And to bail out the fucking bankers - who only made $20 BILLION in bonuses
this year. Poor things.
- Alan
On Sun, 20 Mar 2011, dave miller wrote:
Yesterday I saw the cuts in action, and had a glimpse of where state
education is heading.
My son is luckily a clever little kid, 10 years old, and very good at
maths. Based on this he was picked for a 10 week extra maths class,
specialist teaching so he could be pushed. It's been great, Saturday
mornings, and he's loved it. The teachers are wonderful, inspiring, so
dedicated. It's done him a world of good, though I admit he's very
privileged to get this extra help.
Yesterday the teachers sadly told us the scheme is to be scrapped, and
handed over to a private company to run next year. Lambeth Council
(south London) have to make massive cuts and that's it. All that hard
work, for so many years by brilliant teachers, giving far more than
their paid for, is to be chucked in the bin. All to satisfy the
Conservatives naive belief that private companies do things better,
and to reduce waste. I suppose most of them are from private schools
so dont have a clue of the benefit of this type of thing. But I
suspect that really they dont care.
Cutting or privatising schemes like this may well point to the future,
where special needs provision in schools gets cut, and instead has to
paid for by the parents, as along as they can afford it of course.
And all this just to bail out the banks!
dave
On 20 March 2011 17:30, Simon Biggs <[email protected]> wrote:
Don't ask Alan.
The new Con-Dem government are privatising everything. They do not
necessarily call it that, but it is that in all but name.
The NHS, for example, will no longer be funded directly but through
consortiums of health service purchasers - mostly large private companies of
GP's but also other private gatekeepers. A number of private US health firms
are queuing up to come into that market. The NHS will be there but as a
provider of service to these companies. Further to that, private primary
providers will be able to compete with the NHS and doctors's groups will be
required to put services out to competitive tender. The NHS will not be a
monopoly. That is effective privatisation on the US model.
In English higher education the government is withdrawing all funding for
taught provision. Students will be charged the full cost of their course
(about ?8000/year on average). The student can choose to borrow the fee from
the State and then repay it with interest on graduation. This breaks the
link between State funding agencies and the Universities, at least in
respect of teaching. Research will still be directly funded - although there
are questions as to what will happen in the future.
In Scotland it is a bit different. Scotland does not raise its own taxes
(that is done in London) and government income is calculated as a proportion
of UK tax. The allocation for Scottish higher education has been cut by the
same amount as in England (40%). Scotland doesn't have fees and has no
mechanism to make up that lost revenue. We have an election in a few weeks
and neither of the parties that could win will consider fees. It would be
political suicide. There will be a shortfall in Scottish higher education
funding and there is currently no solution. It is only a matter of months
till this budget kicks in. The most likely outcome is a big cut in the
number of students and a lot of unemployed academics (we have no tenure in
the UK).
Best
Simon
On 20/03/2011 16:31, "Alan Sondheim" <[email protected]> wrote:
Hi Simon,
I'm not sure why US law would hold, since the census would be within UK
and subject to UK laws. But it's shocking that this has been delegated to
any private/commercial company; the whole point of the census is
demographic neutrality. Is this part of a general privatization of
functions like these? What about the health-care system for example?
Thanks, Alan
On Sun, 20 Mar 2011, Simon Biggs wrote:
The census use to be government run in the UK but they asked for sensitive
information that could be used against you. I understand its value for
planning and consider some aspects of it valid. When I was in Australia I
always filled it in. At that time they didn't ask about things I find
difficult now. The UK have now decided to use a US company, and a dodgy one
at that, making the issue more difficult. Firstly, the data will be
collected and processed by a military organisation and, secondly, US law
might override UK law and require disclosure, making a mockery of the UK's
data protection systems.
Best
Simon
On 20/03/2011 16:08, "Alan Sondheim" <[email protected]> wrote:
In the US, the census is government run; Azure worked for them this year.
It's important for people to fill the stuff out, since funding and votes
depend on it. Oddly, othodox Jews resisted.
- Alan
On Sun, 20 Mar 2011, Simon Biggs wrote:
I ignored the last one and will ignore this one. I'm a private citizen.
Best
Simon
On 20/03/2011 12:50, "list|marianne" <[email protected]> wrote:
Resistance to the decennial census is growing as a coalition of anti-war
groups, pacifists, religious organisations and digital activists begin
raising public awareness about the role of Lockheed Martin, America's
largest arms manufacturer.
The company, which makes Trident nuclear missiles, cluster bombs and F-16
fighter jets, won the ?150m contract to run the census on behalf of the
Office for National Statistics (ONS).
"The really worrying thing is the fact that the information being
collected
in the next census ? including new questions on sources of income and
place
of birth [to help monitor immigration] ? would be ideal fodder for the
kind
of anti-terror analyses being carried out by Lockheed, and could lead to a
faraway database identifying thousands of us as potential 'threats'."
Lockheed Martin ? which does 80% of its work for the US defence department
?
assists more than two dozen American government agencies and is involved
in
surveillance and data processing for the CIA and FBI. It has
controversially
provided private contract interrogators to the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq
and
Guant?namo Bay in Cuba. All US-based companies are subject to the Patriot
Act, which allows the US government to have access to any data in the
company's possession. Campaigners have warned this could give the US
government access to detailed and personal data on the UK's entire
population.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/feb/19/census-boycott-lockheed-martin
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