Thursday, December 21, 2006
Blair a colussus?
Letter in 'The Guardian' 21/12/06Blair as a ‘political colossus’ (Anthony Seldom 20/12/06)? Oh dear! Oh dear! Where do you start? You could begin with his obsequious toadying towards that intellectual giant and world statesman George W Bush – ‘Yo! Blair!’
Of course Seldon couldn’t miss that gaping chasm in 'the legacy’, the war in Iraq, although the lies and distortions in the dodgy dossier and the WMD – ’45 minutes from destruction’ – seemed to elude our learned friend.
He also might have mentioned some of those other alliances and friendships on the right wing fringes of Europe i.e. that glorious summer holiday with that old crooner and fraudster Berlusconi.
Blair inherited the Thatcherite legacy of a divided society with public services and infrastructure in a state of decay – private wealth and public squalor. However, rather than shake the foundations it was more like bunging a load of cement into the footings and erecting some shaky portacabins – PFI hospitals and academy schools.
Blair was so in thrall to money that he saw nothing wrong in allowing his party to become dependent on loans from flaky ex-Tory businessmen. Even if you don’t believe he is corrupt the ‘cash for honours’ has left a permanent stain on his character and judgement.
As for the ‘remodelling’ of the party the cataclysmic fall in the membership seemed to escape Mr Seldon and the third election victory was achieved with barely 25% of the electorate voting for him – hardly a ringing endorsement.
Let history judge? More likely - a political Lilliputian who failed to set a new course at a time of crisis.
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Academies
Letter Education Guardian 19/12/06What has got into the Education Guardian? First we had Martin Wainwright’s paen of praise for the creationist King’s Academy (always a good idea to check the web site before writing the article), then we had Polly Cutis’s breathless article about Burlington Danes Academy in west London (Quarterly results 12/12/06).
This school has based its ethos on charter school Key Academy in inner-city Washington, results have soared over the last seven years. However, as the article concedes like academies the performance of charter schools has been ‘patchy’, one third have improved, a third stayed still and a third improved – based on test results.
America has the most divergent exam results based on social class of any advanced economy. In an attempt to ‘boost results’ George Bush introduced the misnamed ‘No Child Left Behind Act’ where schools that don’t achieve are faced with closure. One of the schools in Texas lauded on the Oprah Winfrey Show was Wesley School. However, an investigation by Dallas newspapers showed wide scale cheating with teachers following the ‘Wesley method’ and filling in children’s test papers.
By contrast Finland doesn’t have the same wide disparities of wealth as America or Britain, the schools system is fully comprehensive, it is well-funded from state taxation, teaching is a popular career choice and teachers are trained to MA level. Exam results are almost uniform across social classes.
Of course schools need to innovate and experiment but one or two schools that ‘succeed against the odds’ with inspirational slogans plastered everywhere, a driven head, children chained to their desks from 8 am to 5 pm and teachers that are prepared to work until 9 pm are not a substitute for a national policy. Repeat after me Mr Johnson, ‘America has a failing education system’.
This school has based its ethos on charter school Key Academy in inner-city Washington, results have soared over the last seven years. However, as the article concedes like academies the performance of charter schools has been ‘patchy’, one third have improved, a third stayed still and a third improved – based on test results.
America has the most divergent exam results based on social class of any advanced economy. In an attempt to ‘boost results’ George Bush introduced the misnamed ‘No Child Left Behind Act’ where schools that don’t achieve are faced with closure. One of the schools in Texas lauded on the Oprah Winfrey Show was Wesley School. However, an investigation by Dallas newspapers showed wide scale cheating with teachers following the ‘Wesley method’ and filling in children’s test papers.
By contrast Finland doesn’t have the same wide disparities of wealth as America or Britain, the schools system is fully comprehensive, it is well-funded from state taxation, teaching is a popular career choice and teachers are trained to MA level. Exam results are almost uniform across social classes.
Of course schools need to innovate and experiment but one or two schools that ‘succeed against the odds’ with inspirational slogans plastered everywhere, a driven head, children chained to their desks from 8 am to 5 pm and teachers that are prepared to work until 9 pm are not a substitute for a national policy. Repeat after me Mr Johnson, ‘America has a failing education system’.
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
The Guardian and Joel Klein
Jane Martinson seems to be so much in awe of her mega-rich celebrity interviewees that all critical faculties are suspended - Joel Klein the New York schools supremo being the latest example (Saturday October 14).
So Bill Gates has made a huge donation to bale-out New York’s schools. There is another way Jane, it’s called taxation. America has one of the lowest taxation rates at 26.8% of GDP compared to Sweden’s 51.1%, the difference is that they don’t have to depend on occasional donations from philanthropic billionaires to fund their schools.
Jane seemed enthralled as postman’s son Joel Klein invoked the mythical ‘American Dream’. The facts refute this fable, a survey published in April 2006 by the economist Tom Hertz showed that the United States has one of the lowest levels of intergenerational mobility in the rich world. A child born into a poor family has a 1% chance of growing up to become one of the richest 5%, while a child born into a wealthy family has a 22% chance. Another study, published by Business Week, found that in 1978 23% of adult men whose fathers were in the bottom quartile made it into the top quartile. In 2004 the figure was 10%.
One factor limiting social mobility in America is the polarised school system with private schools and cash rich suburban schools against the under funded inner-city schools. In Scandinavian countries there is very little difference in academic success based on class origins.
Billy Bragg
Letter Guardian 21/10/06
Billy Bragg’s review (After Elizabeth by Jeremy Paxman) was almost as disappointing as the professional rottweiler's (and self-proclaimed republican) nervousness in the presence of Elizabeth Windsor.
He kept to much of the same territory outlined in Paxman’s book and in the film ‘The Queen’ where Her Maj has been re-invented as a supreme moral arbiter between her own Ruritanian household, the Governmant and Highgrove House.
Only at the end does Billy Bragg mention that constitutional anomaly the revolution of 1688 failed to resolve, the residual political power of the monarchy.
However, he conspicuously failed to explore one of the main radical objections to the monarch that of hereditary succession, as Tom Paine wrote “as absurd as an hereditary mathematician, or an hereditary wise man.”
Has years of rural isolation blunted Billy’s radical edge?
Headteachers
Letter Guardian Education October 17
Why aren't teachers becoming heads? There's more to it than the age profile. Heads spend hours buried beneath circulars, accounts and correspondence; contact with staff or children is often limited. Sats targets are imposed from above and there is blanket surveillance by school improvement officers. Schools live or die by Sats results and their place in the league table. Then there's the fear of the Ofsted inspection. It's football manager syndrome: poor Ofsted, sack the headteacher.
Tuesday, October 10, 2006
Manchester
Letter published in 'The Guardian' 9/10/2006
Simon Jenkins only saw half the picture when he wrote about Manchester. Yes it's true that public and private investment has transformed the city centre - the council leaders' mantra is "count the cranes". What they are in denial about is the fact that poverty is an everyday reality for thousands of their citizens.
According to the government's index of multiple deprivation Manchester was third in the country - average income was £16,500 against a national figure of £21,300; 20% were in receipt of income support (double the national average); there are 37 council wards with more than 40% of children living below the poverty line, 13 with more than 50% and seven with more than 60%.
Sheffield University published a study based on census data from 1991 and 2001, which concluded that the north-south divide is getting wider; also during that time the population of Manchester declined by 10%. A co-author of the report, Professor Daniel Dorling, concluded that the country was being "split in half". He said: "To the south is the metropolis of Greater London, to the north and west is the 'archipelago of the provinces' - city islands that appear to be slowly sinking demographically, socially and economically".
There's also the economic apartheid, or "separate development" within cities like Manchester - on one side there is the expensive conversion of the former Hacienda club into yuppie apartments, designer shops and latte coffee bars, on the other grim council estates such as Moss Side.
Saturday, September 16, 2006
Fire fighters
I’ve been amazed at the bile, venom and vitriol pouring from the pens of some of the 'Liverpool Echo' letter writers towards the Merseyside fire fighters.
When your granddad leaves a cigarette burning in his bed or your auntie leaves the chip pan on, these are the people that wade through the fumes to haul them out. When your children are stuck in a blazing bedroom and Fred from next door has been beaten back by the flames, it’s the fire fighters that disregard their own personal safety and rescue them.
We expect them to do a job that most of us wouldn’t or couldn’t do, as a state-registered coward I’d be useless in the face of an inferno.
Mercifully only a handful of firefighters lose their lives every year. In 2005 Jeff Wornham and Michael Miller died in Stevenage. They were responding to the fire at a 14th-floor flat at about three in the morning. There are also countless numbers who are forced to retire early due to crippling injuries sustained in the course of duty.
Like many other front-line public sector workers they do incredible jobs with dignity and modesty, fire fighters are too unassuming to use the ‘h’ word, so I’ll use it for them ‘heroes’.
When these highly skilled people who work unsocial hours and receive only moderate pay, say that the plans of the Fire Authority will jeopardise safety and are prepared to go on strike and lose pay, they deserve to be listened to with respect.
Thursday, September 07, 2006
Blair
As Labour MPs send out increasingly frantic coded signals and even loyal Blairites call for the Dear Leader to depart, it's obvious the Downing Street spin machine as gone into a state of denial and Blair is clinging to power with limpet like determination. It's obvious that subtlety isn't working, my suggestion is that Labour MPs get an A3 sheet of paper sign the back and on the front write in a broad nib felt tip pen 'FxxK OFF TONY'. Think he'll get the message?
Thursday, August 17, 2006
Andy van der Mayde
You can take our ground and steal our players, but when you kidnap puppies...Just when it couldn't get worse - Andy's Luck.
Someone from Littlewoods knocked on his door... he owed money on his catalogue.
