Class war in the classroom?
Two events in the last couple of days.
One is today’s publication of former Health Secretary Alan Milburn’s report into social mobility.
The other is a report from the Charity Commission on private schools and their eligibility for charitable status.
The two are intimately linked.
Milburn’s findings are only shocking in that anyone imagined that the position was anything other than that which he describes – a world in which professions provide a conveyor belt for the upper middle classes and the privately educated.
And that it remains incredibly difficult for anybody born ‘on the wrong sides of the tracks’ to break through.
The Charity Commission ran a pilot study of twelve charities, which included five private schools and effectively found that two of them did almost nothing to justify their charity status. And that the other three were very far from perfect.
The entire concept of tax breaks enshrined in that charitable status has always been a remarkably eccentric facet of British public life and private advantage. But it’s hard to see either Mr Milburn or the Commission upsetting the very British upper class.
Despite all the changes in Britain the public schools and Oxbridge still dominate important parts of the media, the law, the city, and the civil service.
Nevertheless it is an extraordinary truth that no fewer than three conservative prime ministers in the late 20th century – Edward Heath, Margaret Thatcher and John Major, came from the lower middle classes and whilst Heath and Thatcher had made it to Oxbridge, John Major left school at 16 with three O-levels to his name (to which he later added more by attendance courses).
Is this inflexibility what makes Britain Great? Or is it what holds the country back?
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There are 35 comments on this post
can you hear them, talking about us, telling lies is that a surprise, can you see them, see right through them, they have a shield nothing must be revealed, it does’nt matter what they say, no one’s listening anyway, our lips are sealed.
there’s a weapon that we can use in our defence, silence. we’ll just look at them , look right through them, thats when they disappear, thats when we lose the fear, it doesnt matter what they say, no ones listening anyway, pay no mind to what they say. class war is coming it started today.
Acko – if you invented that (was it the Clash???) then you are an almighty genius.
‘there’s a weapon we can use in our defence, silence…’ as good as it can get, mate!
Hi,
might there be a case for concentrating resources on Government departments rather than some Charities who are seeking to do the same job? The idea of a so called ‘voluntary’ sector is in some ways a misnomer as most of the employees in some Charities are paid, rathter than working as volunteers?
best wishes
Bob
When I was taking A level Eng lit ,we were studying A Winters Tale. I didn’t want to play Perdita or Hermione, it was the Commentator Camillo for me. I was struggling with the class distinction between the rustics and the court.
I concluded then that a simple philosophy was best and it is individual grace which makes the human more humane. I carry on looking at the brass monkeys I have on my desk. Speak no evil, see no evil and hear no evil for fear of perpetuating evil.. Perhaps Camillo was not the best part for me.
Definitely holds it back!
But I’m not impressed by Milburn’s report – he was part of the Blair revolution that promised education, education, education and all we have to show for it is some privitisation, faith schools and kids leaving university with big debts and no jobs
The education gap between the wealthy and rest will never be reduced until the state system provides universally good schools (no need to move house to be near a good one) with no more than 20 to a class.
And that means tax – so the Tories won’t look at it (why should they, they can afford private?) and New Labour is frightened of it.
This is an interesting message, but just to clarify, the Charity Commission did not rule that the three independent charitable schools it assessed that do meet the public benefit requirement were ‘far from perfect’. All three were found to be doing enough to ensure access to people who could not afford the fees, including people in poverty.
I was at secondary school in the late 70s and 80s, myself and my peers were all from working class backgrounds, we were simply told by our parents to “get on with it”, and we simply worked as hard as we could and nearly 90% of my peer group have done well and crossed the class divide and all have good standards of living. It is time that everyone did the same rather than scrounging on the taxpayers at a time of credit crunch.
I cannot express too strongly how frustrated and sad I am that the gap between rich and poor continues to widen, particularly with regard to that great cycle breaker – education. I teach in a boarding school and have seen much of the arrogance and privilege which goes hand-in-hand with a private education. I don’t know how much more I can take of smiling sweetly at this unfair and unjust division in our society. Surely change is long overdue!
Grim Rupert
I am surprised that, as a teacher, you would generalise your experience at the boarding school where you teach to all independent schools. If the staff, pupils or parents at your school are arrogant, then perhaps you should highlight it through appropriate channels such as the board of governors to get the problem rectified.
My son also attends a private school and the pupils are punctilious in their behaviour, displaying impeccable manners and due consideration for others. The pupils also raise significant sums for charitable causes both here in the UK and in India and Uganda. While, no doubt, there are some millionaires among the parents, there are also very many, myself included, who are not financially well-off but and can only afford the fees due to working extremely long hours, the extreme self-denial of luxuries such as holidays and smart cars, living a very frugal life and the help provided by scholarships and bursaries.
If Labour (new and old) had not decimated the grammar schools, that would have been the natural destination for my son.
Archie.
They say ignorance is bliss. All these schools are interested in is bums on seats. In your case, it appears that the school fares well in its bid to grease your money from you.
I think that political/active dismantling of the private schools would not be a positive thing. All energies need to be put into showing that the state sector could be a desirable choice for a parent. Either huge amounts of funding needs to go into reducing class sizes and attracting/retaining good teachers or we have to accept that a liberal economy will always lead to an independent sector for those who naturally want the best for their kids (it’s in the genes!). I would support the former, but do not believe it to ever be viable.
Just watched the news item (haven’t read the report) and thought I would share a few thoughts.
- Isn’t it time we stopped talking in such narrow terms as “the rich can afford wonderful private education and this screws up the poor families who have to rely on the state sector”? Some parents work two jobs each to ensure a decent education for their children in private schools – and through taxes they pay for state education too. We shouldn’t forget that Labour removed assisted places making private education more elitist.
- Careers advice at primary schools? Ensuring pupils can read, write and do basic maths is surely more important and would give them a good start, leading lead to a better career anyway.
- Isn’t it sad that we need charities to work in our schools to encourage kids to be more aspirational?
- There is so much wrong with the state education system as it stands – so many young people leave school without decent qualifications despite huge investment; when are politicains going to realise that it is not a question of throwing money at the problem? Decent teaching is key – it doesn’t matter how flash your ICT suites are or how many interactive whiteboards a school has. The idea that redistribution of wealth will somehow fix this situation is simplistic and naive.
Nothing will ever change between the class/economic wealth of people. The rich see to that, with their no ending greed.
Unrestrained, preditory capitalist greed & elite streamlining in favour of the better off will continue to be the scurge on this Earth but, disadvantaged people of all ages, race, gender, etc. can find solace in the fact that many well off people don’t find happiness or contentment.
Anthony Martin – there is zero solace in that. It may suit the elites to say ‘money won’t buy you love/happiness’, but they really, really, honest-to-God don’t believe it. Most people would rather be ‘unhappy’ in a mansion, than unhappy bringing up 3 kids on one pittance.
Alan Milburn, the Labour MP Donell and anybody who has the sheer nerve to turn around and say that while either having been it on their watch or that they were clearly aware of the cavernous gap that exists when it comes to equal access and opportunity within education to aspire to and achieve recognition and position as a doctor, lawyer, and all the higher professions
I’m very interested in knowing more about the ‘aspire project’ that was discussed during this evening news. As what is far more important than access to education, is the aspiarations that student and graduates have when they are choosing subject and applying for jobs. does anyone have a web address for this ‘aspire’ group?
Hi there, their website is:
http://bit.ly/wArkE
best,
C4 News
Ciaran: bad news re Aspire – it wound itself up. The CEO felt there was no reason for carrying on.
Hey Jon, what do you say to guests that you have on when the credits roll at the end of the news, like with Nick Clegg today, is it things like ‘your round at the Fog and Duckett’ or something?
It is not surprising that the proportion of those entering the professions from private education has increased. Government policy in education has meant that able children, of any social background in state education are not being pushed to achieve the level of attainment that their parents were. The preoccupation with league tables and universal targets has masked a serious decline in real educational standards. The schools are not to blame as they are mostly delivering what Government requires of them. Government claims that educational standards have risen every year whilst teachers know that this is not true. The pursuit of grade C GCSE results for all at the expense of real education, means that those who might have challenged the dominance of privately educated pupils have been relatively neglected. Even that grade C GCSE is now devalued with pass marks lowered to ensure Government can claim its continued “raising” of standards. As someone involved in education for over 30 years and a long-term champion of state education, I would now have to advise anyone who could afford to privately educate their children, to do so. Government policy in education has not improved social mobility but made it worse.
As a former Eton boy, with no forebears who had been there,I was shocked to discover that Eton had been founded by a pious medieval king, Henry VIth, who intended it to exclusively benefit illiterate orphans from London and give them the opportunity they would never have had otherwise. The school became the distortion it now is only centuries later. It would be more true to the founding charter to return it to exclusively benefit the poorest, and the redistributive moves suggested ny the Labour M.P. are more in tune with its earliest, and highly moral tone.
And this would apply to every single public school in the land!
Ha! Good for you. I went to one of those and I find myself actually discriminated against. In interviews I don’t drop my ‘t’s on purpose and don’t pretend to be a fool, so I hardly ever get the job.Even as an English teacher. You see, I’m not stupid enough to have the ‘ability’ to discuss ‘celebrities’. This country has becomes so unequal under New Labour. It’s extreme and it will get worse. They’ve adopted a moneytocracy, whereas previously a good education and good manners would have served one well. I have lost one and intend to loose the other.
Hi
I’ve just sat through your news item relating to educational opportunities for children from less well off families in the UK.
I’m now 61 & grew up when you took the 11 plus exam to determine whether you went to a grammar school or a secondary modern. Whilst I’m not saying that system was foolproof ( of course people develop at different speeds) it was a way of allowing bright working class children to be given access to a good academic education. When the labour party cut off that route by getting rid of most grammar schools they cut off that opportunity condemning all who couldn’t afford to pay to a ( in most cases) mediocre education at their local comprehensive. The middle/upper classes who could afford it voted with their feet & chose private education condemning the rest to what is at best a postcode lottery & at worst a total nightmare!
During my life I’ve worked with many people who came from working class families & were given inspiration from their secondary school education . Your interviewee from Aspire talked about universities opening up a whole new world to people from less well off backgrounds but it needs to happen before that! I went to a Junior school built to serve a council estate which grew up after the second wolrd war in the 1950s. 6 of us out of a class of 40 passed the 11 plus in 1958 & a whole new world was opened up to us when we went into the grammar school system. People from totally different backgrounds who came from families who expected them to do well – not get married as soon as possible like my family did. Friends who had books in the house!!
Not everyone is academic – we just as badly need plumbers, electricians, mechanics, builders, carpenters. Let’s get back to giving everyone, no matter what their background or wealth, the education they need instead of pushing all who can’t afford it through a system which is doing nobody any good and sending them to universities to do courses that give them a degree not worth the paper it’s written on. My 3 children went through the comprehensive system & living in a reasonable area in London, they’ve all done OK but they now all say that given the opportunity, they’ll pay to have their children privately educated – How sad!
This is not about elitism, it’s about failure. This government has failed to give bright kids from poor and middle class backgrounds the chance to prove themselves by dumbing down the state education system. If I were an employer in any profession, I would be recruiting the best qualified person for the job and if that meant employing privately educated candidates, then so be it. The divide between state and private education has widened because of the abolition of grammar schools. Bright children from lower income families who were grammar school educated were given a better chance to equal if not outperform their privately educated rivals and go on to gain a grant-aided place at university. Take all that away and your left with a far higher mountain to climb, so the chances of failure are much greater.
If my memory serves me right Blair wanted to take away charitable status from private schools before he came to power. 12 years on nothing happened. Whilst state schools have to pay VAT on all purchases, private schools can claim VAT back- how fair is that?
Tory Bliar sent his own children to private schools and then forced one of them onto Yale.
I have just watched the news and that segment on inequality and social mobility or the lack thereof and it was one of the most biased leftist reports I have seen on Channel 4. The Labour MP, predictably, advocated massive income re-distribution as the solution to the well-documented problem. Although you pointed out that this problem of inequality has got worse despite Gordon Brown being the most re-distributive chancellor in decades, the crucial point about abilities and parental involvement was totally ignored. The fact is some parents devote more attention to the early development of their children, reading them bedtime stories and taking them on educational excursions such as to zoos and to the local library whereas other parents might prefer to spend their evenings in the pub.
New Labour has almost succeeded in wiping out selective education in the state sector and, having belatedly discovered their folly, are now busy trying to create so-called academies to replace the grammar schools they so recklessly decimated. What is especially galling is the hypocrisy of the New Labour elite – Tony Blair, Harriet Harman, Dianne Abbott, to name a few – who have managed to side-step the mediocrity of the state sector by sending their children to selective state or independent schools while simultaneously denying this opportunity to other parents of lesser financial means. I am among the ranks of parents who, because we want the best for our children but are not wealthy, endure severe personal financial burden in order to procure a first rate education for our children in the independent sector.
As much as Labour politicians may wish it were not so, the fact is that not only are children born with different levels of ability, but some parents also try harder than others at preparing their children for a life of learning. It is egregious that most Labour politicians fail to acknowledge this and sadder still that the Conservatives appear to be increasingly equivocating on their commitment to support the aspirations of high-achieving children of whatever background. Perhaps the ultimate regret is that this misguided, dumbing-down, approach to education will relegate vast segments of the population to a third rate learning experience that will hobble this nation for generations to come. We are already witnessing the symptoms of this decline, from the alarming increase in the underclass to the growing dependence on imported labour, aptly exemplified by the increasing dominance of foreign owners of UK plc without a reciprocal increase internationally by the UK.
Mr Snow, I am a jourmalist (editor) who had two wonderful business people in my office today. Forgive me for detracting from the narrow focus of this particular discourse, but if I may, I would tell the story of these people who, incidentally, run- a chip shop. They were losing business because of rumours in the town that they were closing down. They came to me in desperation because their business was suffering. They opened their hearts about their life in the chip shop (chipper) in between my utterances of promises to help. The aggravation and the insults the couple endure every night would trouble the most thick skinned and even shock the barbaric. What they experience is an accuracte baromoter regarding where this society stands today. The pulse of the nation should be measured at the coalface by people who live though hell … and still smile.
I still do 60 plus hours per week in developing our business and now employ more than 180 people in the UK and Europe and still growing despite the recession. We are always, unlike the Government, exercising due diligence in both planning for the future and developing new product streams to grow. Nobody has bailed us out and we never had ‘help’ from the state to develop our business.
I did not have a university education and most of our employees have no tertiary education. What we do have is a positive attitude to accepting our responsibilites and not ‘whinging’ about our rights. Having a reasonable brain and a ‘Can Do’ attitude are more important to our Company than a piece of paper that does not measure ‘attitude’
The role of school is to produce pupils that can equally follow a vocational course or an academic one, but each pupil should be taught Manners, Communicable English and reasonable Mathematics. These are Life Skills that will serve them well when they take their place in Society.
More Responsible Teachers and less Quangoes and ‘Government Initiatives’ would certainly help any child with aspirations.
They should be facilitated to believe in themselves and that a ‘Blue Collar’ worker is as important to the growth of the UK as a ‘White Collar’ Worker.
We firmly believe in the maxim of ‘The harder I work the more Luck I seem to have’
By the way, I have walked the streets of London, like many an immigrant, to secure a job in the belief that I would be self sufficient and not wait for ‘Handouts’
Yes. It is tough but don’t wait for someone else to support you.
As a country we need more Wealth Creating jobs and not Administrators and Officials that suck the life blood out of the taxes paid to support this country.
I am disappointed that Connexions has become the scapegoat in this report. A lot of staff time is spent helping the most disadvantaged youngsters and our service delivery is based on their hopes and wishes- often they wish to be in vocational training and once this idea is tested it is wholly inappropriate to perhaps groom them to be Doctors or Lawyers as perhaps hoped. Our efforts are focused on meeting targets to reduce those not in work or in training and not to meet quotas for Doctors and Lawyers…. it simply must be accepted that young people have a choice in their career and many are choosing vocational options which are sound and appropriate to their abilities.
This is absolutely outrageous. So much for New labour’s meritocracy.
Pupils who doNOT have the right grade A-Levels still get to get to medical school? Would you like to be treated by them?
It’s absolutely shocking!
I did SIX A-Levels in 1982, of course I didn’t manage to get all of the, especially because one of them was music, but I’ve had a look at a few MA papers since and they look like BA entry papers. It’s a joke.
Bring back NO tuition fee. It’s disgusting that any good pupil should have to pay for their university education and stop making every little hovel in the middle of nowhere into a university. New Labour are a disgrace. I can’t stand the conservatives, but this lot really bite the buiscuit (sp?). All they’ve done is pay billions in “advisory” services. Useless. Completely useless.
They are insane! Equality means egalitarian treatment. NOT dumbing everyone down.
Half of NHS staff don’t even speak English. It’s seriously scary. I’ve been there.
What exactly is wrong with New Labour? Who says that those who practise medicine , law etc are the upper part of the social echelon?
You know who is absolutely essential to our society?
Sewage workers.
Those who deal with death and debris.
Marjaneh: good question, but we (the sulky, bedraggled proles) tend to think people who ask it are being deeply, deeeply condescending.
There was a bird on Radio 4 a while back who said that, as a writer, she respected plumbers, and I thought “gee!what a nice egalitarian”, and then I thought “hang on; who does she invite to dinner parties – plumbers or writers?”
Am I bitter?
There has been class war in classrooms for the better part of many decades….
=Dennis Junior=