“Labour Party. Socialist. Teacher.”
Put another way, “State education is generally sub-optimal and often shockingly bad. Let’s make sure that’s all there is available.”
We’ve been here before, of course. As when we heard the claim, conveniently unchallenged, that doing one’s best for one’s own children – in contravention of “social justice” – is merely a “cultural construction,” and therefore, presumably, ripe for deconstruction. By our betters.
And we’ve been here more than once.
How brighter/more dedicated students who didn’t have that advantage made it through our high school without giving in to despair I do not know
I don’t mean to overstate the depravities of my own experience. It was, for the most part, merely tedious and demoralising, and I managed to deflect most of the attempts at physical bullying. (The secret, I found, was to be prepared to act like a sociopath in order to deter the actual sociopaths, of which there were quite a few, and who would see the possible cost of targeting me and then decide to bully someone else, someone less likely to resist. Not ideal, I grant you.)
But I did see others fare less well. I’ve mentioned before how one new arrival – a well-spoken boy, obviously from a fairly middle-class background – was targeted immediately for jostling, theft and almost daily intimidation of one sort or another. Like being deliberately tripped down flights of stairs. And the fact that he was smart, amiable and scrupulously polite was precisely why he was picked on.
At which point, we should bear in mind that the Observer’s socialist class warrior Barbara Ellen wants us to believe that the treatment such children endure is good and righteous, “part of an instinctive protest that lies at the very core of socio-political emancipation.” The teenagers who stole the well-spoken boy’s bag and threw the contents out of a window, and did it again the next day, were “responding to oppression.” And their shoving and intimidation, which became a ritual of sorts, was apparently “an instinctive protest against inequality.” He, being “posher” than his assailants, is somehow expendable. Because… er, socialism. His misery, and the miseries of those like him, doesn’t count. Because the oiks who were stealing his stuff and getting in his face, and tripping him down flights of stairs, just because they could, they were the real victims, apparently.
Remember too that this well-spoken pupil, the one being bullied for being clever, came from exactly the kind of family that the Guardian’s Zoe Williams would like to see tormented and humiliated in the name of “social justice.”
“As for vindictive, ha! Good.” Said she.
Father comes last.
Mr Poole’s Twitter feed makes for revealing, if rather tedious, reading. He scoffs at the ideas of human nature and assortative mating, makes fashionable noises about “decolonising the curriculum,” and denounces people on grounds of being “male, pale and stale.” Maleness and paleness being some kind of sins, apparently. He’s also a fan of Aaron Bastani’s Fully Automated Luxury Communism and is remarkably glib about the death toll following the historical experiments of his fellow far-left ideologues.
And this is a man who wishes to control the destinies of your children.
Regarding teacher pay scales, the absolute numbers are fairly meaningless without some idea of the cost of living in each of the respective areas.
$50K will go a longish way in Oklahoma, Kansas, or most of Texas. Not so much in California or Massachusetts.
@David, the idiot_for_rents twitter account appears to have been suspended. Can you proved a synopsis?
Can you proved a synopsis?
I forget the wording, but something to the effect that parents may be going private to ensure their children don’t find themselves at the mercy of people like Mr Poole.
I forget the wording
Ah, thanks.
Yes salary alone is meaningless. You’ll note I divided the salary by median wage Jabrwok.
And, having just said that money isn’t the main factor and so won’t be a cure, thank you Jay for making sure that I don’t forget what I just said.
Some people should read what people say, not what they think they say.
You’ll note I divided the salary by median wage Jabrwok.
Yes, though I’m not sure what that has to do with cost of living. Earning 25% more per hour for the same work sounds good until one realizes the increased rent, taxes, grocery bills, utility bills, et cetera, add up to a 50% or more increase in expenses.
And, having just said that money isn’t the main factor and so won’t be a cure, thank you Jay for making sure that I don’t forget what I just said.
Not seeing the phrase “main factor” anywhere but in the comment to which I’m currently responding, Cee. Not sure what it’s supposed to “cure” either. Weren’t you discussing motivations for teachers to move from one state to another? Your comment doesn’t appear to take into account anything other than relative salary (in absolute dollars) and the option of rural living versus urban.
Looking back I see a *prior* comment of yours in which you are apparently describing the reasons public education is so lacking, but that’s not the comment to which I was replying, and doesn’t appear to have any bearing on whether a teacher (or any other worker) would be motivated to move from a position with a salary of X to one with a salary of 1.25X without taking into account the issue of how cost of living in the new location compares to that in the current location, all other factors being equal or irrelevant.
Some people should read what people say, not what they think they say.
Indeed, that’s an excellent point.
Which states are those? We throw money at our school systems
This is so true. Baltimore schools spend far above average per student, but the schools are hell holes. There is a problem with the surrounding culture.
One key advantage is that private (US meaning) schools have more opportunity to get rid of the riffraff. Why shouldn’t a parent want to send a child to a school without drug dealers and gang thugs
Jay, for as long as normals take the pragmatic approach – that arguing on the merits of outcomes is wise – that’s how long they will lose the issue, and lose it convincingly.
It involves culture but it is not culture. It involves crime but it is not crime.
The core problem is force. You will be involved, subject. Apparently the right is just fine with this.
“So I got to thinking … about how Sustainable Wimbledon will be run When I Am Emperor Of The World.”
Related. Abridged version:
Absolute genius. What’s not to like? Give ’em little badges boasting of how they’re “doing their bit”. How can the Greenists object? There’s an emergency here, isn’t there? Don’t they want to help?
Safety at school matters. Beyond that, school districts cannot show value-added. Testing at Kindergarten entry is remarkably consistent with testing at graduation. What children are taught is important for cultural and political reasons, but bright children will read cereal boxes and whatever else is in front of them and their brains will just work and educate them. Less-bright children will not. State-by-state comparisons and international comparisons are confounded by the racial differences in testing, which is where the real differences are, not the few points differences between Netherlands and Australia. All such comparisons can be mirrored nearly exactly by merely totting up the racial mix. The exceptions are few.
I didn’t want to be driven to this conclusion, as I spent thousands of dollars on private Christian academies for my children growing up. I do think that what they were taught there had value, but it just barely shows in testing, if at all. Then, adopting further children impressed upon me the overwhelming dominance of genetics in the equation.
If anyone has trouble with comments not appearing, email me and I’ll poke the spam filter.
adopting further children impressed upon me the overwhelming dominance of genetics in the equation.
It seems to me that educators in general, and in the state sector in particular, tend to wildly overestimate their positive influence on the development and intelligence of pupils, especially precocious ones, as this is flattering to imagine. But regarding bright kids, the credit that can be taken by educators is generally very limited. Educators can, however, do quite a lot to frustrate bright children, thwarting the use and development of their abilities, and some are very much inclined to do so.
And the likely political leanings of those who indulge in such pleasures are not hard to guess.