Hi Brian,
At 14:43 26/11/01 -0500, you wrote:
>
>It is interesting to compare Will Hutton's views with Keith's.
>
>Brian McAndrews
Sad Will Hutton! Never has anyone tried harder over the years to become one
of Tony's cronies. He even wrote a whole book ("The State We're In") before
the penultimate General Election in the hope of becoming New Labour Party's
economic guru when they got elected. But, quite rightly, Gordon Brown took
no notice of what was in effect a stream of pure Keynesianism which would
have sent inflation rocketing again.
In the case of Hutton, the Keynesian needle stuck in his young journalistic
life and has remained stuck for 20/30 years. In the case of Keynes -- one
of the most brilliant minds of the 20th century -- he had the realism to be
persuaded by the facts, and changed his mind about his own General Theory.
(For those interested in Keynes and what he later told Hayek and others
about his ideas, read Skidelsky's massive two volume biography of Keynes --
a magnificent read.)
Back to the article, it a typical Hutton piece -- a few grains of truth
intermingled with specious interpretations and a lot of inconsequential
padding leading nowhere. But if you read his article carefully, it is quite
clear that he agrees that the state system is in a mess. (As I wrote a day
or two ago, this is why -- from a Labour Government of all things! -- the
next Education Bill promises freedom for any state schools that has the
courage to take it.)
Let me comment on three paragraphs only:
(WH)
<<<<
A [state] comprehensive such as Oxford's Cherwell, north London's Hasmonean or
Haybridge in the West Midlands are all achieving better A-level results than
many famous private schools with fees of �12,000 or more.
>>>>
This is what I've been saying numerous times! A minority of state schools
in leafy suburbs where parents still retain the culture to take an interest
in education do very well indeed. This sort of school is to be compared
with another comprehensive school reported in the press some time ago,
where the parents of one child turned up on Parents Day and were the only
ones who did so in a class of 30 children. The child was so taunted by her
fellow classmates that she beseeched her parents not to attend the
following year.
(WH)
<<<<
The Government's figures for GCSE results confirm the trend. City technology
colleges, beacon schools, straight comprehensives and the new specialist
schools are all beginning to turn in remarkable results - along with the
state grammar schools which nearly always did - even though the overall
average of pupils in the state system getting A* to C is a miserable 50 per
cent. But compared to the 25 per cent average in the mid- 1980s even that is
a great improvement.
>>>>
By "remarkable" results, Will Hutton means that their results are about the
same as the average private school. But most of the schools he mentions are
exceptionally funded anyway and are much in the minority of the state
system. City Technology Colleges are funded by both state and local
commerce, Beacon Schools (a very small number) have been granted extra
funds and status only because they already had exceptional headteachers,
and the new specialist schools (only a handful at the moment) are also
given much greater funds than usual. Most of these experiments (for that is
what they are) have only been going on for two or three years. They (like
private schools) are scooping the pool of the best available teachers. The
government knows that the experiment (even if successful over the longer
term) cannot be continued because it can't afford to extend it to all state
comprehensives within the cost of the present stste system. That's why all
these gimmicks are going to be swept away by the new Education Bill (if it
comes to pass).
As to the success rate of the last 20 years, well that's simply not true.
Declining exam standards account for this. And that's not what I say but
what the previous government Chief Inspector of Schools, and the former
head of one of the largest Examining Boards, say.
(WH)
<<<<
Above all, the bottom tier of state schools needs a massive infusion of
resources. If Westminster charges �13,305 per pupil, Winchester �17,442 and
St Paul's �11,085 to deliver the same results achieved by the stronger
pupils in our best comprehensives, then that is a benchmark for the kind of
resources needed by our poorly performing schools. We must pay teachers at
them the high salaries needed to compensate them for some of the most
arduous work in the UK.
>>>>
Quoting these sorts of private school fees is disingenuous. The above fees
include the cost of boarding, too. The average fee for the day attender at
private schools (the majority of the pupils) is more like �6-7,000 p.a.
This is below the average cost of education for the state pupil. The latter
cost not only has to include the cost of the school and the teachers'
salaries, but also the cost of the local education authority (sometimes
retaining 30-50% of the central education grant and dispersing it into
other council departments such as road cleaning) and also the cost of the
thousands of civil servants in the Ministry of Education.
As to Hutton's last sentence: "We must pay teachers at them [state schools]
the high salaries needed to compensate them for some of the most arduous
work in the UK." Of course they should be paid more! -- that's about the
only sensible point that he's made in the whole article. But it's not the
teaching that's the really arduous part. On the one hand, the majority of
comprehensives have to deal with listless, and often abusive, children and,
on the other, the teachers have to spend hours a week at form filling for
the Min of Ed.
What's basically wrong with the state system is that making it free has
produced a total state of dependency by most parents over the past century
resulting in a lack of respect for both teachers and education. A
substantial proportion of the parent population expect their children to
"get" an education as of right, as though it is a liquid that can be poured
effortlessly from the teacher to the pupil.
Best wishes,
Keith
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Keith Hudson, Bath, England; e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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