Where is your proof that this money will deprive other schools ?
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Where is your proof that this money will deprive other schools ?
davek
Player Valuation: £150m
The fund to maintained schools has been slashed and this free lot are taking their place with 'grants' from government for capital costs. Now you can ignore any connection between the two all day long as far as I'm concerned, but there's a clear linkage for all to see: you take money out of state education projects and you give it away to the voluntary sector who then buy in private contractors to build schools and/or provide teaching etc.
It's a clear a case of right wing ideology put into practice.
davek
Player Valuation: £150m
Ergo it's effectively closed to kids who support the other lot and therefore a bit exclusive in practice. Not much of a step forward like is it?
Maybe the Swedes (whose plan the gobshites in the Tory party are following) have it all wrong then when they started to question the whole system after it was proven the results they get are ropy to say the least?
Still, it's ok for the midgets at La Masia so let's get the Everton one up and runnig to churn out scores of Xavi's.
bluejock
Boss coat aficionado
That's what I thought. Unless the school playing field holds 55,000 on a Saturday I think we've slightly more pressing concerns
You are aware that under the Building Schools for the Future initiative brought in by the previous Labour government that the £50m set aside for Free schools would have only paid for ONE school ? The same amount of money was set aside by Michael Gove and allowed for the creation of 24 schools up and down the country, 11 of which were in some of the most deprived areas of the country.
I'm sure you are also aware that the BSF initiative would have handed control of the buildings and infrastructure of the vast majority of schools to private groups, thus taking away control from the Local authorities.
Money does not guarantee an increase in standards, and more schools must be built in the coming years as the population of this country continues to grow. If i had the choice between a single, huge institution or two dozen smaller and more well run schools, i know which one i would choose. It's not about politics, it's about raising standards and allowing people to be taught in a way which is as effective as possible. The current state system is failing thousands of children every single year.
The Labour government wasted millions and millions of pounds on the BSF initiative, to the point of being called scandalous by many researchers from all sides of the political spectrum. Panning the free schools fund before it has even had a chance to show it's worth is narrow minded to say the least. But i suppose because it's Tory it must be bad.
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Wouldn't have thought so. I mean isn't Osman a Liverpool fan? I personally don't give a damn who provides the education so long as it's a good one.
Internationally we are slipping further and further down the league tables, so letting someone other than the state (and I include both sides in that) have a go is no bad thing.
Amen.
davek
Player Valuation: £150m
First off, I cant believe you're asrguing the merits of a cut in funding from billions down to tens of millions - and that's beside the point of how much Gove will edge the way of Free Schools (obviously not as much as Labour promised because his remit is to crack down on spending). On the issue of Labour's scheme handing control from LEA's to the private sector No it wouldn't involve that at all. Building (either new schools or - mostly - revamps) would have been the private sector's input and control would have passed to no one other than to consult with various quangos. The state provision of schools was being embedded for future generations, not stripped away.
Lol! A level pass rates have increased year on year for well over a decade. What's failing is the creation of jobs for the end product of the school system as our economy tanks and we're at levels of 20% youth unemployment.
Maybe your Tory government can get all those private jobs they promised eh?
davek
Player Valuation: £150m
But we're not really talking about producing footy players are we? That's not what this enterprise is about. The point stands.
No better or worse than Germany, that other uncompetitive economy.
Lol!
You do realise that the cutting of BSF will actually allow for more money to be spent on real improvements to education in the long run, right ? Never once did i say that taking away £1bn worth of funding and only replacing it with £50m made sense, i was using that as an example which proves that the money being used by the previous Government was not being spent correctly, at all.
You are wrong, regarding who would control and maintain the facilities being built. The majority of new school builds would have been PFI-funded, as a result these schools would have been privately controlled for years, and in some cases decades, by private firms. Note that i did not say anything about the education itself. The LEA's would not have control of these buildings or the maintenance of them:
A level pass rates increasing proves nothing, apart from the fact that exams are getting easier and teachers are focusing more and more on what you need to learn to pass, rather than what you really need to learn. Compared to other nations our school performance is poor. I know a girl who got all A's in her A-levels and is studying Astronomy and Physics at Oxford, but she doesn't know on what continent Brazil is located, and she thought that Pharmacists work on farms. I want a real education, not just one which makes me look intelligent because i have some certificate that says i am.
More, smaller schools should be the way forward. The state situation is reaching a point where 30 or more children in a class is the norm, now compare that to the average class size of some of the more successful education nations. Despite the fact that the UK spent a comparatively high amount on per pupil education (2010), the standards were lower than other nations who spent noticeably less. Germany for example achieved the same standards while spending £18,000 less per student. Waste, waste and more waste.
davek
Player Valuation: £150m
You're talking about long term economic control, I'm talking about control of the curriculum. These free schools can be opened up and run by any old [Poor language removed] like Toby Young or sponsored by Pepsi or Coke. D'you think [Poor language removed] like that aren't going to edge teaching down some free market ideologiical cul-de-sac churning out tomorrows neo-Thatcherite children of the damned?
*sigh*
I refer you back to the Swedish experience I alluded to earlier. Go and see what they think of the proto-type they developed and are now rejecting but these daft Tory tvvats are now running with.
Grade inflation is one thing Dave, but if you look at how Britain is doing outside of our own shores, ie in comparison to other countries, we kinda stink.
The PISA rankings are the most recognised.
McKinsey has investigated schooling around the world and has found four main themes common amongst the best performing regions.
Decentralisation (handing power back to schools); a focus on underachieving pupils; a choice of different sorts of schools; and high standards for teachers.
1 and 3 are being offered by this. #4 still needs a lot of work as teachers in Britain are pretty poor.
davek
Player Valuation: £150m
Grade inflation is one thing Dave, but if you look at how Britain is doing outside of our own shores, ie in comparison to other countries, we kinda stink.
The PISA rankings are the most recognised.
McKinsey has investigated schooling around the world and has found four main themes common amongst the best performing regions.
Decentralisation (handing power back to schools); a focus on underachieving pupils; a choice of different sorts of schools; and high standards for teachers.
1 and 3 are being offered by this. #4 still needs a lot of work as teachers in Britain are pretty poor.
Germany, France and Britain. Three G8 economies below Estonia.
I dont think we need dwell on that table too long.
Britain still churns out cutting edge research and our top unis are at the cutting edge of developing new technologies. We must be doing something right.
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