Poor pupils face a "double disadvantage"

[elmarko]

Poor pupils in weak schools face a "double disadvantage", which is the equivalent of being left a year behind more affluent contemporaries in better schools,

The Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce has done research which warned of a "double disadvantage" in which the poorest children are concentrated in the least successful schools while affluent pupils tend to attend better schools.

RSA - Website

http://www.thersa.org/

Article.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2012/apr/03/poor-pupils-weak-schools-disadvantage

Is it right to centralise the new better schools in areas which are already performing well above the national average & is the idea of religional pay for public sector workers going to exasperate the problem of social mobility even more?.

Given the evidence, it's hard to ignore that this kind of policy will wider the gap even further between children born in poverty against those in affluent families.

While in part I can understand the frustration at the underclass of those out of work in the UK (while I disagree with it), isn't this kind of policy going to make the situation worse?, create more hopeless people who are unable to contribute towards the growth & success of the nation?.

If people hate the "lazy ****less people" would it not be in our best interests to stop these changes which WILL create more of them?.

 

[elmarko]

Note : Just so it's here first - I really don't care if you personally grew up in a poor family, we are talking about statistics & averages here, not 100% of cases.

Read the below before posting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anecdotal_evidence
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Average

 

[elmarko]

Read the below before posting any more articles...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bias



Forgive me for not paying all that much attention to what Labour are saying about the Conservative education policy. The article seems to be somewhat light on detail, so much so that I was actually struggling to work out what the double disadvantage was. Is being poor a disadvantage in of itself when it comes to education? It was also a little light in how the current government policies are making it worse or how Labour would make it better.

LolRDM

Are you suggesting that by concentrating high quality schools in areas which already have good schools/affluent families by some miracle isn't going to exasperate the problem of inequality of the education?.

The double disadvantage is based on two things, 1. Having poor parents (is already a disadvantage) 2. The government centralising higher quality schools in areas in which not many poor people live.

I'd have thought it was pretty clear to anybody who could read.

Regarding the last point, the article pointed our that during Labour these schools were put into poor areas - which aids in reducing inequality of opportunity.

Keep up.

 

[elmarko]

I just expanded my first post but i'll repeat it here:

Yes being poor is a disadvantage, Yes being in a weak school is a disadvantage. But if you have the willingness to learn and you realise from early on that getting good grades is your ticket out of a poor life then both those things make no difference to how well you do at school. Home not a good environment to study? Go to the library, study there, teachers are rubbish? I had that, taught myself from the text books. Getting 90-100% in tests for Maths and Science, went to a decent uni in London and got myself a Physics degree and a post-grad in Computer Science. There is no reason at all for anyone, any child, not to do what i did and improve their situation.

Expanded further, my parents are from a forigen country (I'm Latino in case you were wondering) So couldn't speak great english, they couldn't help with my homework and pretty much left me to it. No help with tutors because we couldn't afford it, my point is a did it without any extra help then all those other poor disadvantaged kids in school that messed around instead of studying.

Cool story bro.

Read the second post.

It's just coming across now as another left-wing 'lets bash the rich' thread that seems to be so much in fashion these days.

What does this have to do with bashing the rich?.

I'm talking about education policies which are likely to cause the very behaviour the right hates so much.

If you really want to stop the "culture of lazy benefit people" then perhaps you should listen to what the most educated people in the world have to say on how to do that.

You come across as another "ring wing one trick pony" who seems incapable of accepting scientific facts & evidence - instead relying on blind prejudice & subjective experience.

I don't even like these people, my political views are a result of accepting scientific fact & the data clearly shows what's the causes of the kind of behaviour we ALL hate.

I'm interesting in stopping it for good, not pandering to some archaic & simple-minded view of personal responsibility.

 

[elmarko]

Grow up.

Coming from somebody linking "omg you are bias" wiki-pages I find that comment quite laughable (also having read the kind of tripe you peddle in other threads even more hilarious).

Considering how limited the free schools programme is I struggle to see how it is really having any serious impact on schooling in general in the UK. I can see however why some would disagree on ideological grounds.

It's a part of the problem, the wider problem that this government seems fixated on expanding the gap between the achievements of the minority at the expense of the majority.

Though if you actually cared about education rather that political points scoring you would be all for free schools and their abilities to change the school timetable. You want to improve academic attainment amongst the less wealthy? Cut down the summer holiday significantly.

Evidence on the last point please.

The real issue is the first one and a different definition of poor. I am assuming you mean poor in terms of wealth when really it is poor in terms of academic attitude. Poor kids with parents that care about their education will still do well, poor kids with parents that don't care about their education will not.

You do know that academic attitude & wealth are linked?, do you honestly believe that the human mind is so separated in all issues?, that the stress of poverty/growing up in a crime infest council estate won't influence a child at all?, the shame related to poverty?.

That kind of short-sighted point of view only highlights how little you know about the subject matter at hand.

Maybe you should read the link on bias I gave earlier...

Yawn.

 

[elmarko]

the labour party are the most educated people in the world?

No, most of them are idiots.

Don't get me wrong, I've never been a fan of Labour either - the biggest tragedy was how little they actually did to address the poverty gap while in power.

What they did, compared to what they could have done (if they didn't waste money on illegal wars, pointless initiatives & other hair-brain schemes) is the biggest failing of them.

The only reason I prefer them to the Tory's is due to the fact at least they did something - now the trend is reversing.

Regarding the most educated people part.

I'm talking about the results on the study's on human behaviour, the negative effects of poverty & the importance of social mobility - the educated people as in the scientists.

 

[elmarko]

It's not the schools or the teachers or the money - it's a cultural thing.

The only solution is to take the children out of the culture of under-achievment and place them in one of learning and excellence.

Enforced boarding for all children from age 6 to 18? It would no doubt work wonders for currently disadvantaged children but I don't think society would accept it.

What do you do, help the next generation or pander to current voters? Tough one.

I do agree it's a cultural thing, but we have to remember that money also influences culture, who people mix with & aspirations - these things are linked, much more than people often think.

The latter idea you have, while I'm unsure on how it would work, or if it would - it's definitely the kind of idea people should be proposing to be researched.

Some out of the box thinking & the willingness to address the problems at source is at least a step forward.

Better than simply blaming these people for turning out exactly how we know they will - garbage in, garbage out.

 

[elmarko]

You can't say this, when in the OP you say i don't want to hear any stories of 'I was poor and did ok', as those stories disprove most of your theories

That is bias and RDM is right in this case.

You think one person being poor disproves the theory based on large data-sets - when discussing averages?.

Can you even read?, do you know what anecdotal evidence is?.

Are you trolling or really this stupid?.

 

[elmarko]

Its clear that you are actually the stupid one. Direct experience from people can be gathered as evidence that shows the contrary of the bilge you are pumping.

OK, it seems I'm going to have to take this very slowly for the benefit of a couple of people in here.

If John produced a report that said "on average 70% of people who wear blue hats are aggressive", would you think that finding a singular person in blue hat who wasn't aggressive proved that report wrong?.

I'm quite frankly amazed you know how to post on a forum.

 

[elmarko]

Turning to insults when you can't argue effectively? Oh dear

It's not an insult, it's descriptive.

If as an adult a person is incapable of understanding what "on average" means they are quite clearly stupid.

Clearly not enough money was thrown at his teachers.

Have anything constructive to post? - didn't think so.

And then grow up angry at a government for not giving them what they feel they deserve and go to forums to post thread after thread of socialist claptrap

I don't receive any benefits & have done very well for myself - you make the false assumption that everybody who want's a greater degree of equality must be poor.

I'd be amazed if you could even define socialism without opening up a wiki-page.

 

[elmarko]

Ah so you're a Champagne Socialist?

You are not worth debating.

 

[elmarko]

You mean "Your not worth debate with."

If you are going to try to correct me to sound intelligent you could at least get it right.

The sad thing is, I'm fairly certain we both want to get rid of the same kind of behaviour which blights our nation.

The differences is I think we should be following the guidelines or the scientific community as opposed to blind prejudice, ideology or subjective experience.

I don't care about left or right wing politics, I care about solutions which will actually work.

 

[elmarko]

You can be less of a ***** as well. Stop being aggressive and insulting as it's distracting everybody from the real debate and people are less inclined to take you seriously. At the moment you're only coming across as a fully paid up member of the loony left.

It's not my responsibility to educate people to know what "on average means" - I linked the wiki pages to aid the members or the forum (who may not be familiar).

If people are going to ignore the (very basic) points at the start of the thread, then you are either trolling or didn't read.

 

[elmarko]

If the report also stated that everyone who wears a blue hat was given that hat as a prize for starting a fight then your statistics would no longer be relevant to the effects of a blue hat.

Statistics quite often ignore context and the context here that we are suggesting is that the schools are a tiny tiny part of the problem. If every school was suddenly a carbon copy of the best school in the country you would still find that the previous worst area were still the worst areas by a country mile. Good parents and a good ethos for learning from parents is so much more important than the school you go to and yet it is always "lets fix the school system that is failing children".

I don't recall saying it was the only problem, or reading that anywhere.

It's part of the problem - but by putting good schools in areas outside of the reach of poorer students, the problem will get worse.

I'm not saying you are wrong, I agree that parents are a significant contributing factor - but it doesn't say that's not true anywhere either.

But we need to appreciate that school is ONE OF MANY factors - all of which need to be addressed to ensure that our coming generations of children have the same equality of opportunity - nobody's asking for equality of outcome.

 

[elmarko]

I see your propensity for personal insults are the way you hide your failings at conducting a debate in which you cannot back up your assertions.

I don't need to provide you with another answer as Fez has already addressed that point quite succinctly in the quote below.

You avoided the question.

Do you honestly believe that an individual occurrence is evidence against the point earlier in the thread?.

 

[elmarko]

But will simply knocking out carbon copies of schools of excellence in r'poor' or 'failing' areas work ? or will addressing the main issue of poor / absent / negligent parenting be the better first step to take, thus ensuring the mind set for wanting to learn has been established ? You can take a horse to water but you can't make it drink analogy comes to mind

The government has control of only a number of the factors which influence a child's development - ensuring a high standard of education (for all) is one of them.

How exactly do you propose the government enforces legislation to improve parenting skills?, I do agree with you that it's more important.

You are right when you say the poor/absent/negligent parents are a massive part of the problem.

Which is why changes should be proposed which tackle the problem from all angles - poverty, crime ridden neighbourhoods, lack of high quality education, bad parents.

 

[elmarko]

This is where we are disagreeing. We are trying to explain that putting good quality schools in an area won't make a blind bit of difference until you change the parents and their attitude towards learning.

Schools that are sub par have a problem with truanting, disruptive pupils and generally bad behaviour that stops the teachers from doing their jobs. How do you leverage these great new schools facilities and teachers if the pupils:

a) Aren't there
b) Don't want to learn
c) Actively try to disrupt the other students.

Thank about it like this. You can build the best sports centre in the world but if the community doesn't use it, then you are not going to see an increase in the quality of athlete.

On that note, if you do have average students who are willing to put some effort in, do you think they would do better in a good school compared to a bad school?.

How about the outstanding students?, in a terrible school they will be very limited by either the quality of the teachers, lack of equipment, poor facilities & lacking advanced classes.

Most schools in poor areas don't even put forward students to progress beyond GCSE regardless of how well they perform (compared to higher quality schools which have advanced classes beyond GCSE).

You may be right that the very bottom dregs who don't care one bit about education one bit won't benefit from it, but what about all the other students - the mid/high achievers who are held back by a low standard of education?.

This makes you come across as bias as you are choosing to ignore peoples experience that show contrary to your statistics

To be fair, I'd be just as uninterested in story's which agreed with the statistics.

Now if you came up with both sets of numbers so a direct comparison could be made that would appear far more impartial, rather than the usual rant this appears to be 'of the rich get it all on the blood of the poor'

I don't recall bashing the rich, just pointing out that by increasing the standard of schooling in areas in which they already have a higher standard of schooling is going to further increase the gap between the attainment between poor areas & rich areas.

What numbers specifically do you require to prove the above assertion?, I would have thought it was pretty obvious (along with conclusion from the RSA - a highly respected scientific organisation).

 

[elmarko]

Again you are missing the bigger picture. Its not about certain pupils but the school in general. Teachers get to the stage where they simply don't care about their job because if they did, they would cry. Those teachers are not necessarily poor teachers, they are a victim of a system that allows kids to do what they like with little consequence.

For those exceptional / average pupils that do want to work, what will be better, a school that has good teachers that are not allowed to teach for the reasons I have mentioned or a school that has average teachers that are allowed to teach.

GCSE's are not hard but you need to have the attention of the class and the support of the parents to enforce punishments for bad behaviour.

I don't know if you have been to some of these really bad schools but they are horrendous. The teachers are mostly on the brink of quitting or medical leave for stress.

The last school my mum worked at is a prime example. The teachers are routinely sworn at and physically intimidated and the kids know the teachers cannot respond in kind.

When a teacher asked a 14 year old girl the other day what she had planned for the weekend she said "I'm gonna go out and get ****ed and laid". Is that the schools influence or the lack of parents with even a passing interest in their daughters upbringing.

But you seem to be ignoring the main still point.

Based on everything you said, a good student who just happens to have financially poor parents (Who give them a good upbringing, moral values etc) would suffer a lower standard of education compared to a child from a rich area due to nothing but socio-economic class of the parents (location they are able to buy a house).

Is that a fair system?, or that equality of opportunity?.