During yesterday's Question Time, Oliver stuck up for "faith schools"* (they provide better education), said he had no problem with parents 'exaggerating' their religiosity to get their kids into such schools (up to each parent to do what they think is best) and ... unless my ears deceived me, finished off by saying:
"I have no faith whatsoever. I am not a believer."
Oliver Letwin - you rock!**
* Didn't they used to be called 'church schools'?
** Well, on these particular issues at least.
Friday, 25 January 2008
Oliver Letwin MP
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3 comments:
He didn't specify what exactly he doesn't have faith in though ;-). And, oh, they are "faith" schools now because "Church" is probably thought to be offensive.
Church schools - Ollie uses the inclusive term 'faith' possibly because Jewish schools, which can't possibly be termed church schools, also put in an above-average showing.
There have been fights in recent years to get places at them, with the question being asked as to whether you do have to be Jewish at all to get a local place, but I'm not up on the details as the disputes can become very technical.
Faith may not be the real indicator of educational success. Rather, it is a proxy because the intake is self-identifying and has already signed-up for a basket of shared values and behaviours as a pre-condition of entry. This means that little time is wasted on trying to cover all bases. Dopey government directives are minimally implemented, saving more time.
Some ballet schools - e.g. Royal Ballet, Arts Educational Trust (Tring) also have surprisingly high academic achievement when you would not necessarily think it automatically linked. A brief examination of an unrepresentative sample of children leads me to conclude that being physically healthy never hurts the brain and does it much good, but what really makes the difference is the school insisting on reasonable levels of effort in all areas of the curriculum.
If the shared values turned out to be anti-intellectual then that could be disadvantageous, but relatively few groups subscribe to this. Of those, it is possible that the higher cooperations within the groups (Amish, Plymouth Bretheren) offset any economic disadvantage - but whether a group can live viably in another century whilst being surrounded by this one remains to be seen. So far, the Amish can point out that the have been very successful despite not taking 3 year degrees in Media Studies.
What Ollie knows and everyone will tip-toe around for the next umpteen years, is that we have a large number of citizens who do not think that education should be equally available to boys and girls. This is not such an earth-shaking difference as it might seem.
Do not, for heaven's sake, let us get our knickers in a twist over this; until very recently that attitude was widespread across all societies and is a utilitarian position where ever scarcity of resources means they have to be targetted as to where they will have the most effect. Things have changed, though. Most attitudes and a great deal of law has, too.
However, this remains the ikky subject which people don't want to approach because it means an out-and-out conflict. There is just no disguising that this runs contrary to modern human rights law.
The suggestion which has been resisted although it can deal with this fairly quickly, is that if we must offer state schooling, it should offer plenty of single-sex establishments. They cost more because you need two sets of everything, but a surprising number of parents will stop squabbling about faith, exam results and precise dress-codes if they can just get through the five years of Eng, Math & Sci and put all that aside. Emphasize - this has to be parental choice. Those who want mixed schooling should...start a mixed school and not try to impose that idea on everyone else.
The advantage from the wider society's p.o.v. is that once single-sex selection is made you can stop arguing about who is clever enough to get in, who is rich enough, who has the strongest demonstration of faith - most of the arguments just go blissfully away until people are old enough to have them properly, at which point they should nearly all have at least half-a-dozen respectable GCSEs and a compact education they can build on or squander as they choose.
The practice of bunging 1500 children in to 'maximize the utility of resources' has always been a squalid way of treating education, putting the occupation of chairs above the needs of the child and the wishes of the family.
WOAR, it is also the case that single-sex schools seem to produce better results. Where I used to live there were plenty of single-sex State schools (at secondary level, at least), so I'm not sure if this is really such an explosive topic? Or have I missed the thrust of your argument?
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