Ever before I wrote this, I was on the lookout for Fixed Quantity Of… theories, and even more since then. Usually these theories are fallacies. Often, changing how something is done, and in particular changing the rules or the overall setting within which something is done can quite dramatically change, for the better or for the worse, both the quantity and the quality of whatever is being argued about.
Here is another such theory/fallacy, the Fixed Quantity of Education fallacy. Toby Young takes aim at it here. He and some friends of his are setting up a “free school”. Their critics in the state education sector object, because this new school will suck educational excellence out of their schools and make it available only to a privileged few.
In particular, it is said that this new school will draw middle class children away from state schools, to the educational detriment of these schools. State educators who talk like this sometimes make it sound as if most of the good teaching that goes on in their schools is done by middle class children rather than by educationally expert adults. Perhaps they have a point.
But the amount of satisfactory educating going on is very variable, depending on how relaxed or restrictive are the rules about how it may be done and who may do it. (For instance, if it were forbidden for parents to educate their children at home, that would, I believe, sharply diminish the supply of good education.) Toby Young says that the real reason the detractors of the educational venture he favours are so vocal is that they fear being shown up as bad educators, by a new school that creates a vast new surge of educational excellence, thereby proving that they could be doing this too. No upper limit on the total amount of available education is stopping them, only their own stupid educational ideas and habits. I am sure that he has a point.
This is the attitude that infuriates me more than anything else. Children are viewed as a resource for schools – not the other way around.
PeterB got there before me. Is anyone else thinking that perversely this is utterly retrogressive in terms of thinking of “good schools” in a sort of Edwardian, “Oh! The hell with the grades he went to… So he’s clearly one of us!”.
I mean you stick a three-pointed star on a car bonnet and it’s a Merc but that symbol only means anything because the diligent folk in Frankfurt have but some effort into what is under the bonnet.
Frankly educating the able and willing is a piece of piss. This says a lot about the lack of value added by our school system. I learned fuck all at school. I passed the exams. I learned that. University was different. I learned vastly more in three years than I had done in the previous thirteen. I blame the National Curriculum which is a Dutch auction of the “need to know” basics aimed at the lowest common denominator.
It is in total a tragic case of events.
I suspect that middle class children might be the only ones who can get away with doing good teaching without earning themselves a reprimand (or worse).
I don’t know if this comment by then-Deputy PM John Prescott was known for making the rounds in the UK when he uttered it a half-decade ago, but it’s one that’s always stuck in my own mind whenever the subject of state-run education comes up:
“If you set up a school and it becomes a good school, the great danger is that everyone wants to go there.”
(I think that is what is known among politicians as a “gaffe.”)
Frankfurt? Vade retro, Satana!
On topic, there is no fixed quantity of education, but very much a fixed quantity of kids to be educated… And if there are no more kids to educate in the state’s schools that might make the whole enterprise seem useless. Can’t let that happen.
If you do it really well, there’s foreigners.
True. I hear some universities are rather fond of them.
The loss of middle class kids is a two-part problem for schools, at least in much of the US.
Most school funding comes from local property taxes levied by the local district itself. In a multiple-school district, that’s already a smaller piece of the pie when the district portions it out per-student.
Funding from outside the local district, like the state contribution and the Federal bribes, are almost always on a per-student basis. Fewer students mean fewer bucks.
In my state, the school’s average performance on standardized tests is also a big deal. Poor scores mean less money, fewer feathers in caps, and it becomes harder for a teacher with lousy scores to move on to bigger and better things. That’s why the schools don’t mind being shut of the low-scoring students, but can’t bear the thought that the kind of parents who demand excellence from their own kids might also want to send said rug monkeys to schools where success is possible.
Also, the good kids don’t generate police activity at the schools. If they all flee, then the little heathens who get arrested out of class are still around. Five violent incidents out of 800 students is one thing. The same five precious little angels out of 500 paint a starker picture.
I dont know how similar things are in the UK. However, if the comparison between UK and US policing holds true for education, then I personally don’t have a problem believing that UK schools practice horse$#!+ stat chasing.
OT, but I just have to:
http://nation.foxnews.com/president-obama/2011/06/14/obama-blames-atms-high-unemployment
What PeterB said. Infuriates me too. You’re seriously suggesting that you deliberately degrade my child’s education on the off chance it may improve the outcome for someone else’s child? This is socialism red in tooth and claw.
Roue, what’s the surprise? The state’s paying (albeit with your money) so the state’s interests are represented. Which is typically strongly biased more towards solving the problem of problem kids than raising up those with potential.(After all, anyone serious about educational excellence would have gone private like the pols themselves).
This is a large part of why we homeschool…
The industrial model of educating the young is obselete.
But, as is inevitably the case in large organizations, the supposed purpose of the educational system, educating kids, has been submerged by the internal agenda of the members of the organization, which is to increase their own power and budget at every opportunity.
It would be very instructive if the SAT tests of the year just before the formation of the federal Dept of Education were given to high school seniors now. My guess is that very few of the products of a system molded for several decades by political, instead of educational, priorities would be able to obtain a respectable score.
The educational leviathon is succumbing to the same forces as so many of the other super-agencies of the mega-state—the replacement of principles relevant to the alleged object of the endeavor by politically expedient ephemera.
The educational edifice today exists for the benefit of its practitioners, not its clients.
A cautionary tale for those who would totally politicize the medical system along similar lines.
At a hustings which Toby was a major force, one parent complained about the plans for the West London Free School because she wanted HER children to be educated in a diverse environment.
Translation: other peoples’ children are to be pawns in her little experiment to increase the benefits to her own children.
I’d say she clearly hasn’t got a mirror in her house so she might see herself and take a long hard look, but given the parasitic, vampiric nature of her attitude, maybe she would not be reflected in one.