What is it you don't understand Ed?
"Schools Secretary Ed Balls has asked the chief schools adjudicator to look at how widely random selection is used and whether it is fair to children."
This one had me shouting at the radio "What is it you don't understand Ed? Random selection is, by definition fair - any other system just isn't". The different guises that selection for secondary education establishments has taken on since UK governments started talking up the idea of parental choice - including "faith", economic ability, locations and any other nonsense that they can come up with have been blithely accepted but when schools decide to make at least some of their selection truly fair the ubergruppenfuhrer f schools goes ape. It has to be stopped! So, deciding on a child's educational options based on which nutty religion his parents follow or profess to follow is OK - deciding the same thing on how close his or her parents can afford to move to the required school - that's fair but making a random selection isn't? Did this Balls guy not have an education?
Maybe, just maybe, his objection to this incredibly fair system is that his middle class pals cannot rig this system to suit their spoiled little bratty kids. You think?
This one had me shouting at the radio "What is it you don't understand Ed? Random selection is, by definition fair - any other system just isn't". The different guises that selection for secondary education establishments has taken on since UK governments started talking up the idea of parental choice - including "faith", economic ability, locations and any other nonsense that they can come up with have been blithely accepted but when schools decide to make at least some of their selection truly fair the ubergruppenfuhrer f schools goes ape. It has to be stopped! So, deciding on a child's educational options based on which nutty religion his parents follow or profess to follow is OK - deciding the same thing on how close his or her parents can afford to move to the required school - that's fair but making a random selection isn't? Did this Balls guy not have an education?
Maybe, just maybe, his objection to this incredibly fair system is that his middle class pals cannot rig this system to suit their spoiled little bratty kids. You think?
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How dare you, sir.
ReplyDeleteI happen to live in a particularly choice catchment area, and my house price owes at least 50% of its spurious value to the choice of superior schools available to children of resident parents.
Besides, in the Dark Ages, when I lived in that modern utopia known as Scotia, those of us who did well in 'the qualifying exam' - which Sassenachs (a term which ignorant Scots think is a synonym for 'The English', as if they knew what a synonym was), insist on calling 'the 11 plus', those of us who did well were able to enter the school of our choice anywhere within the local education area, whilst the dunces were consigned to the dumps that handed out the 'school leaving certificate' at age 12 or so to those who passed through their dreary portals.
Frankly, I believe that those who merit advancement should achieve it, and the rest should be consigned to stack shelves in the local supermarket chain, but our dear esteemed leader, Gordy Broon, thinks that at least half the population of this sceptered isle merits going to univeristy and being granted a degree (with pass mark of 40%) in some entirely useless subject such as 'media studies' (or how gripping and true to life Coronation Street really is, guffaw).
Oops, I've just realised the flaw in my argument: if those who merit advancement actually do merit it, then Gordy Broon and his gang of incompentent swindlers and soi-disant socialists would still be staking shelves in the local Nettto or asking customers, "Would you like fries with that?" in the MacSporran GreasePits that would have employed them. Unfortunately for the rest of us, these scum rose to the top, like shit in a swimming pool, and now dare tell the rest of us how to live our lives.
Long live anarchy is what I say.
Bakunin for King!
With apologies for the typo in 'staking': it should, of course, be 'stacking' but the average graduate won't realise that!
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