Escape Is Forbidden

They could at least be honest about what it is they’re selling.

doing one’s best for one’s own children – in contravention of “social justice”
That.

As if competent parenting were something to atone for.
They always level down.

Ms Lewis and her unhappy mind have been mentioned here before:

So far as I can tell, and despite Ms Lewis’ theorising, mothers-to-be don’t generally feel a need to parse their pregnancy in terms of “abolishing the private nuclear household” and “global regimes of colonial and commodity exploitation.” Or indeed to champion abortion, via drugs or dismemberment, as a form of “anti-violence.” But that’s probably because – to borrow a phrase from Joan – they haven’t been tugging on the intersectional crack pipe.

Again, the moral analogue of bone cancer.

“State education is generally sub-optimal and often shockingly bad. Let’s make sure that’s all there is available.”
But of course there will always be superior education available to the children of the Party elite…which is something that vermin like socialist Robert Poole are counting on.

Socialism, Marxism, Communism seek to bring everyone to the same level–the lowest level. If everyone can’t be transcendant, then everyone must be miserable…misery loves company.

but in the same way that 10 Downing Street is an inner-city terraced house.
Heh. Rather like how Zoe Williams’ supposedly ‘comprehensive’ education entailed grade II listed buildings, nine science labs, and educational trips to remote parts of the world, including visits to Rome and Morocco and an eight-day tour of Barbados.
See also Arabella Weir, whose idea of bog-standard state schooling is the voluntary-aided Camden School for Girls, where alumnae include Eva Germaine Rimington Taylor and noted proletarian Dame Emma Thompson.
The attempts at deception, or actual delusions, are almost funny.

. . . have you got to give your child an unfair advancers over . . .
I’m not sure this chap understands the intrinsic composition and use of English.

What right have you to give your child an unfair advantage over mine simply because you have more money?
Related:

My closest friends had parents much like mine: most had been educated at the same small collection of public schools and knew each other well from either Oxford or Cambridge and then through their work [ … ] They made the conscious decision to give their children a radically different childhood from their own. We were sent to the local state schools, where we could mix with children from every walk of life …

That’s William Miller writing there, in his childhood memoir, Gloucester Crescent. (Miller is one of Jonathan Miller’s children).

Dad always says [the reason for this decision] is because everyone in Gloucester Crescent votes Labour and that only Tories go to private schools [ … ] I don’t understand that because Mum, Dad and all their friends went to private school and they never stop talking about how great it was and how important it is to get a good education.

The problem with experiments of any kind, of course, is that they tend not to work out very well the first dozen or so times while you try to work out which particular variables need manipulating to get the desired result.
As each child is unique and has only one childhood, this presents something of a problem for trials such as the one the Millers and the other progressive parents living on the same road were trying out.
Inevitably, William goes on

as we got older many of us found ourselves left behind and struggling to keep up. It began to seem that we’d been part of an experiment driven by their principles, rather than their care.

In fact, what happens to William Miller is that he is bullied so mercilessly by other children at school, some of whom literally threaten to kill him – especially after a brief appearance on a TV documentary written and presented by his father – that he soon becomes agitated, withdrawn, and depressed.
Eventually, unable to cope, he has a kind of breakdown after which he refuses point blank to go back to his state school.

After so many years of hoping they could make a difference, they’d finally had to agree that the route they had chosen had been something of a failure for their children who had ended up paying the price for their choices.

In the end, Miller’s parents agree to send him to an exclusive private school – albeit one run on progressive principles, called Bedales in Hampshire.
However, having already fallen so far behind in his schooling, at least according to his own account, he is unable to catch up even in the much more pleasant atmosphere of Bedales and fails all of his A levels (his high school leaving / university entrance exams).
A few years later, the producer of the documentary in which William briefly appeared (and which worsened the bullying) sets up his own television production company and offers Wiliam a job as a production assistant (possibly at the prompting of Jonathan Miller, though this is speculation on my part).
Later still, William Miller has become a TV executive in his own right, producing Nigella Lawson. It turns out that he had known Nigella since they were teenagers when Nigella’s mother Vanessa married the Oxford and UCL philosopher A. J. Ayer whose London residence happened to back right onto the Miller’s in the same North London Oxbridge colony and in whose house William used to play as a boy.
Despite the fact that William’s entry into television and subsequent success seem to have relied on more or less the kind of Old School tie-like connections an Old Etonian might even blush at, Jonathan Miller took exception to his son’s success because as William explains (my italics):

I’d chosen a career path that neither he nor his friends fully approved of. Although I’d gone into an industry they were familiar with, I’d joined what they felt was the opposing team: the one on the top floor, who wore suits and ran the business – the Establishment. In their eyes this was somewhat grubby and should be treated with an element of suspicion. We were the ones who stopped people like them from getting on and doing the important and worthwhile things.

they’d finally had to agree that the route they had chosen had been something of a failure for their children who had ended up paying the price for their choices.
Ah, but there are always more guinea pigs.

Or eggs for omelettes.
Except they broke the eggs and never made any omlettes.
Having taught in private schools and good state schools, the difference is minimal. You can’t really make kids any smarter, nor teachers any better, so the differences often come down to the expectations — and kids with parents with high expectations do well in good state schools.
The issue is that so many state schools are simply not any good.
The Socialist dream is that if private schools are abandoned, then rich people will have motivation to finance public schools better. But they fall into the old “if we throw more money at it things will improve” fallacy. State schools aren’t bad because they are underfunded (except in certain US states). They are bad because they 1) have a difficult clientele, 2) often teach using poor progressive ideals, and 3) aren’t able to establish decent discipline.
There are state schools with high disciplinary standards and that avoid progressive ideals that do very well with disadvantaged children. There are state schools with poor discipline and fully into progressive education that do very poorly with rich children. The amount of money given to them makes very little difference.

What right does a mother have to give her child an unfair advantage by not drinking heavily during pregnancy?

And most of them thrive and out-perform public schools, even drawing from the same student pool.
That is highly relevant to the practical problem, and it’s completely revealing of its after-effects. But it’s not at all relevant to the structural, ethical, philosophical failure of being made to endure it, even if it can perform.

This page gives an average pay per state. https://www.teacherportal.com/teacher-salaries-by-state/
California pays its teachers $69,000. The median wage there is $19.58, so a multiple of just under 3,500 times.
Massachusetts pays its teachers $72,000. The median wage there is $21.38, so a multiple of 3,370.
Colorado pays its teachers $50,000. The median wage there is $18.86, so a multiple of 2,650.
South Dakota pays its teachers $39,000. The median wage there is $14.32, so multiple of 2,700.
So you get paid effectively 25% more to teach in California or Massachusetts than Colorado or South Dakota, doing the same job. (Note, it doesn’t matter if they are paid “enough” in South Dakota — because they can earn more somewhere else, the good ones move.) I know my temptation to move to increase my earnings by 25% without having to do any more work would be quite strong.
Given that there are rural parts of California and Massachusetts, the teachers don’t have to give up a rural lifestyle, if that’s what they prefer.
The same effect is also seen with other parts of the budget. Some states spend a lot more on buildings, equipment etc. Here’s a site which gives by state, allowing for differences in cost: https://www.edweek.org/ew/collections/quality-counts-2018-state-finance/map-per-pupil-spending-state-by-state.html
New York, famously profligate and committed to state education, spends twice as much as Florida, famously attempting to destroy public education.

David’s remarks above at 16:06 reminded me of a rant I constructed in my head after hearing a bit of today’s Wimbledon coverage. To wit – a remark by one commentator that the players extra tennis rackets were no longer supplied covered in a plastic bag, and that this was part of Wimbledon’s new Sustainability Initiative (or words to that effect).
Meanwhile, I’m looking at an arena with roughly 11000 spectators, and outside another umpteen thousand sitting on Henman Hill watching the gigantic video screen. The camera keeps showing us numerous “celebrities” and “stars” in the audience, most of whom arrived from far away by air, a lot of them in private jets.
So I got to thinking (always a bad sign, I know. Next time I PROMISE I’ll file the necessary applications, affidavits, and money bonds with the head henchlesbian by the deadline. This time, though, I can only kick in $0.38 and a half-bottle of Thunderbird.) about how Sustainable Wimbledon will be run When I Am Emperor Of The World.
1. All persons attending, including players, must use public transport for the entire distance, with the oceanic exception noted below. (Uber is Not Public Transport)
2. Air travel to the event is Right Out. (In fact, in this world, there is no passenger air travel. At All. Anywhere. Because Carbon.) Oceans are crossed, when absolutely necessary, by large single-class passenger boats (cf. travel c. 1900).
3. The arena will hold about 1000 spectators, all of whom will be residents of Wimbledon itself (i.e. walking or cycling distance). Seats will be assigned randomly. Other persons wishing to view the event may
4. view it from the comfort of their own residences, by video supplied by a single camera and a video staff of 3 workers.
5. The grass courts will still exist, but will be maintained by volunteers from local Gardening Societies.
The problem with Sustainability Initiatives and (in the USA) Green New Deals, is that they aren’t serious.
(By the way, I will be announcing my entry in the next (last) election for World Emperor next month, provided all you heathens and reprobates kick in enough Portable Valuable Property. Cheers!) (Also, when chosen, I will style myself Fred the Fourth. See how simple it all is?)

State schools aren’t bad because they are underfunded… They are bad because they 1) have a difficult clientele, 2) often teach using poor progressive ideals, and 3) aren’t able to establish decent discipline.
As noted in an earlier thread,

The odds of state education ever being uniformly satisfactory, or even mostly satisfactory, seem somewhat remote. This is because the shortcomings of state education aren’t simply or chiefly a matter of funding. It’s also an issue of intake and ethos. Money won’t change the bell curves of ability and aptitude, and it won’t shift egalitarian ideology, which in my experience was one of the major problems. If, for instance, the prevailing thinking in a school is like this example here, in which children are treated as vehicles for propagating an egalitarian worldview, then the biggest problem facing those kids, especially bright kids, is the thinking itself. And if pupils aren’t being taught grammar and spelling on ideological grounds, then not teaching grammar and spelling in a slightly nicer classroom won’t make much of a difference.

I must stop quoting myself. It’s terribly improper.

Seems apposite:

Sadly, Dr Swift doesn’t say whether he has any personal experience of the state education system that he thinks the rest of us should make do with in the name of “social justice.” But perhaps he could share his comforting words with some of the children left at the mercy of such schools, where, as one national survey of teaching staff puts it, “a climate of violence” and “malicious disruption” is the norm, the assaulting of staff and pupils is commonplace, with almost half of those surveyed witnessing such behaviour “on a weekly basis,” and where vandalism of personal property is “part of the routine working environment.”
Perhaps he could share his wisdom with the children being bullied daily for being clever, enquiring or polite. A fate I escaped, narrowly, thanks to a proficiency in throwing chairs, thereby deterring lunchtime assaults. Such were the thrills of the state education to which our leftist academic would have your children forcibly consigned…
Needless to say, [the egalitarian mixing of ability] doesn’t seem to work. The beneficial effect for non-academic kids is somewhere between negligible and zero. The effect on bright kids, however – those being sacrificed for the socialist ideal – can be terrible. Some clever kids… learn to give up, leaving school with grades well out of step with their intelligence, or dropping out altogether… In my case it was mostly tedious and demoralising, occasionally enlivened by a bit of physical danger. I didn’t see any evidence that my presence there was elevating any of the less able kids or inspiring the thugs to more gentlemanly conduct. If anything, it seemed to provoke the opposite. Hence the chair throwing…
A few months ago, I checked the Ofsted report for my old state school – now a ‘community arts college’ – and it made for grim reading. “Attainment in key subjects” – English, maths and science – is rated “low” and “well below average.” Indiscipline and absenteeism are major issues. And it’s worth pointing out that during my stay the school was pretty typical of others in the area. In local terms, it wasn’t regarded as a failed school; it wasn’t remarkable at all. It was how state schools in the area were. That’s what you were given. But wishing to prevent children from escaping such schools is pretty much a default attitude among our leftist intelligentsia.

I’m doing it again. Somebody stop me.

How the right cheerfully enabled statism is indeed the right question
Since the “right”, by definition, are those members of the Assembly who support the authority of the King over the landed aristocracy the question seems a bit redundant. L’etat, c’est moi and all that.
Perhaps the problem is that you’re getting a bit lost in the verbal sophistry instead of looking at what’s actually happening.

This page gives an average pay per state. https://www.teacherportal.com/teacher-salaries-by-state/
California pays its teachers $69,000. The median wage there is $19.58, so a multiple of just under 3,500 times.
Massachusetts pays its teachers $72,000. The median wage there is $21.38, so a multiple of 3,370.
Colorado pays its teachers $50,000. The median wage there is $18.86, so a multiple of 2,650.
South Dakota pays its teachers $39,000. The median wage there is $14.32, so multiple of 2,700.
Are we speaking of underfunded or what teachers get paid? I’ll address “underfunded” below but from what I found, UK teacher salaries range from £21K – £62K which in USD is approx $26K – $77K (using SWAG of 1.25 GBP/1.0 USD). The Florida starting salary, from the NEA site (suspect itself) which you link, is $35K. Now Florida’s education system is something I have some experience with on both ends. If Florida is famously attempting to destroy public education, my experience is that their doing it from the inside. On top of this, Florida has plenty of qualified retirees and semi-retirees who would be happy to take many of those jobs, as was the case 40+ years ago when I was on the business end of the education system here, were it not for the exact same three issues that you describe. I know a very well qualified engineer with decades of experience in computer science and years of experience in machine learning/math who is jumping through hoops right now trying to get a job with the local school system. They keep throwing up nonsense barriers as if he were some kid off the street. I personally have volunteered with our school system on and off for 25 years and my experience is that the bureaucrats, and to some extent the teachers themselves, are the ones making teaching a hard job. If there’s a concerted, intentional effort to destroy public education in Florida, it’s more likely by suicide.
As for “underfunded”. From what I found, the average per pupil spent in Florida is just under $9K. In the UK the number I found was around £5K, which is about $6K in USD. In fact, for the US in general, according to one site the US is one of the top 10 countries in per pupil education spending. We are not underfunded we are overfunded. The more money poured in, the more leaches show up to siphon it off.

They keep throwing up nonsense barriers as if he were some kid off the street.
That, and the absurdly low standards they have for members of their guild who have the Party Approved Degrees™ in “Education”, unlike WTP’s engineer, keep actual qualified experts off the field but help keep programs for “learners” (apparently they are no longer students or pupils) crappy.
From California’s “Educator Certification Program” we find, among a host of other requirements, that one must take the “California Basic Educational Skills Test” which requires the following:

For each section of the CBEST, your score ranges from twenty to eighty. For the Math and Reading sections, your score is based on the number of questions you answered correctly.
   ●Both the Math and the Reading sections consist of fifty questions.
   ●The writing section consists of two essays.
   ●California and Oregon educators grade both of your essays and then convert your score to the CBEST scale from 20-80.
   ●You must earn a 41 on each section in order to pass that section; you must earn a score of 123 in order to pass the entire CBEST test.
   ●A score of as low as 37 on one or two tests is acceptable, as long as all three scores add up to 123.

Score 46.25% on math, but have an overall score of 51.25%, a BA in “education” from East Overshoe State U and you are good to go to teach commie core math, even if you can’t balance your checkbook. PhD in orbital dynamics from MIT, but no courses in modern pedagogy ? Back of the line buster. What could possibly go wrong ?

The problem with Sustainability Initiatives and (in the USA) Green New Deals, is that they aren’t serious.
Oh, they are very serious … it’s just that they are not usually forthcoming with their actual objective

Saikat Chakrabarti, chief of staff for New York representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D.), said that the Green New Deal was not about the climate, but rather about tearing down the economy and building a new one, according to a report from The Washington Post.
“The interesting thing about the Green New Deal is it wasn’t originally a climate thing at all,” Chakrabarti said, according to the Post. “Do you guys think of it as a climate thing? Because we really think of it as a how-do-you-change-the-entire-economy thing.”

It’s “Harrison Bergeron” Left, to make a Vonnegut reference.
Or, as Ayn Rand described the general tenor of these people, they show “the hatred of the good for being good”:
“Hatred of the good for being the good means hatred of that which one regards as good by one’s own (conscious or subconscious) judgment. It means hatred of a person for possessing a value or virtue one regards as desirable. If a child wants to get good grades in school, but is unable or unwilling to achieve them and begins to hate the children who do, that is hatred of the good.”
-Ayn Rand, essay, “The Age of Envy”

It’s “Harrison Bergeron” Left, to make a Vonnegut reference…If a child wants to get good grades in school, but is unable or unwilling to achieve them and begins to hate the children who do, that is hatred of the good.
I trace much of this to the failure of the “affirmative action” programs of the sixties through eighties: Quotas in education and hiring were supposed to quickly erase racial disparities in achievement. When they did not (or when progress proved to be unacceptably slow) the left went insane*, inventing one reason after another to “explain” this failure. In order to reconcile the Marxcentric Theory with actual observed phenomena the left must continuously add more deferents and epicycles to their broken theories.
*When I write “went insane” I mean “more insane than it already was”.

So you get paid effectively 25% more to teach in California or Massachusetts than Colorado or South Dakota, doing the same job.
You’re aware that among the states Massachusetts ranks #1, whereas California is #37, far below Colorado (#10) and South Dakota (#25)? That fact alone disproves your thesis that teacher pay is the critical factor.
(link in name goes to Forbes)

Labour Party | Socialist | Teacher | @NEUnion | @AbolishEton | Father

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