Yes, I know that the quote comes from Michael Gove but how often has it been repeated on Today this morning with relish…”Rich thick kids” getting on to the detriment of “poor bright kids”. Humphyrs banging the drum this morning for the radical egalitarians that see our schools as little more than laboratories for social engineering. Apparently there is a BBC2 documentary on the topic tonight and I am sure that Humphyrs will use it to further pillory those awful “middle class” parents who seek to buy their kids a decent education leaving those with no cash (ie on benefit) to cope with the scrag ends of our Education system. This is, literally, class warfare and it is a great way for the BBC to start a new week of unrelenting bias. (Or, if your name is Helen Boaden, pure unbiased professionalism that just happens to always swing left)
"RICH THICK KIDS.."
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I heard the same item on Today and was going to mention it on the open thread later. It was simply mind boggling wasn’t it !! Two points spring to mind though ..
1) It showed the limitation of the Beeb hive mind. The big point was that working class children at state schools did far worse that middle class children at both state and private schools. OK an interesting subject but aside from the Tory bashing one the Beeb mind didn’t really want to look into. For instance is this gap because the average comprehensive has poor quality teachers ? , Is it due to the culture of the working class parents not being interesting in education and not wanting to assist their children ? Or is the average childs IQ at one of these schools lower (for whatever reason) ? These appear to be subjects that a Beebiod is programmed to avoid.
2) Mention was made of a good state school (Phoenix ?) with a Headmaster who had been awarded a peerage. The reporter says this school gives the best “value add per pupil” of any school. What the bl**dy hell does that mean ? It is meaningless management consultant drivel that the reporter has abviously read in a public relations handout and repeats parrot fashion. Why not tell us how many GCSE and A levels the average pupil gets or how many of them win a place at a good University.
Sometimes I don’t know whats worse with the Beeb the bias or the amazingly poor quality of the reporting.
Do BBC news and current affairs staff practice egalitarianism in their own lives, including the education of their children? I expect not. They earn too much and don’t have to. It’ll be the posher state schools or private for their little darlings, be they brainy or dim.
Phil I think you will find beebiods never have thick kids. However they do have them which have “syndromes”. These sadly require them to go to expensive private schools as bog standard comps just can’t afford the one to one support that Tarquin requires. Once he is done at school and if Tarquin is still dribbling they usually manage to arrange an internship for him at the Guardian followed by a job at the Beeb.
Didn’t this country used to have an egalitarian education system – called grammar schools? What can be fairer than sending the brightest kids to the best schools, whatever their background? I wonder if this documentary will cover this?
I went to school in the 1980’s and had the misfortune to attend a comprehensive school. My grandfather, from very humble origins, got into a grammar school in the 1930’s and did well for himself.
Who was the more fortunate? Why is ‘selection by ability’ such a dirty word to the left?
Pierre
It is the RADICAL egalitarians seeking parity of OUTCOME (even though they deny it at times) who are the destructive force.
In Humphrys’ binary world there are two types of people.
0 Those who pay for private tuition for their kids
1 Those who can’t afford to.
That there might be
2 Those who can afford to but can’t be arsed
seems to be beyond him.
And maybe another category – those who regard education as something which is done to them, not for them.
“Rich thick kids” should be held up as an example, not pilloried. Their parents are making the most of whatever talents the kids have got, as all parents should. It’s not just about money – ensuring that the child actually turns up from time to time wouldn’t be a bad start.
Kids from cultures which traditionally value education seem to do very well, poor teachers or not. Poor teaching is only part of the story.
Left wing “elites” seek to control the state in order to ensure their privileged postion ( disguised as the usual rubbish over fairness and justice). Education is a key factor in this. Selection by ability is a real threat to them as the outcome cannot be controlled and their own children run the risk of failure.
Far better to allow the continuation of private education ( which they can use if necessary) than risk a real meritocratic system.
The destruction of the grammar schools had everything to do with ending social mobility and keeping us in our place and nothing to do with real education.
The reality is that those countries that will soon relegate us to third world status all educate the best and brightest selectively.
As usual our stupid “elites” ignore the reality of the world.
Yes, Humphrys gets an outing on the TV tonight with this:
21:00 Unequal Opportunities with John Humphrys
The journalist and broadcaster examines why the British education system is struggling to narrow the attainment gap between
advantaged and disadvantaged pupils. He travels across the nation to visit schools, where he hears from teachers who are committed to changing the status quo to provide youngsters from less affluent families a chance to achieve in ways they never thought possible. He also reflects on his own background to better understand the dilemmas faced by parents wishing for academic success for their children.
Just seen the Godawful pile of pious platitudes and NuLabor soggy sentiment that Humphrys apparently wrote as well as presented.
1. He got his start in a grammar school-yet not a peep about the “can`t we all be friends” curriculum spouted to the poor kids at NuLiebor socila engineering units paid for by Blairs Buddies-all knighted I noticed!
2. The kids at private schools don`t get condoms and twenty seven languages-nor will Humphrys kids or those few at the BBC who do have them( global warming…over population…oh the humanity!). Humphrys says nothing about the State sponsored slop churned out to the “kids of the workers”, but rather hopes that a high school prom or graduation ceremony will keep them sweet.
3. Humphrys knows as little about education as he does about anything else-an ageing toothless pretender who confuses gout with passion. All those Nu Labor heads and all those non-jobs and tuition fees to pay for a Patten or a Damazer…the futures so bright eh?
In short Humphrys used his awful Today programme to plug this swill-when he wasn`t in dread of a sunspot about to engulf his windmill or whatever.
4. Best way of creating “equality of opportunity” John…Sir John soon I`m sure…is to set a cap on Beeb salaries of £20,000 and use the rest for bursaries for the poor and the vulnerable…come on Beeb…you are OURS after all are you not?…or was that only a few years back then?
Even though I knew it would increase my blood pressure I ended up watching this last night. It didn’t disapoint 🙂 In the post above cjhartnett has given a good summary of this programme and its numerous failings. But in short Humpry’s didn’t even want to think about why the state education was worse than a private version. Amazingly we were shown film of a class a Wellington school with the children discussing Checkov. Minutes later were saw a high flying graduate who had become a teaching busy teaching a class at a top state school. What was he teaching about .. “diversity” !! You couldn’t make this material up but it wasn’t even commented on.
Perhaps you should have checked your spelling haha it’s Chekhov
I can only blame the bog standard comp I went to 🙂
Not sure how you teach “diversity” anyway.
Well actually, I probably do. You make it quite clear that diversity is a “good thing” and god help anybody who suggests otherwise.
I caught the end of Panorama just before switching over to Humphrys. I have masochistic tendencies. A female BBC executive justifies her £200k + salary because she took a pay reduction when joining the BBC.
I often wonder what people do with loadsamoney, (probably buy stuff) and whether everyone is solely motivated by getting more pay than the next bloke.
However, there’s a conundrum. John Humphrys and BBC non execs on more modest salaries don’t think the rich should be able to buy things. At least not things like education and healthcare. What’s all that money for though? Ostentatious stuff I suppose.
In fact, should hard work pay? Should whatever BBC execs do pay?
Humphrys bashfully admits he’s one of those sharp-elbowed middle class parents. He seems to be a champagne socialist who thinks everyone who earns a lot should donate any money that exceeds his own pay, to helpless poor people.
Redistribution of Wealth, and Market Values seem to me like different elements of an illogical economic quagmire.
Anyhow, on one hand, I think the BBC is saying: ‘to make sure everyone has a chance to succeed, we should abolish privilege, and make everyone equal.’ That would turn the poor into the sharp-elbowed middle class types they then endeavour to thwart.
On the other hand, BBC executives need huge pay, not because they’re worth it, but to stop them defecting to the competition, and that would never do.
There is undoubtedly still a paucity of equality of opportunity in education in this country – shamefully so, for a country as supposedly advanced as ours.
But (and I speak from personal experience) the left’s ‘solution’ is, as ever, to turn it into a class warfare issue. They work to drag everyone down to the same level; not pull up the stragglers.