Is Justine Greening in cloud cukoo land?

[Aethel]

...............Yawn.

Right ! The next person to mention Justine Greening with be stoned. She is not the messiah but a very naughty, naughty girl.

"All I said was this halibut was good enough for Justine Greening...."......

[Catseye]

...............Yawn.

Right ! The next person to mention Justine Greening with be stoned. She is not the messiah but a very naughty, naughty girl.

"All I said was this halibut was good enough for Justine Greening...."......

RIGHT! !! That's it ,I have had enough, stone Ethel !

Happy Easter (a)Ethel -I just love that name

[MrsB]

There's a massive difference between the spending power of £33,000 in London and the South East versus many other parts of the country - a family earning just a couple of thousand more in London is hardly affluent.

This is very true, Mrs B, however, conversely, there are families in other parts of the country that could only dream of earning that "high" amount. Whatever figure the Govt chose would always "just" rule out someone of a definition. The only other way of doing it would be to set amounts by postcode...but that postcode lottery doesn't work either, as it plays to those who can afford to live in various areas. Not sure there is any other sensible way of making definitions, although I am not in favour of defining families in this way for the outcome they intend.

The other way to do it would be to abandon the policy, increase taxation, and fund all schools properly. Radical idea. But might be a bit unpopular with the electorate. Oh well, scrub that and let's get back to what governments do best - back to playing political football with education.

[tiffinboys]

Quite agree with you. Eventually direct taxation has to be increased to fund NHS, Education, Social Welfare and Defence properly. More people have to be in proper work, before benefit payments are reduced.

[OldTrout]

Playing devil's advocate, Perpetual Student, sky suggested that anyone who had previously used private schooling should be prevented from accessing a state grammar - in your case, under sky's suggestion, you could still access a state secondary. An alternative would be to give 11+ bonus points to those who have used a state primary school - maybe one bonus point for each year they have been there - and, conversely, take off points for every year someone has accessed a private school at primary...!! I am being facetious, of course...but there is a serious point - where you have the perception that there are "better" schools, people will fight tooth and nail through fair means and foul to get in - entitle everyone to a good standard of education and the vast majority would shun private school completely for the "free" state alternative - I don't understand the fear factor attached to improving comprehensive schools for everybody, rather than funding more GS for the minority (even if it would be a larger minority.)

Actually KenyaCowgirl I think you may have hit upon something.

If tutors were registered and had to report to the LEA who they tutored and obviously private school kids would also be tracked - then just as Birmingham grammars adjust scores for age - in theory scores could be adjusted for educational background. Now if you add in issues like FSM/ in care/ military kids - as Birmingham state grammars now do with pupil premium places - you could make some inroads into 'levelling the playing field'.

I was discussing pupil premium with friends and one parent said that in fact the Birmingham state grammars start entry offers by score (regardless of whether you are pupil premium or not). Once they have achieved 30 pupil premium students all subsequent places are offered by score. It was a slightly facetious observation but she suggested you could do a lot more for social mobility if once the 150 places were initially offered only pupil premium candidates were eligible. Her opinion was vast majority of pupil premium students achieved cut off - now I don't know if that's true or not but DfE and Birmingham state grammars would.

Now I get why after cut off only offering places to pupil premium students doesn't happen - and I'm sure there would be huge outcry from those parents who paid tutor or private school fees - but a very interesting suggestion if the issue actually is social mobility.

Again - I stress I'm only saying these levelling the playing field ideas very much is about 'devil's advocate' territory as Kenya also said.

The real issue remains that similar high standards in Tuition/ expectation need to also be present (and believed to be possible) at ordinary non-selective state schools. I think they are in some places and/ or subjects but more needs to be done with able students in non-selective because we can't just make all schools grammars and non-selective can't just be reduced to teaching to minimum expectation - not fair or enticing to teachers, let alone students.

[ConfusedFather]

Agree with Education Secretary to apply a family income cap on those children who want to attend new grammar schools and on all existing grammar schools too. The inequality gap is getting bigger. The sooner she does this the better.

And again people mixing up people financial capital with cultural capital. If someone wants to remove any "capital" distortion from admission policy, they will then need to look at parent's backgrounds, diplomas, MBTI, IQ, EQ, cultural travels, exposure to theatre, etc.. in order to decide by how much to penalise/favour someone. Do you really think the kid of a poor PhD researcher is worse off than richer parents with less cultural/educational background?
In France it is quite interesting to see attainment levels generally correlated to income, except for teachers' kids which have similar attainments than the wealthiest, even though their income is mediocre at best (yes, France's education funding is also going down the drain... I don't get why voters think it is normal or fair to destroy education...)

Also, given that private school tuition is generally £20k+/year, which is probably around £35k+ gross income, it could mean that it would be better for some to stop their job and go on benefits...

Or another cynical way to look at things would suggest that such a policy will not impact the rich (they can pay anyhow for top education), nor the ones under the threshold, but the ones that are in the middle (or rather upper middle): those who cannot afford private schools but fail the income test. And no, private affordability does not mean re-mortgaging for 50 years and selling both kidneys. Affordability mean you can pay the fees every year from your disposable income. If you can't, then the state has no right to prevent you going to a GS on the shocking excuse that "you can endebt yourself to finance it, hence no GS for you"...