Anything with the name “Gove” in it will go bad eventually.I like this site, good articles, plenty responses, and replies from the bloke who owns the site. The time put in during what must be a very busy schedule is amazing. Congratulations.

Yes, Craig is a gem. It’s really to his credit, that a person with his public profile and schedule, takes the time to engage with mere mortals. One really wishes there were more people like him, true, liberal, democrats, in positions of power in society, our democracy would be all the better for it and far, far, healthier and stronger. Alas, it’s precisely these qualities that led to Craig’s ‘downfall’ and ‘exile’ from the confines of the golden circle.

Education is a potentially huge and untapped market, ripe for massive privatisation, and this is what I believe the new government’s plan contains. The creation of an even more unfair and stratified education system, where one will have to pay to get anywhere. The social implications of an even worse system than we have now, don’t bear thinking about.

Interesting but I don’t get this bit

[quote]Parents who want to protect their children from mixing at schools with ‘undesirable elements’, with different religious, racial or political views and with lower academic aspirations, will be the first in the queue. This will drain out of the state comprehensive sector the very parents and pupils who provide much of the impetus that makes comprehensive schools successful.[quote]

Assuming for example we are talking about religious creationists is there proof that having people like that in mainstream schooling actually drives improvement? I would like to think they may be exposed to other ideas but to say this provides “MUCH” of the impetus that makes comprehensive schools successful seems a bit far fetched!

I always assumed the theory was lower aspiring groups exposed to higher achievers would raise their game seeing what could be gained?

Of course I could be wrong but this does seem quite a leap of faith and I would like to see evidence for this particular claim.

If “Toby” Young is in favour, it must be a bad idea.

Paul,

the parents he is talking about tend to be the ones who complain if the facilities aren’t good enough or they aren’t happy with certain teachers and teachings. The ones who, regardless of whether they have extreme views, want the best for their child and have the impetus to do something about it.

The most important thing about teaching is that you need facilities and the resources just as much as you need good teachers and these are the type of people who will get that for their child. Parents from poorer backgrounds have far greater worries, such as putting food on the table, to spend time pushing for better facilities for their child.

I think if you go to school you should learn stuff, like proper stuff not just stupid stuff.

What Jim’s saying is absolute nonsence.

My parents sent me to a private school precisely to avoid oiks and develop a proper accent.

Nobody cares about ability.

We met this Palestinian girl in the pub. She was quite cute. We were all kiddin her that she was a suicide bomber, just for a laugh chattin her up, as ya do.

Turned out she was a doctor just completing her training in Queen Mary.

Luckily enough we’d killed her and bulldozed her parents home in Gaza before anyone discovered Palestinians were human beings.

It’s hard to believe that this Israeli terrorist state can inflict such horror upon defenceless human beings in Gaza whilst the world turns its head away.

Never in all my life life would I have thought that the leader of my owm country would have stood idly by whilst such atrocity was inflicted upon innocent civilians.

Are WE now persecutors of these Palestinians?

Are any of my taxes directed to further torture the Palestinian people?

If so. I won’t pay.

I won’t support this anymore.

I’ll see the our scumbag government in court.

See your point Chris but I would tend to assume that those are the sort of people who would get written off as “nutters” and fobbed off! I cannot see a creationist for example complaining about the dumbing down of the curriculum and the downgrading of science and languages (except perhaps see http://www.sil.org). I am totally for the comprehensive system, it didn’t do me or my brother and sister any harm and later in life I came to realise it in fact did me a lot of good, but that was of course a long time ago.

Regards Paul