faith schools v non faith schools.

[Haller]

if you are keen to address class inequality, why not try and change the society that produces that inequality (rather than pulling out individuals and giving them access to the glittering prizes)?

Wasn't that entirely what Crosland was attempting to do with his espousal of comprehensive education?

I take your point that the policy got heavily watered down in ideological terms, but - a genuine question - do you think Crosland's original vision would have been successful in redressing the inequalities of society had it been pursued? Can society be transformed through the education system?

 

[lewislewis]

How do you propose to end faith schools without closing down schools and sacking teachers?

Schools in general are divisive, I was in a State Comp a few years ago, each of us had our loyalty to our home school where it was a State Comprehensive, a Catholic school, a CofWales school etc etc, religion simply didn't come into it.

Edit- conclusion: live with it.

 

[Wilf]

Wasn't that entirely what Crosland was attempting to do with his espousal of comprehensive education?

I take your point that the policy got heavily watered down in ideological terms, but - a genuine question - do you think Crosland's original vision would have been successful in redressing the inequalities of society had it been pursued? Can society be transformed through the education system?

Yes, by and large, I think Crossland was a kind of egalitarian (that point might not have been clear in what i wrote, as i was answering Azrael's different point about Crossland). He was, in terms of 1950s debates a revisionist, but his vision of education probably did see it asa lever to change society. All that was rather messy at the time though - he himself was a toff and a number of people in the Labour cabinet had probably benefitted from grammar school social mobility. But, yes, I think he did see education as a vehicle for social change.

In those early debates, the more egalitarain planners and politicians realised that this would require the building of very large schools - with the possibility of bussing kids in from the surrounding towns (to ensure a social mix) - and that you would have to get rid of all grammar schools. For a mixture of political and economic reasons, neither of things actually happened.

The more egalitarian vision at the time also had a view on what should go on inside the new comps - mixed ability teaching, informal child centred learning, the 'new history', less exams, no uniforms. All that was tried in different locations and to a varying degree. However it was never a full scale government driven programme. In fact the government was on the defensive about all of this almost as soon as it happened - and officially rejected the package in 1976 (jim Callaghan's speech to Ruskin College). Labour also of course were the party that slashed public expenditure in its last days in office, 1978-79.

Sorry, your question - Well, as a Marxist i don't personally believe you use education entirely to overcome class inequalities and ownership patterns etc. However I do think that education can make a real difference to individuals and the way they see themselves in the world.

 

[Wilf]

How do you propose to end faith schools without closing down schools and sacking teachers?

Schools in general are divisive, I was in a State Comp a few years ago, each of us had our loyalty to our home school where it was a State Comprehensive, a Catholic school, a CofWales school etc etc, religion simply didn't come into it.

Edit- conclusion: live with it.

No reason to actually close them down or sack anyone - just stop them being faith schools. Make them into normal comps, alter their admission policy etc. Pretty much what happened to the old grammar schools.

 

[zion]

I doubt whether Crosland really was an egalitarian.

The problem with true equality of opportunity, from the perspective of socialists, is that it undermines class identification and therefore the basis of class politics. The post-Depression compromise within the political parties of the UK could be boiled down to this: Labour and Conservative politicians both had an interest in minimizing social mobility, the Conservatives to keep the working classes in their place and Labour to maintain class consciousness among the proletariat.

Crosland's efforts to abolish the grammar schools and create comprehensives without abolishing private schools perpetuated class divisions instead of enabling people to cross beyond them. In the same way, unions were not interested in enabling their members to become managers, but in maximizing their pay while not taking on management responsibilities.

This is no longer fully true, but I still think that neither major party is committed to social mobility as an aim.

 

[In Bloom]

Then why, from the introduction of the tripartite system, were bright working class children increasingly accepted to grammars as dull middle class children were increasingly excluded? Middle class kids being consigned to secondary moderns played a large part in consigning grammar schools to the dustbin of history.

So what you're basically saying is that you don't understand statistics?

It's alright, a lot of liberals seem to have that problem

 

[Haller]

I doubt whether Crosland really was an egalitarian.

The problem with true equality of opportunity...

As I understand it (and correct me if I'm wrong) egalitarian socialism is not about equality of opportunity, but rather about equality. Wasn't the point of Crosland's argument that, just as no one should be considered a more worthwhile member of society just because they were born with inherited wealth, so too they shouldn't get preferential treatment just because they were born with greater intelligence/aptitude/whatever.

 

[zion]

You're right; but there was an inherent contradiction in that perspective, if that was Crosland's perspective.

As far as I understand it, the secondary school system was designed under the 1944 Education Act to have three types of school: grammar, secondary modern and technical. It was supposed to classify students in terms of their aptitudes for different types, not different quality of education. The technical schools never really got off the ground, which turned it into a binary system where grammar schools were the "good" schools and secondary modern schools the "bad" schools.

If, as an egalitarian socialist, you believe that technical labor is just as good as academic labor, then you'll have no problem with the idea of having different types of school for different "types" of pupil (leaving aside for a moment the question of whether by age 11 you can tell what "type" a girl or boy is).

Hypothetically, then, Crosland favored comprehensives either because he didn't really believe that technical labor was as good as academic labor, or because he felt that the British population did not believe it and would automatically "rank" schools unless there was a unitary system.

 

[Wilf]

As far as I understand it, the secondary school system was designed under the 1944 Education Act to have three types of school: grammar, secondary modern and technical. It was supposed to classify students in terms of their aptitudes for different types, not different quality of education.

The 44 Act didn't really specify selection or the 11+/tripartite system - that was more a specific report (which i'm a little too relaxed at the moment to remember) and ultimately the 1945 Labour Government. The egalitarians in the party lost out then + there was a certain going along with expert opinion - esp. the emerging psychological idea that intelligence could be tested accurately (Cyril Burt). But the wartime coalition - who actually passed the 1944 Act - where not all that specific (even if they prbably did assume there would still be selection).

If, as an egalitarian socialist, you believe that technical labor is just as good as academic labor, then you'll have no problem with the idea of having different types of school for different "types" of pupil (leaving aside for a moment the question of whether by age 11 you can tell what "type" a girl or boy is).

Eh? First of all why would you assume at 11 that different kids should be marked out for different paths in life, full stop? Even if you did - and there is nothing egalitarian at all about doing that - would you assume it is best to do that in different institutions. The very notion of building a status hierarchy of schools grafted onto a class hierarchy of jobs ensured exactly what did happen - schools that were unequally funded, had unequal amounts of graduate teachers, had most kids leaving at 15 before the exams in some/staying on in others etc. The very act of saying 'some schools for those kind of people/jobs and other schools for the other lot', was profoundly inegalitarian.

Hypothetically, then, Crosland favored comprehensives either because he didn't really believe that technical labor was as good as academic labor, or because he felt that the British population did not believe it and would automatically "rank" schools unless there was a unitary system.

I think this is a-historical. Technical schools had failed to get off the ground in the 1940s/1950s and were a non-issue by Crossland's time as Sec of State in the 60s. His vision was of very big schools offering a wide range of subjects - and to a wide range of pupils....

.... well to be honest, its a while since i read anything about him. From what i remeber, he wanted to break with the clause 4 vision and was trying to put together practical schemes for modernising britain - similar to some of the civil service reforms in the 60s as well i.e. breaking with traditional pattersn of class inequality.

 

[zion]

Hi 4thwrite

Looks like you know a lot more about this than I do!

I wouldn't assume that 11-year-olds were marked out for a particular path in life. I was 25 before I realized what I wanted to do.

The problem is not the having of different schools in itself, but the perception of differences in status between them as expressed by differences of funding and support. So, for example, single-sex schools can work well even though they separate people out, precisely because the people running and funding the schools no longer perceive differences of status between boys and girls.

 

[Azrael]

Within the shell of something that is nominally non-selective, the reality - the substance - has been the creation of a ne0-market, designed to actually give the middle classes better outcomes. Hardly an 'egalitarian' project.

I agree entirely; the point is, the egalitarian dogma has remained, and continued to dictate policy. Recent Labour legislation has subjected surviving grammar schools (under 200 now) to repeated ballots for their survival, while forbidding similar ballots for the creation of new grammars.

Certainly the 11+ was flawed in a technical sense - flawed in ways that ensured that working class kids had a disadvantage. However that isn't the point - they were structures designed to reproduce the inequalities of an unequal society. The tripartite system was a social process - not some technicallly flawed system that could be tinkered with.

What ways were they? Let's see some evidence backing that up.

And no, it didn't reproduce existing inequalities, it aimed to recreate them along lines of ability and not accident of birth.

Just on the figures, well, I personally haven't a clue as to whether the comps are worse than the grammars with regard to social mobility. But to pose the question like that suggests you are still under the illusion that comps were genuinely seeking to deliver some kind of equality. After a few attempts at liberal education in the late 60s and ealy 70s - the kind of thing that irritated the Black Papers - they were about nothing of the kind. I thinkyou are factually wrong on that.

No, I agree, it's a facade; but the dogma, and absolute stigma of selecting by intellect, remains.

However your points about the 'absurdity' of teaching kids with different abilities are actually offensive.

They're also actually true, so I fail to see your point. Unless you're actually suggesting that a potential Oxbridge candidate and a potential bricklayer require the same type of education.

So, grammar schools 'redress an accident of birth'? That seems to be suggesting that being born bright and working class is odd - a kind of alien amongst an underachieving mass of thick proles. Not sure I like the tone of that.

Well I was going to put "swinish multitude" but I've been overusing the Burke quotes of late ...

Of course I wasn't suggesting the working class are thick, impoverished proles. Lots of "working class" jobs (pulmbing, bricklaying etc) bring is a hefty wage that could send children to private school. I was saying economic advantage is, generally, decided by ability, so children of high ability born to families of low income deserve the chance to fulfil their potential.

While we have a capitalist system that's the best we can get.

But that aside, if you are keen to address class inequality, why not try and change the society that produces that inequality (rather than pulling out individuals and giving them access to the glittering prizes)?

Because I'm a passionate advocate of capitalism; I simply want everyone to have, as far as possible, an equal chance at the starting gate.

 

[Azrael]

So what you're basically saying is that you don't understand statistics?

It's alright, a lot of liberals seem to have that problem

Which statistics are those? The only ones posted were by me, and support my case.

Here's some more. In 1969, 38% of places at Oxford went to privately educated children; in 1998, thanks to the destruction of grammar schools, it had risen to 50%. (source, 'Observer')

Rising equality? I think not.

 

[Azrael]

Yes, by and large, I think Crossland was a kind of egalitarian (that point might not have been clear in what i wrote, as i was answering Azrael's different point about Crossland). He was, in terms of 1950s debates a revisionist, but his vision of education probably did see it asa lever to change society. All that was rather messy at the time though - he himself was a toff and a number of people in the Labour cabinet had probably benefitted from grammar school social mobility. But, yes, I think he did see education as a vehicle for social change.

In those early debates, the more egalitarain planners and politicians realised that this would require the building of very large schools - with the possibility of bussing kids in from the surrounding towns (to ensure a social mix) - and that you would have to get rid of all grammar schools. For a mixture of political and economic reasons, neither of things actually happened.

The more egalitarian vision at the time also had a view on what should go on inside the new comps - mixed ability teaching, informal child centred learning, the 'new history', less exams, no uniforms. All that was tried in different locations and to a varying degree. However it was never a full scale government driven programme. In fact the government was on the defensive about all of this almost as soon as it happened - and officially rejected the package in 1976 (jim Callaghan's speech to Ruskin College). Labour also of course were the party that slashed public expenditure in its last days in office, 1978-79.

Sorry, your question - Well, as a Marxist i don't personally believe you use education entirely to overcome class inequalities and ownership patterns etc. However I do think that education can make a real difference to individuals and the way they see themselves in the world.

Crossland was also, if I remember right, educated at Highgate and Oxford. A paid up member of that faintly odious paternalist wing of the Labour Party who were set in place by Fate/God/the disinterred spirit of Marx's boils to show proletariat what was best for them. He said in The Future Of Socialism that he didn't want "complete equality" (I'll bet he didn't!) because some jobs deserve greater rewards than others, but he did want to rebalance the scales a bit.

You're right, all the hippyish notions that came with grammars were quickly abandoned, but the basic underlying lie that everyone could receive an equal education proved politically useful, and stayed. (Although streaming was quickly instituted to ameliorate the worst effects.) The failure of a scheme that never had a hope of succeeding is now being addressed through this ridiculous faith school and "city academies" racket.

But say comprehensives were given all necessary resources. The fundamental notion remains absurd. "Mixed ability" classes especially. How do you propose teaching a class ranging from mathematical geniuses to children struggling with remedial work? And if such a class cannot exist, the underlying logic of comprehensives crumbles. Streaming is nothing but grammar schooling minus the resources and social harmony. I agree that the underesourcing of secondary moderns was a national scandal, but why not create a system where schools cater for different abilities with equal resources?

It must be better than compensating for false equality with religious dogma.

 

[In Bloom]

Which statistics are those? The only ones posted were by me, and support my case.

Here's some more. In 1969, 38% of places at Oxford went to privately educated children; in 1998, thanks to the destruction of grammar schools, it had risen to 50%. (source, 'Observer')

Rising equality? I think not.

I didn't say that grammar schools don't increase social mobility. My point is that:

• They don't negate class relationships in any real sense.
• They do not create complete social mobility.
• Social mobility is overrated anyway.

 

[Azrael]

I didn't say that grammar schools don't increase social mobility. My point is that:

• They don't negate class relationships in any real sense.
• They do not create complete social mobility.
• Social mobility is overrated anyway.

Fair enough, but what on earth does that have to do with my supposed inability to understand statistics?

 

[Wilf]

I didn't say that grammar schools don't increase social mobility. My point is that:

• They don't negate class relationships in any real sense.
• They do not create complete social mobility.
• Social mobility is overrated anyway.

true, true and true. But then lets not forget the bigger picture about grammar schools and their history. They were not created for the working classes - and they were not in any sense about social mobility (give or take a few spurious scholarships). If you had wanted to create social mobility through the education system (and, for what its worth i don't think you can achieve anything like those things through education alone) you wouldn't choose grammar schools as your mechanism - you'd get rid of them. To point to the small number of working class who went to them - as some on this thread have - is to miss their wider role absolutely. They existed as part of the selective system which assumed and sought to reinforce the existing social structure. In fact, the very notion of social mobility itself assumes the continuation of the structures that people might then move betweeen [but then, you know this...so why am i labouring the point ]

 

[zion]

4thwrite,

I could as easily say that a) and b) are true simply because grammar schools (or, to use a less freighted term, schools that focus on academic excellence and select by ability) are not widespread enough.

It bugged the hell out of me to be educated - privately - in the same classes as the dim bulb sons of affluent Oxford parents. Things got better in higher years with streaming and with some of the dim bulbs' departure at 16, but it made me a fan of streaming whether it occurs within schools or between them. I never want to sit in a classroom again waiting for semiliterate trustafarians to claw their way through a paragraph each of a set text so that we could actually, at the end of the class, start discussing it.

I think that the great weakness of your position is that it does not take into account the role that private education has assumed in countries across the world. Private schools are attended by children of the elite, and in turn give them entry into more highly paid jobs, creating a semi-detached affluent and self-reinforcing elite that diminishes social mobility. In turn, state education suffers because the elite and their children have no personal stake in ensuring its success.

You can deal with this problem in a grammar-schoolish way or in a voucher-ish way. Either will work. What will not work to build social mobility is the current system.

The grammar-schoolish way would be to abolish private schools and to either stream by ability within state schools or have separate schools streamed by ability.

The voucher-ish way would be to require private schools to accept a large proportion of their students by ability, with parents supplied with a government voucher to cover the cost.

Your way would perhaps leave private schools in place.

Social mobility is extremely important because everyone, from the time they are born, should have a chance to maximize their own potential, and should have the widest possible range of opportunities to do so. A strong class system leads to the situation described in Gray's Elegy in a Country Churchyard:

Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid
Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;
Hands, that the rod of empire might have sway'd,
Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre:

But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page,
Rich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unroll;
Chill Penury repress'd their noble rage,
And froze the genial current of the soul.

 

[In Bloom]

Fair enough, but what on earth does that have to do with my supposed inability to understand statistics?

I said that no test is completely class neutral, you responded by pointing out that some kids from working class backgrounds did well out of grammar schools. You work it out

 

[In Bloom]

4thwrite,

I could as easily say that a) and b) are true simply because grammar schools (or, to use a less freighted term, schools that focus on academic excellence and select by ability) are not widespread enough.

A) would never be true about grammar schools even if they did create total social mobility.

I couldn't give a toss if my boss went to Eaton or Birkenhead Sixth Form, he's still my boss.

 

[zion]

In_Bloom,

Is the fact that something does not, of itself, completely negate the class system, a sign that it does not help create a more just society?

People will always perceive one another in terms of status, but not all forms of status discrimination are morally equal. Judging someone based on merit is far better than judging someone based on their birth, their wealth, their accent or their class. Expanding grammar schools does undermine the class system by moving society incrementally toward a meritocratic system.

My perception is that some of the resistance to the idea of grammar schools comes from people, on the right and the left, who are comfortable with judging people in terms of class and don't want to see those categories systematically threatened.

 

[In Bloom]

In_Bloom,

Is the fact that something does not, of itself, completely negate the class system, a sign that it does not help create a more just society?

Yes, yes it is.

And "meritocracy" is liberal bullshit, merit is socially constructed, you can't determine it objectively. Who the fuck are you to decide that one person is any less valuable than another, anyway?

 

[zion]

In_Bloom,

What would, in and of itself, completely negate the class system?

Yes, merit is socially constructed and cannot be measured perfectly. All I am contending is that it is an incrementally fairer way to allocate resources than existing wealth, accident of birth, accent or social class.

I'm not suggesting that I, or any other single person or authority, should rank people's value, any more than I think that one person or authority should rank people's needs. I'm suggesting that the whole society, through its choices over allocation of resources, already makes a statement about who is valuable and who is not, and that as participants in that society we can make informed decisions about ways to allocate those resources better than they are allocated now.

 

[lewislewis]

No reason to actually close them down or sack anyone - just stop them being faith schools. Make them into normal comps, alter their admission policy etc. Pretty much what happened to the old grammar schools.

Hmm I'll go with that IF you can prove the parents and staff would consent to it.

 

[Wilf]

Hmm I'll go with that IF you can prove the parents and staff would consent to it.

to be honest i doubt that they would consent to it (though i would guess the majority of parents at the average c of e school are not actually godbotherers themselves). Just like the parents of kids at grammar schools, they wouldn't want the arena of 'comparative advantage' that they have managed to get into to disappear. Whether we should be funding all that is a different matter - as is the question of whether faith schools add to society and the way different communities live alongside each other.

p.s. there are plenty of cases of staff getting a raw deal at religious schools - for example getting sacked after undergoing a divorce

 

[In Bloom]

In_Bloom,

What would, in and of itself, completely negate the class system?

A communist revolution, though it's not likely to happen in the immediate future.

As long as capitalism exists, class will also exist, it's a simple matter of fact.

Yes, merit is socially constructed and cannot be measured perfectly. All I am contending is that it is an incrementally fairer way to allocate resources than existing wealth, accident of birth, accent or social class.

It can't be measured at all without making a subjective value judgement, and who gets to make those judgements? The same people who always do.

I'm not interested in a very slightly less shit option, personally.

 

[Azrael]

They were not created for the working classes - and they were not in any sense about social mobility (give or take a few spurious scholarships).

And the trial jury was created not as a shield against state power but a means of gaining local knowledge. How things begin doesn't necessarily dictate what they become. When access to grammar schools was universalised through the Eleven Plus exam their role changed. If they continued to be charities in the way Eton claims to be (with its comedy handful of "charitable scholarships") I'd oppose them as vehemently as anyone.

If you had wanted to create social mobility through the education system (and, for what its worth i don't think you can achieve anything like those things through education alone) you wouldn't choose grammar schools as your mechanism - you'd get rid of them.

Why? They were working perfectly well, and there was every sign access could have been improved further. What would you repleace them with.

To point to the small number of working class who went to them - as some on this thread have - is to miss their wider role absolutely. They existed as part of the selective system which assumed and sought to reinforce the existing social structure. In fact, the very notion of social mobility itself assumes the continuation of the structures that people might then move betweeen [but then, you know this...so why am i labouring the point ]

Yes, but a social structure decided by ability is entirely different in nature from one decided by birth. Fair enough to say they reinfoced social structure, but not the same one. Crossland knew this only too well.

 

[zion]

In_Bloom,

A communist revolution is fundamentally premised on the class system. You can't have a communist revolution unless there exist distinct and mutually antagonistic social classes. Then once you have the revolution, it's not as if the people formerly belonging to the bourgeoisie will magically drop their previous antagonism and become members of the proletariat. In order for class to cease to exist, the members of the bourgeoisie who survive the revolution would have to be shot en masse or forcibly re-educated as proletarians. An example of the former is Stalin's liquidation of the kulaks; an example of the latter is the Khmer Rouge's attempt to create a peasant utopia in Cambodia (Note: these comparisons still hold whether you define those regimes as communist or not, because, communist or not, they were efforts at creating a society consisting entirely of class allies). If that's not what you would plan, then what's your vision of what would happen to the bourgeoisie after the revolution, comrade?

Then, of course, even if you have a society consisting entirely of class allies, that doesn't mean that you have abolished social distinctions between different groups of the population. It simply means that they will take a different form to that of bourgeoisie and proletariat. They may even share in the common production of society, but they will find other means of creating hierarchies based on non-economic factors. To assert otherwise is to suggest that you can achieve some fundamental change to human psychology that will mean that Mr. Jones no longer wants to keep up with Mr. Smith on any level: abolishing, in effect, any tendency towards not only competition but comparison between people in the human soul. If you can do that, please explain how. If you can't do that, then you'll have to accept that a communist revolution is susceptible to the same criticism that you level against meritocracy in point a) above - namely, that you will have failed to entirely remove the class system and that therefore your revolution would be worthless.

 

[Azrael]

I said that no test is completely class neutral, you responded by pointing out that some kids from working class backgrounds did well out of grammar schools. You work it out

No, you said no test is class neutral, I said working class access was increasing and social mobility was better than it is today; so even if it wasn't class neutral, it helped the working class more than its replacement.

So again, where's my supposed statistical blindness?

And "meritocracy" is liberal bullshit, merit is socially constructed, you can't determine it objectively. Who the fuck are you to decide that one person is any less valuable than another, anyway?

Economically constructed, on the whole, so no person sits down and "decides", demand does it automatically, be it social or economical. And it's not which person is more valuable, it's whose abilities are more valuable (in an economic sense). I oppose valuing someone's human worth by their economic output as much as anyone.

I could call egalitarianism "Marxist bullshit", and imply Marixists are all inhumane bastards, but that's not exactly constructive debate is it?

 

[In Bloom]

Economically constructed, on the whole, so no person sits down and "decides", demand does it automatically, be it social or economical. And it's not which person is more valuable, it's whose abilities are more valuable (in an economic sense). I oppose valuing someone's human worth by their economic output as much as anyone.

Yeah, because our current economic system just fell out of the sky one day fully formed and exists for everybody's benefit. Take a fucking holiday will you?

 

[Azrael]

You want a bucket to throw that towel into?

Keep fighting the fight, comrade; you'll do more to keep the meeting halls bare than the massed ranks of capitalism ever could