of development - kids are usually at when they qualify for selection too. It is at a time in their life when they are still at their most dependent upon their family or the state for resources. As others have said, some kids are afforded private tuition to help them pass the test(s), while others are just inherently disadvantaged by their circumstances. Can you even remember what you were like at age 11? What you had yet to learn?

My experience local to where I live in the North West for example, is that the big local grammars are like whirlpools for the children of affluent families, either a good distance away, or unattainable for those in our less well off areas for various other reasons.

Well the obvious solution to that problem is to have well regarded grammar schools in all areas.

Maybe.

I get that there may be a theoretical benefit to having more selective options available - ie. it might lead to a competition for places that drives up standards, but from what I understand - evidence seems to suggest the contrary. That they merely undermine standards in comprehensives.

I would prefer to see more effort put in to driving up STEM standards across the board, and investing in higher education for those who have the potential to excel outside of these sort of educational structures of times gone by. Dividing kids up and so explicitly and deliberately putting them on different tracks so early in life seems unfair to me, at least until such time as - as you suggest - the opportunity becomes more readily available to all. The post code lottery that is Britain is so insidious at the moment, that I understand why talk of more selective, exclusive schools riles people up. Austerity has seen this government abdicate so much responsibility over the state of our poorer regions - I think any education policy around this sort of thing needs to comprehensively explain why it proposes what it does, and how it is going to help people of all backgrounds. And if it can't, that raises questions. I don't think the government have made a good case for grammars, personally.

Redressing some of the social problems and inequity that we have in this country can be done through providing uplifts in education to those who need it most. If new grammar proposals where addressing the problems with things like the 11 plus, making these schools more widespread and attainable, I'd be taking another look, but it all sounds to me like some wistful yearning for some bygone age when Latin was drilled in to people, and priests administered the cane.


Sad I'm not watching this btw :(
 
That thing kmag posted says "Grammar school pupils do demonstrate significantly higher levels of attainment" though?



Well, it says that they only do "slightly less well".

That whole thing seems to be saying the problem is not getting enough bright poor kids into grammar schools. Maybe we should work on sorting that problem out rather than scrapping the whole idea? The ones that do get in do really well!

The solution is in not having schools where access is largely gated by how rich and able to game the system your parents are. A more fair school system is far better, some would say, more comprehensive.
 
Theresa May still doesn't seem to have realised that she's lost the election. She is still talking as if nothing has happened, she is still making the same false pledges that she made in her very first speech as Prime Minister. Why does she not recognise that she is entirely devalued? Why do the Conservatives speak of humility but exhibit none?

She just stated that inequality is at its lowest in thirty years. I don't know what statistics magic they're using to come up with that, but nobody believes it Theresa.
 
Theresa May still doesn't seem to have realised that she's lost the election. She is still talking as if nothing has happened, she is still making the same false pledges that she made in her very first speech as Prime Minister. Why does she not recognise that she is entirely devalued? Why do the Conservatives speak of humility but exhibit none?
They've got the blinkers on, it looks like.
 
Theresa May still doesn't seem to have realised that she's lost the election. She is still talking as if nothing has happened, she is still making the same false pledges that she made in her very first speech as Prime Minister. Why does she not recognise that she is entirely devalued? Why do the Conservatives speak of humility but exhibit none?

She just stated that inequality is at its lowest in thirty years. I don't know what statistics magic they're using to come up with that, but nobody believes it Theresa.

She can't admit she's not as powerful or the Tory party will oust her and the right wing media will drop her.

She's clinging on to whatever she has left. Her entire career is over.
 
I don't want to get all anti-unity but, and hear me out on this, this is essentially Blair's fault. It strikes me as wildly implausible that somehow everyone on the hard left of the Labour Party was bound to be a poor performer. Instead, most people are poor performers until they had regular practice. This used to be gained from Cabinet and Shadow Cabinet experience - e.g., Blair under Smith, Smith under Kinnock, Kinnock under Callaghan, and so on. But Blair's Cabinets (after the first set) were an 'intellectual monoculture'. He didn't select people from all across the party, but instead only people who supported his line of thought. That meant when Blairism came to a dormant period, as all ideologies tend to do, you either had good-performing Blairites or unconvincing lefties, which put the party in a bit of a bind. Now he's had some time to cut his teeth, Corbyn has grown into the role significantly, and it's a shame to think how much talent we lost because Blair moved away from the old Labour mantra of a cabinet of all the talents.

Interesting point. Lets hope that Corbyn doesn't make the same mistake, although I can appreciate why he doesn't feel like he can dump his allies just yet.
 
As a timetable, this speech will be debated in the Commons until next Wednesday, at which point other parties can start introducing amendments. The Queen's Speech must pass without amendments or it is considered to have failed. Thursday is the last opportunity to introduce amendments. So by next Thursday, we'll know what's going on
and will henceforth be banished to the dank pit that is Community
.
 
That thing kmag posted says "Grammar school pupils do demonstrate significantly higher levels of attainment" though?



Well, it says that they only do "slightly less well".

That whole thing seems to be saying the problem is not getting enough bright poor kids into grammar schools. Maybe we should work on sorting that problem out rather than scrapping the whole idea? The ones that do get in do really well!


In Kent we have grammar schools.

They take away the top 25% of pupils from 'comps' (by passing 11+), they are often already at C grade as they enter so C-A 'attainment' is expected in the top 25%.

Comps have the bottom 75% so have to work even harder, if you see a comp with 70% a*-C that school has great teachers and is well run. Kids that go to grammar would do just as well at a good comp.

You'll often find the top 25% in a county with no grammars will do just as well as those in a grammar.

We don't need grammars, just good schools for all children and accept the bottom 25% will never be grade A students.

The Tory academy system is pretty good, it has turned around lots of schools with high 'pupil premium' numbers and produced good (relative) results. It'll be a shame to go more selective and let the rest suffer to be counted as 'bad schools'.
 
Anyone got a link to a credible source with those wage growth stats? I wanna show it to a friend who believes the Tories are better for the economy.

I don't trust tweeters who provide no sources.
 
Not that surprising when you think about it - grammar school alumni are usually well educated, and well educated people are less likely to vote Tory.
Yet Tories want more of us. Its a weird circular thinking of 'we're creating non-Tory voters' vs their inherent support of elitism coupled with their only understanding being clinical and cold; 'well, grammar schools have better results.' Without thinking of the negatives.

It was funny because my partner, not a grammar school alumni, was listening to people are her work discuss how 'only uneducated people vote Labour.' Not 'more' but 'only.'

They were later asked to justify why they support the Tories and couldn't do so, I'll assume the irony was lost on them.

All the art and philosophy majors are skewing the numbers.
I heard something akin to this and saw lots of comments on Yougov about it. Lots of angry, old folks saying how younger people skew the numbers and are definitely more stupid than the aged intelligentsia of the 'University of Life.'

I doing a quick search for inofrmation about this I actually found this real, unironic chart from The Mail:

Obviously its 'world IQ' so, if accurate, would require nuanced thought more than what its supposed to make its readership think; 'young people are stupid.'

This is part of it though. The older members of our society seem to have a real crippling insecurity about their own intelligence relative to younger people. I can only assume its because they know deep down that education is better now, more people go to University and the young's ease of use in regards to technology makes them outclassed
in a lot of senses.

Its definitely spurred on by the media a lot though, I remember when I was going through my A-Levels I had a comment made to me about 'how easy A-Levels are' and how they're 'easier than the GCEs I did when I was 16' which struck me as somewhat insane. I told them that my grades were means-tested. On realization that they didn't know what this meant, they sort of just repeated earlier comments.

Sorry for the rambling nature of this, its very hot in my office right now and I'm not entirely sure I'm thinking straight.
 
As a timetable, this speech will be debated in the Commons until next Wednesday, at which point other parties can start introducing amendments. The Queen's Speech must pass without amendments or it is considered to have failed. Thursday is the last opportunity to introduce amendments. So by next Thursday, we'll know what's going on
and will henceforth be banished to the dank pit that is Community
.

So an approved amendment about no real border between Northern Ireland and Ireland after Brexit could sink the government? For example.
 
So an approved amendment about no real border between Northern Ireland and Ireland after Brexit could sink the government? For example.

Hmm. Complicated. Quite clearly, an amendment stating 'This House has no confidence in Her Majesty's Government' would sink the government. An amendment of any other form passing would be controversial. On precedent, it might be considered as having the same form as a confidence motion even under the Fixed Term Parliaments Act, in which case yes. But the government could argue that any other amendment is no longer considered a confidence motion under the FTPA, in which case it wouldn't directly sink the government. However, it would by precedent remain a resignation issue, so May would have to resign and the Conservatives select a new leader, which could indirectly sink the government. However, precedent is only convention and May could break with it, although this might be subject to a legal challenge.

tl;dr it's complicated and the answer is only 'probably'.
 
Gamed? The kid still has to pass a test to get in right? Are they sitting the test for them?


They are tutored. Just like AST and SAT. They are coached and paid by rich parents to get in. I taught in an academy and you are set the same academic targets with students that generally have an academic ceiling so removes funding from comprehensive schools.
 
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