At 20:32 26/06/01 -0400, Ed Weick wrote:
---> cut to
(course planning)
(EW)
>OK, I concede some of this. But I do believe that we can some pretty good
>forecasting based on current and recent trends. We may not get it right,
>but getting it even reasonably close to right would be a big forward step.
>I would venture that, while catering to the demands of their students,
>universities continually forecast. Because appropriate teaching staff takes
>a long time to develop and capital facilities take a long time to plan, they
>would not be working in their interests or continuity if they did not do so.
Yes, I agree that it's in the interests of universities to try and forecast
future skill trends and that it takes long term preparation. Even so,
demands for new skills appear very quickly in the modern world and they're
really only met by "sitting next to Nellie" within the firms that needs them.
>It is our secondary school level that is currently messed up. It's become
>underfunded, downgraded in the eyes of the public, and something of a
>pitched battle between government and the teachers. Neither it nor
>government appears to be in a position to do any forward thinking.
I am very doubtful that throwing more money at schools will do very much at
all, except swell the ranks of the planners and bureaucrats at intermediate
government levels. Only a proportion of the finance ever gets down to the
coal face. (Much the same applies applies to ever-increasing spending on
the National Health Service in England.)
(EW)
>I'm not an advocate of the abolition of private schools, but I want to see a
>strong public system which provides kids with an education comparable in
>quality to private schools. I don't want to public system sacrificed to the
>benefit of the private system.
It seems to me that the essential difference between state schools and
private schools is not the money. (There *is* a huge difference I grant
you, but that is mainly due to historical reasons and, if there was a real
will on the part of governments and civil services, then this could be
corrected over a period of time.) The real difference is that state
schooling involves a large degree of central control. State teachers have
little more influence over their schools than factory workers have. (It's
no wonder that teachers have now almost totally lost the respect that they
used to have.) However, an independent private school depends mainly on
good leadership by the head-teacher and supportive staff. By and large
they're not answerable to anybody else other than the parents and children.
(KH)
>> (It is very interesting that the accounts I've been reading recently of the
>> new voucher-driven charter schools in America, even of those in the worst
>> run-down school districts of the large cities, all say the same thing. The
>> teachers work the children hard. The children enjoy it. The parents support
>> it. Most of the children are at least two years ahead in reading and
>> arithmetic than the state-run schools. The motivation behind these new
>> charter schools is really recapitulating the early decades of the new
>> schools in the industrial cities of England when working class parents,
>> themselves miserably poor, actually paid for the education of their
>> children -- and almost all went. Both parents and children were motivated.)
(EW)
>I'll simply have to take your word on this. I haven't done any reading on
>voucher systems recently. However, I would argue that a well funded,
>peaceful, respected public system would also produce good results. Our
>local high school, one of the most reputable older schools in Ottawa,
>continues to turn out very good students in increasingly difficult
>circumstance.
My evidence is mainly anecdotal -- gleaned from articles in the American
press over the past year or so. I don't think there's enough hard evidence
yet overall and there are many stories of ineptitude and financial
chicanery among charter schools. The balance of the evidence so far seems
to be very positive, however, particularly when one considers that almost
all these new experiments are taking place in districts where the state
system had pretty well broken down and the children almost totally
demotivated.
(EW)
>Markets are based on self-interest, not on the interests of society as a
>whole. As well as inferior goods and services, they can eliminate a whole
>lot of things. What apalls me about present trends in our society is that
>we can no longer distinguish between what belongs in the private sector, and
>is therefore of interest to particular members of society, and what belongs
>in the public domain, and therefore of interest to us all -- to our
>continuity as a good society if you like. The Ontario government
>notwithstanding, I don't see education as a marketable commodity. I see it
>as a responsibility of society as a whole. Unfortunately, however, I may be
>going the way of the dinosaurs, or perhaps it's the dinosaurs that are
>returning.
We're back to the selfishness question that's arisen before. I don't like
the word "selfish" at all because it has so many moral connotations. As I
see it, the fact is that each of us is ineradicably selfish. (And "equally"
so, too, in the sense that each of us is "equally" hungry on occasion or
"equally" wants sex.) I think in terms of what is "sensibly selfish" and
what is not. If I am sensibly selfish, then I look after myself, but also
care for my family, neighbours and community. I "invest" in altruistic
efforts for others because I know that I will obtain returns on that
investment when I need help myself. If I am not sensibly selfish then the
chances are that I will not be helped by others when the need arises.
So I see no variance between "sensible selfishness" and a wholesome,
caring, sustainable society. Mrs Thatcher was famously misquoted as saying
"there is no society". Well, there isn't in the sense that there is a
uniform mass of other people out there that we're able to help or with
equal claims upon us. For each of us our "society" has a span that tails
off with varying degrees of remoteness according to the function that we're
talking about. If I am blind and want to cross a busy road I can't expect
"society" to help me, but I can reasonably expect one or two nearby
individuals to. For the moment, they are my society and they know that if
they were blind the chances would be high that I would help them.
The task of modern government, as I see it, is to more clearly define what
the various "spans" of society are, according to the function that are
involved. Problems arise when governments define the span as stretching out
over the whole country (the span of which was determined by military and
transport functions more than anything else.) rather than truly functional
spans. And, getting back to education, this is the trap that most modern
governments have fallen into. They treat education as though it was a
similar activity as providing an army, for example.
So I see no fundamental difference between the economic market and the
social market. They both exist by means of exchange. The practical
difference is that economic exchange takes place by means of instantaneous
transactions, and the social market by means of transactions which are
difficult to quantify and take time to balance out in a way which is felt
to be reasonable and just.
The irony is that our present "egalitarian" approach (by all political
parties) in the field of education is increasingly producing a set of
outcomes between the best and the worst schools which is far, far wider
than the varied outcomes of independent schools. Education is a wonderful
candidate for almost complete decentralisation of its functions.
Keith Hudson
___________________________________________________________________
Keith Hudson, General Editor, Calus <http://www.calus.org>
6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England
Tel: +44 1225 312622; Fax: +44 1225 447727;
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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