On the De Facto Monopoly of State education

and the thought by some that the market has no place there because it creates winners and loses.

Markets create winners and losers, for sure, but it is almost always the customer that is the winner and the poorly performing provider that is the loser. If the poor performer learns their lesson, they can become a winner again.

Education is not there to provide employment for teachers.

I will say that again. Education is not there to provide employment for teachers.

If you have just enough places for pupils, you must rely on proactive intervention to fix a bad school and bad teachers. There is no hard, unavoidable incentive otherwise for bad schools to fix themselves, i.e. teachers standing in front of empty classrooms.

Just think of coming into a town where there are just enough restaurant settings for all the people who wish to eat. How good will those restaurants be? What value would you get? What service?

Some will be natural restauranteurs, dedicated and provide a great service. The queue will be round the block.

The others will still have no HARD need to change, for they will get customers through the door. No, not just customers, they will have a full house! Every night! A full house of customers with no choice remaining, no option but have their money taken in return for what? Slops. If a fight kicks off in the restaurant and you struggle to eat, if at all, then hard cheese.

As long as there is one substandard State school in this de facto monopoly, the State is failing children and guilty of all manner of injustices. One could almost include false imprisonment.

Now, back to a proper world:

A surplus of restaurants and tables will still result in the best places having a queue round the block, but the “unlucky” will still be infinitely more lucky in their second, third or even fourth choices than in the previous scenario, for a bad restaurant will be almost always empty and people will not come back the moment they learn of something better.

Anyone who tries to assert that “education is not like a restaurant” is, I am afraid, howling at the moon and trying to maintain their own delusions by trying to convince others of the same folly they believe in.

Education is not there to employ teachers. Bad teachers should be unemployed teachers. With surplus spaces, bad teachers will be confronted with the choice of “improve or die”. I am quite certain the overwhelming number will improve and most will rapidly become good teachers. Those who cannot improve? What are those who object to surplus places now saying? That you WANT to keep those unreformable teachers in front of my kids? To hell with you!

The conceit is of those who think they can reform a monopoly. No they cannot. They think they are or could be so in control, or know of someone else so in control and so talented, more talented than the combined energies of all the minds of all the parents? Show me these Übermensch! Bring them forth!

Education: Anything but the obvious

Our Dear Leader is about to pronounce on education.

"Where there is significant parental dissatisfaction with the pattern of local secondary school provision and where standards across an area are too low, the local authority will be required to act. Action could mean either federation of underperforming schools with excellent schools, expansion of good schools and in some cases entirely new schools."

One would have thought that Local Authorities were always "required to act", in fact they should not even need parents to tell them, but to KNOW that their schools are patchy and many mediocre. One suspects that LEAs have had a tin ear for a very long time. Labour solution - more law, targets, monitoring instead of the simple, highly effective, self-regulating mechanism of the market, i.e stop preventing schools from being established.

By removing the barriers, new schools can be formed in areas where people feel there is a need for good schools, so bringing competition and surplus places. Surplus places will allow a bad school to be abandoned. In reality, if evidence from Sweden is to be used, bad schools shape up rather than ship out. The constant surplus of places - a concept that the State systemically cannot cope with - keeps everyone on their toes, for each knows that if they slide, they will end up with empty classrooms, no income from vouchers and a search for a new job. It also allows people to move house without the constant panic of where their kids will be go. If we have generally good or outstanding schools with surplus capacity, that concern will be significantly reduced. Right now it is a nightmare.

The Tories give the impression they want to go down this route, but they still wish to have central control. Instead of the LPUK mechanism of removing barriers, the Tories stick to their Authoritarian roots and wish for LEAs to "ask" if they can be "permitted" to open new schools and that the Tories wish to "bring in big business". The former will not work if you a) are unlucky enough to have an LEA Trotskyite Soviet and/or an LEA that realises they will lose power, control and an excuse for their massive bureaucracy or b) if the Tories decide your case is not good enough. This and the latter are both ripe for corruption and influence peddling. Damnable stuff and should be avoided like the plague.

Gordon is having none of the freedoms the LPUK wish to bring (back) in.

But Mr Brown will say that while there is a role for parents running schools where they wish to, the vast majority of parents do not want the burden of running their own school. They want world class teachers and school providers to do it for them, he will say.

OK, so because some don't want to run schools, NOBODY except the LEA is going to be permitted to do so. Where is the logic in that? It is totally non-sequitur, a three card trick. Don't waste your time trying to apply logic and reason to Gordon's stance - it is pure, unadulterated, steaming dogma. I also do not believe for one moment that "parents running schools where they wish to" will ever be permitted under Labour. I think the Daily Telegraph has misunderstood or been very kind. Lets see what the speech actually says later today.

The Prime Minister will say parent power does need strengthening in other ways. Where there is significant parental dissatisfaction with the pattern of local secondary school provision and where standards across an area are too low, the local authority will be required to act, he will tell teachers.

All this management would not be needed if you just left schools alone. Good, oversubscribed, schools would tend to push to expand themselves naturally. Under-performing schools would federate or link up to learn how to improve or, possibly, be taken over by neighbouring schools. Stop preventing new schools from being founded and they will be founded. It does NOT need the LEA or "some pronouncement by Him" to "make it so". Control, insecurity, vanity. It is all there.

This fumbling, unresponsive, decades late realisation of what to do about our schools is a classic example of why the State should not be in the job of education provision. This move seems to have the sole purpose of trying to lance the boil of dissatisfaction without dealing with the underlying causes. No delivery except to reduce the attractiveness of voting Tory - or is that "not voting Labour". The latter, methinks. It is pure politics, cynical.

The Tories and Labour do not have the right answers. They are both too Authoritarian and appear incapable of trusting the professionals in the Teaching profession - mainly Heads - or the common sense and "bush telegraph" of parents to sniff out the good and the bad.

The LPUK alone in understands that Heads and parents are the best agents in forming a world-class educational system. It is irrational to think one can form a perfect system with no errors or gaps by central control, tendering out or a GOSPLAN. Such a system will be slow to respond, subject to political dogma, open to corruption and highly likely to be wrong on far too many occasions, with no easy way out for parents. In contrast, the LPUK proposals will enable parents to have a good opportunity to bypass any localised flaws, for there is no compulsion, no monopoly and no central point of failure.

DECLARATION OF INTEREST: I am a parent. I am looking for a good school. Good schools are like hen's teeth. I have considered Surrey over the last few weeks and so I did a survey of all the primary schools in Surrey and went through all the OFSTED reports. Some excellent schools but, depressingly, far too many "satisfactory" schools, where you can see the only reason they are so is that nothing was seen to warrant unsatisfactory. That, to me, is not good enough. Not even CLOSE.

In pretty much every case of an outstanding school, the Head was the bedrock, the well from which the culture was drawn. This to me this is clear evidence that the LEA is not really critical in the quality of the school. If Surrey has a bad LEA, why as many outstanding schools? If Surrey has a good LEA, why so many mediocre schools? No, the LEA is not the deciding factor, so why should it have the A, as in "Authority" in its name?

LEAs might consider becoming LEDs - Local Education Departments - to advise schools should the schools wish to make use of their services. The LED should be entirely funded by those schools who wish to use its services while other companies or voluntary school collectives/mutuals should not be prevented from setting up and providing central administration or other functions if they wish. If the LED is doing a good job and providing value, then great. If it is not, then either shape up or ship out. If the LEA better consider it long and hard under the LPUK, for the alternative is oblivion.

Private School Pupils to coach Comprehensive Kids?

Private School pupils to be asked to coach children in Comprehensives.

Sorry, I had to just delete a load of random characters from this post as my jaw dropped onto the keyboard. I mean how can anyone put this forward without deafening dissonance over State "education"? The fundamental problems exist in the State sector. Their answer:- paper over the cracks, dab on some Savlon.

How about cutting down the razorwire that slices the future of our children into a bloody mess?

The solution is for the government to get OUT of Education provision. No more national curriculum. No more enforced exam boards. No more LEA stranglehold. Heads, teachers and parents know best. Leave them alone to get on with it.

There is almost no money left to re-paper over the cracks.

Our educational system is crumbling. We have the LSC dithering about because it has run out of money (but not their own salaries, natch). We have Ed Balls passing the buck and basically being incompetent as the State runs out of money again and pulls the rug from under establishments. We have the dumbing down, the abdication of responsibility and the general rot at the core.

I am going to go into the quality of examinations which are the tip of the iceberg which indicates the quality of that hidden beneath the waves.

Before I do that, there is an excellent post by Leg Iron which rails against the bitter fruits being harvested in our Educational system and the thrust I solidly agree with.

Children have been "empowered" and adults have been intimidated and eviscerated as part of the cult of youth. Of course the Fabians and Righteous love the youth - they don't know enough to see through their lies. They are like Mao mischievously whipping up his Red Guards.

What I wanted to add to the piece was the following:

Many children are in the second generation of this madness. Their parents were brought up in the "no winners, all winners" mentality. Indulged. Appeased. Squeezed through a comprehensive, unstreamed sausage machine to end up like end-of-term Plasticine. Their studies steadily stripped of useful content, critical reasoning, facts and structure to be replaced with "understanding", "projects" and other mechanisms to inveigle opinion and propaganda and undermine the capacity for students to grasp the fundamentals that would enable them to expose the lies.

You can see the difference by comparing the IGCSE and the GCSE for domestic consumption. The IGCSE asks for facts and for the individual to show how they understand the topic. The GCSE just presents question after question of "Match the four answers to the four questions" or, at best, multiple choice. It does not even test knowledge much of the time for once one obvious question is matched, the chance of getting the others wrong reduces dramatically, especially if one or two combinations can be discarded - it is hardly a test at all!

Examples:

From the IGCSE Question 1.

1 Four of the classes of vertebrates and five possible descriptions of these classes are shown

below.

Draw a straight line to match each class of vertebrate to its description.

Vertebrate:

bird

fish

mammal

reptile

class of vertebrate description

body with naked skin, two

pairs of limbs

body with hair, two pairs

of limbs

body with feathers, one

pair of wings

body with scales, with fins

body with scaly skin, two

pairs of limbs or no limbs

Note that there are 5 descriptions and 4 classes.

On the GCSE, we have a picture of a head with numbers 1 to 4 pointing to the ear, eye mouth and nose.

Match words, A, B, C and D, with the numbers 1ñ 4 on the drawing.

A contains light receptors

B contains receptors sensitive to some liquid chemicals

C contains sound receptors

D contains receptors sensitive to some gaseous chemicals

Once you know what the term "receptor" means, 2 answers are in the bag. There remains the last two and even if you do not know what "gaseous" means (apart from describing the contents of the exam setter's skull), it is pretty certain that liquid has to refer to the mouth. There is no trick answer. Oh no, can't have the darlings presented with a falsehood, for that might make them question if what they read is right or not!

The second question will start to show you where the high road and low road pull away from each other.

First the IGCSE, giving a question more in keeping with our memories of exams...

2 (a) Many communities treat their sewage and release non-polluting water into a local river.

What is meant by the term sewage?

[2 marks]

(b) Sometimes the sewage treatment works cannot deal with all of the sewage and

untreated material is released into the river.

Suggest the likely effects of releasing untreated sewage into a river.

[4 marks]

Oh my gor-dedede - kids asked to think and reason? Possibility of their being wrong? Good.

Lets see how the GCSE exercises the mind of our future wealth creators...

Match substances, A, B, C and D, with the numbers 1-4 in the table.

A cannabis

B painkiller

C antibiotic

D statin

Information

1 kills bacteria in the body

2 may lead to addiction to hard drugs

3 lowers the level of cholesterol in the blood

4 relieves some of the symptoms of the disease

Oh, another 4 questions and 4 answers. No attempt to see if incorrect information can be filtered out. Easy to use some form of elimination to get points even when some facts are not known. However one of the options (option 4) is actually pretty poorly put. Painkillers relieve PAIN. I suspect the author is confusing drugs like Paracetomol which can both reduce pain and lower temperature with the baseline concept of a painkiller. Doh!

Note also the subtle propaganda in Option 2.

Let us not jump to conclusions. Let us soldier on...

Question 3 in the IGCSE...

(a) (i) Name an organism from this food web that is a

primary consumer [1]

tertiary (third level) consumer [1]

producer [1]

(ii) Using information only from Fig. 3.1, complete the food chain.

→ → → → leopard [1]

(b) Fig. 3.2 shows a pyramid of numbers for a food chain from this food web.

Which organism in the food web would occupy the 3rd trophic level in this pyramid of numbers? [1]

(c) In some years a plague of locusts occurs.

Predict and explain what could happen to the population of baboons when this occurs. [4]

Currently we have a plague of Educationalist morons and the baboons are breeding like crazy, because the following is what the GCSE has to offer as its Q3...

Q3. This question is about IVF (in-vitro fertilisation).

Match structures, A, B, C and D, with the numbers 1ñ4 on the diagram.

A egg

B embryo

C fertilised egg

D sperm

Well, that really stretched me. Apart from the fact that the terms for IVF were not capitalised, the question is lame and certainly omits major key facts like how to claim for it off the NHS...(joke)

I shall not go on, for the GCSE is just a litany of matching equal numbers of statements together, or at best, multiple choice.

Question 4 in the GCSE is a ludicrous picture with a brain, spinal column, muscle and a dotted line from the finger to the spinal column. 4 arrows, 4 labels to match.

The IGCSE, on the other hand, has a cross-section of a flower and you have to label 3 parts. Now, this is infinitely harder as you need to know the parts. It is not "assign the labels to the arrows" but you have to find all three parts and draw on the arrow and correctly label it.

Where the GCSE has graphs where you have to match answers to questions, the IGCSE presents a table of data which you have to plot ONTO a piece of graph paper and then are asked your view on the data - "state, with a reason, the type of variation shown...".

I mean, I could go on but it is just so very sad to see that this is the level that 16 year olds are expected to aim for GCSE and that it permits all manner of subtle propaganda to be used. Is this simplicity needed because of the constant disruption? I mean, you hardly need a teacher to teach you the GCSE if that is what is called "testing".

The disease of "prizes for all" and covering up failure is still being forced upon the system. One teaching union and Ken Livingstone wants to end any form of parent choice at all, forcing kids to go to the nearest school, like-it-or-lump-it. How dare parents express an opinion?!!!! How DARE bad schools be exposed for what they are through lower rolls! How DARE schools want to decide what exam board or system they use!!!! Irony off.

It is a crying shame. I intend to see that schools are able to free themselves from the dead hand of the State so they will live or die on thier fitness for purpose, knowing that most schools will shape up when faced with that little understood (by Socialists) concept of competition. We need a surplus of places in any area so that if a school begins to fail, it can be abandoned as pupils find a better learning environment in other establishments.

It has to be done and, despite the plans of the Conservatives, which are not far enough and keep s the State's grip, the Libertarian Party is the only Party to really let schools, Heads, Teachers, parents and pupils shine.

Ed Balls, school admissions and the prostrate BBC

I may be mistaken, but I thought I just heard Ed Balls saying, so as to brush off concerns about school admissions and grandstand the "achievements under Labour", that where he lives all parents get their first choice of school.

Hold on, doesn't Ed Balls live in that special enclave where there is that "state" school - as in Grant Maintained and thus a de facto public school paid by the taxpayer* - surrounded by million quid homes. Come to think of it, we the taxpayer even have to pay for the upkeep of that Cooperballs residence!

Why does the BBC let this smug twerp get away with such outrageous statements? I suspect it is because the BBC is chock full of Fabian hypocrites who do precisely the same thing. 

Fact is you can resolve most of the admissions issues if you:

a) Introduce vouchers

b) Remove the need for schools to be beholden or administered via the LEA

c) Enable anyone to set up a school wherever they like

d) Keep the State away from the pedagogy, curriculum and exam boards used and let Heads, teachers and parents sort things out between themselves.

As far as I can tell the Tories are lacking in some areas of their Voucher scheme. Too much central control which will along with other aspects of their plan render vouchers ineffective and result in a drawing back of power to the centre, which is, frankly, what I suspect they really want.

Only one party has the right solution - The Libertarian Party.

* something we all should have via vouchers, but of course, Socialists and all such ladder kickers tell us we have to put up with something else. Hypocrites.

Dept of the Bleeding Obvious: Good Heads = good results.

It seems that Ofsted actually had to do a study to "find out" what common factors led to the turn-around in a number of previously "sink" schools.

Anyone with two braincells to rub together would, without a study or any form of Educationalist mumb0-jumbo, probably come up with the same answer.

A strong Head who kicked out sloppy and ill-disciplined teachers and disruptive kids.

What is certain is that, if left unchecked, the Satanic Embrace of the LEA and Teaching Unions would stop Heads and as likely as not hound them into early retirement or worse.

At one school the benchmark - for what it is - of 5GCSEs rose from 18% to 80%. And no, they did not expel 3/4 of the kids*.

The Fabian entropic model has held sway too long - excuses for poor performance because the area is  "deprived", which is, frankly, poppycock. These people WANT a dependent underclass. Ignorant, sloppy and lazy. Damn them all.

Kids are, almost always, a blank sheet. They can all become responsible, thinking, caring individuals. If the area they grow up in a rough area, now called "disadvantaged with a multi-faceted nexus of urban ills", and their parents, for whatever reason, do not provide structure, routine, discipline and aspiration, it is all the more important for the school to provide it. I am not saying schools MUST by central fiat, but if you leave things alone enough parents and professional teachers will create those environments. Yes, society, not the State, will create the environment so that the disadvantaged can climb the ladder. The School can be an oasis of safety, stimulation, order, fun and reinforcement in such areas. Right now, far too many just reflect the degenerating, violent, turd- and litter-strewn streets around them.

This is not rocket science. Schools run as a tight ship need not be brutal dungeons that conceal paedophiles and sado-masochists. If you ask me the real S&M fiends are those who both meddle and stand aside in turn while year after year of children are condemned to a bleak, narrow and grey life where highlights are Celeb Trivia and a Bargain Bucket O'Wings (plus sides). To what end? Oh, I forgot, an endless stream of new "customers" for the Social Services and Educationalists to pick over.

LEAs. Close them all down. NOW.

* 5 marks if you show your working out.

Amazing nuggets from C4's Lost for Words initiative.

I was watching with admiration at the changes to pupils in the Channel 4 Dispatches programme the other day, two years on from when they began an experiment to introduce synthetic phonics to an East London school, Monteagle Primary (H. Lynne Thompson).

Two points leapt out at me. One was the bone-headed mentality of the Dept of Schools, Education, Children, Families, Non-judgemental nuclear relationship units not necessarily based upon shared genetic backround, My Little Pony etc. 

Instead of synthetic phonics, costing, for the school in question £27,000 per year for the entire school of 4-11 year olds, they recommend schools to use their chosen one-on-one remedial technique (name escapes me, anyone?) that would have cost £100,000 for each age group, i.e. £100,000 for the 7-year-olds, another £100,000 for the 8 year olds etc etc. The teachers/coaches would need to be specialists, only usable after extensive training and only able to handle 9 kids a year, hence the high cost. 

Note to self: I wonder if  those in DETRiTUS (Dept of Education Teachers, and Regulations in Training, Universities and Schools) who decided this approach have any direct, indirect or other link to the companies who provide such expensive training to those coaches? By contrast, existing teachers can learn synthetic phonics rapidly and teach large groups...

The second, more shocking point was that all the teachers at the school had not been taught how to teach children how to read. I'll say that again another way - Teacher Training College had NOT taught all these Primary School teachers how to teach kids to read. That is like going on a driving course and not being taught about the steering wheel, brakes and accelerator! What is double scary is that few of these Primary Schoolteachers even QUESTIONED the fact that this monumentally important aspect, the very foundation of primary education was absent. The term "Duh!" does not quite cover it. It is, I suspect, a testament to the utterly poor education those teachers got before going to Teacher Training College that is responsible - a lack of critical reasoning and free thinking.

Still, things are being done by a TV Channel that the State does not seem to have a grip on*. Figures. They now look to improve Maths - good luck to them, I am sure they will do a better job than the State.

* It does seem that the State has an initiative on synthetic phonics, but as is so often the case the real message gets lost in all the bureaucracy, turf and ideology and a religious minset adopted, so the resulting plan seems to involve taking delivery of a truck load of FAIL. The State cannot lead. When it follows it tries to barge in front or trip up the leader. Best it just GETS OUT OF THE WAY, eh?

Newtons Law returns: Cambridge pushes back on "social justice"

It is nice to see Alison Richard of Cambridge University speaking out against pressure from Government to pander to its obsession with the bankrupt ideology of "social justice".

Social Justice is an odious term. It is built upon the concept of "social rights" upon which I would not need to improve upon the words of J.S. Mill:

So monstrous a principle is far more dangerous than any single interference with liberty; there is no violation of liberty which it would not justify.

Says it all really. "Social Justice" barges in and demands a University steer away from pure academic excellence to pander to a quota system. 

Underneath the call for "social justice" is the desire to paper over the cracks of the failing State education sector - a "system" is too good a word, I sometimes feel. By forcing Cambridge and other red-brick Universities to increase the number of State-educated undergrads not on merit but on political dogma, on a quota system, will enable the self-deceivers to lie to the general public, to convince them that their dysfunctional social experiment is working when it clearly is not.

The way to have more social mobility is to remove barriers, not to insert barriers directly or indirectly on those who are achieving. The reason why state-educated kids are failing to get to the best Universities is not because they are being prevented or pushed out per se, not because the intake is not capable, it is because of the very nature of the organisations, the curricula, the mindset of educationalists who influence the teachers prevents kids from attaining their full potential. Yes, parents can have an influence, but the Educational system should fix its own problems FIRST before stomping over to blame parents. The best way to increase state-funded pupils is for the State to realise that private schools do well because the school has far less outside control compared to a state school. It knows it only gets paid per pupil and that they are beset by competition on all sides in terms of reputation, quality of output, environment, exam board/mechanism, discipline and facilities. 

The best way to make State funded schools improve is to subject them to similar drivers. A voucher system along the lines of the LPUK would do it, but NOT the way the Conservatives propose. 

Alas, the Tories just cannot get the idea of State meddling out of their minds. I cannot understand why they wish to be in control of when, where and how new schools are formed. Who has been whispering in their ear? If the Tories think they will yield the full advantages, or ANY advantages of a voucher scheme they are very much mistaken in my view. It will allow some to take State funding and top up, yes, but it will do little to introduce a widespread and imminent threat of competition across the entire country. The Tory proposas will inject demand and State funding into the existing private sector but not properly enable on-the-ground nationwide competition. It suggests authorities compete for selection to be ear-marked as an area requiring new schools. Oh, so therefore centralising the writ, to make the centre the arbiter. Nice. It will result in authorities spending time, money and mental bandwidth (sorry) jostling for attention, lobbying in other words. It makes authorities beholden to the centre and, as such, must behave as the centre dictates. I also think the Tory plans will enable more control over the private sector so sooner or later, when it has grown used to the State voucher funded intake, the coup de grâce of getting schools to yield charity status and kow-tow to further State control will occur, for who pays the piper...It will be a shocking betrayal by the Tories - they probably will not do it themselves, but if, after few terms, common sense does not prevail and a Libertarian Party is voted in, New Labour, or whatever pestilential detritus that remains of the opposition, will replace them and do the deed, probably in the first session.

Under the Libertarian Party proposals, EVERY school will know that at any time a new school can be formed in their catchment to take their good teachers and their meal tickets, er, I mean kids. Parents will be able to form new schools. Teachers collectives, likewise. Good Heads frustrated by the constant bureaucracy and massive drain on fiscal flows of the LEA will either move to withdraw from their clutches or set out to form a new school or take over another failing establishment and do it there. Countless children will benefit. As for those kids who have parents who do not care, well, teachers and Heads can always move in on those schools and rescue the children. The local communities and educators therein will know better on balance than any LEA, Government Minister, Union Leader or academic. The Libertarian Party will be the only one that will enable teachers to teach, heads to run schools and for parents to have a reasonable chance to send their kids to a school where they will not have their spirits crushed and their souls dragged down to the lowest common denominator.

I want to see the Libertarian Party decide that the key metrics for any school receiving voucher funding be a steady improvement in pupil attainment in reading, writing and mathematics. For everything else I am sure the nexus of decisions made by parents, teachers and Heads will be best overall. Anything else and you get sucked into the world of State control over young minds. It is the least-bad option, not perfect, just the least bad. It means children will be given the basic tools without the CONTENT being open to meddling by the State.

So, in conclusion, a big thumbs up to Alison Richard. She is striking at the root.

Exam Question

Question #94.

It takes 47 minutes for an examiner to mark a paper and each examiner can only work a maximum of 7 hours a day.
If you have 153,942 papers to mark in 3 weeks, how many examiners will you need to hire?

For full marks, please show all workings.


Question #95.

How long will it take for people to realise that the State tends towards monopoly and is the most awful, incompetent shopper of services?

Army Rejects "Teaching Propaganda"

The NUT says it visits barracks only when invited

Army Chiefs have decided to oppose educational recruitment activities in camps if they employ "misleading propaganda".

Young people must be given a true picture of Educational life, not a "marketised version", the Joint Chiefs of Staff heard.

The National Union of Teachers (NUT) denies actively recruiting in barracks but says it does visit to raise awareness when invited in by COs.

Some officers complain the NUT uses sophisticated methods of recruitment.

Bgdr Paul McGarr said only when recruiting materials gave a true picture of the classroom would he welcome them into his camp.

'Mislead and possibly indoctrinate'

These would have to say: "Join the NUT and we will send you to carry out the socialist indoctrination of other people's children," Brgdr McGarr said.

"Join the NUT and we will send you to dumb-down, mislead and possibly indoctrinate fellow human beings.

"Join the NUT and we will send you probably poorly equipped into situations where people will try to suspend or fire you because you are corrupting other people's children.

"Join the NUT, and if you survive and come home, possibly injured or mentally damaged, you and your family will be shabbily treated."

Delegate Col Chris Kelly, said he was offered free interrogation materials, which he only later discovered were from the NUT.

"We must also ask ourselves why the NUT are in there influencing the way our soldiers view the NUT in the 21st Century.

"They find it difficult to recruit into the teaching profession and are trying to encouraging them to join up," he said.

Decision

Group Captain Martin Reed said young people should have the means to make an informed choice when deciding whether or not to sign up for a Teaching career.

He gave the example of the Army careers service which warned on its website that soldiers should not make this decision lightly.

It warned that teaching could be dangerous and that there were intellectual and sociological casualties, he said.

Another soldier, Stefan Simms, said those that were recruited would "come back knowing the horrors of teaching, maybe having committed the horrors of indoctrination."

A spokesman for the NUT said: "We do not recruit in Army camps.

"The single-service military teams visit about 100 barracks a year between them only at the invitation of the CO - with the aim of raising the general awareness of their educational forces in society, not to recruit."

But some soldiers argue these visits have a wider purpose.

'Patronising'

The MoD will now convene a summit of Officers, Military specialists and others to consider the issue of educational recruitment in schools.

Commanding Officers who opposed recruitment activities based on "misleading propaganda" would be supported.

An ex-teacher, Terry, told BBC Radio Five Live that the Army's attitude was patronising.

"Now soldiers are not kids - they know, they know their mind," he said.

"If they are not sure what they want to do and they are just tinkering with the idea of just going into Education - nowadays they can go to a School, they go on a six-week teaching assistant's course and they find out what it's like.

"If its not for them, they have the choice to leave."

My apologies to Hannah Goff at the BBC.

Soylent Red is PEOPLE!

An excellent Common Error at the ASI (hat tip The Devil):

Common Error 9. "It is wrong to allow bright children to go to special schools. This deprives the ordinary schools of their beneficial influence."

It goes on to say:

The vicious notion is that children, whether bright or not, should be regarded as the instruments of the ends of others, instead of ends in themselves. Children do not exist to serve the purposes of the state, it is the other way round. The concern should be with what is of benefit to the individuals concerned, rather than with how they can be made to serve some ideological view of society.

This ties in with the organ donor mindset, the very fact we are taxed so highly, the recycling and green tyranny*, the push for ID cards, chipping people, smoking bans...basically much of what the present EU-submissive government is doing.

Soylent Red is PEOPLE!**


* I recycle and conserve, but it should always be a matter of free will.

** For those of you who do not have the faintest idea of what I am on about, look here.

Chris Dillow on Bad Teachers.

Chris is an intelligent chap who often has good, interesting and rational things to say.

However, why would the (sensible) policy to "sack bad teachers" somehow not work, Chris? What do you suggest - keep them on board? So it seems. That is dogmatic, anti "boss" union/"werkuz" pandering, m'fraid. It also ignores all the structural problems that are at the root of why Chris thinks it will not work. Chris' objections are just symptoms of other systemic problems in the State Education paene-monopoly. Fix the problems, not mitigate the symptoms.

You suggest they would get rid of curmudgeons, expensive older teachers and those not towing the line on test results. Your answer is to stay their hand when the proper solution is to sort out the obsession with tests, have vouchers, allow Heads to hire and set pay and make sure the Heads goals are rational and in the best interests of the school and pupils. If you do that, the Heads would not jeopardize their jobs by firing the valuable teachers, those educating their children and so attracting large numbers of parents wanting to slap down vouchers on their desks. Why would they fire experienced and skilled teachers if they set their pay levels THEMSELVES instead of having daft payscales imposed on time-serving union members? They would not.

Amazing how many problems can be solved by dealing with the fundamental dysfunctions that come with central control, aspects of union interference and State provision!

Reading

...as in and writing, not Hexagon.

Excellent couple of programmes on the topic on C4. First about the disaster that is occurring and the second about a school that demands all kids read by the end of the year.

Pretty simple, I would have thought - why are not ALL Primary School heads demanding that ALL kids read before they leave? That does not need Government guidelines or initiatives, just the Heads knowing priorities - as they said, what is the point of all the other lessons if the kids cannot read?

The show did include a rather fierce teacher who was against it all but then came around. What was good was she did not pretend or excuse it. Plain speaking at the beginning, and plain speaking at the end. It was all about the idea of "not try, but do".

Personally, I would say forget 11, all kids reading when leaving Infants, i.e. at 7. Of course there will be exceptions, but in too many places in the UK the exceptions RULE and the lowest is the common denominator, so demand all at 7 and even after that the odd kid can be dealt with. In so many places it seems it has been "lower your standards, then fail to meet them".

The look on the kids faces when they realise they can read and actually are proud of it and want to show off is terrific, priceless. Another kid saved from the scrapheap.

Before anyone says "funding", it only takes a blackboard and chalk to sort this out, no need for hi-tech electronic boards or "handwriting software".

A-Levels: Balls Up to typical tricks.

Coupons Diplomas Set to Cover up the dumbing down of Replace A-Levels and GCSEs

By Andrew Porter, Political Editor
Last Updated: 2:55am BST 24/10/2007

The future of A-levels and GCSEs was threatened called into serious doubt as ministers petarded heralded a desperate new era of secondary education coupons diplomas.

The Schools Secretary, "Dick" Ed Balls, announced a significant extension of the forthcoming vocational coupon diploma scheme and pretended predicted they would become "the qualification of default choice" for ignorant clay young people within a decade.

A major review of all exam courses for 14 to 19-year-olds will now be held in 2013, once the new coupons diplomas are fully up and running and A-levels thoroughly undermined.

Mr Balls refused as always to give "any guarantee" that A-levels and GCSEs would still exist following the fit up/whitewash review — a major shift from the repeated worthless assurances given by Tony "Yates had my number" Blair and successive education ministers that both qualifications were "here to stay".

He announced three new coupons diplomas yesterday, extending the scheme into traditional academic areas — science, languages and humanities - thereby eroding and undermining them in the process.

In all, 17 coupons diplomas will now be offered at three levels pointless, useless and worthless. A "Usless" Coupon, or 'UC' An intermediate diploma in engineering, for example, is expected to take about three days in total a week and be the equivalent of six thousand A*-C grades at GCSE, while a "worthless" Coupon or 'WC' an advanced diploma, to be taken in the afternoon sixth form, will be equivalent to three text messages to "Deal or no Deal" A-levels. The new qualifications will be rammed home phased in from next September.

Asked whether GCSEs and A-levels would survive, Mr Balls replied: "I'm not going to give you any guarantee about anything whatsoever the outcome of that 2013 review even though our minds are made up." He said A-levels would not be abolished "now but later", but that parents, pupils, employers and universities could ultimately turn coupons diplomas into the most popular McDonalds' Happy Meal courses.

"While I have rejected the call for A-levels to be abolished now, I believe that coupons diplomas could emerge as the turd jewel in the swimming pool crown of our education system, the qualification of choice for the next decade considering there will be no other choice at a particular school.

In 2004, the former chief inspector of schools Sir Mike "Gulag" Tomlinson recommended the phased replacement of GCSEs, A-levels and vocational qualifications with a single diploma over 10 years.

The aim was to end the long-held view of current education vocational courses as inferior to that of the past academic A-levels. But Tony "Yates rumbled me" Blair vetoed the plan and lied to us insisted that GCSEs and A-levels must stay. Teachers, academics, MPs and the Government's own advisers were furious, warning that the divide between ever falling standards vocational and those of the past academic courses would widen.

Mr Balls' remarks yesterday amounted to a dramatic exposure reversal of the Government's position. They were in stark contrast to those of his dim predecessor, Alan Johnson, who warned quite rightly the diplomas could go "horribly wrong" and risked becoming a second-class qualification.

A-levels have been the "gold standard" of education in England and Wales for years. However, a succession of record results in recent years – particularly in the number of A grades — has led to accusations that the exams have been "dumbed down". Next: Watson remarks on the lack of manure.

The new coupons qualifications were attacked last night by another former chief inspector of schools, Chris Woodhead, who described them as a "complete farce" which were too broad in their scope.

The shadow schools secretary, Michael Gove, said the move was clearly designed to spell the end for A-levels. He said: "Instead of accepting Mike Tomlinson's agenda of weakening the academic gold standard, Ed Balls should be concentrating on dealing with under-achievement in particular between his own EARS.

"While he draws up fantasy qualifications for 2011, one in one, two, three, four... five school leavers still can't read, write or count properly."

Alan Smithers, professor of education at the University of Buckingham, added: "The Government has been very clever politically by pretending to allow allowing them to run side by side so that they can see how it works and basically letting the market decide which is best. Shame it may be school by school so tough luck trying to compare sensibly."

The coupons diplomas allegedly combine theoretical and practical study of specific subject areas, with a "strong focus" on English, maths and computing skills.

Part of the aim to is bluff reassure employers that exam results are a useful reflection of a student's ability - fat chance.

However, some critics of the diploma scheme argue that children will have to focus too early, at age 14, on their career choices. It also risks undermining traditional academic subjects, such as philosophy, or languages such as Latin and Greek that have no obvious career attached.

Failing Schools: Stating the obvious

Hot off the press from The Department of the Bleedin Obvious (DotBO) is the news that failing schools could harm the economy. "Could" is not the term I would use - "almost certainly will" is how I would phrase it.

Failing schools mean failing pupils. It then suggests failing adults and failing parents leading to more failing pupils. Some will climb out of this ongoing train-wreck, but many more will not. Many DO not.

The State should not get in the way of opportunity. The State should work to remove barriers to opportunity it has created. The State monopoly on education, LEAs and the shortage of good places and good schools created by this system is standing in the way of opportunity, in the way of anxious parents and potential talent in our young people.

It is counter intuitive to create more capacity than you require, but that is precisely what is needed in schools. We need a surplus of good schools and good school places to enable parents to pick a good school near to home, with enrolled siblings or their child's friends. A surplus of good schools will make parents happier about moving home to seek work or be closer to work to avoid extended commutes. A State monopoly will not go about creating new schools when existing school capacity of whatever standard is sufficient for the pupils enrolled. Bad schools will always have children under such a system because all the other schools are full. The incentive for the school should be "improve or die", i.e. improve or find yourselves turning up to empty classes and ever declining funding. To peform this, a surplus of good schools is the simplest and organic way. Enable more schools to be formed outside the State system, not "permit", not "allow" but not stand in the way of more independent schools and the parents will have more choice and the worst schools will empty by themselves. The best teachers will be paid more and more kids will end up at a good school near to home, nearer to their parents workplaces, which cannot be a bad thing for home life and thus further improve the prospects§ for young people.

Vouchers are one way to achieve this.


§ Don't you DARE say "life chances".

Conservatives Report: Restoring Pride in Public Services

Before I look a the green issues, I just wanted to finish up with the above report.

The section on Heath was a bit flim flammy, frankly.

The Policy Group proposes the freeing up of local decision-making and a new enabling partnership with clinicians.

You do not "restore pride" by introducing a universal labelling strategy, an NHS Board or tinkering with health policy organisational trees. Oh, and the GP cat is out of the bag, Dave, courtesy of the numpties at New Labour. The best solution for healthcare is to unhitch the monopoly totally from the State and create a proper pluralistic solution using compulsory insurance.

Education is ok - more power to exclude, for example. This might free up the resources to enable remedial education to be performed as suggested. Extending setting is a tricky one as I believe you really have to go the whole hog and once you get sets you really need to have enough kids in each school to make it work properly.

Social Housing section is flawed deckchair shuffling and vague talk about local decision making, which for housing means either "nimby" blocking or a tyranny of the masses. The point about bribing giving share of equity "for good behaviour" shows naivety in the extreme and is an insult to all those working hard to have their own home and pay a mortgage. When will politicians learn? The reward for good behaviour must be simply the continuation of a roof over your head. The consequence of bad behaviour should be eviction, pure and simple. The State has to stop being "landlord of last resort" and ditch the "Duty of care" fraud that has crept into our systems.

The Conservatives talk about reforming the housing benefit system. In Roger's Manifesto there was a very clear statement on this which should deal with the whole issue. This can be summed up thus:

State housing and/or benefit must be a safety net, not a hammock. Once begun the allocation will not increase even if the tenant increases the size of their family by whatever means, such as birth, marriage or cohabitation with dependents regardless of their country of origin.

This way people who fall into poverty can be helped but people should not consider State housing as a life-long and ever expanding resource. They are, in effect, "home blocking" people who fall on hard times.

This report is a big disappointment. How it can be described as a means to "restore pride" I do not know. The authors should be ashamed.

If X bureaucrats take money from a bottomless pit for N months...

The Devil's Kitchen is the appropriate place to give the latest tripe boiled up by the Department of Innovation, Universities and Skills the roasting it deserves. The BBC were serving up the State Propaganda this morning, too.

So they think that some cookbooks require GCSE English do they? The Reptile immediately and quite rightly nails the fact that the Department of Irritation, Uselessness and Skiving have plenty of other things to do, like FIX THE EDUCATION SYSTEM YOU MUPPETS!§ Instead, they conveniently find a reason to fill their bookshelves with all the latest and trendiest titles research cookbooks. I want to see all those books donated to a library. I want evidence.

To be honest I do find Deliah's recipes irritating and presumptive. I do not think that is about GCSE levels at all, but just about good writing and clarity. Asides do not matter to me, as long as they are not the kind that says "and using the [undocumented preparation stage] which you made [long time] earlier". Long sentences do not phase me, for, it must me said, I am guilty as any other for creating long and multi-clause sentences which, I suspect, has something, if not everything, to do with my taking Latin. Big words and complex adjectives are not the issue either, for I like such things and relish the opportunity to expand my vocabulary (I suspect that someone could pass GCSE English these days and not even have the word "vocabulary" in their vocabulary...).

Somehow I suspect this is a subliminal attempt to make people think GCSE is "difficult" and so shore up the reputation of the exam.

Deliah's guff is harder to read not because it requires GCSEs, but because, if you ask me, Deliah is a crap writer who faffs about, who introduces her undocumented preps halfway through and presumes you know how to do it. Lets be honest about this: Ramsay is a chef, Deliah is a cook, or should we really say a writer about cooking. Deliah washed up, waitressed and "helped" in a kitchen before, I suspect, some mate at The Mirror threw her a lifeline. I can help in a kitchen. I am pretty good at prep, in fact (YES CHEF!). I do think I could write a better cookbook that our Deal. A cookbook for blokes. But why bother, cos Ramsay has done it already.

I wonder if there is any pattern here - some say womens' cookbooks are more confusing than mens'. Do you think this may be down to the fact that if a man writes a cookbook, he is almost always a professional chef, whereas it is not the same case for the women? Professional chefs require speed, simplicity, efficiency, order and consistency. As does any bloke in a kitchen. Deliah is either Labour or Lib Dem, I am certain. She is a Ladder-Kicker, but we cannot have the Government report on Ladder-Kicking, can we? Oh no.

§ you should be working towards ensuring our Universities are not incorrectly incentivised to produce narrow, specific, time-limited and, frankly, training-course substitute "Degrees" like "Golf Management" to pigeon-hole people and make them easy to manipulate.

TUC and Education

The TUC has been moaning about Academies.

Not that I am saying I am in favour of Academies or that people and organisations cannot speak up about what they dislike, but surely the TUC has more important things to waffle on about...like the welfare and treatment of their members, praps?

Yet Moron Education

The Devil and noble James Bartholomew make some focused posts on the appalling news that 25% of school-leavers leave with nothing valuable to show for it.

I need not repeat their views here, but only to say that if they leave with nothing, or even something that is worthless as GCSEs are rapidly becoming, then why keep them there 2 years longer?

I agree with James that the core problem is the State Monopoly. I am not a fan of monopolies.

It is criminal that this is allowed to happen. What is also criminal is the Educational Establishment - so blinkered by Statist and Sociofascist dogma that they are blind to it all. Such a group are not worthy and certainly not to be trusted to form policy or educate our children.

The Statists truly do wish to create a "Lumpen Illitariat" of juveniles. Not adults, juvenules.

Sociofascist Media on the Prowl?

Further to the previous post...What a surprise. The BBC has "been handed" a report document showing a school being rude about pupils.

The School? In Kent. Selective foundantion school taking Sec Modern and Grammar.

If anyone is unfamiliar with the pungent aroma of Ratus Ratus, fill yer nostrils.