to think that Toby Young is a complete arse?

[Rosebud05]

They aren't exempt. That is the way it works when you are a contract worker. Staff positions are increasingly difficult to come by. I was a contract worker for years, never received a penny in maternity pay. I did get holiday pay though.

Short term contract jobs are extremely comon in education

Yes, as Hants said, the creepiest thing of all is the assumption by all the right on gang that poor people don't give a shit about their kids' education and will be elbowed aside by the Tarquins and Araminta's.

My dh works in a very very poor country.
They are obsessed with education.

Aramintas

Sorry-not a genitive (obviously)
See, Latin v useful there.

Hants, 97% of 11 year olds in the city where I live, which is the city where a free school has been turned down, and is also the city about which I was talking. I'm sorry if that wasn't clear.

SWC I was mocking you, because your argument was so pathetic and silly that I responded with what I considered to be about the same level.

Moondog, let me say that I think you have great insights, and not just because you have just agreed with me!

The real problem is not just the poverty in deprived areas, it's the fact that this material poverty is correlated with poverty of aspiration which is so utterly corrosive for children's chances.

Anything that might break this cycle gets my support every time so let poor children go to a structured, academic school and let them have the same opportunities as the Tarquins, Aramintas, Ludos and Flavias.

'this one is quite terrifying. This organisation is linked to the natural law party (yogic flying anyone?) which means that political parties might be able to set up free schools.'

Why is it terrifying?
If that's your thing, go for it.

Oh and as for political parties setting up schools, fear not.Labour have been doing it for years

Joan, thanks for this information. The rules are that there has to be clear evidence of parental demand for a Free School and if there is not the Dept for Ed will turn it down which it has done, so the system would appear to be working in your city.

In West London, however, it's a different matter.

Why thank you Hants and the feeling is mutual.
I've just got in from work and read the thread's latest contributions.

Yours are fantastic-a real breath of fresh air cutting through the current dogma that has people believe that tis better all to be shit together.

It's an endemic attitude of MN which is a sad indication of how the poison of lefty thinking (as practiced today) has destroyed so much.

Yes indeed, which is why I am happy that it was turned down. Perhaps a sorry as well as a thanks is in order?

Moondog, I hope to maintain my membership of this mutual admiration society!

TY writes some excellent articles in The Spectator about the very vary nasty bag of tricks assembloed by free school detractors. Unions seem to be the worst culprits. Anything to deflect attention form the shit state of state schools.

You and me HP.
Let's set up an MN free school eh?

"it's the fact that this material poverty is correlated with poverty of aspiration which is so utterly corrosive for children's chances." How does poverty of aspiration correlate with Moondog's (correct, IMO) observation that people living on low incomes are equally keen to see their children well educated?

There are disaffected parents and children who have consigned themselves to social exclusion, and IME those are the ones who suffer most when they miss a chance at a good school because of selection-by-back-door admissions processes.

TY in Spectator

More stop 'em at all costs

In the OECD?s international league tables, English schoolchild-ren are 24th in the world in mathematics, 17th in reading and 14th in science. If we take all three measures collectively, England?s schoolchildren rank, on average, 18th in the world. And it?s worth bearing in mind that the OECD?s test subjects include children at independent schools. If you exclude them, England?s ranking would be lower.

No such caution inhibits my opponents. They are quite certain, apparently, that I can take the same amount of money the state spends on an education ranked, at best, 18th in the world and use it to provide my own children with an education ranked number one in the world. Such magical powers! And far from seeing this as a reason to support me, they see it as a reason to stop me!

The objection sounds completely absurd when you deconstruct it like that but, incredibly, that is the reason why Ed Balls, the NUT and Fiona Millar are opposed to free schools. They?re worried that groups of parents and teachers might do a better job of spending the taxpayers? money than the state. Balls said as much when I debated him on Newsnight ? a soundbite that David Cameron used in his conference speech. ?The danger is that there will be winners in this policy,? he said. The same argument was used by John Prescott in 2005: ?If you set up a school and it becomes a good school, the great danger is that everyone wants to go there.?

It sounds absolutely bonkers, but that in a nutshell is why the left objects to free schools. People like Balls and Prescott believe that if you allow anyone to set up a truly excellent state school, the neighbouring schools will suffer because more parents will want to send their children to the new school'

As someone trying to set up a free school, it?s a criticism I hear over and over again: he just wants to secure a free private education for his children at the taxpayer?s expense. Ed Balls has said it, the general secretary of the NUT has said it, Fiona Millar has said it. And it?s always delivered with the same knowing smirk, as if they?ve caught me out. Bad luck, Toby. The gig is up. Time to go home.

They?re quite right, of course. And it is a killer blow ? against themselves. For if I?ve worked out a way of providing my own children with the equivalent of a private school education for no more than it costs the taxpayer to educate a child at a bog-standard comprehensive then I should be made the Secretary of State for Education tomorrow.

Let?s unpack this a little bit. It?s a safe assumption that free schools will receive roughly the same amount of money per pupil as maintained schools. The Department for Education has yet to issue any clear guidance on the GAG (General Annual Grant) that free schools will receive ? and won?t until after next week?s comprehensive spending review ? but we know that it will be in line with the per capita funding allocated to the maintained schools in whatever local authority each free school happens to be in.

So the per capita budget available to my school will be no higher than that of the neighbouring state schools. Will this be sufficient to provide children with the equivalent of a private school education? I?d hesitate to make that claim since, according to the OECD, England?s independent schools are the best in the world. The same cannot be said of our education sector as a whole.

Can't bear Toby Young, but am interested in the OECD league tables... (as a leftie )

Oh you are a silly woman, SWC. She said I was talking nonsense because she'd misunderstood everything I said, and I thought perhaps it would be nice if she admitted that it was she who had made the mistake, not I.

It's sort of the whole point of not being right wing, that you consider all children and the whole picture, not just 'what's best for me and mine'.

'It's sort of the whole point of not being right wing, that you consider all children and the whole picture, not just 'what's best for me and mine'.

Er....no.
A right wing view is parity of opportunity for all-regardless of background/creed/colour/gender. It means that you don't lazily use these as reasons for things not falling into your lap.

I don't even know where to begin with that bizarre piece of double-think!

It is challenging to cope with admittedly when you have endured years of socialst brainwashing but give it you best shot eh?