No child left behind

Fergus Pickering

If you spread advantage, you fool, then it ceases to be advantage. It's like Blair's ludicrous slogan, or is it yours, 'excellence for all'. If everybody has it, then it ceases to be excellent. I'm not criticizing your policies, you understand. It's your use of language. Because your language is so sloppy have no dea what it is you plan to do, other than send a lot of money. However, God be praised, you won't get a chance to do any of it and, like Bonnie Prince Charlie, you will die in exile.

Andrew Forbes

"So what?"

So go away. A politician with that little regard for whose hard earned money he's spending doesn't deserve to be given any to spend, nor listened to.

Martin

Ed...Some questions for you.

1/ Have you evidence, other than a ''desktop review''that many schools have been 'flouting' the admissions process?
2/ Do you feel guilt at putting your children into a failing school when you had the advantage of private schooling?
3/If Nulab really believe what you have said in your article why has it taken them 11 years to get to this position?

Susan Wade Weeks

What do you mean by "excellence"? Huge numbers of boys (and some girls) who were five years old when you came to power are leaving school unable to read or write properly.
Many have never played serious sport at school, nor have they learned a language or learned to play a musical instrument.
This is not excellence and certainly should not be pursued.

Andrew Forbes

"No child left behind" appears to actually mean to you: no child allowed to get too far ahead, which is a different thing altogether.

HJ

So in Ed Balls's world the answer is for him to pull his "levers" in Whitehall.

Had it not occurred to him that parents should have lots of little levers of their own? Of course it hasn't.

What makes him think that anyone would want him making any decisions about their child's schooling?

RachelTension

No no no, Mr. Balls. You CANNOT have excellence AND opportunity for all. You can have opportunity for all, excellence is for the few. That is why it's called excellence. How many times does it need saying; there is a difference between equality of opportunity and equality of outcome!! If everyone is 'excellent' the word has no meaning. What qualifies you to meddle in education policy anyway?

Christopher Chantrill

I'm not a Catholic but I like what the pope has to say about "the protection of the right of parents to educate their children."

Seems to me that the pope's notion is rather different from the Ballsian determination to "use all the [top-down] levers at your disposal" on education.

What do you think, Ed, me old pal, me old beauty?

A Middleton

The reforms of the education system introduced by Labour in 1964 have been a disaster.I suffered under the old system attending secondary modern school. I eventually got to Grammar School after achieving 6 O Levels, and then 3 A Levels and on to university. Most of my secondary modern friends were not interested in academic subjects and had limited ability in that area. However, where they did excel was in practical subjects where they put me to shame. Grammar schools should have been preserved, but at the same time money invested in making the secondary mods "educational offering" more relevant to the pupils abilities and talents. The aim should have been to ensure that those leaving a secondary mod were at least educated in practical skills.
From my own perspective it would have been helpful to have a means of escaping from secondary mod much earlier, especially given that my teachers were always saying that I should be at the grammar school.
Universities were always meant to be the peak of excellence. By reducing standards to enable most pupils to go to a university and obtain a devalued degree makes no sense as it raises unrealistic expectations for many people. It would have been far better to spend money to enure that school leavers had basic skills to earn a living.

John Havenhand

Ed Balls. Sorry Ed - but you are trapped in a mindset which far from achieving a better world for everyone - is actually making it signficantly worse. Just take your favoured policy of raising the school leaving age. It is by no means certain that the benefit from doing this is positive. Actually - and I've worked in education for 30 years - you will have a whole strata of difficult, abusive and disenchanted people who refuse to learn and in doing so - prevent others from learning. The marignal benefit of £1 spent on raising the leaving age is certainly much less (and possibly negative) than spending the same £1 on encouraging the same people to return to education or training when they are in their mid 20s and and "want" to learn. But sadly - adult education has been decimated by your government. Secondly - I believe you really must be living in an Owenite dreamworld. It's not the case that everyone will or can achieve the same academic excellence. You can believe in environmental determinism and point to disadavantage, dicriminations and lack of cultural capital but this is not really the problem. However much you positively discrimnate and however much you direct policy to focus on low achievers you are not going to turn them into A level maths students - never mind degree level! Instead you just end up demoralising teachers and lecturers with a barrage of new initiatives, qualifications, acronyms and bureacracy.

I once shared your views - but then - I was never in charge (luckily).

"Hey, Teacher, leave those kids alone"!

JimBob

The bottom line is that - after more than a decade in power - and a massive amount of public money - Labour have not delivered on education.

After three terms, blaming the conservative party for Labour's failings just doesn't wash with the public anymore.

Oh and get of the 50% into university idea- 10% is more realistic.

Before long we'll have whole higher education institutions that serve the sole purpose of putting mediocre students through mediocre degree courses to meet government targets- with no benefit to the economy or to research

Craig

"And having reduced the number of schools with less than 30 per cent of their pupils getting five or more...". In this Mr Balls you are correct, at least in part. Labour have indeed reduced the amount of schools.

Craig

I work in a Further Education college that has many good students and a few excellent ones. However, in my experience, the ones that work the hardest and show the most commitment are those who have returned to education. The most disruptive are those that have no desire to be at college and only turn up for their EMA incentive. These disruptive ones are a small minority but their presence is felt far more than all the rest put together – and this in spite of having the option to deny them re-entry to the second year. Imagine then what it will be like when education becomes compulsory to eighteen and the money slips from the equation altogether.
Education for all? Only at the discretion of the lowest possible denominator.

Stephen Spawls

No one doubts that politicians want to do their best for the country’s children. But Ed Balls comments – and, to be fair, many before him – remind me of the story of the child drowning, while two politicians on the bank shout at each other about how good their policies on training swimmers are. Balls is not addressing the real problem.
As a nation, we are falling behind in the average quality of the school leavers we produce. As a teacher of nearly 30 years experience, who has been involved in international recruitment, I can vouch that British teachers are among the best –probably the best – in the world. And in real terms, virtually all our schools are pretty well equipped. But the problem is in the classroom.
When a teacher faces a class of 25 students, if learning is to take place, there must be a degree of mutual co-operation and shared goals. If that exists, even the most disadvantaged teacher can teach and get results. I’ve seen African schools with pupils learning in their second language, the classroom just a thatched roof, the teacher a graduate with no teaching qualifications and the equipment a blackboard and some sticks of chalk – and the students got better maths results than many comprehensives.
In too many of our classrooms, there are students who don’t want to learn, and behave in a way that stops others learning. That is the problem, in its entirety. Do what we need to do for those problem children. Debate all we like about the causes of such behaviour. But, in the short term, we need to stop them spoiling other’s chances, and stop them causing stressed teachers to leave the profession.
Independent schools get good results. It is not because they cherry pick (unless having parents who can pay high fees is linked to intelligence) but because disruptive pupils either improve or are removed. You can spend all the money in the world on ‘resources’, or buildings, or over-qualify teachers until degrees come out of their ears, but unless the pupils let them teach, without hassle, leaning won’t take place.

Bob

One of the most important aspects of schooling is how to effectively communicate through a range of media. The exams I had to endure required that I order my thoughts quickly and succinctly and relay a balanced argument in a way that would be easily understood by anyone reading it. Whatever the subject, this was the primary underlying feature – communication. No more.
I experience first-hand and on a daily basis the inability of our young people to spell correctly or use grammar appropriately (if at all). Many of their arguments are poor, showing neither a mature grasp of the subject nor any ability to organise their thoughts coherently. Reading their work requires an awful lot of concentration simply to work out what they are trying to say (and this is typed!). These are not pre-16s, but National Diploma and NVQ3 level students; the products of Every Child Matters and Inclusivity for All. When I did my schooling those that could not effectively communicate were not deluded by the state into thinking they could achieve higher than their ability – a level of honesty and backbone that is sadly lacking from today’s politicians.

David Short

It is not hard to create a proper national system of education for all.

You just need to hire professional, stick to standards, forget about politics, and not expect teachers to be social workers and police officers.

We probably have one of the worst education systems in the civilised world.

Politicians have caused this, and it's Balls' party which has had ten years to improve things, but have done the opposite.

Who on earth does he think he is to set out his stall on this matter?

And what favour bank has he drawn on with a once-respected magazine like the Spectator to give him room for his stall?

The sooner the Barclays realise it was a mistake to put Brillo in charge of a previously great magazine the better.

Ray Daniels

Why the obsession with grammar schools? Why can't we have the tripartite education system we were promised in 1944? Seemed to work for Germany, or haven't you noticed how they have a car industry and we don't?

Tom Burkard

A few years back, I visited Norwich's "Excellence Centre", an organisation that maintains the fiction that school refusers and permanently excluded pupils are receiving an education suitable to their needs. While I was there, I saw five pupils working on their own in little rooms, while the 21 staff were engaged in more important activities. Ed Balls seems to have grasped what "excellence" means in edspeak quite quickly.

Fortunately, these days I work with local authorities and schools that are making an honest effort to teach all children to read. Their job is made far more difficult by the micro-management emanating from Ed Balls' department. Whenever I conduct a seminar, I start with the statement that it is obvious that the people who devise these policies have never taken a class in their lives-- a comment guaranteed to elicit a lot of wry smiles.

And these functionaries, like those in Norwich's Excellence Centre, cost a packet. Of all the money earmarked for education, only 55% of it gets as far as the school gate. And once it's in there, a lot more is wasted in complying with the directives issued by Mr Balls' department.

In fairness, the Government is so weak that Mr Balls couldn't dream of taking on the vast bureaucracy that is crippling our schools. But somehow, I doubt that he would if he could: he gives every appearance of believing his own spin.

Susan Wade Weeks

Stephen Spawls you are so right.

In the past I worked as a remedial academic tutor to children from both state and private schools.

I know personally of three pupils in an affluent part of West Sussex who were originally keen to learn and were doing well, who left the state education system early as a direct result of the disruptive and abusive classroom behaviour of their fellow pupils.

None of the three has achieved his or her full academic potential. When I examined these childrens' exercise books I found that several teaching staff had not bothered to mark or check work for errors, and that photocopied handouts replaced actual teaching in many subjects.This is demoralising for all. The endless repetition involved in teaching to the test is just plain boring for most.

These problems are not unusual, they are endemic. Children and their parents- and those who might need to employ these pupils at a later date- are being let down on a daily basis.

Money has been spent. Bucketloads of it. Everyone agrees about that. But expensive new chairs and desks are no use to anyone if staff are unable to insist that pupils sit still and listen.