Do you think you can be a socialist and

[Swedes]

1. Pay for your child to be independently educated?
2. Buy a house in right catchment for the right school?
3. Feign religion to get your child into a faith school?
4. Object to a lottery system for school places with urban areas (ignoring all convenient environmental issues)?
5. Vote Tory? (because some people seem particularly confused)

There's the rub desi.

Marxism's essential problem in a nutshell. 'From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs', so who shovels the shit?

"Why aren't the parents of children at state schools campaigning for a better state education?"

What makes you think we aren't, Cam? All the evidence seems to show that we are.

Sprockster - You're wrong about people who send their children to independent schools not campaigning for improvements in state education.

Cam

I support state education and will send my DTS (3yo) to state schools even though we can afford to educate them privately and will support the school likewise. There are a lot of parents like this - just because they don't shout about it does not mean that it does not happen.

I get fed up of the perpetual inference on MN that only people who privately educate their off-spring care about their education. Absolute rubbish.

There is the idea that you hear again and again that "I send my children to a private school because I want 'the best' for them." That makes my blood boil. Oh, well, I send my children to a state school because I want the mediocre for them, obviously.

Cue Xenia.........

It's like feeding them junk food when you could afford good food. Most parents who say they pick the worse state school rather than the private they could afford (or could afford if they ditched the expensive holidays and cars) might be saying it's for socialist reasons but secretly inside it's because they want to keep the money they would otherwise spend for themselves and they are putting themselves above their children.

Also as Cam says "Surely recent history tells us all that capitalism provides more opportunities ie. a fairer chance than any other system"

Depends what you mean by crap though doesn't it Kerry?

My observation is that for many crap equates to schools not having the right social mix.

One of the three schools that I have listed as my preference was rejected by other mothers at DTS music group because too many children had free school meals!

Nobody in their right mind would want to send their child to a failing school if they can avoid it but to infer that it is not possible to get a decent education at a state school is quite frankly, ludicrous.

As I see, from both sides of the table (as a teacher and parent) you can campaign for better state education- from the inside. You can become a parent governor, or a normal governor if you are illustrious enough. You can lobby your child's teacher whenever you feel their work is not up to scratch. You can pull them out if you feel you are getting nowhere.

The first is a positive way of effecting change, but ultimately takes years. The second is mostly seen as MC whinging parent syndrome- "my little Portia can do so much more than what you are giving her" is the stereotype. Second type of parent are loathed universally by schools and other parents.

What you can't do alone is change things for the better from the outside. So even if you take the plunge and send your child to the local secondary under-performing hoping to effect change the positive way, your child will spend their school career in an "improving" school. How many people are truly willing to risk their child's five years of secondary?

Most people will do whinge, complain, pull in that order. Few will become governors or volunteer at the school to see what it is truly like. I don't know very many secondaries that even welcome parent helpers.

Xenia

As usual, who spout claptrap.

you spout claptrap

One rule for me, one rule for everyone else

That's how it works for a lot of political animals of whatever party.

UQD - "There is the idea that you hear again and again that "I send my children to a private school because I want 'the best' for them." That makes my blood boil. Oh, well, I send my children to a state school because I want the mediocre for them, obviously."

Is it possible that you are drawing an inference that isn't there? Perhaps what they are really verbalising is their own guilt at chucking money at the problem and feel the need to defend it. Just a thought.

I wouldn't fancy my kids attending a school where most of the kids couldn't speak English or speak it very well. An ENORMOUS amount of time would be spent just on learning how to speak the language. Time my kids, who speak English fluently, could be spending learning things they don't know.

I agree with that point. However I would say quite immigrant parents are passionate about education and often their children work harder and more attentively than the indigenous children and go on to outachieve them.

I speak from personal experience.

Being a socialist is way overrated imo. Throughout most of history it is capitalists who have made the most contribution to lifting the poorest out of poverty.

Benfactors who built schools, funded burseries, gave employment opportunities to those who needed to learn a trade. The likes of Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Carnegie etc etc who all made huge fortunes and settled them all on charitable giving.

As communist societies have found, sharing a pittance with large numbers of people still leaves a pittance. Sharing vast sums of money earnt in capitalist markets and sharing those out in a more equitable way than is done at present, is in my book the best way forward.

Yeah, and without the socialist like Thomas Paine who campaigned for the rights of the individual against the corrupt rule classes, we would not have the social welfare system that helps keep many families afloat.

Soapbox - I agree.

"Being a socialist is way overrated imo"

What on earth are you talking about? No-one overrates it. Even the artists-formerly-known-as-socialists are into something called the Third Way.

Quattro - sorry, it was shorthand for 'way overrated on this thread'.

'Surely recent history tells us all that capitalism provides more opportunities ie. a fairer chance than any other system'

It is just about possible to argue that capitalism provides more opportunities in the developed world, if one discounts the fact that the last 20 years (ie since the regeulation of financial market and the wholesale prostration before the almighty totem of the Free Market) has seen vast and accelerating increases in the differences between the rich and poor.

What capitalism also does is export poverty and appalling working conditions to developing countries. It also denudes those countries of their natural resources at risibly low prices, ruins their environments and impoverishes their cultures. Capitalism is directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people annually throughout the developing world. Poverty of this kind and on this scale simply did not exist before capitalism was allowed to run riot.

soooooocialist worker! soooooooooocialist worker

were you a trot then pw?

pw- I think you just hit the nail on the head. In the west we mostly experience the acceptable face of capitalism- increased choice, freedom etc, whilst in other parts of the world they take the shittier aspects of global capitalism.