At 23:07 04/08/00 +0200, Christoph Reuss wrote:
>Keith Hudson wrote:
>> If I remember correctly from the
>> news about a week ago there are about 30,000 children who are now excluded
>> from school. However, there are about two or three times that number whom
>> teachers would like to exclude but are prevented from doing so by various
>> appeal boards which over-rule the schools and force unruly children back
>> into the school even though they have a disruptive effect on the other
>> children. This has become so serious that the government have recently
>> announced that schools will have more say and has drawn up a list of
>> excludable behaviours. There is a row going on now between teachers and
>> the government as to what precise behaviours should be on that list. At the
>> same time, for "political correctness" reasons, the government has said
>> that they are setting a target of reducing the number of excluded children
>> in the next two years by 30%. So the government want it both ways! They
>> are giving in to the realities of the hellish classrooms in which many
>> teachers find themselves (often at high personal injury risk) but are also
>> trying to maintain that they have a reformist agenda.
>>
>> As I've already written below, state education as a whole is in a
>> disastrous state. There are still thousands of excellent state schools in
>> the leafy suburbs, but there are now thousands of hellholes in inner city
>> areas and socially-assisted housing areas where they can only operate by
>> recruiting idealistic young teachers (who can't cope and soon leave) or
>> supply teachers (experienced retired teachers topping up their pensions)
>> who come in for a few days at a time without any long-term commitment to
>> the children.
(CR)
>How is more privatization supposed to heal this "disastrous state" ?
>Who among the attendees of these "thousands of hellholes in inner city
>areas" would be able to afford private schools ? Sounds like putting
>out fire with gasoline.
The essential point -- as is pointed out by all teachers and head-teachers
who retire prematurely from State schools -- is that they are persistently
afflicted by paperwork that is coming from the central Department of
education. The teachers are no longer in charge of their own children and
their own methods of teaching. This is what has made their jobs stressful
and why they have lost credibility in the community. This why the
profession is no longer respected and why, in recent years, graduates no
longer want to go into teaching in anywhere near the numbers that they used
to, say, 30 or 40 years ago.
The charter schools in America -- mainly in the inner cities areas with
immense social and crime problems -- exist financially because they receive
direct grants from the government. The finance is not filtered (and
plundered) by intervening local authorities. Thus, charter schools receive
anything from between 10 and 30% more money than the state schools around
them. At least, that's the situation in England in the case of "direct
grant" schools and I guess the figures are much the same in America. I
guess that, over decades, fees could be re-introduced as they used to be in
the 1870s, but they can't be brought in overnight.
There are very few direct grant schools in England and the experiment has
only just started in the last year or two. However, the experience of
several hundred charter schools in America which have been going for a few
years now suggest that, with one or two exceptions, they are generally
successful. And almost all of these are in areas where the schools were
hellholes previously. They reach the necessary scholastic standards and
they have few discipline problems because have close contact with the local
parents rather than having to follow rules laid down from on high.
Your use of the fire and gasoline metaphor suggests that, at least, you
accept that there is a fire! I don't think anybody can escape from the
obvious fact that state school systems are slowly breaking down (composting
rather than burning) in all advanced countries.
Keith
________________________________________________________________________
Keith Hudson, General Editor, Handlo Music, http://www.handlo.com
6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England
Tel: +44 1225 312622; Fax: +44 1225 447727; mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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