To think the level of state involvement many posters expect is bonkers?

[FaeryRing]

It seems like there is nothing the state shouldn’t be responsible for any more! Feeding your kids, getting them to school, hiring ‘behaviour specialists’ for every classroom because parents don’t want to discipline their own children, giving you money towards virtually anything you ask for because it’s not fair you have to pay for anything yourself.. I find it absolutely wild and don’t think it’s at all realistic or representative of what most adults believe?

The state or government is voted in with an understanding that there is a responsibility both ways. It's a form of contract based on promises and manifestos which are frequently reneged upon once a party is in power.

So what do you think the state's responsibilities are?

Yeah, I mean views and opinions of teachers are important but it feels like unless we can get to grips with what is going on, then the gap in actual knowledge is filled with a lot of assumptions.

I would like to know if there actually is a great decline in school preparedness firstly and what that looks like one year to the other. I suppose the questions get more difficult because once you start looking at the who and where in the equation it's a lot quicker and cheaper to stigmatise rather than un-riddle and rectify the problem.

There is a report which suggests that teachers feel that up to 50% of children aren't ready for school at the outset. This could be a major problem or we just could find that these are mostly the March-August kids and we could offer a second round of new students in April for those who aren't ready to make the jump straight off the starting block. This would be kinder to the kids and less frustrating for the teachers.

It's probably a whole lot more complicated and logistically difficult than that but if someone isn't gathering and collating this data it a bit useless to guess.

I don't understand? What employer?

@Desecratedcoconut I honestly don’t know what’s causing it but there has been a massive rise in special needs and a gradual decline in the development of younger children. The number of children in our small town alone who are non verbal at 5 is staggering. I don’t think it’s a case of teaching them to do up a coat and hold a pencil, it’s more that they actually aren’t capable.

Yeah. I think parents need to teach life skills, schools need to educate subjects that parents can't.

Britons like to assume they're superior to Americans who vote for Trump amd his ilk, but after reading the opinions posted here, I'm not so sure.

If Rand Paul (R) Kentucky, stood for election on this thread he'd be elected in a landslide.

Well if you vote him in then obviously it’s your electorate who are keen

I don’t think Trump is as popular here

How would this impact home owners? Around 50% of the UK population owns their home, 26m people. How would more social housing impact their home value?

I'm a first time home owner, I'm a single parent to 2 boys, one is disabled. Blood, sweat and tears to buy a house which I can barely afford the fix (leaking roof, plumbing) in an area we didn't want to live in, but the alternative was temporary accommodation, we were homeless following leaving my 9 year private rental. I do not want the value of my house to depreciate, It's our ticket out.

I don't even know if more social housing would mean that? There's so many new social houses being built in the county I live in already.

I think you might find it could be something to do with what was happening four years ago. Let me see if I can remember why we were all locked up in isolation for weeks on end. 🤔

You complained about the thousands spent on maternity - sure, it's a nice abstract point, but the alternative you're advocating is dead mothers and babies.

You complained about the thousands spent on the child's medical care - sure, it's a nice abstract point, but the alternative you're advocating is dead children.

You complained about the thousands spent on the child's education - sure, it's a nice abstract point, but the alternative you're advocating is the creation of an economic underclass trapped in uneducated misery and despair, while wider society also suffers decades of lost productivity due to the short sightedness of the marginal cost of a school place for a little over one decade.

I live in an American suburb where busses are paid for by local taxes to pick up all the SEN students from their homes and bring them to and from school. The busses also pick up children who have to cross one of the very busy local streets to get to school, if their parents can't take them.

The local schools provide excellent SN staff and programmes. SEN are diagnosed without waiting even weeks, let alone years, by in-house staff, and IEPs developed. Services like speech therapy, occupational therapy, and emotional needs therapy are either provided on site or contracted to local providers (with transport provided if off site). All children living in the school district can avail of the diagnostic and therapeutic services, even if they go to private schools within the district, and transport is also provided to them.

The schools provide breakfast either free, half price, or fully paid by parents, and the same goes for lunch. The free and reduced price school meal service is provided by the state.

British schools could have the same level of services if the political will existed to make that possible.

No I complained about the mother’s lack of contribution to it!

Yes indeed.

It's almost as if there was an election around the corner.

Don’t you have one coming up? Do you have US sites where you’re more worried about your own politics

Or are we to blame for Trump also

Also what are you suggesting about the op, don’t be coy

What are you inferring?

Well there was me thinking children had two parents.

How many single mothers do you genuinely know who have gone from 18 to pension age without doing a day's work, or being a homemaker for a working partner? And would you swap your lifestyle for thiers?

Implying. It's up to you and me to infer.

Whatever

Implying?

Oh, a fellow nerd! You’ve made my day.

Tbh, it’s accross the board. There is so much self entitlement out there. I mean you only have to look at the recent stomping of the feet and ranting in response to the government’s plans to address the benefit/disability process, to see that people are just becoming more and more dependent on the authorities or tax payers to look after their families. There are a lot of feral kids out there who haven’t been taught by their parents to do anything, because parents think it’s the responsibility of the schools or overstretched NHS and social services. And todays feral kids become tomorrows feral adults. I can’t imagine what society is going to look like in 20 years time.

across

Paying a compulsory tax is hardly "planning for your future" is it? In fact it's the opposite. It's abdication of responsibility and assuming/hoping that it will all turn out OK in the end.

Can't say I'm enamoured with describing kids as feral, but come on, have a little think about this. Can you see any connection between your genuine fear regarding "I can’t imagine what society is going to look like in 20 years time" and the calls made by people that we should invest in more active interventions now to improve that very same future?

The decline and rot was well set in long before Covid. We've had decades of it.

I bet 😂