Whitehall “braced for private schools collapse” 2

[ICouldBeVioletSky]

Starting a second thread as the first one is still very busy, albeit it's veered off in a few directions...

Original article

https://www.thetimes.com/article/e6465c9e-d462-48cb-a73e-74480059a1f3?shareToken=05bf599cd4a2376fe3ce83cdce607100

Right back at you.

Until you are able to actually take a step back and recognise that <shock, horror> you might be wrong yourself, you will always have an incredibly limited, small understanding of the world.

Yes, context will affect exam results.

The way the Left respond to that is ineffective and harmful.

They are closing down inexpensive yet effective Maths, STEM and Language programs which actually improve state school students attainment and instead they are attempting to dumb down all education, and impose social engineering to give advantages to 'worthy' classes of people.

Ineffective in the long term, and harmful to everyone.

Look up from your own chip-on-shoulder obsessions, and look around you at the wider world and the longer time frame.

The fact that you refer to an understanding of context as 'chip on shoulder obsessions' says it all really. If helping underprivileged and highly intelligent DC apply to top universities that they may previously not have had the confidence to apply to is a chip on shoulder obsession, then long may I be chippy.

You have shown that you don't understand context and your are also framing it completely wrong. Do you think contextual considerations are all the doing of Labour in the past seven months? It's your ignorant 'better with state A-Levels' comment that started all this remember.

If you only think context matters in a situation like the fairground one you described, why are you going to all the trouble of sending your child to a private school. Surely they would do equally as well in any old state school?

Do you mean insults like these?

"Until you are able to actually take a step back and recognise that <shock, horror> you might be wrong yourself, you will always have an incredibly limited, small understanding of the world."

Yet somehow I can still be bothered to try to explain basic cause-and-effect and economics again and again and again.

If you do play chess with pigeons, I'd suggest you use the spare time between moves to read papers like the FT, and try to think about how the world works and why economics matters.

And once again you demonstrate that you know nothing about context.

And once again you demonstrate that your focus is so narrow that you don’t understand the consequences of actions.

If you write personal attacks against me, I will respond. I am totally past the social expectation that the 'privileged' are fair game and should just put up and shut up.

If helping underprivileged and highly intelligent DC apply to top universities that they may previously not have had the confidence to apply to is a chip on shoulder obsession, then long may I be chippy.

I'm all for everyone having confidence to apply to any university. Continuing with Maths/ STEM/Language programs which helps those students attain the knowledge they need to fully access the advanced teaching at top Universities might be useful as well, don't you think? More useful than just accepting lower ability students 'because'.

your ignorant 'better with state A-Levels'

You don't like it, but it's true. Cambridge was very open about the state school quotas.

why are you going to all the trouble of sending your child to a private school.

Because I want her to get an excellent education, so that she can grow and learn the most she possibly can in these irreplaceable 14 years. Education stays with a person for life. Why do you think?!?

My focus is fine thank you. I am very privileged in many ways but I just don't wear blinkers.

Consquences of contextual considerations? More hyperbole! It is just making things a little bit fairer and that is so begrudged. The trouble with many like you is that when unfair has been the norm for so long, a little bit of fairness seems horrendously unfair and personal.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/keir-starmer-sutton-trust-vat-government-prime-minister-b1208502.html

"Starmer is destroying the opportunities to have the same chances he had"

‘If helping underprivileged and highly intelligent DC apply to top universities that they may previously not have had the confidence to apply to is a chip on shoulder obsession, then long may I be chippy.’

Totally agree! Sometimes is not even confidence - it’s not realising it’s even an option. Which is why being the 1st in your family to go to UNI is used as a monitoring question.

Right, I'll put my international MBA to one side and defer to the views of randoms on the internet? No, I don't think so.

Gaming Uni admissions is the wrong thing to focus on.

Improving education is what would actually help the students and would also help the economy.

Education really isn't just a tick box exercise which wins you a prize of a Uni offer (which you want to game for 'fairness') and from there a better choice of a fixed number of 'good' jobs and a bigger slice of a fixed-size UK economy pie. If you have an MBA, you surely know that.

Still no comment on Labour closing inexpensive yet effective Maths, STEM and Language programmes which were shown to improve students attainment?

I don't think I'm catastrophising. As I said I don't think it's the end of the world for private students to be discriminated against in Uni admissions. Annoying, but not the end of the world.

But Labour trying to equalise education downwards by removing those bits that work well - in a bonfire of misplaced socialist zeal - is pretty bad. The UK doesn't have a god-given right to remain 12th in the overall Prosperity Index rankings worldwide.

I include private schools in 'those bits that work well'. Also those Maths, STEM and language educational programmes in state schools. Also the freedoms academies had. Also the right to home educate. Also the Edinburgh university supercomputer. Also AI programmes

Quite the list. I don't think it's finished.

'Gaming' university admissions says it all. It is not gaming any system. It's bringing a little bit of equilibrium into it. Your prejudices and preconceptions speak volumes. You really do believe that taking context into account means that universities are choosing less bright DC, don't you. So depressing.

I don't support what Labour is doing with Maths, STEM and languages but this is brand new whilst context and outreach have been ongoing for some time. You seem to be conflating the two so I intentionally ignored your reference to it.

Of course I'm not conflating the 2. As I said right at the start of this little derail,

Far better to:
a) actually improve state education, so that you rarely need to consider context
b) in the very few cases it's still relevant (like the Fairground family student), use your brain to apply sensible judgement

Labour's bonfire of education is the exact opposite of (a).

As I keep saying, your focus is wrong.

I have to admit that I am conflating contextual offers with Cambridge's state school quotas in this discussion.

The state school quotas were arguably more discriminatory. Cambridge did do an analysis of outcomes which showed that less bright state students did indeed get in. It's probably why they're stopping it.

Look at the 2019 Cambridge paper 'Analysis of student characteristics and attainment outcomes at the University of Cambridge' here:
https://www.cao.cam.ac.uk/admissions-research/app-research-papers-2020
(4th file down)

Tbf, I don't have any analysis of contextual offer outcomes to draw on. But then neither do you.

Quite frankly I don’t give a shit about contextual offers - if my kid goes to a slightly better or slightly worse uni than they might otherwise it won’t make a massive difference on life chances. What will make a difference is the quality of education they receive at uni and in the 13 years beforehand. Broadly speaking I don’t think the UK system is fit for purpose in terms of preparing children for the future, but there were bright spots that Labour seem to be actively dismantling. Education in this country needs a rethink, but Labour lack any sort of vision.

I’m with @strawberrybubblegum that the discussion of divvying up uni places is the tail wagging the dog (or a more British expression might be rearranging deck chairs on the titanic). If the education that precedes it is poor and the university is underfunded to the brink of insolvency then it doesn’t really matter. Fwiw, i was educated in a country (US) where admissions are 100% contextual - nobody gets a place based on grades alone and unis can consider all sorts of context ranging from economic circumstances to family trauma to disabilities. Personally I prefer that to basing admission almost exclusively on exam performance on a random day in June, but it is no more a perfectly fair system than the UK one (with or without contextual offers).

So predictable to wheel out Cambridge. Cambridge is only one university and they are in the process of fine tuning things and addressing the state school target issue. I am the first to say that WP programmes are not perfect and there is need for further calibration. However, it is most definitely a move in the right direction. If you consider all of the highest ranking universities, I don't think the pendulum has swung too far at all. However, even if it had temporarily, it is nothing like the level of bias there has been historically in favour of private schools over state in access to the best universities and courses.

The US's "contextual admissions" seem to consist of "legacy" and "donor" superboosts, so no thank you, that's what it was like here 70 years ago, we've moved on.

Legacy admissions are a very small fraction of those admitted, though it can significantly increase that child’s chances of admission. I agree it isn’t fair. On the other end of the spectrum though, I was admitted to a far more competitive university than I might have based on grades alone because I grew up in challenging circumstances and was able to explain my journey in my application. I also had 100% of fees covered.

Those at the top end will always have an easier path but I am less interested in quashing all the myriad ways they gain advantage than I am with lifting up those working against challenging circumstances.

I haven't seen any other objective analysis of outcomes from recent years. Have you? Happy to see the equivalent for other universities, for a balancing view.

But as @labraradabrador says, it doesn't really matter.

What I really care about is Labour destroying education. And the bit of that I care most about in that is their attempts to dismantle our schools.

(Also the AI funding. That was cool)