You are not worth debating.
Poor pupils face a "double disadvantage"
- Thread starter elmarko
- Start date
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.
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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.
Caporegime
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".
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.
Soldato
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.
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.
Soldato
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
You avoided the question.
Do you honestly believe that an individual occurrence is evidence against the point earlier in the thread?.
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.
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Caporegime
No one is suggesting that you are advocating simply putting new schools in the worst area. We are trying to say that when a report uses a statistic to enforce a point or an issue, its generally best practice to use a relevant statistic rather than one that is a result of very different problems.
Put it this way; a party that has consistently just thrown money at the education for years and years things that throwing money at education will fix the issue. Is our education system as good as it should be?
The areas that you say we should place these new schools will be much better served by other action before the quality of teachers ever becomes a problem.
This is just another example of Labour being unwilling to tell its come demographic that they need to take responsibility for themselves and their children and instead are trying to claim that poor schools are the issue.
Soldato
Double disadvantage? Poor and stupid.
Ok I'm joking here...
Ok I'm joking here...
Soldato
I was not stating that 1 persons evidence was substantive, what I was pointing out was that you couldn't open you account by saying 'I don't want any I was poor yada yada yada' stories.... and then later on in your debate state an argument that there is a direct link between poverty and education standards while choosing to ignore the fact that it is not as cast iron as you claim considering there are numerous examples of exactly the opposite of what you profess to be the 'truth'
This makes you come across as bias as you are choosing to ignore peoples experience that show contrary to your 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'
Caporegime
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.
Soldato
That's the golden ticket. I don't think they can directly, but through indirect measure it might be achievable. Any direct intervention at this level would not only be perceived as draconian but would likely involve serious impingement of peoples human rights. i,e enforced boarding schools, requirement for a licence to have children etc. I don't think there is any direct solution other than making it less easy to be a bad parent through example.
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?.
To be fair, I'd be just as uninterested in story's which agreed with the statistics.
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).
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Soldato
Combination.... however bad schools enter a perpetual loop of destruction that goes along the lines of
1. School used to be OK and produce a range of average to a few brilliant students
2. Influx of new students includes a massive amount of children from a 'deprived neighbourhood'. Discipline starts to slip
3. Teachers unable to maintain needed levels of discipline to provide adequate environment conducive to learning
4. Learning standards drop
5. School branded as 'failing'
6. Good teachers avoid school with a barge pole
7. Teaching Standards drop
8. OFSTED threaten school with closure / rebranding
9. School closes
10. Pupils in the area get sent to a different school that is not failing
11. Disruption occurs in new school due same 'bad apples'
12. go back to step 3 rinse and repeat