Hysteria at the Conspiracy

There’s a wonderful piece up at Liberal Conspiracy about the supposed Tory education plans. The title – sadly – has been changed, but we can still marvel at the numerous spurious assertions, blind panic and utter nonsense within it. So much so that I think we need to break it down into smaller chunks of idiocy so we can savour this brain-dead Nu Labour prattle properly.

And so it begins:

An article in yesterday’s Independent highlighted the failings in the Conservative school policy. Personally I think it was a rubbish idea to start with. Allowing parents, charities and trusts to run schools?

Well, yes. Why not? At the moment we trust transient elected officials and unthinking bureaucrats to run our schools. Where’s the evidence that devolving power closer to the end user wouldn’t make things better?

It sounds to me just like an idea to privatise the school system, an idea which allows any idiot with a ton of money to influence and indoctrinate youngsters with their own opinions.

Yes and no. Mainly no. First of all, a lot of people with money are actually quite intelligent (hence them having money). But even if you did have an idiot running a school, I don’t think that school would last for long. Mainly because it would go out of business because parents wouldn’t want their kids being taught to be idiots. See, with increased localism, there could also be increased choice about where parents could send their kids to be schooled. As opposed to now, where it is often nothing to do with choice, but rather arbitrary boundaries based on location.

Obviously that is still the case today, but in small isolated specialist schools which provide top quality education for the highest fee payers. Imagine if that was the only choice for your kids (minus the massive bill of course)?

But it wouldn’t be the only choice. In fact, there would be more choice than ever, because parents would be far more empowered to decide where they want to send their kids. Rather than at the moment, when the decision – unless their child is bright enough to get a scholarship or rich enough to pay the fees – is entirely out of their hands.

The wonders of a central education system mean that every child has access to the same basic education and whilst it may vary regionally, what is taught is practically the same.

Sorry, but to quote Jeremy Bentham, this truly is "nonsense upon stilts". Even the internal logic of the sentence makes, well, no sense. See, everyone knows that the standard of education in this country varies massively from area to area, and with that variety in educational quality comes an inevitable difference in what is taught. A school trying to cope with serious disorder problems will end teaching things at a different pace and in a different way to a school where there is no disorder problems.

Furthermore, you have to factor in the human element to teaching. It is more than possible that a teacher – by dint of being crap or just willfully obtuse – might end up teaching completely the wrong thing. It happened to me – our Biology teacher (and bear in mind this was a top public school) taught us the wrong GCSE Biology syllabus. This was something which only became clear when we sat the exam. A centralised syallbus is not the same thing as a centralised education system – education is not uniform throughout the country in terms of content or delivery.

And anyway, how would people not trained in education be able to make the right choices about curriculum?

What, you mean people like Ed Balls?

And this is one of the big problems I have with this whole argument. It is predicated on the assumption that government knows best. The people can’t make the right choice about education, only the government can. The people can’t make the right choice about which schools their kids should attend. Only the government can. And only government sanctioned teachers can actually be effective educators.

Jeremy Bentham’s quote springs back into my mind. I can see no evidence that elected politicians are anymore capable than parents of making the right choices for their kids. And when we are talking about ministers of the calibre of Ed Balls, well, frankly I wouldn’t trust him to lace his own shoes without trying to stab someone in the back and further his career. I certainly wouldn’t trust him to make crucial choices about the education of other people’s kids

This whole process (if it went ahead, which I very much hope it doesn’t) would have to be closely followed by government inspectors and the cost involved in shutting down the public schools would be colossal.

Yes, if the government literally closed down the schools and left them derelict, then it would cost a lot. Of course, that would be a one-off cost, closely followed by savings of billions of pounds. And I reckon an astute government would allow for a transition of state schools into the private sector, thus minimising disruption and cost.

For a Tory government promising to cut spending and reducing the deficit, how does the party justify this?

*Yawns.*

See above.

By the time these “gradual” changes have been put into place, the Conservatives will probably be voted out of office anyway, if they get in in the first place. There is widespread opposition when one local school is closed, could you imagine the uproar when these plans become publically known?

Except the schools wouldn’t be closing – they would be moved out of government control and more choice would be given to parents, if this sort of reform was done right. So I reckon you would have parental joy, rather than wrath.

This is certainly a point to campaign about in the upcoming elections and certainly something I’ll be asking my local Tory candidate before I shut the door in his face next time.

You know, I’ve been disappointed by the lack of canvassing recently. I want politicians to come and knock on my door. And if a Tory does so, maybe I will quiz them about their education policies. Maybe I’ll just pretend to be French so they fuck off out of my face. I just don’t know. Guess I’ll make that choice when it happens. But I do know that if some dozy fucking Labour yoof knocked on the door and starting spouting this sort of utter shite at me, they would learn very quickly about my thoughts on the Iraq War and the decimation of the economy under Nu Labour. With added profanities. And only when I had finished my splendid rant would the door be slammed in their faces with an order that they “cock off out of my life forever.”

See, I dislike the Tories, I really do. But I hate the Labour Party a whole lot more.

The results of the system in Sweden haven’t been too rosy either. The head of Sweden’s school inspectors last week said that the system hadn’t significantly improved results in their country anyway, so why on earth do the Tories want to implement it here?

Dunno, maybe because it fits in with their tenuously expressed ideas about localism? Maybe because result not significantly improving is also not a sign that they have significantly declined? Possibly because they think the results will improve after the transition period? Lots of ideas. Maybe you should ask your Tory candidate next he/she/it knocks on your door.

As someone still in education this worries me and will worry parents of young children, teachers and union representatives.

Love it. A sixteen year old kid still in school knows how parents, teachers and union reps will respond. I wonder where he gets this knowledge from. Perhaps he’s been indoctrinated to be pro-state education by an education system run by… well, the state.

Typical Tories of course, deny the whole thing.

Yes, because Labour would never deny something inconvenient for themselves now, would they?

According to the spiel at the bottom of the article, the author is 16 years old and has a “big interest in politics”. Great. However, at the risk of being a patronising old curmudgeon, I’d argue that this kid still has a lot to learn about politics. The first lesson can be the need to think for himself, rather than regurgitating the hackneyed, moronic Labour toss about why radical education reform is automatically a bad idea.