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)

Middle class parents don't necessarily value education more than working class parents(although in some cases they might). They simply have greater resources - monetary, organisational, professional - to offer the schools in which they place their children.

I disagree totally PW - capitalism and international trade is the route out for many of those economies (including many I have experience of including Malawi and Bangladesh). Many of these countries do not have masses of valuable natural resources and international trade and manufacturing is hugely important for them. There simply, is not enough demand for factory produced goods within their own domestic economies.

How do you believe things would work better? What would your plan for the developing world look like?

And for the record, without the World Bank, many many billions of people around the world would be dead!

Are some people rebelling against their own school experiences? Were you the toff in the straw boater who felt left out and different from the other people on the street because they went to the local school?

Oh blimey. Where did I say that I don't believe in trade? What angers me is that rich countries fix the terms of trade to their own advantage. You can't really expect me to write out my prescripion for ending world poverty - if I could do it I sure as hell wouldn't be wasting time on Mumsnet - but instituting a fairer method of regulating global trade has to be right up there.

I went to local primary, local comp, local FE college.

Soapbox

I have never said anywhere on MN that private schools should be removed/banned or that private parents should move into the state sector to uplift the state (that is patronising clap trap btw).

I have consistently argued that as far as I am concerned, one can gain an education from the state sector that is as worthy as that in the private.

If one wants to go private that it is up to them. If one wants to use the state system it is up to them.

What I have misgivings about is the denigration of the state education in its entirety, those who infer that parents who choose the state route value their child's education less than their personal frivolity, those who think that the minority of problem state schools are representative of the whole sector and those who also conveniently abuse statistics to support their case without giving credance to how those statistics are arrived at e.g. why highly selective schools perform better in league tables than non-selective schools.

On a totally unhelpful note, I know several young ladies who attend a very expensive private school in Bristol. The fees are more than I've ever earned in a year.

Yet I note that they cannot punctuate . It would seem that there are plenty of things that money just can't buy.

Anyhow, glass of red, anyone?

Yes, my first boyfriend went to Bruton and he couldn't place an apostrophe to save his life.

Desi, I was wondering to myself this afternoon (thinking about this thread) whether you would place yourself to the left of Tony Blair. My guess is that you would. What do you reckon?

That's an interesting question, PW, because I've no lucid idea of what TB stood for in particular.

Geo-politically, I'm right wing. When it comes to individuals, I'm more left wing. I haven't bought a lottery ticket since ds was born, for instance, because I would rather his childhood was spent modestly. That in itself is not necessarily left-wing, but I am certainly anti-materialism on a personal level.

Similarly, I would prefer my son to go to a good comprehensive than a public school. I have no problem at all with public/private schools, except that I would fucking die of grief if my son took up golf.

I believe that if people are bright, they will educate themselves given the right set of circumstances. History has proven than time and time again.

The public school system throws out just as many non-achievers as the state does. I guess for the poor kids involved, the stakes are just a little higher.

Several LOLs there Desi

'I've no lucid idea of what TB stood for in particular.' - That's you and everyone else in the UK probably, including TB himself.

"What do you call your evening meal?""Do you have riding lessons?" and "Have you every been to Butlins?" and give places to the ones who answer Dinner, Yes and No. It would have been the same 25%!

I'd answer Supper, No and yes, but DS went to grammar school....

(though we only went to Butlin's because DD went on a karate summer school there - but we did actually enjoy it....)

Can you be a socialist and post on MN?

When the Tories were in govt, in the era of teacher strikes & unemployment reached about 1 in 10, my father (governor of my comp school) was asked, didn't he find it depressing and wasn't he worried for my future? He said he rather assumed that I would be amongst the 90% who were employed.

I feel similarly about state ed and your 'bog-standard' comp (not sink school in special measures) which serves 93% of the population. If you come from a supportive family/ one that values education then you're likely to succeed.

Good post, heated. The very best education is the one you give yourself.

And it's a lifelong journey.

Rusty Bear - he must have got in on appeal!

(We've been on holiday to Butlins)

The problem with those questions is that they yes will weed out some working class people but the beauty of teh old 11+ was the very poor working class had a route out of poverty. Where instead parents are interviewed by a state school to see if their accents are right or whatever then you just get class bias. Lotteries are not the answer. Picking out and giving education in private or grammar schools is a better route for the very bright poor child.

no, decent education, smaller class sizes, better teachers and better resources, pride in education and achievement, change in culture of the country - is a route - not some small scale selection to keep the toffs at the top with the illusion that poor people can get out if they REALLY WANT it

which of course is bullshit

Heated "I feel similarly about state ed and your 'bog-standard' comp (not sink school in special measures) which serves 93% of the population. If you come from a supportive family/ one that values education then you're likely to succeed."

Desi "The very best education is the one you give yourself.

And it's a lifelong journey."

Amen to that.

Einstein once said

"The crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism. Our whole educational system suffers from this evil. An exaggerated competitive attitude is inculcated into the student, who is trained to worship material success as a preparation for his future career." He was a very wise man and the antithesis to those who think that money is everything.

The quote from him that I always carry around is

"Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited , whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution."

That is one lesson I intend to impart to my sons.

My other favourite quote from him is

"With fame I become more and more stupid, which of course is a very common phenomenon."

Exactly my point, Xenia - or almost exacly my point. I think personally that the best education for all would be provided if everyone went to proper comprehensive schools.

On the grammar school entry question, it it now practically impossible for the bright but disdvantaged children to get places - they are 'packed' by middle class children whose parents are able to manipulate the system to their advantage. Thus already privileged children get even more privilege.

Similarly with faith schools. Privilege begets privilege but how they sneer at those who, in their opinion, should do better but don't.

They conveniently forget that they play the system to maximise the benefits for themselves at the expense of the disadvantaged.

Spokette- love your posts on here esp. the Einstein quotes. I , too have noticed how many people equate material possessions to success. I have always thought it strange that many people seem to think that their childs potential has only been reached if they leave uni and are able to make lots of money and be surrounded by people exactly like them.
Give me imagination and a passion for change any day.

I believe private schools where parents are lucky enough to afford them give children the best chance though to use that imagination. They provide a brilliant widening of horizons, an opening up to the possibility that yes anything is possible and yo have it within you to do it. I am not sure all state schools are quite so good at that. Private schools educate well beyond the curriculum and I have certainly found them very good.

If the old 11+ got poor children into good schools I don't see why that could not be reintroduced. You may need just to do non verbal reasoning. you may need to give them all lots of practice in school to even up chances. But surely if you did that you could get out the brightest at 11 as we used to do.

Hang on a minute, Xenia! I accept that you think that private schools are the best places to prepare children for high flying careers in the City and the professions - and I suppose at one level you're right - certainly the independents are disproportionately represented on the CVs of the movers and shakers. I question whether this is entirely to do with education, however - I think it's mostly to do with class, money and the old boy/girl network.

But now the independent sector is the best place to foster imagination and widen horizons as well? I don't think so - have you looked at the Conservative Front Bench lately?!

I can just see you sitting at your computer thinking "Now how to wind them up today?"

Well, if most politicians were privately educated I am not impressed at all!
I also don't find those who went to private school particularly imaginative and free-thinking- they seem to believe they are part of an elite and no one could possibly be as good as them and they go to great lengths to bring their dc up in exactly the same way they were and to mix with exactly the kind of people.

Mrsruffallo