Failing Education system in the UK

[185248]

I would truly dislike to be one of the rich good guys when things fall apart. To be let down by fellow well off would be uncomfortable. To know I did my best while having my head chopped off would be a comfort.

There are a billion poor and not well educated, for every million rich and well educated. Roughly speaking.

 

[185248]

I don't think it's a question of equality, it's about supplying enough round holes for the round pegs.

Yes it is, in the basics of life, it's always a question of equality. People can be as rich as they wish. The poor do not care as long as they have the education, protection and health, to be presented with the same endeavour of opportunity. Plus............those that do 'make it', leave the rest of the world a future. As I have said before, the human life is not long enough. If there were at least one of us that could be proved, beyond doubt, to have lived the ages of mankind. One lesson would be.....Greed will fuck you up.

 

[Drifterwood]

This is one aspect of what I mean about round pegs and round holes, Vibez

How England treats its gifted children - FT.com

I would say that it is probably no different at the other end of the academic spectrum. Our State system is supposed to be comprehensive, however you run the risk in trying to please all the people all the time, that you actually please no one.

 

[185248]

This is one aspect of what I mean about round pegs and round holes, Vibez

How England treats its gifted children - FT.com

I would say that it is probably no different at the other end of the academic spectrum. Our State system is supposed to be comprehensive, however you run the risk in trying to please all the people all the time, that you actually please no one.

I apologise Drifter...saw the Rubix Cube..and thought imediately of Dynamo the magician .

You can please all, except the rich, to an extent. I have been self employed for about 35 years. Rich people are the most difficult to appease.

Cept the very few that have come from humble beginnings. Poor people are always appreciative and have respect of a job well done and are more than happy to pay their bill, plus a little more.

Then again, I deal with people that own half of Brisbane, they originated from poor and humble beginnings, yet they have forgotten very easily.

A poor, or middle income family will educate their children to become more than what they are. Yet, it is not long before they forget how it began.

Through a great deal of sacrifice and un-equality they have their children acheive what they could only dream of. Yet if many were alive, they would cringe at how many of their children have abused that struggle.

 

[Jason]

@Drifterwood's FT article is a good read. It points out for example that only a tiny number of state schools are in the UK's top 500.

The idea that quality is primarily linked to expenditure needs to be addressed. In a nutshell I don't think the link can be demonstrated. Perhaps there is some correlation at the extremes of the scale - but for most schools, quality and expenditure are NOT linked. And this is a key concept for us and our politicians. If we want to increase the quality of schools we have to first identify the features that create that quality.

In the UK system there is a sharp divide in teaching practices between state and public systems. The state system has embraced the comprehensive ethos of whole-class needs with child-centred teaching; the public system supports individual pupil needs with teacher-directed teaching. This is the area which it seems to me must be tackled.

Fundamentally we need the public sector teaching methodologies to permeate the state sector.

 

[185248]

@Drifterwood's FT article is a good read. It points out for example that only a tiny number of state schools are in the UK's top 500.

The idea that quality is primarily linked to expenditure needs to be addressed. In a nutshell I don't think the link can be demonstrated. Perhaps there is some correlation at the extremes of the scale - but for most schools, quality and expenditure are NOT linked. And this is a key concept for us and our politicians. If we want to increase the quality of schools we have to first identify the features that create that quality.

In the UK system there is a sharp divide in teaching practices between state and public systems. The state system has embraced the comprehensive ethos of whole-class needs with child-centred teaching; the public system supports individual pupil needs with teacher-directed teaching. This is the area which it seems to me must be tackled.

Fundamentally we need the public sector teaching methodologies to permeate the state sector.

Probably one of the few times I support Fundamentalism. Only though, if one of the core codes supported, is that of morality.

 

[Jason]

Probably one of the few times I support Fundamentalism. Only though, if one of the core codes supported, is that of morality.

Curiously there does appear to be a link between morality and educational attainment. Many of our best schools are faith schools. Almost all our public schools have a clear religious dimension. Maybe faith is part of a framework of discipline which supports learning.

 

[BigBoyUK]

@Drifterwood's FT article is a good read. It points out for example that only a tiny number of state schools are in the UK's top 500.

The idea that quality is primarily linked to expenditure needs to be addressed. In a nutshell I don't think the link can be demonstrated. Perhaps there is some correlation at the extremes of the scale - but for most schools, quality and expenditure are NOT linked. And this is a key concept for us and our politicians. If we want to increase the quality of schools we have to first identify the features that create that quality.

In the UK system there is a sharp divide in teaching practices between state and public systems. The state system has embraced the comprehensive ethos of whole-class needs with child-centred teaching; the public system supports individual pupil needs with teacher-directed teaching. This is the area which it seems to me must be tackled.

Fundamentally we need the public sector teaching methodologies to permeate the state sector.

There is a correlation. If state schools (the least well funded) are achieving worse results than public and grammar schools then surely the argument is better funding helps achieve better results. The smaller class sizes in public/grammar schools is certainly an element. Group dynamics theories suggest group sizes once exceeding a certain point become less and less effective. It's simple logic that the larger the group the less one on one time, the more marking/admin the teacher needs to complete, the teaching preparation time is reduced, the harder it is to control the class.

I think grammar schools are a good thing, but they are naturally set up to get better results. The parents who send their children to grammars are generally successful, educated and motivated and those attitudes/skills are usually passed onto the children. Then on top of that they pass entrance exams to get in. It is difficult to quantify whether they are better schools, or if it is the advantages they have which make them very successful. My school was top in the country the year I finished GCSE's. As a result it got bumper funding, reinforcing the pre-existing advantages. The same sort of circumstances apply to private schools.

To suggest that comprehensives are failing because things are always done worse does not take into account the advantages the other schools have. This is why there are few comprehensives in the top 500.

However, I do believe that the one size fits all system is not effective. Pupils should be taught the basics and the majority of other things should be elective (within reason).

Children are not being prepared for the job market in terms of understanding of it, the direction they might take, soft skills - many different things.


The one size all system does not allow for children who are not academic and may want to do more hands on work, or entrepreneurial skills. These are the failings.

The Conservative government is really helping to increase youth unemployment and lower skills within the country. Since coming to power our university fees have tripled, thus reducing social mobility. At the very least courses for which we have a skills shortage and which would benefit the economy should be offered for free. There is no investment in apprenticeships and training - some European countries have a strong link between schools, universities and industry which leads to placements and students being ready to work and lead successful lives plus increasing the confidence of employers in young workers.

I cannot see anything positive the current government is doing to address these issues aside from blaming past government.

 

[dandelion]

The idea that quality is primarily linked to expenditure needs to be addressed. In a nutshell I don't think the link can be demonstrated.

The article drifter linked says 7% of UK students go to private schools. There is an article here Class size, teacher's pay and spending: which countries spend the most and pay the least in education? | News | theguardian.com about the PISA education study. This says 30% of the money spent on education in the Uk comes from private sources. I assume that means money spent on private educational establishments, since very little private money goes towards state schools. So 30% of the money goes to educate 7% of the pupils privately and 70% goes to educate 93% publicly. I make that 5.6x as much money per head for privately educated pupils.

Perhaps there is some correlation at the extremes of the scale - but for most schools, quality and expenditure are NOT linked.

Why do you believe that? on what evidence? it does not apply in any other field. Sure, you can get a bad expensive plumber and a good cheap one, but in general a good plumber is also a more expensive one. time after time you have argued that the only way to get good management of companies is to pay high salaries.

If we want to increase the quality of schools we have to first identify the features that create that quality.

I would agree with you that throwing money at something is not in itself a solution. There are plenty of people out there who will take your money and squander it. But the government acknowledges that higher pay incentivises performance, even when cracking down on costs. The government has an interesting experiment in progress with its new academies. Some have already failed disastrously, but others may yet be models of high performing schools which are cost effective. Whether any lessons will ever be learnt from this is another matter, given the ideological bias likely to be overlaid on outcomes by politicians.

However we already have models of high achieving schools in the private sector. The obvious and clear distinction is the amount of money spent per pupil. i am sure they could provide accounts showing where it goes: on more staff, on better staff (or maybe even on more, less qualified staff, or vice versa), on buildings, on resources, on food, on links with other establishments, whatever. I absolutely do not believe they could achiev the same results on the same level of funding as state schools, and nor do they or the parents concerned.

In the UK system there is a sharp divide in teaching practices between state and public systems. The state system has embraced the comprehensive ethos of whole-class needs with child-centred teaching; the public system supports individual pupil needs with teacher-directed teaching. This is the area which it seems to me must be tackled.

Haha, yes. Didnt you notice what you said? More individual teacher attention per pupil. that means more teachers and more teachers pay!

I think grammar schools are a good thing, but they are naturally set up to get better results.

It might be that what Grammars really have is groups of children motivated to learn, who therefore do well under the state system of large classes and minimal individual attention.

However, I do believe that the one size fits all system is not effective. Pupils should be taught the basics and the majority of other things should be elective (within reason).

I agree. But again, this conflicts with the need to make economies, which will naturally be easiest with large classes all doing the same thing.

The one size all system does not allow for children who are not academic and may want to do more hands on work, or entrepreneurial skills.

It also does not allow for children who are particularly academic and thus would benefit from different education to the average. Again, a potential benefit of grammars. All state schools now acknowledge the need for streaming by ability, and a grammar is merely this done on a larger scale achieving better differentiation.

At the very least courses for which we have a skills shortage and which would benefit the economy should be offered for free.

They rather should, shouldnt they? In reality Some of the more important skills cost students more.

 

[Jason]

Funding for UK state schools is complex. There is in effect a charge per pupil and additional central costs per school, and local councils express the per school charges in different ways, which makes it hard to pull them out from all councils' spending. Both these cost areas need to be taken into account when calculating the real cost of a state pupil.

There are of course complexities in the funding of public (private) schools, though the starting point is a published per-pupil charge. The big adjustment is for scholarships, which will take the figure down.

There are distortions at the top end of the public school system where per pupil costs really are very high. Public school figures need to be calculated on an average.

I heard an expert view a few years ago which put forward the idea that (when properly calculated) the average cost of being educated in a state school is higher than in most public (private) schools. I don't have some convenient website to point to but I think this is correct - public schools are cheaper per head than state schools. We have made the experiment in the university sector. Now we've got university costs per student out into the open we've found that they are far higher than anyone expected. The UK's cheapest university is now its only private one (Buckingham).

The way forward with UK schools is I suggest:
* A grammar school in every town - and schools for every ability range in every town. We need round holes for round pegs and square holes for square pegs.
* Expansion of public school sector, presumably through tax breaks.
* Progressive management changes for state schools so that the huge budgets they receive really do give quality results - and recognition that many state schools could at the same time have their budget cut and increase quality.

 

[dandelion]

There are distortions at the top end of the public school system where per pupil costs really are very high. Public school figures need to be calculated on an average.

Seems to me pisa would have made a serious effort to calculate spending on education in the Uk from all sources. And similarly the statistic on the proportion of pupils receiving private education ought to be robust. so the figure I quoted, 5.5x more per private student, would also seem to be robust, and an average to boot. Presumably expensive private education is even more than this.

I heard an expert view a few years ago which put forward the idea that (when properly calculated) the average cost of being educated in a state school is higher than in most public (private) schools.

if you mean adding in the cost to society of failing to properly educate in the state system, then I imagine it is truly vast. Otherwise I have never heard anyone arguing publicly that state education is more expensive.

Now we've got university costs per student out into the open we've found that they are far higher than anyone expected. The UK's cheapest university is now its only private one (Buckingham).

Until quite recently universities were not expected to provide cheap courses but rather quality education. Can we therefore now expect standards to fall? but in fact, they have. there is a wide disparity in the reputation of different institutions.

 

[Jason]

... I have never heard anyone arguing publicly that state education is more expensive.

I agree that this argument is not often made in public. I think there's a debate to be had around why this argument is not made. I suspect part of the reason is that a lot of powerful lobbies would do almost anything to attack it. The argument would be problematic for NUT, Department of Education, local councils, the political establishment (certainly Labour but also Conservatives) - indeed just about everyone would hate it. I think also politicians are making a calculation on what will win votes. There are votes in maintaining or increasing state education spending. And if it is agreed that state education spending is ludicrously high, then why have politicians not done something about it?

As a society we need to establish facts and then make decisions based on facts. What is on offer is a massive increase in the quality of education (particularly secondary education) while at the same time slashing costs. This is important.

 

[dandelion]

I agree that this argument is not often made in public.

Absolutely astonishing that it hasnt been if it would save money by simply sending kids to private schools.

 

[Jason]

Absolutely astonishing that it hasnt been if it would save money by simply sending kids to private schools.

For both Labour and Conservatives it would be the ultimate admission that education policy for the last half century has been almost entirely wrong. It would demolish a package of ideas including the arguments for comprehensive schools (which are the schools 92% of UK kids go to). No I don't think the silence is astonishing. It is desperately hard for the politicians to admit that policies all have supported are wrong. Much easier to accept more overspending and ever-lower educational outcomes.